April 3, 2022 • 39 mins
This week on "Create. Build. Manage." I talk with Tom Freiling, CEO of Freiling Publishing, about how he got into publishing, what goes into publishing a book, some insight into the world of publishing, and current book trends.
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(00:10):
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller. My guest tonight isTom frying Lane. He's a veteran book
publisher, CEO, coach and speaker. He is a John Maxwell team member,
and he happens to be my publisher. Tom. Welcome to the show,
(00:30):
Scott. Thanks for having me onthe show again. It's good to
see you. Absolutely. Yeah.You were on last fall when we were
just working on this project together,so I wanted to have you back.
There's a lot going on in theworld of publishing. It seems like it's
always evolving, always changing. ButI wanted to take a moment as people
get to know you, I wantedto kind of dive a little bit,
(00:52):
kind of put you in the hotseat tonight. Are you ready for that?
I'm ready for Here we are now. I want to go back.
What got you into publishing? Becauseyou could have done a number of different
things. You know, you certainlyare great at speaking and coaching. What
was it about publishing that drew youin? You know, I have to
say in some ways it was anaccident. It wasn't necessarily intentional or strategic,
(01:19):
and honestly was The first job Igot out of college was to be
a book bookstore telemarketer. This wasback in the days when there were bookstores
in every corner and found a jobor I would call bookstores and sell books,
and I loved it. You know, I've always loved books. I
have a passion for it, andso it stuck. It stuck with me,
(01:40):
and I've been doing it ever sincefor almost thirty years. There's a
lot of things I love about booksand publishing. I do love that it's
an ever changing business and industry.It's certainly not the type of job or
career that you ever get bored doing. And I love work working with people.
(02:00):
And I love especially taking somebody's coremessage and transforming that into a book
that people around the world read.I find that to be especially excited.
Do you think your background getting intothe industry, you're already doing marketing in
sales. Do you think that wasthe foundation that makes you a good publisher?
(02:22):
I suppose so. My background inpublishing is on the marketing and sales
side, as opposed to the editorialside of the business. So that's really
I grew up in my career onthe sales side of publishing and not the
editorial side. So yeah, andcertainly I've learned a lot over the years
about digital marketing and social media marketingand how that interplays into just publishing a
(02:46):
book, but also selling a book. And of course that is a lot
of what your book is about ishow to leverage the media to grow a
business, and authors need to learnto do the same thing to be effective
salespersons for their book. Yeah.I think there's a lot of white noise
right now, right, I meanwhen you first got in this industry,
(03:07):
let's just kind of talk. I'mnot Tom, I'm not saying you're old.
I'm just saying you have some experience, right, definitely the youngest youngest
old guy you've ever had on theshow. But let's let's look back on
it about how things have changed.Because when you first got into you mentioned
you're picking up the phone and you'recalling bookstores and saying, hey, I
got a book you need to needto have on your on your shelf.
(03:29):
Man, it's changed a lot.You know, you're not necessarily doing that
now at Franlene Publishing, are you. Yeah, it has changed a lot,
and you know, for good andbad. I would say, I
do miss the days when they wereyou know, fifteen twenty thousand bookstores in
America, and all of us werewithin a short distance of a bookstore.
You know, those were exciting times, and in many ways it was easier
(03:52):
to Oh, it was probably easierfor publishers to market and sell their books
because the bookstores were the gatekeepers,right, So if you could so the
bookstore on your book, than youwere half the way there to selling the
reader on the book. So yeah, I missed those days, but they
were really exciting. But you know, there's a lot of great things about
the way book publishing works today.Also, it's certainly more efficient to find
(04:15):
readers, right, and first timeauthors especially are in some ways on the
same playing field as an established author, right. So it is easier to
get published now than it used tobe. Might be a little harder to
sell a lot of copies of yourbook because there's so many books on the
market, But I could probably youcite as many benefits as there are I
(04:39):
don't know disadvantages to the way thingshave changed and have evolved. But the
good thing is, the great thingis more books will be sold this year
than in any year in history,So book sales continue to go on their
upward trends, So in that way, nobody's complaining. Well, do you
remember the first time you heard ofAmazon where you were at when someone mentioned,
(05:00):
hey, there's is now platform tosell books on like, because Amazon
started off primarily just selling books beforethey got into you know, I think
there's an Amazon you know box onmy front porch every other day now with
something in it. But it startedoff selling books. Do you remember where
you were at when you first firstheard that heard that news. I was
(05:20):
at a book convention actually, andAmazon bought some sponsorships at the convention and
they had some huge banners that satAmazon the world's biggest bookstore, and we
laughed, we laughed, and youknow, we thought, well, that's
that's certainly not going to happen.How could that work? And we considered
(05:41):
it a joke the first time wesaw it. Sure, so the joke
is on us, right, ButI do remember, I do remember looking
at that banner and wondering what Amazonwas up to and how they were going
to achieve what they wanted to achieve. But they did it right here we
are, here we are and nowmore people buy books off of Amazon probably
than any other source. I'm curiousas the industry has changed, there are
(06:06):
some things that have a change.So for example, I know, to
get a book on the New YorkTimes Bestseller, they're not counting Amazon sells.
