October 31, 2024 • 25 mins
Welcome to Author Nation!
Want to finally publish your book and start making money from it? Download my FREE guide - The Publishing Decision: How to Choose the Best Path for Your Book! here: http://authornation.online/publishing
In this video, Melody Ann and guest Larry Mietus, "Chief Excuse Obliterator," discuss practical strategies for book marketing. If you're an author struggling with excuses and need tips on how to grow your reader base without feeling overwhelmed, this episode is for you. Larry shares his expertise on overcoming common marketing hurdles, how to stay disciplined, and creative ways to reach your audience.Key Takeaways:
Want to finally publish your book and start making money from it? Download my FREE guide - The Publishing Decision: How to Choose the Best Path for Your Book! here: http://authornation.online/publishing
In this video, Melody Ann and guest Larry Mietus, "Chief Excuse Obliterator," discuss practical strategies for book marketing. If you're an author struggling with excuses and need tips on how to grow your reader base without feeling overwhelmed, this episode is for you. Larry shares his expertise on overcoming common marketing hurdles, how to stay disciplined, and creative ways to reach your audience.Key Takeaways:
- Overcoming common excuses that hold authors back from effective marketing
- Developing a disciplined approach to promoting your book every day
- How to market your book with small, consistent efforts and creative strategies
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to author Nation. Today we are diving into no
Excuse book marketing and we're going to explore key issues
such as how much time should you spend you know,
how much help do we need?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And much much more.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm your host, Melodie Ann, and I'm here to guide
you towards actionable ideas that will help you not only
write with purpose, but connect with your readers. And actionable
ideas is incredibly important to me. It's lovely to listen
to a podcast. It's even better when you take have
takeaways that you can go and do. And that's what
we're committed to do with you today.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And also at.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Authoration dot online you'll find a treasure trove of resources
to help you along the way as well. So whether
you are sipping your morning coffee or winding divet down
for the settle in as we explore how to have
no excuses and successful book marketing. Our guest Larry Midas
(01:10):
is the Chief Excuse Obliterator. I love that title CEO.
He is the founder of Speaking of Strategy. He is
an independent business consultant, speaker, author, podcaster, and educator educator
with a wealth of practical hands on experience His expertise
(01:31):
encompasses leader development, organizational design, employee engagement, and sales and
marketing strategy, which is what we'll be talking about today.
His clients run the gamut from mum and pop businesses
to international enterprises. He is a frequent contributor on LinkedIn
and numerous business blogs, and has been featured in the
(01:51):
Business Innovators radio network. He's also been he's also a
speaker for Vista's International, the world's largest executive coaching organization,
and he's the author of We Tried That Once and
Other Popular Excuses that sabotage your business success. Let's welcome Larry.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Hi, Larry, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Oh Melanie, I'm fabulous. Thank you so much. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm fabulous.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So I love your book We Tried That Once, another
popular excuses sabotage business success. And in that book you
talk about breaking free from excuses so that you can
actually take action and become successful. So what are some
of the common excuses you hear about why authors are
not marketing their books effectively?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I think I heard things like I don't have the time,
I don't have the know how or the knowledge, I
didn't know so much of the marketing was going to
land on me as an author. And I understand all that,
and I hear all that, and you live through that.
But when I'm not only speaking about books, but actually
(03:07):
when I work with my clients that I consult in business,
I think we have to get ourselves away from the
mindset of we assume more people know about us, about
our businesses, about our books than really do. I mean,
let's be honest, your family knows about you and what
you do in your book, your friends, maybe a sprinkling
(03:28):
of your neighbors, and in reality, that's about it. And
when you look at how many humans are on the
planet and do the math of how many people know
absolutely nothing about you, nothing about your business, nothing about
your book, it's a huge number. And so I kind
of live in a world that says I do. Live
in the world that says every single day part of
(03:50):
our day is building that top of mind awareness about ourselves,
our businesses, and in this case, our books. And I
think one of the reasons me people don't do that
because sometimes we feel like we're poking people too many times,
we're nudging them too often, And I'm thinking, I go
to better and go, Okay, how many people did I
(04:10):
not reach today? Did I not connect with today? You
know what part of those the state, the country, the world.
And it's easy, it's easy. Myself guilty is charge. It's
easy to fall into that excuse trap and say, you know,
this is bigger than me. I didn't go to school
for this. I thought my publisher was going to do this.
(04:30):
But the reality is they're just convenient excuses, and if
we develop a discipline, we can be much better book marketers.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
So I want to talk I want to talk about
mental barriers, because I think most of what we're talking
about our mental barriers. But I just want to touch
on very briefly, like what's a real excuse and what
excuses can we overcome? So I'll give you an example
when when my youngest was too two and a half,
my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and needed care, and
(05:04):
I became a full time caregiver. I had two kids,
one was a competitive athlete, and then I had work
and I really had to cut down what I did.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And even then I.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Was like, are you doing enough right, which in hindsight
seems a little crazy, But there's this, there's this. You know,
what is a real excuse and what isn't a real excuse?
Can you just touch on that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, I think it really comes down to discipline. And again,
sometimes I'm as lazy as they get, and sometimes I'm
as disciplined as they get. As an independent consultant, I
work for my home and my wife has always said
to me, I don't know how you do your job
because I would be so distracted. And sure, there are
days I get distracted, or I get off the computer
(05:55):
after six hours and go for a walk around the block,
or thrown a little laundry. But I think think it
really comes down to human behaviors and behaviors that we
are disciplined enough to execute often enough to become habits,
you know, And I really I think we're There are many, many,
many intelligent people in the world listening to your podcast.
(06:18):
Of course they're intelligent, that's why they're listening. But we
have to be able to say this is this is
a priority of my activity. So I'll use myself as
an example. My work week, basically, my work days, I
structure this way. If I'm not physically working with a client,
a I jump to B, which is I'm looking for
(06:40):
a new client. If I'm not doing B, I jump
to C, which is I'm speaking somewhere speaking engagement. If
I'm not speaking somewhere, I jump to D, which is
I'm looking for my next speaking engagement. I'm bidding jobs,
answering RFPs. If I'm not doing any of that, I'm
marketing my book. And if I'm not doing that, I
(07:02):
go back to A. So in the example you just gave,
you know, a business owner, operator, spouse, mom, caretaker jumped
in there for a while. So we need to adjust
maybe the amount of time we're spending in those disciplines.
But we don't let one disappear. We just give it
(07:22):
maybe a little bit less time. And that's tough to
ask people to do. But when I look at some
of the most successful people I know in life, in business,
no matter what industry they're in, the people that seem
to be the most successful really have that discipline. And
it's not that they're robotic, it's not that they don't
(07:44):
have fun, it's not that they don't take days off,
but they know priority A, B, C, D and maybe E,
and they just keep working there and then they shift
their time. Accordingly, I hear people when they say I
didn't go to school to be a marketer. But those
are all things you can learn from people like you.
(08:04):
You can learn from courses, you can learn online. I
love to learn by trial and error. So you know,
my advice to to you know, the viewers and listeners
is don't be afraid to try.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Think like the person you want to get your book
into their hands. Who are they, where are they? What's
the best way or modality to communicate with them? What's
the best time of day, week, month, or year. You know,
there are some industries, you know, if you're trying. If
my book is a business book, basically, I'm not going
(08:41):
to try to get accountants to read my book between
January first and April fifteenth. Forget it. They're working ninety
hours a week in their own little world. So I
could get I could, I could drop free books out
of a helicopter and it wouldn't matter.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I'm I want to get into specifics, but I just
want to add something to that because I remember reading
I think it was in Forbes an article they've done
us a study, super scientific, but They interviewed CEOs.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Of Fortune five hundred companies and they asked them, how
did you get to where you are right now? And
they figured out with all these you know, they tabulated everything,
and they figured out that when they as they were
rising up through the ranks, ten percent of their time
was spent on learning. I think we spent a lot,
way too much time on learning. Twenty percent was spent
(09:35):
working with others like coaches, mentors, things like that. Seventy
percent of their time that contributed to their success was
spent on doing. And I think that's a really good,
you know, really good thing to think about, because a
lot of people are like, oh, I need a coach,
I and I need to take another course and I
need to learn and I need and it's like, whoa, No,
(09:56):
you can learn a lot just by as you said,
doing trial.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And error right, and you know, you don't need globs
of feedback. You can do a lot of mini polls,
you know, ask three or four people, ask a total stranger.
And you know, folks, groups used to be big. There
were elaborate studios in two way mirrors and hitting microphones
and those are all wonderful things and I love those people,
(10:20):
and I love that approach, but it doesn't have to
be so structured. You know, when I was searching for
the title of my book, I just literally went out
and said to people, if I wrote a book and
called we tried it at once. And as soon as
I said that, they started laughing, and I knew I
was onto something because every single person looked at me
and said, welcome to my world, welcome to my life,
(10:42):
welcome to my business. So I'm like, okay, good, I
didn't have to spend a million dollars researching that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Let's go yes, yes, yes, They're like, you're talking about
me right there, So beautiful. Okay, let's get into the details.
So one of the most frequent questions is how much
time should I spend marketing my book? Based on your
experience as an author? Is how can authors strike a balance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, again I alluded to it earlier. I don't want
to say thirty seven minutes a week, but I will say,
identify your top four or five priorities, and to me,
for most people in business, that's how I make money,
what brings in revenue, and then think through and during
the year those priorities might change cyclical businesses things like that.