They're not counting book sales. They'restill sort of old school counting seals
in the bookstore. What are yourthoughts on that. Does that make it
more of a pure list in yourmind or do you think they need to
(06:27):
sort of look at how things havechanged. It's pretty subjective over at the
New York Times list, and youknow, truly nobody knows exactly how it
is that they do calculator, youknow, tabulate the numbers there. But
you know, every best seller's listis that way. The Wall Street Journal
has their own list, and USAToday has their own list, and of
(06:49):
course Amazon has their lists also.And you know, I know that your
book appeared very high on a coupleof Amazon lists. I believe it ranked
number one in a couple of categories. So the Amazon the way Amazon ranks
books is probably is the most objectiveway. It's not subjective because it's it's
(07:13):
driven by algorithms and it's driven byreal numbers. So in that way,
I would say Amazon's lists are probablythe most accurate, whereas the others are
much more subjective and we're not exactlysure how they're tabulated, but they still
do hold a lot of weight,of course, and a lot of people
look to their favorite their favorite listwhen they decide which book to purchase.
Well, then you have influencers outthere as well, right, I mean,
(07:34):
I think every every author would wouldwelcome, uh, you know,
an endorsement from someone like Oprah orObama publishes a list now, so we
have these influencer a list too.It's amazing how Oprah can come out with
her list and it's like instant bestsellers whenever she recommends a book. Yeah,
indeed, and that that is anotherway the industry has changed a lot.
(07:57):
Endorsements have always meant something, butwhen an endorsement hit social media and
reaches millions, maybe tens of millionsof people almost instantaneously, then yeah,
that can make a huge difference fora book. And we've certainly experienced that.
One of our best selling books lastyear was the author had a following
(08:18):
in the millions of followers, andI've made a significant difference, you know,
of course in book sales afterwards.Sure, absolutely so. Tom.
You mean you've been in this industryfor a while. How long have you
had your own publishing company? Whendid you start? Franely on publishing?
So the current company is going onfour years old, so this is rather
(08:41):
new, although previously I was involvedin either in a full time way or
in some way involved in the ownershipor senior management of other publishing companies.
So while this is relatively new,I'm doing, yeah, virtually the same
thing I've been doing for a longtime, but having a lot of fun
doing or we're doing right now,of course, but your name's on it
now. So how how cool wasit when you had the first book come
(09:05):
out with the fry Ling Publishing name? That had to mean something to you.
It's a great It is a greatfeeling, for sure, and I
feel somewhat, not somewhat, Ifeel certainly very responsible for the books that
we published and put out there.When when you put your name on the
on the back of the book andon the spine, you full of sense
feel a sense of responsibility to doa good job, and so you know
(09:28):
that's what we aim to do.Is to do, to do a great
job, an excellent job, andput out books that are going to be
impactful and are going to change reader'slives in some way. How many on
average, how many books are youpushing out a year? Have you even?
Have you even taliated at this point? Um so? We're publishing on
average probably three to four books amonth right now, and um so,
(09:52):
and that's kind of where we wantto keep it. I don't have a
really a vision for this to growin terms of the number of books that
we publish. I'm really at thispoint and more focused on quality, and
I would prefer to publish fewer booksbut do it well, rather than publish
more books and not do it aswell. So I think we're just kind
(10:13):
of sitting on our sweet spot rightnow and don't intend to increase the number
of titles that we publish. Wouldrather sell a whole bunch of more copies
of each book that we publish ratherthan publish more books. There you go.
I like the sound of that.As someone who's who's written under your
name. By the way, we'revisiting with Tom Franlin. He's the CEO
(10:35):
of Franling Publishing. His website isFrlin Publishing dot com. And when we
return, Tom, we're going toget a little bit more in depth into
the styles of books that you lookfor and talk about some of the books
you have out right now. You'rewatching Create, Building, Manage. I'm
Scott Miller in this hour where TomFinlin. He's the CEO of Frilein Publishing
(11:13):
Frilene Publishing dot com. And Tom, this is the book that you help
me push out this year. Thisis Media Matters just came out and as
you mentioned, already hit number oneand a couple of the new releases on
the Amazon categories, which is awesome. There's our website, Media Matters book
dot com. Tom, I credit, I mean listen, to sell a
(11:35):
book, you got to get theirattention. And your team did an amazing
job on the artwork of this book. I take zero credit to that.
You guys put it together and sotalk about that because you have an entire
team. You know, we thinkabout a book. We may purchase a
book, or we may check outa book of the library. We don't
think about We may think about theauthor who writes it. We don't think
(11:58):
about the people who edit, copyedited and send it to the printer and
all that goes behind it. Soit's quite a process. Yeah, and
we we do like to take adeep dive into um, um things from
like a macro level. Um.And when I say that, I mean
book cover, book cover design,um, book title, book subtitle.
(12:20):
And you and I spent we spenta pretty good amount of time going back
and forth and deciding even what thebook titles should be. You know,
those things are really important. Welike to we like to look at and
think about the audience for a bookand try to identify who is it that's
going to read this book, um, and why are they going to read
it? And then work backwards andthen when we when we you know,
(12:43):
dive into discussions and dialogue about titlingand subtitles and cover designs and whatnot,
we want to end up with theproduct that's going to appeal to the core
audience. UM. It's it's superimportant. So you know, I feel
like, um, we nailed itwith your book, and um, the
proof is in the pudding, right. It reached number one on Amazon almost
almost immediately, So we nailed it. And so you know that's that's obviously
(13:07):
really exciting that when that happened,and that's what we, you know,
try to do with every book isis we try to match the audience to
the branding and the positioning that theaudience sees when they view the book.
So there's a lot of books onthe market. Thousands and thousands are published
every week, so there's as yousaid previously, there's a lot of noise.
(13:28):
So as a publisher, you know, we really do want to focus
on presenting a book that's going toappeal to the core audience. Sure well,
and you know, I was verycurious you had reached out to me.
I think we had connected via LinkedInand we started a conversation offline and
(13:48):
you just asked me, Scott,have you ever thought about writing the book?