We just talked about accountants and tax season. But the
(11:31):
honest truth is we should be promoting our books every
single day, everywhere we go, and we can do it very,
very subtly. We don't have to have fireworks and banners
and parades. I can't tell you, well, I could tell
you of some of the things I've done to market
my book, to plant the seed with someone, and if
(11:52):
I do that, once a day, I check that box
and go, hey, I marketed today. It's the discipline of
not falling into the train of saying, oh my gosh,
three months have gone by and I've done absolutely nothing
to promote my book. So it's the discipline. It's the
ABCD steps, it's thinking outside the box. I look at
(12:13):
books all the time out in the world, and usually
the first question I asked myself is how did that
book get there? And the answer might not be obvious.
I was just traveling on some speaking engagements recently and
I had a layover in Las Vegas and I walked
into the concession store and did a very limited but
they had books, and I said to the clerk, how
(12:36):
did these books get here? She was fabulous. She took
out a piece of paper she get out of her pen.
She wrote down the corporate phone number, go to this website,
being here's the process. Yeah, or I could have walked in,
bought a jelly donut and a cup of coffee and
turned around and walked out, And I thought about how
did those books get there?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah? I love that. And I think the next thing
is with authors. There are so.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Many ways to market your book. And you just said right,
like you know, I just walked into a store. There's
so many ways. There's kind of a paralysis by analysis.
So how can an author identify what is worth pursuing and.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Is what's a distraction?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
And again, I think you have to think about the book,
the content, and the audience. Because again, I could probably
take a booth at a fall art and craft festival
and have my big pull up banner for my book
and hope something would happen. But that's even though those
(13:47):
people make excuses every day, that's really not my primary audience.
I'll be honest with you. I've been in and around
higher education university level for twenty eight years. It took
me three months figure out I knocked on the doors
of sixty colleges and universities in the United States, and
they also, hey, drop dead. I can't blame them because
(14:09):
guess what. My book is not a textbook. It's not
written like a textbook. So if I'm marketing down the
lane of required reading, it's never going to fit. But
if I'm marketing to universities down the lane of recommended reading,
it might fit. So it's just the strategy of where's
(14:29):
my audience, what resonates with them, how do I get
to them, even maybe through a backdoor channel.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, I like that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And as you said earlier, I'm not sure you said
it exactly like this. But if you know, if you
spend five to ten minutes a day speaking to one person,
that's three hundred and sixty five people a year. And
you can choose to speak to one person who might
buy your book, or you can choose to speak to
the store owner who might carry your book, or you
could choose to speak to, you know, a podcaster who
(15:02):
will have you on the show, who has thousands of
listeners who might be interested in your book. Right, So,
but that's still five minutes a day, right.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And and and and I mean Saturday and Sunday, and
I guess I'm a little bit different. My my publisher
represents about seventy five authors, and he's always told me
for four years, Larry, you're the only gorilla marketer I have.
I'm always calling, going how many do we sell? Where
should I go next? What book convention are you going to?
(15:34):
I'll go with you. Because a lot of people write,
I think and and and cross their fingers. And the
good news is, you know, when I wrote my book Melody,
I was intrigued us. I thought, well, how many people
in the world are actually published authors, not writers published authors?
And that answer is five percent, five percent of the
world's population. Now, how Yeah, a lot of people write,
(15:58):
a lot of people journal, but people don't publish. And
I always look at my peers in the authorship industry
and say, you did the easy part. The marketing. I'll
go to my grave on this one is the difficult part.
Now I happen to love it. I've always been involved
in media, radio, TV, outdoor newsprints, so it's kind of
(16:19):
in my DNA, but it's again, it's the back door approach.
When I first wrote my book, I sent one to
Tony Robbins. I didn't send it to his corporate office.
I sent it to his house. My wife said, how
did you find out where he lives? I said, he
pays property taxes. It's in the property tax room. People watch.
(16:40):
People probably watch in your audience Netflix and watch Ryan, Sirhant.
I like Ryan, I like his gusto, I like his energy.
I send him a book, I emailed him. I call him,
and I'm the kind of guy in a very polite,
professional way. You can look me right in the eye
and say no, thank you, Larry, I don't want your
(17:01):
products services. I'm fine with that. You can look me
in the eye and say yes, let's dance together. But
the people who ignore me, I am not going to
let them go until I get an answer. Yeah. I'm
very professional and polite about it. But it doesn't take
long to say yes, no or maybe, so I guess
you know. The moral of that story is, look at
(17:23):
the unconventional places I'm dealing with. Attempting to deal with
a major airline here in the United States, I hunted
down the CEO and said, instead of a torn and
tattered ten month old magazine on your planes, why not
my book? Yes, no or maybe yeah? Look for the
(17:44):
avenues that aren't obvious. A lot of people have book
signings in bookstores. I've got one coming up in a bookstore,
but most of my book signings have not been in bookstores.
They've been in furniture stores, coffee shops. Because you say
to yourself, well, who goes to bookstores? People who read books?
But are they going to read my kind of book?
And my goal for a non bookstore book signing is
(18:05):
I'll say that retailer, my job is to get people
to come into your store who maybe would never come
in here. But while they're here, I'm going to walk
them around and we're going to tour together. If they
buy my book, great, If they don't, that's okay too,
But I'm really helping you build traffic. Yeah, and they're like, boy,
if thirty people can members have ever met before? That's great?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Absolutely absolutely, And I think you've answered this, but I'm
just I want to ask it really directly so that
everyone's clear. A lot of authors think I can't do
it alone. I need help. I need to pay someone
tons of money. It's to get to I was looking
(18:47):
up the other day. A best selling campaign can cost
up to four thousand dollars and you may only sell
a hundred books. So there's this idea. It's like, well,
I need to pay someone and I need to do this,
and I need to do that. Do you believe that
authors need somebody else to market their book for them
or do you think they should really just take matters
into their own hats.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
With all due respect to some of the people that
might be viewing and listening, I don't think you need
outside help. Yeah, it's my DNA. As a business consultant,
you know, I coach my clients to vet everything, probe everything,
question everything, and I do that with myself and my
own business. So yes, I've had people reach out to me,
many of them through LinkedIn. You know, I can get
(19:31):
you on the New York Times bestseller list, I can this,
I can that. So then we talk and it's like, oh,
it's going to be you know, two thousand dollars a
month minimum three month commitment. I'm like, I can buy
a lot of I can send a lot of media
mail to people, or six thousand dollars. And again, I
think it's it's the discipline. I think those folks no
(19:55):
offense to them, can sell their services because they have
a network, they have a call list, they have a process.
Once an author builds their own process, you just plug
yourself in. I'll be very honest with you. I've had
the good fortune and the good faith in the last
month of appearing on a number of different podcasts yours
head and shoulders above the rest. But it didn't cost
(20:18):
me anything but my time. Yes, and I'm onto some
of the podcasts that people wanted to charge me for
that would have been a severe amount of money. Yeah,
and quite honestly, And I can say this because I
lived the life I lived in the media world. I
was in radio, I was nearly in television, and most
(20:39):
hosts writers, it's a dream come true when somebody knocks
on their door and says, would you be interested in
talking to me about this? I'm a subject matter expert.
It is a dream come true versus them looking for that.
And I've got to tell you, looking on my own,
approaching and asking on my own, my conversion ratio is
(21:02):
about sixty five percent.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
That's good. People are saying yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And the idea is that you know, I'm just gonna
say what as a host, what I'm looking for is
somebody who fits my podcast, and so you can actually
increase your conversion rate by pitching the right podcast right
rather than.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Pitching the wrong podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And I think that's you know, it's it's pitching the
right podcast and giving that podcast host enough information that
they go, I see how this fits.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
This is fabulous because that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, I quite honestly, no one knows your book as
well as you do. So if you have an agent
or a publisher or someone who claims they can get
you on podcasts and they're pitching you, they're never going
to pitch you with the excitement and the knowledge and
the stories that you have as the author and.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Thro the sale takes exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So as we wrap up, I want to I want
to go back to your book because your book is
all about taking action, and that's that's what it's about.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No more excuses, take action. So what are three action steps.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
That authors can take right now who are making excuses
for themselves but no longer want to do that?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
What would you recommend on a plain piece of paper?
Nothing fancy, draw a seven day chart, you know, Sunday
through Saturday, record every day, handwrite what you're doing to
promote your book that day. At the bottom of the chart,
put down a minimum. I'm going to make three contacts
a week, three emails, three media mails of my book,
(22:47):
two book signings, whatever it is. And then at the
end of every week, end of every month, go back
and look at your activity and then look for places
where you can ramp it up. So it's that discipline
I think exercises like today. I think there are there
are tons of thousands of podcasts out there in the world.
I've been interviewed by people in the farthest corners of
(23:08):
the planet. Reach out, meet them, speak to them, find
out how you can help each other, try to be
a guest on the show. And I really think, think unconventionally. Again,
like I said earlier, how did this book get on
the shelf? Who are the people I can reach out to?