And it had been something on mymind. I'm a content creator obviously,
I do a lot in media withradio and television, and I like
to write. I write for differentorganizations, love to write a weekly blog.
So I always had that dream.So you got my attention. But
I was very curious in the process. To me, I'm a very systematic
(14:11):
person and I wanted to kind ofkind of dive deeper and learn the process.
So for you on the publishing standpoint, because you just said you're very
selective, You're not. You know, I wanted to publish just any book.
What are the criterias you look foras you as you seek to work
with authors, and particularly someone likeme that even though I've done content creation,
I've never written a book before,so that I would think we're the
(14:35):
hardest clients you work with, havingto sort of hold our hands. But
what is your criteria? You know, at what point did you say I
want to I want to work withthis author, or yeah, we're not
for you. Maybe you need tofind another publisher. That's a great question,
and there's always going to be someEvery publisher has rules, I guess
(14:56):
you'd say, or criteria. It'sa better way it sometimes you sometimes you
break the rules because sometimes you finda manuscript or you read something that an
author wrote that is so interesting orunique or so compelling that you're willing to
break the rules. But generally welike to look for authors who are good
communicators both on paper and off paper, right, and and those authors who
(15:22):
either have a platform or are willingto or a desire to build a platform
to help them help them launch theirbooks. So that's you know, I
would say critically important to us asfinding an author really is interested in doing
the hard work to promote and topublicize their work and have some basic understanding
(15:46):
of how to leverage media. Soyou know, in your case, you
have more than a basic understanding ofhow to leverage media. It's what you
do, right, So that,of course is really exciting to me to
work with an author who really understandshow to use media. So um,
and somebody of course who likes togenerate content, somebody who likes to write
(16:06):
and enjoys the writing process is importantto us. You know, again,
there's a lot of stuff out there, so we're always looking for something that's
a little unique, a little different, maybe a unique angle on something.
Everything's been written about, so it'snow it's a matter of finding a different
way to write about something or discusssomething, because everything has been written about
(16:30):
already. But I would say thatnot just us, but all publishers are
looking for authors who have great contentbut then also be either the ability,
the desire, or maybe already hasit built in some kind of a platform,
some kind of way to begin toget the word out about their book.
So what Tom is saying is readmedia matters if you don't know how
(16:51):
to leverage to mega Yeah, nowthat that is actually what I am saying.
It is true because I think thatit's I think that media, new
media especially is it's complicated, it'sconfusing, it's intimidating to people. I
can't tell you how many authors I'vespoken to, you know, over the
last few years who had a desireto do what you're doing right now,
(17:15):
for example, on this program,but don't know how to do that right
So and desire is one thing,but being able to tactically, strategically do
that things is entirely different. Soyou know, your book helps take not
just authors, but anybody in businessfrom the desire to actually to the execution
(17:36):
of sou And that's I think that'swhere a lot of you know, people
fall down. They don't know howto execute good media. And I think
also, and again people at homewatching the show, they run businesses,
they're entrepreneurs, are very interested inbusiness content. So these type of topics
always resonate with them. Because oneof the things about writing a book,
(17:57):
you know, you think, gosh, why would I write a book?
To your point, you said,there's everything's been written about there's nothing new
under the sun. But it's thatexpert marketing to the top level because the
reality is my expectation going in.And by the way, I'm excited that
we hit the number one in acouple of categories on Amazon for new releases.
(18:18):
That's great. But for me,I wrote this book for two reasons.
One to really help people, becausethere's so many clients that come on
our show or that we interact withit don't understand media, so we wanted
that resource. And then too,it listened full transparency to be able to
say I wrote the book on that. It just is that that level of
expertise, I think, and correctme if I'm wrong, Tom, but
(18:42):
I think we've got about sixty seconds. But I think you get more sort
of indirect from being able to sayyou wrote the book on it than direct
book sales. Is that correct?Well, that's definitely true. It helps
establish you as an authority in yourfield, in your industry. I think
all of us put authors on apedestal of sorts, so in that way
(19:04):
it increases credibility and I think Ithink many authors would say it helped them
even in terms of expanding their sphereof influence. Whether that's an industry,
whether that's a ministry. You know, wherever they're at, whatever they're doing,
it helps in a lot of otherways. And it's probably better to
think about using a book as atool that way than just as an end
(19:29):
of itself and just selling a lotof books. Yeah, absolutely, that's
very true. I look at itas to know, it's kind of a
weird analogy, but when I meetsomeone who's run an iron man, my
respect for them goes way up becauseI know that has to be a gauntlet
to do that, and that's whatI get the feedback again, Like,
man, it's one thing to sayyou want to write a book, another
thing to do it. We're visitingwith Tom Frileying this hour. You are
(19:52):
watching Create, Build and Manage ScottMiller. This is great Bill and Manage.
(20:19):
I'm Scott Miller, your host,and we're visiting this hour with Tom
Friling. He's the CEO of FrileingPublishing. Tom, let's talk about the
different types of publishing that's out there. I know there's a lot of self
publishing options have become available, andthen of course you have your large publishing
houses that you hear about traditionally.You know the Simon and Schuster's, they're
(20:45):
you know, they're they're owned byViacon, they're going after big names.
That's who your former presidents are workingwith. And then you have Frilin Publishing.
You guys are really kind of ahybrid, and I want to kind
of unpack that for for the viewerat home, because I think, because
there's so many fly by the nightself publishing that maybe without naming names,
(21:07):
it can kind of give your industrya little bit of a negative connotation.
So unpack the differences for me andexplain how what the work you do at
Frileying Publishing is so much more thana self publishing entity. It's a great
question. And the idea of ahybrid publisher, and that's how we describe
(21:29):
ourselves is somewhat new. It's somethingthat's emerged certainly within the last ten years.
And we essentially sit between a traditionalpublisher and a self publisher. And
by traditional, as you just suggested, a traditional publisher would be somebody like
a HARPERD. Collins or a Penguin, or a Thomas Nelson or a Zandervan,
(21:49):
and they're very traditional in how theypublish books, and how they perform
really hasn't changed much, probably evenin the last one years. They do
things that are very similar fashion,and a traditional publisher essentially pays you for
a license to use your words andto publish your book. And that's a
(22:11):
great thing if you can get atraditional contract. The upside is you get
to work with a large publishing companythat has a huge network. The downside
is you you lose virtually all controlover every aspect of your work, and
the publisher is certainly in the driver'sseat and essentially makes all the decisions about
your book, and it can bea very in that way, a very
(22:33):
slow process, even taking sometimes yearsto get published traditionally. Then on the
flip side, you have self publishers, and which there are many forms and
fashions of on the Internet today andis essentially a dy model of publishing your
book, and you are either onyour own or partially on your own.
(22:53):
And the great thing about that isyou have a lot of control the process
and you can do things very quickly. The downside is there's a lot of
pitfalls, and you don't know whatyou don't know. And I've known many
an author who went the self publishingroute and essentially fell flat on their face
(23:14):
because there's just a lot of thingsthey didn't know and they discovered it along
the way, which isn't always agood thing to want to do when you're
publishing your own book. So ahybrid publisher basically sits in the middle.
We perform and behave like a traditionalhouse does. We're selective, publish only
high quality material, and use alot of the same distributors and others that
(23:37):
the traditional houses use. So ourbooks look and feel very much like a
book that was published by a traditionalhouse, are found at the same places,
even in Barnes and Nobles, thattraditionally published books are, but the
author still has an investment in theproject, much like a self publisher.
So we are essentially sitting between thosetwo. And it's something that you know,
(24:03):
we believe is of great value tothe author because they're still getting a
book that they can be proud of. And in many ways, even the
trade views us or looks at usas a traditional house versus a self publisher.
Now, I think that's a greatway to explain it. And you
know, from the self publishing standpoint, again, it runs a game and
(24:25):
I look at it sort of inthe media space that I'm coming from,
which is of course video. Anyonecan create a video and put it out
on YouTube, like does it takea lot of skill set to do that.
And that's nothing against people on YouTube. There's great content on YouTube.
There's also not so great content.And then it takes a different level if
(24:45):
you have a television show, becauseobviously not everyone gets a TV show,
but we work with parent company bisTV, we work with people that come
in and we always kind of referto it as kind of a co op
model, like you help cover someof the cost to get your content out
there, and then we both makemoney off the ad cell. So it's
(25:07):
very similar. So I'm familiar withthat, you know, coming from from
the video side. But just likeyou, we're very selective, like you
have to this is our name.We're not going to put just any show
on the network or push it outon radio or anything like that. So
I think that's that's key and Tomfor me, and again I'm coming from
from the person first time author andhaving you and not just you, having
(25:30):
your team there to do things likehelp design to cover the name is something
that you and your team came upwith because you knew what would sell and
you don't get that when you doself publishing. Yeah, and I think
too. I think something maybe readersand authors don't understand about the publishing businesses
(25:51):
that like any other business, there'strends, there's patterns, there's certain things
that as a publisher we identify what'shot and what's not, so to speak,
right, and then as we publishbooks we can we can take that
into into consideration. So it's likeany other industry, and those who are
(26:12):
deeply involved in on a day today basis are going to understand, are
going to identify some things that maybe a first time author or any author
certainly a reader can't identify, wouldn'tknow. And because that's what we do,
and the same with your business.So that the analogy is perfect action,
the YouTube analogy is perfect well.And again just to peel back the
(26:34):
curtain on the process. The firstthing that we did is I sat down
with a couple of outlines and saidhere's what I'm thinking. And you are
real quick to say that's too broad. You need to go in this direction.
It's more niche because with so manybooks out there, when you can
go niche, I think you havemore success than if you just try to
(26:55):
be all encompassing. That doesn't seemto work right now. That's true,
and that's primarily because Amazon is asearch engine, just like Google or any
other search engines. So we don'tapproach Amazon like a bookstore. In a
bookstore, you browse the aisles andyou'll find books that you'd never thought existed
or new existed, and you usuallyleave a bookstore with a book that you
(27:17):
didn't anticipate on buying in the firstplace. But when you go to Amazon,
a lot of times you're looking forsomething pretty specific and you're putting in
the search field. You know,something like you know better understanding media or
leveraging media for my business or somethinglike that. So it's important to meet
(27:37):
the reader where they're at. Youknow, what are they looking for,
and if you can meet that needin a niche way, then you have
a much greater likelihood of selling abook than rather in a very broader,
generic way because we're not thinking broadlyor generically, we're thinking pretty specifically when
we go to Amazon. Lucky there. So what Tom's is saying is this
right here is the seo. Thisis the key word that people are googling
(28:02):
that finds the book. That's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. So what are
the trends right now? What arethe topics that readers are most interested in?
Interesting time and history? We're comingout, we believe, coming out
of the pandemic knock on wood,but we're coming out of an interesting season
in the history of the world.So what are the trends right now?