I was watching a college basketball game one day on
(23:29):
a Saturday afternoon, and they interviewed one of the coaches
inside his library, inside his home, his personal library, and
he was surrounded by books, and the interviewer said to him,
are these books about coaching? He said, oh, I don't
read any of that. He said, these are business and
leadership books my radar. I went said that guy a book. Yeah,
(23:53):
doesn't know me. I don't know him, we've never met,
we probably will never meet. But it's that, you know,
how do he gets someone's the tension could because your
approach is a little bit different. And again it doesn't
have to be fifty hours a week, but it's got
to be that rhythm of consistent outreach.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
If you're looking for Larry, and I think you should,
you can learn more about Larry at Speaking of Strategy
dot org. Larry, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I really thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Absolutely and thank you for joining us today on Author
Nation Interviews.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I hope this conversation has helped you.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Obliterate your excuses so you can take your nonfiction writing
journey to the level you want it at. So and
also remember to visit athenation dot online for your treasure
trove of resources. And I always appreciate your feedback and
your support. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider
(24:53):
leaving a comment or a review and sharing it with
someone you know will benefit from it. Participation helps us
continue delivering insights and the tools you need to succeed,
so keep writing, keep creating, and continue to share your
unique stories with the world.
Welcome to author Nation. Today we are diving into no
Excuse book marketing and we're going to explore key issues
such as how much time should you spend you know,
how much help do we need?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And much much more.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm your host, Melodie Ann, and I'm here to guide
you towards actionable ideas that will help you not only
write with purpose, but connect with your readers. And actionable
ideas is incredibly important to me. It's lovely to listen
to a podcast. It's even better when you take have
takeaways that you can go and do. And that's what
we're committed to do with you today.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And also at.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Authoration dot online you'll find a treasure trove of resources
to help you along the way as well. So whether
you are sipping your morning coffee or winding divet down
for the settle in as we explore how to have
no excuses and successful book marketing. Our guest Larry Midas
(01:10):
is the Chief Excuse Obliterator. I love that title CEO.
He is the founder of Speaking of Strategy. He is
an independent business consultant, speaker, author, podcaster, and educator educator
with a wealth of practical hands on experience His expertise
(01:31):
encompasses leader development, organizational design, employee engagement, and sales and
marketing strategy, which is what we'll be talking about today.
His clients run the gamut from mum and pop businesses
to international enterprises. He is a frequent contributor on LinkedIn
and numerous business blogs, and has been featured in the
(01:51):
Business Innovators radio network. He's also been he's also a
speaker for Vista's International, the world's largest executive coaching organization,
and he's the author of We Tried That Once and
Other Popular Excuses that sabotage your business success. Let's welcome Larry.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Hi, Larry, how are you today?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Oh Melanie, I'm fabulous. Thank you so much. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm fabulous.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So I love your book We Tried That Once, another
popular excuses sabotage business success. And in that book you
talk about breaking free from excuses so that you can
actually take action and become successful. So what are some
of the common excuses you hear about why authors are
not marketing their books effectively?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I think I heard things like I don't have the time,
I don't have the know how or the knowledge, I
didn't know so much of the marketing was going to
land on me as an author. And I understand all that,
and I hear all that, and you live through that.
But when I'm not only speaking about books, but actually
(03:07):
when I work with my clients that I consult in business,
I think we have to get ourselves away from the
mindset of we assume more people know about us, about
our businesses, about our books than really do. I mean,
let's be honest, your family knows about you and what
you do in your book, your friends, maybe a sprinkling
(03:28):
of your neighbors, and in reality, that's about it. And
when you look at how many humans are on the
planet and do the math of how many people know
absolutely nothing about you, nothing about your business, nothing about
your book, it's a huge number. And so I kind
of live in a world that says I do. Live
in the world that says every single day part of
(03:50):
our day is building that top of mind awareness about ourselves,
our businesses, and in this case, our books. And I
think one of the reasons me people don't do that
because sometimes we feel like we're poking people too many times,
we're nudging them too often, And I'm thinking, I go
to better and go, Okay, how many people did I
(04:10):
not reach today? Did I not connect with today? You
know what part of those the state, the country, the world.
And it's easy, it's easy. Myself guilty is charge. It's
easy to fall into that excuse trap and say, you know,
this is bigger than me. I didn't go to school
for this. I thought my publisher was going to do this.
(04:30):
But the reality is they're just convenient excuses, and if
we develop a discipline, we can be much better book marketers.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
So I want to talk I want to talk about
mental barriers, because I think most of what we're talking
about our mental barriers. But I just want to touch
on very briefly, like what's a real excuse and what
excuses can we overcome? So I'll give you an example
when when my youngest was too two and a half,
my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and needed care, and
(05:04):
I became a full time caregiver. I had two kids,
one was a competitive athlete, and then I had work
and I really had to cut down what I did.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And even then I.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Was like, are you doing enough right, which in hindsight
seems a little crazy, But there's this, there's this. You know,
what is a real excuse and what isn't a real excuse?
Can you just touch on that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, I think it really comes down to discipline. And again,
sometimes I'm as lazy as they get, and sometimes I'm
as disciplined as they get. As an independent consultant, I
work for my home and my wife has always said
to me, I don't know how you do your job
because I would be so distracted. And sure, there are
days I get distracted, or I get off the computer
(05:55):
after six hours and go for a walk around the block,
or thrown a little laundry. But I think think it
really comes down to human behaviors and behaviors that we
are disciplined enough to execute often enough to become habits,
you know, And I really I think we're There are many, many,
many intelligent people in the world listening to your podcast.