(28:22):
What are people interested? What dothey want to read? It's a great
question, um So. One thingwe've noticed is books written by by female
business leaders or entrepreneurs are certainly verypopular right now. And if you look
at the list, you'll you'll you'llidentify that, um A lot of a
lot of the trends kind of mimicwhat's going on in the culture, right
um so. Um Usually it's nottoo surprising to see. For example,
(28:48):
books on race or racial reconciliation havebeen hugely popular over the last couple of
years because, of course, it'sbeen a topic that many of us have
thought about and read about and seeingthe media, you know, a regular
basis. So I'm certain that inthe near future we will begin to see
more books about Russia and Ukraine andeither from a historical perspective or whatnot.
(29:11):
So in so many ways, whatyou see in the news is what you
end up seeing in book publishing.Sometimes it lags a little bit, right,
right. You know, a yearand a half ago there were so
many books about the elections and DonaldTrump and politics and conservatism and liberalism,
etc. Hugely popular. Now there'snot many books that are selling well on
(29:33):
that topic. After the elections inthe fall, we'll probably see a resurgence
of books on that topic. Soum, you know, you basically look
at what's in the news and that'sreplicated in book publishing in a probably in
a more focused way. I'll tellyou what I think the hot topic this
is. This is going to beyour next bestseller book. Find an expert
(29:53):
to write on this. But howwe have weaponized business. We're literally using
busines this now as a weapon.And what you're seeing the West, how
they're reacting to Russia. That's interesting, right, We're weaponizing business, So
who knows where that's going to leadus in the future. That sounds like
a good book to me, definitely. I hadn't thought of that one.
(30:14):
Scott so this afternoon, I'll startlooking for a month and on that one.
But I agree that that would bean interesting read. Yeah, I've
blogged on it just because we followedthe business trends with our daily show,
so we've talked about it. We'vehad cybersecurity experts on But to me,
that's a topic that I'm interested in. Someone who owns a business, I'm
interested in, you know, amI secure? Is my business secure?
(30:36):
Because it really is a new warthat we're fighting. You got time to
stick around for one more segment.Let's do it all right. We're talking
with Tom Franleen again. He's theCEO of Franlein Publishing. His website fling
Publishing dot com. You see itright there and go on on this next
segment. I want to ask you, Tom, just to get you ready
to have this commercial break. We'regoing to dive into some other books that
(31:00):
Tom is right now has available andyou are watching Create, Build, and
Manage. We've been visiting this towerwith Tom Triling and Frylene Publishing, and
(31:27):
Tom, I want to get intosome other books that you have available right
now. I feel like you knowcousins to the other authors you work with,
So we are on your website.Here, let's take a look at
some of these other titles you haveand kind of give me a quick overview.
If Jesus gives a ted talk,that sounds interesting. Yeah, that's
a terrific book. It's actually oneof our one of our better selling books
(31:49):
over the last I think it waspublished maybe six months ago by Charles Stone.
It's a very well written book.And if if you know you're a
public speaker, experienced or maybe notexperienced, it's basically a deep dive is
to how to be a persuasive publicspeaker using some of the principles that Jesus
used as a public speaker himself.So it's interesting both for a from a
(32:15):
public speaking perspective but also from aspiritual perspective. What are some other books
you got at right now? Sobrand new book you're showing it right now.
Choosing Resilience by Tyranne Jackson. Thebook released gosh, maybe a week
ago, maybe two weeks ago.It's really an extraordinary story, a heartfelt
(32:36):
story. Tyranne's story of both theloss of his wife in a tragic accident
and the amputation of his leg.And Tyranne is a CEO in Atlanta and
the book. Basically, in thebook, he shares his story but then
offers really some very inspirational, motivationalwords for any of us who have experienced
(32:59):
any kind of tragedy, trauma,or or you know, trying to overcome
up a big challenge in our lives. So, um, love the book,
love the author, and I thinkit's going to be a strong seller
for us. That's awesome. That'sawesome. And and all these books,
of course, you can get themon Amazon, you can get them wherever
books are sold. Um, canyou buy them from from your website as
(33:20):
well? Um, you know,you can go to our website and but
we link you right over to Amazon. So the most efficient way to buy
and sell books. Um, wehave we've found over the years that that's
where people want to buy their books. Sure, rather than rather than fight
them, you join them. Soum, but that's uh, yeah,
all of our books, if yougo to the website, are essentially for
(33:43):
sale on Amazon, and that's whereit links you over too. Sure,
well, you can go to thewebsite Frilene Publishing dot com just to see
what books are out there and uh, and what you're available. They're all
interesting books. You have a lotof faith based books, um, not
all faith based, but you certainlythat's that's one of your sweet spots,
working in the faith based category.But it's all inspirational books. And you
(34:07):
don't get a lot of fiction books, do you do you you publish any
fiction books. We've done some fiction, UM, I would I would say
it's not a core specialty um ofours as a publishing house, and even
mine in my experience, I've certainlypublished some fiction, but a lot more
nonfiction than fiction. You know.Our our core competence competencies really tend to
(34:29):
be books that are either in faithbased genres, business leadership, entrepreneurship,
also a bunch of stuff on healthand wellness as a strength of ours,
um. But we do we dodabble in fiction. If we find a
particular title we feel is um youknow, is really high quality and good
and might find an audience, youknow, then we'll do that, um.
(34:52):
But it's certainly not a first choicefor us. A first choice for
us really is my sweet spot arethe books that I really get excited about
or those that inspire motivate people,books that talk about leadership and how to
be a better leader in your industryor in your field, and as an
(35:14):
entrepreneur, as a business person myself. You know, that's um, they'll
get really excited about about books inthat genre. Yeah, are you going
to write your next best sling authoryourself? Are you going to write a
book? Oh? Gosh, it'sso much work, as you know,
I don't know if I'm up forit again. It's been years since I've
written my home book rum and Um. Right now it's not on the priority
(35:37):
list, so it'll probably get thereagain soon. I think about it,
you know, frequently, but Ihaven't even written the first word of the
next book, so I don't knowwhen else going to happen. What what's
the average time you find for firsttime authors? How long do they take?
I'm sort of judging my own timelinewith with the normal to see if
(35:57):
I was normal or not? Yeah, I was six months? Is about?
Is about typical? Um? Butyou know it varies a lot.
There's some are real fast writers,some are real slow. You know,
it took JK. Rowling ten yearsto write the first Harry Potter books,
So um, there's no really,there's no rule of thumb on that,
you know, but I would sayfor us, it's probably around six months
(36:20):
maybe nine months getting j end SoI wrote mine in thirteen weeks, so
I would see them the competitive natureto me, right, Yeah, that's
really fun. That's faster than normal. Yeah. So Tom, let's talk
about because someone's watching this, sothat you piqued their interest, no doubt,
and so they want to find outmore information. Let's walk through what
is that process for you? Whensomeone reaches out and contacts you, rather
(36:44):
you know, via email or yourwebsite or they call you, what what
sort of process do you take themthrough to see if they qualify, to
see if it's somebody that you wouldwant to to go forward with. Yeah,
that's a that's a great question.Um. The process US is informal
and casual, but essentially we begina series of conversations UM and talk to
(37:06):
the author about UM. First ofall, why do they want to write
a book? You know, whatare there, what's their real desire,
what's in their heart? Why dothey want to do it? Um?
And then and then talk about expectations, what their expectations are, UM through
the process and of course at theend of the process, UM and UM,
(37:27):
we want to make sure aligned inthose areas and make sure we're you
know, essentially on the same basein terms of not just the process,
but what their expectation is, youknow, after the book is published um
so um, and then obviously talkingabout what do they want to write about
and some of a very clear ideaum, and some don't. Some are
still kind of developing that which isfinal soo UM. We prefer to be
(37:49):
involved as early on in the processesas possible because we feel like we can
add value um and give some somefeedback that's going to make a big difference.
So I would say typically we arelooking for authors who want our feedback
and have a listening ear and wantto lean on us to help them guide
them through the process. And youknow, our goal is to publish the
(38:12):
best book possible, so always lookingfor authors who are are wanting to and
willing to listen to the advice andcouncil that we give them as we dive
into the project. So essentially theprocess is a series of conversations, and
we want to be aligned. Wewant them to be as comfortable with us
as we are with them. Publishingis as it's all about relationship, and
(38:37):
we're interested in long term relationship,not short term. So we want to
work with you know, those authorswho feel great about us and you know,
feel like it's a good fit.So it's publishing is a two way
street, it's not a one waystreet. So we're looking for authors that
you know agree with that also andunderstand that, Tom Priling, And again
(38:57):
its website we've been showing you isPriling Publishing dot com. That's where you
can go and look at that schedulea free consultation. It's that easy.
Just click the schedule now right thereon the website. Tom. As always,
I appreciate your time. I knowyou're busy and you got you got
books to read and books to selland future authors to talk to. So
we appreciate your hour with us tonight. Thanks a lot of scottis right to
(39:20):
be on the show again. Proudof your publishers. Well, I'm proud
to be working with you as well. It's Tom Frainle and again at Frlein
Publishing. I'm Scott Miller. Untilnext time. How long everybody
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller. My guest tonight isTom frying Lane. He's a veteran book
publisher, CEO, coach and speaker. He is a John Maxwell team member,
and he happens to be my publisher. Tom. Welcome to the show,
(00:30):
Scott. Thanks for having me onthe show again. It's good to
see you. Absolutely. Yeah.You were on last fall when we were
just working on this project together,so I wanted to have you back.
There's a lot going on in theworld of publishing. It seems like it's
always evolving, always changing. ButI wanted to take a moment as people
get to know you, I wantedto kind of dive a little bit,
(00:52):
kind of put you in the hotseat tonight. Are you ready for that?
I'm ready for Here we are now. I want to go back.
What got you into publishing? Becauseyou could have done a number of different
things. You know, you certainlyare great at speaking and coaching. What
was it about publishing that drew youin? You know, I have to
say in some ways it was anaccident. It wasn't necessarily intentional or strategic,
(01:19):
and honestly was The first job Igot out of college was to be
a book bookstore telemarketer. This wasback in the days when there were bookstores
in every corner and found a jobor I would call bookstores and sell books,
and I loved it. You know, I've always loved books. I
have a passion for it, andso it stuck. It stuck with me,
(01:40):
and I've been doing it ever sincefor almost thirty years. There's a
lot of things I love about booksand publishing. I do love that it's
an ever changing business and industry.It's certainly not the type of job or
career that you ever get bored doing. And I love work working with people.
(02:00):
And I love especially taking somebody's coremessage and transforming that into a book
that people around the world read.I find that to be especially excited.
Do you think your background getting intothe industry, you're already doing marketing in
sales. Do you think that wasthe foundation that makes you a good publisher?
(02:22):
I suppose so. My background inpublishing is on the marketing and sales
side, as opposed to the editorialside of the business. So that's really
I grew up in my career onthe sales side of publishing and not the
editorial side. So yeah, andcertainly I've learned a lot over the years
about digital marketing and social media marketingand how that interplays into just publishing a
(02:46):
book, but also selling a book. And of course that is a lot
of what your book is about ishow to leverage the media to grow a
business, and authors need to learnto do the same thing to be effective
salespersons for their book. Yeah.I think there's a lot of white noise
right now, right, I meanwhen you first got in this industry,
(03:07):
let's just kind of talk. I'mnot Tom, I'm not saying you're old.