(06:18):
Of course they're intelligent, that's why they're listening. But we
have to be able to say this is this is
a priority of my activity. So I'll use myself as
an example. My work week, basically, my work days, I
structure this way. If I'm not physically working with a client,
a I jump to B, which is I'm looking for
(06:40):
a new client. If I'm not doing B, I jump
to C, which is I'm speaking somewhere speaking engagement. If
I'm not speaking somewhere, I jump to D, which is
I'm looking for my next speaking engagement. I'm bidding jobs,
answering RFPs. If I'm not doing any of that, I'm
marketing my book. And if I'm not doing that, I
(07:02):
go back to A. So in the example you just gave,
you know, a business owner, operator, spouse, mom, caretaker jumped
in there for a while. So we need to adjust
maybe the amount of time we're spending in those disciplines.
But we don't let one disappear. We just give it
(07:22):
maybe a little bit less time. And that's tough to
ask people to do. But when I look at some
of the most successful people I know in life, in business,
no matter what industry they're in, the people that seem
to be the most successful really have that discipline. And
it's not that they're robotic, it's not that they don't
(07:44):
have fun, it's not that they don't take days off,
but they know priority A, B, C, D and maybe E,
and they just keep working there and then they shift
their time. Accordingly, I hear people when they say I
didn't go to school to be a marketer. But those
are all things you can learn from people like you.
(08:04):
You can learn from courses, you can learn online. I
love to learn by trial and error. So you know,
my advice to to you know, the viewers and listeners
is don't be afraid to try.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Think like the person you want to get your book
into their hands. Who are they, where are they? What's
the best way or modality to communicate with them? What's
the best time of day, week, month, or year. You know,
there are some industries, you know, if you're trying. If
my book is a business book, basically, I'm not going
(08:41):
to try to get accountants to read my book between
January first and April fifteenth. Forget it. They're working ninety
hours a week in their own little world. So I
could get I could, I could drop free books out
of a helicopter and it wouldn't matter.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I'm I want to get into specifics, but I just
want to add something to that because I remember reading
I think it was in Forbes an article they've done
us a study, super scientific, but They interviewed CEOs.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Of Fortune five hundred companies and they asked them, how
did you get to where you are right now? And
they figured out with all these you know, they tabulated everything,
and they figured out that when they as they were
rising up through the ranks, ten percent of their time
was spent on learning. I think we spent a lot,
way too much time on learning. Twenty percent was spent
(09:35):
working with others like coaches, mentors, things like that. Seventy
percent of their time that contributed to their success was
spent on doing. And I think that's a really good,
you know, really good thing to think about, because a
lot of people are like, oh, I need a coach,
I and I need to take another course and I
need to learn and I need and it's like, whoa, No,
(09:56):
you can learn a lot just by as you said,
doing trial.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And error right, and you know, you don't need globs
of feedback. You can do a lot of mini polls,
you know, ask three or four people, ask a total stranger.
And you know, folks, groups used to be big. There
were elaborate studios in two way mirrors and hitting microphones
and those are all wonderful things and I love those people,
(10:20):
and I love that approach, but it doesn't have to
be so structured. You know, when I was searching for
the title of my book, I just literally went out
and said to people, if I wrote a book and
called we tried it at once. And as soon as
I said that, they started laughing, and I knew I
was onto something because every single person looked at me
and said, welcome to my world, welcome to my life,
(10:42):
welcome to my business. So I'm like, okay, good, I
didn't have to spend a million dollars researching that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Let's go yes, yes, yes, They're like, you're talking about
me right there, So beautiful. Okay, let's get into the details.
So one of the most frequent questions is how much
time should I spend marketing my book? Based on your
experience as an author? Is how can authors strike a balance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
There?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, again I alluded to it earlier. I don't want
to say thirty seven minutes a week, but I will say,
identify your top four or five priorities, and to me,
for most people in business, that's how I make money,
what brings in revenue, and then think through and during
the year those priorities might change cyclical businesses things like that.
We just talked about accountants and tax season. But the
(11:31):
honest truth is we should be promoting our books every
single day, everywhere we go, and we can do it very,
very subtly. We don't have to have fireworks and banners
and parades. I can't tell you, well, I could tell
you of some of the things I've done to market
my book, to plant the seed with someone, and if
(11:52):
I do that, once a day, I check that box
and go, hey, I marketed today. It's the discipline of
not falling into the train of saying, oh my gosh,
three months have gone by and I've done absolutely nothing
to promote my book. So it's the discipline. It's the
ABCD steps, it's thinking outside the box. I look at
(12:13):
books all the time out in the world, and usually
the first question I asked myself is how did that
book get there? And the answer might not be obvious.