I'm just saying you have some experience, right, definitely the youngest youngest
old guy you've ever had on theshow. But let's let's look back on
it about how things have changed.Because when you first got into you mentioned
you're picking up the phone and you'recalling bookstores and saying, hey, I
got a book you need to needto have on your on your shelf.
(03:29):
Man, it's changed a lot.You know, you're not necessarily doing that
now at Franlene Publishing, are you. Yeah, it has changed a lot,
and you know, for good andbad. I would say, I
do miss the days when they wereyou know, fifteen twenty thousand bookstores in
America, and all of us werewithin a short distance of a bookstore.
You know, those were exciting times, and in many ways it was easier
(03:52):
to Oh, it was probably easierfor publishers to market and sell their books
because the bookstores were the gatekeepers,right, So if you could so the
bookstore on your book, than youwere half the way there to selling the
reader on the book. So yeah, I missed those days, but they
were really exciting. But you know, there's a lot of great things about
the way book publishing works today.Also, it's certainly more efficient to find
(04:15):
readers, right, and first timeauthors especially are in some ways on the
same playing field as an established author, right. So it is easier to
get published now than it used tobe. Might be a little harder to
sell a lot of copies of yourbook because there's so many books on the
market, But I could probably youcite as many benefits as there are I
(04:39):
don't know disadvantages to the way thingshave changed and have evolved. But the
good thing is, the great thingis more books will be sold this year
than in any year in history,So book sales continue to go on their
upward trends, So in that way, nobody's complaining. Well, do you
remember the first time you heard ofAmazon where you were at when someone mentioned,
(05:00):
hey, there's is now platform tosell books on like, because Amazon
started off primarily just selling books beforethey got into you know, I think
there's an Amazon you know box onmy front porch every other day now with
something in it. But it startedoff selling books. Do you remember where
you were at when you first firstheard that heard that news. I was
(05:20):
at a book convention actually, andAmazon bought some sponsorships at the convention and
they had some huge banners that satAmazon the world's biggest bookstore, and we
laughed, we laughed, and youknow, we thought, well, that's
that's certainly not going to happen.How could that work? And we considered
(05:41):
it a joke the first time wesaw it. Sure, so the joke
is on us, right, ButI do remember, I do remember looking
at that banner and wondering what Amazonwas up to and how they were going
to achieve what they wanted to achieve. But they did it right here we
are, here we are and nowmore people buy books off of Amazon probably
than any other source. I'm curiousas the industry has changed, there are
(06:06):
some things that have a change.So for example, I know, to
get a book on the New YorkTimes Bestseller, they're not counting Amazon sells.
They're not counting book sales. They'restill sort of old school counting seals
in the bookstore. What are yourthoughts on that. Does that make it
more of a pure list in yourmind or do you think they need to
(06:27):
sort of look at how things havechanged. It's pretty subjective over at the
New York Times list, and youknow, truly nobody knows exactly how it
is that they do calculator, youknow, tabulate the numbers there. But
you know, every best seller's listis that way. The Wall Street Journal
has their own list, and USAToday has their own list, and of
(06:49):
course Amazon has their lists also.And you know, I know that your
book appeared very high on a coupleof Amazon lists. I believe it ranked
number one in a couple of categories. So the Amazon the way Amazon ranks
books is probably is the most objectiveway. It's not subjective because it's it's
(07:13):
driven by algorithms and it's driven byreal numbers. So in that way,
I would say Amazon's lists are probablythe most accurate, whereas the others are
much more subjective and we're not exactlysure how they're tabulated, but they still
do hold a lot of weight,of course, and a lot of people
look to their favorite their favorite listwhen they decide which book to purchase.
Well, then you have influencers outthere as well, right, I mean,
(07:34):
I think every every author would wouldwelcome, uh, you know,
an endorsement from someone like Oprah orObama publishes a list now, so we
have these influencer a list too.It's amazing how Oprah can come out with
her list and it's like instant bestsellers whenever she recommends a book. Yeah,
indeed, and that that is anotherway the industry has changed a lot.
(07:57):
Endorsements have always meant something, butwhen an endorsement hit social media and
reaches millions, maybe tens of millionsof people almost instantaneously, then yeah,
that can make a huge difference fora book. And we've certainly experienced that.
One of our best selling books lastyear was the author had a following
(08:18):
in the millions of followers, andI've made a significant difference, you know,
of course in book sales afterwards.Sure, absolutely so. Tom.
You mean you've been in this industryfor a while. How long have you
had your own publishing company? Whendid you start? Franely on publishing?
So the current company is going onfour years old, so this is rather
(08:41):
new, although previously I was involvedin either in a full time way or
in some way involved in the ownershipor senior management of other publishing companies.
So while this is relatively new,I'm doing, yeah, virtually the same
thing I've been doing for a longtime, but having a lot of fun
doing or we're doing right now,of course, but your name's on it
now. So how how cool wasit when you had the first book come
(09:05):
out with the fry Ling Publishing name? That had to mean something to you.
It's a great It is a greatfeeling, for sure, and I
feel somewhat, not somewhat, Ifeel certainly very responsible for the books that
we published and put out there.When when you put your name on the
on the back of the book andon the spine, you full of sense
feel a sense of responsibility to doa good job, and so you know
(09:28):
that's what we aim to do.Is to do, to do a great
job, an excellent job, andput out books that are going to be
impactful and are going to change reader'slives in some way. How many on
average, how many books are youpushing out a year? Have you even?