I was just traveling on some speaking engagements recently and
I had a layover in Las Vegas and I walked
into the concession store and did a very limited but
they had books, and I said to the clerk, how
(12:36):
did these books get here? She was fabulous. She took
out a piece of paper she get out of her pen.
She wrote down the corporate phone number, go to this website,
being here's the process. Yeah, or I could have walked in,
bought a jelly donut and a cup of coffee and
turned around and walked out, And I thought about how
did those books get there?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah? I love that. And I think the next thing
is with authors. There are so.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Many ways to market your book. And you just said right,
like you know, I just walked into a store. There's
so many ways. There's kind of a paralysis by analysis.
So how can an author identify what is worth pursuing and.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Is what's a distraction?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
And again, I think you have to think about the book,
the content, and the audience. Because again, I could probably
take a booth at a fall art and craft festival
and have my big pull up banner for my book
and hope something would happen. But that's even though those
(13:47):
people make excuses every day, that's really not my primary audience.
I'll be honest with you. I've been in and around
higher education university level for twenty eight years. It took
me three months figure out I knocked on the doors
of sixty colleges and universities in the United States, and
they also, hey, drop dead. I can't blame them because
(14:09):
guess what. My book is not a textbook. It's not
written like a textbook. So if I'm marketing down the
lane of required reading, it's never going to fit. But
if I'm marketing to universities down the lane of recommended reading,
it might fit. So it's just the strategy of where's
(14:29):
my audience, what resonates with them, how do I get
to them, even maybe through a backdoor channel.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, I like that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And as you said earlier, I'm not sure you said
it exactly like this. But if you know, if you
spend five to ten minutes a day speaking to one person,
that's three hundred and sixty five people a year. And
you can choose to speak to one person who might
buy your book, or you can choose to speak to
the store owner who might carry your book, or you
could choose to speak to, you know, a podcaster who
(15:02):
will have you on the show, who has thousands of
listeners who might be interested in your book. Right, So,
but that's still five minutes a day, right.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And and and and I mean Saturday and Sunday, and
I guess I'm a little bit different. My my publisher
represents about seventy five authors, and he's always told me
for four years, Larry, you're the only gorilla marketer I have.
I'm always calling, going how many do we sell? Where
should I go next? What book convention are you going to?
(15:34):
I'll go with you. Because a lot of people write,
I think and and and cross their fingers. And the
good news is, you know, when I wrote my book Melody,
I was intrigued us. I thought, well, how many people
in the world are actually published authors, not writers published authors?
And that answer is five percent, five percent of the
world's population. Now, how Yeah, a lot of people write,
(15:58):
a lot of people journal, but people don't publish. And
I always look at my peers in the authorship industry
and say, you did the easy part. The marketing. I'll
go to my grave on this one is the difficult part.
Now I happen to love it. I've always been involved
in media, radio, TV, outdoor newsprints, so it's kind of
(16:19):
in my DNA, but it's again, it's the back door approach.
When I first wrote my book, I sent one to
Tony Robbins. I didn't send it to his corporate office.
I sent it to his house. My wife said, how
did you find out where he lives? I said, he
pays property taxes. It's in the property tax room. People watch.
(16:40):
People probably watch in your audience Netflix and watch Ryan, Sirhant.
I like Ryan, I like his gusto, I like his energy.
I send him a book, I emailed him. I call him,
and I'm the kind of guy in a very polite,
professional way. You can look me right in the eye
and say no, thank you, Larry, I don't want your
(17:01):
products services. I'm fine with that. You can look me
in the eye and say yes, let's dance together. But
the people who ignore me, I am not going to
let them go until I get an answer. Yeah. I'm
very professional and polite about it. But it doesn't take
long to say yes, no or maybe, so I guess
you know. The moral of that story is, look at
(17:23):
the unconventional places I'm dealing with. Attempting to deal with
a major airline here in the United States, I hunted
down the CEO and said, instead of a torn and
tattered ten month old magazine on your planes, why not
my book? Yes, no or maybe yeah? Look for the
(17:44):
avenues that aren't obvious. A lot of people have book
signings in bookstores. I've got one coming up in a bookstore,
but most of my book signings have not been in bookstores.
They've been in furniture stores, coffee shops. Because you say
to yourself, well, who goes to bookstores? People who read books?
But are they going to read my kind of book?
And my goal for a non bookstore book signing is
(18:05):
I'll say that retailer, my job is to get people
to come into your store who maybe would never come
in here. But while they're here, I'm going to walk
them around and we're going to tour together. If they
buy my book, great, If they don't, that's okay too,
But I'm really helping you build traffic. Yeah, and they're like, boy,
if thirty people can members have ever met before? That's great?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Absolutely absolutely, And I think you've answered this, but I'm
just I want to ask it really directly so that
everyone's clear. A lot of authors think I can't do
it alone. I need help. I need to pay someone
tons of money. It's to get to I was looking
(18:47):
up the other day. A best selling campaign can cost
up to four thousand dollars and you may only sell
a hundred books. So there's this idea. It's like, well,
I need to pay someone and I need to do this,
and I need to do that. Do you believe that
authors need somebody else to market their book for them
or do you think they should really just take matters
into their own hats.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
With all due respect to some of the people that
might be viewing and listening, I don't think you need
outside help. Yeah, it's my DNA. As a business consultant,
you know, I coach my clients to vet everything, probe everything,
question everything, and I do that with myself and my
own business. So yes, I've had people reach out to me,
many of them through LinkedIn. You know, I can get
(19:31):
you on the New York Times bestseller list, I can this,
I can that. So then we talk and it's like, oh,
it's going to be you know, two thousand dollars a
month minimum three month commitment. I'm like, I can buy
a lot of I can send a lot of media
mail to people, or six thousand dollars. And again, I
think it's it's the discipline. I think those folks no
(19:55):
offense to them, can sell their services because they have
a network, they have a call list, they have a process.
Once an author builds their own process, you just plug
yourself in. I'll be very honest with you. I've had
the good fortune and the good faith in the last
month of appearing on a number of different podcasts yours
head and shoulders above the rest. But it didn't cost
(20:18):
me anything but my time. Yes, and I'm onto some
of the podcasts that people wanted to charge me for
that would have been a severe amount of money. Yeah,
and quite honestly, And I can say this because I
lived the life I lived in the media world. I
was in radio, I was nearly in television, and most
(20:39):
hosts writers, it's a dream come true when somebody knocks
on their door and says, would you be interested in
talking to me about this? I'm a subject matter expert.
It is a dream come true versus them looking for that.
And I've got to tell you, looking on my own,
approaching and asking on my own, my conversion ratio is
(21:02):
about sixty five percent.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
That's good. People are saying yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And the idea is that you know, I'm just gonna
say what as a host, what I'm looking for is
somebody who fits my podcast, and so you can actually
increase your conversion rate by pitching the right podcast right
rather than.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Pitching the wrong podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And I think that's you know, it's it's pitching the
right podcast and giving that podcast host enough information that
they go, I see how this fits.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
This is fabulous because that's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, I quite honestly, no one knows your book as
well as you do. So if you have an agent
or a publisher or someone who claims they can get
you on podcasts and they're pitching you, they're never going
to pitch you with the excitement and the knowledge and
the stories that you have as the author and.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Thro the sale takes exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So as we wrap up, I want to I want
to go back to your book because your book is
all about taking action, and that's that's what it's about.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
No more excuses, take action. So what are three action steps.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
That authors can take right now who are making excuses
for themselves but no longer want to do that?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
What would you recommend on a plain piece of paper?
Nothing fancy, draw a seven day chart, you know, Sunday
through Saturday, record every day, handwrite what you're doing to
promote your book that day. At the bottom of the chart,
put down a minimum. I'm going to make three contacts
a week, three emails, three media mails of my book,
(22:47):
two book signings, whatever it is. And then at the
end of every week, end of every month, go back
and look at your activity and then look for places
where you can ramp it up. So it's that discipline
I think exercises like today. I think there are there
are tons of thousands of podcasts out there in the world.
I've been interviewed by people in the farthest corners of
(23:08):
the planet. Reach out, meet them, speak to them, find
out how you can help each other, try to be
a guest on the show. And I really think, think unconventionally. Again,
like I said earlier, how did this book get on
the shelf? Who are the people I can reach out to?
I was watching a college basketball game one day on
(23:29):
a Saturday afternoon, and they interviewed one of the coaches
inside his library, inside his home, his personal library, and
he was surrounded by books, and the interviewer said to him,
are these books about coaching? He said, oh, I don't
read any of that. He said, these are business and
leadership books my radar. I went said that guy a book. Yeah,
(23:53):
doesn't know me. I don't know him, we've never met,
we probably will never meet. But it's that, you know,
how do he gets someone's the tension could because your
approach is a little bit different. And again it doesn't
have to be fifty hours a week, but it's got
to be that rhythm of consistent outreach.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
If you're looking for Larry, and I think you should,
you can learn more about Larry at Speaking of Strategy
dot org. Larry, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I really thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Absolutely and thank you for joining us today on Author
Nation Interviews.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I hope this conversation has helped you.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Obliterate your excuses so you can take your nonfiction writing
journey to the level you want it at. So and
also remember to visit athenation dot online for your treasure
trove of resources. And I always appreciate your feedback and
your support. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider
(24:53):
leaving a comment or a review and sharing it with
someone you know will benefit from it. Participation helps us
continue delivering insights and the tools you need to succeed,
so keep writing, keep creating, and continue to share your
unique stories with the world.
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