Have you even taliated at this point? Um so? We're publishing on
average probably three to four books amonth right now, and um so,
(09:52):
and that's kind of where we wantto keep it. I don't have a
really a vision for this to growin terms of the number of books that
we publish. I'm really at thispoint and more focused on quality, and
I would prefer to publish fewer booksbut do it well, rather than publish
more books and not do it aswell. So I think we're just kind
(10:13):
of sitting on our sweet spot rightnow and don't intend to increase the number
of titles that we publish. Wouldrather sell a whole bunch of more copies
of each book that we publish ratherthan publish more books. There you go.
I like the sound of that.As someone who's who's written under your
name. By the way, we'revisiting with Tom Franlin. He's the CEO
(10:35):
of Franling Publishing. His website isFrlin Publishing dot com. And when we
return, Tom, we're going toget a little bit more in depth into
the styles of books that you lookfor and talk about some of the books
you have out right now. You'rewatching Create, Building, Manage. I'm
Scott Miller in this hour where TomFinlin. He's the CEO of Frilein Publishing
(11:13):
Frilene Publishing dot com. And Tom, this is the book that you help
me push out this year. Thisis Media Matters just came out and as
you mentioned, already hit number oneand a couple of the new releases on
the Amazon categories, which is awesome. There's our website, Media Matters book
dot com. Tom, I credit, I mean listen, to sell a
(11:35):
book, you got to get theirattention. And your team did an amazing
job on the artwork of this book. I take zero credit to that.
You guys put it together and sotalk about that because you have an entire
team. You know, we thinkabout a book. We may purchase a
book, or we may check outa book of the library. We don't
think about We may think about theauthor who writes it. We don't think
(11:58):
about the people who edit, copyedited and send it to the printer and
all that goes behind it. Soit's quite a process. Yeah, and
we we do like to take adeep dive into um, um things from
like a macro level. Um.And when I say that, I mean
book cover, book cover design,um, book title, book subtitle.
(12:20):
And you and I spent we spenta pretty good amount of time going back
and forth and deciding even what thebook titles should be. You know,
those things are really important. Welike to we like to look at and
think about the audience for a bookand try to identify who is it that's
going to read this book, um, and why are they going to read
it? And then work backwards andthen when we when we you know,
(12:43):
dive into discussions and dialogue about titlingand subtitles and cover designs and whatnot,
we want to end up with theproduct that's going to appeal to the core
audience. UM. It's it's superimportant. So you know, I feel
like, um, we nailed itwith your book, and um, the
proof is in the pudding, right. It reached number one on Amazon almost
almost immediately, So we nailed it. And so you know that's that's obviously
(13:07):
really exciting that when that happened,and that's what we, you know,
try to do with every book isis we try to match the audience to
the branding and the positioning that theaudience sees when they view the book.
So there's a lot of books onthe market. Thousands and thousands are published
every week, so there's as yousaid previously, there's a lot of noise.
(13:28):
So as a publisher, you know, we really do want to focus
on presenting a book that's going toappeal to the core audience. Sure well,
and you know, I was verycurious you had reached out to me.
I think we had connected via LinkedInand we started a conversation offline and
(13:48):
you just asked me, Scott,have you ever thought about writing the book?
And it had been something on mymind. I'm a content creator obviously,
I do a lot in media withradio and television, and I like
to write. I write for differentorganizations, love to write a weekly blog.
So I always had that dream.So you got my attention. But
I was very curious in the process. To me, I'm a very systematic
(14:11):
person and I wanted to kind ofkind of dive deeper and learn the process.
So for you on the publishing standpoint, because you just said you're very
selective, You're not. You know, I wanted to publish just any book.
What are the criterias you look foras you as you seek to work
with authors, and particularly someone likeme that even though I've done content creation,
I've never written a book before,so that I would think we're the
(14:35):
hardest clients you work with, havingto sort of hold our hands. But
what is your criteria? You know, at what point did you say I
want to I want to work withthis author, or yeah, we're not
for you. Maybe you need tofind another publisher. That's a great question,
and there's always going to be someEvery publisher has rules, I guess
(14:56):
you'd say, or criteria. It'sa better way it sometimes you sometimes you
break the rules because sometimes you finda manuscript or you read something that an
author wrote that is so interesting orunique or so compelling that you're willing to
break the rules. But generally welike to look for authors who are good
communicators both on paper and off paper, right, and and those authors who
(15:22):
either have a platform or are willingto or a desire to build a platform
to help them help them launch theirbooks. So that's you know, I
would say critically important to us asfinding an author really is interested in doing
the hard work to promote and topublicize their work and have some basic understanding
(15:46):
of how to leverage media. Soyou know, in your case, you
have more than a basic understanding ofhow to leverage media. It's what you
do, right, So that,of course is really exciting to me to
work with an author who really understandshow to use media. So um,
and somebody of course who likes togenerate content, somebody who likes to write
(16:06):
and enjoys the writing process is importantto us. You know, again,
there's a lot of stuff out there, so we're always looking for something that's
a little unique, a little different, maybe a unique angle on something.
Everything's been written about, so it'snow it's a matter of finding a different
way to write about something or discusssomething, because everything has been written about
(16:30):
already. But I would say thatnot just us, but all publishers are
looking for authors who have great contentbut then also be either the ability,
the desire, or maybe already hasit built in some kind of a platform,
some kind of way to begin toget the word out about their book.
So what Tom is saying is readmedia matters if you don't know how
(16:51):
to leverage to mega Yeah, nowthat that is actually what I am saying.
It is true because I think thatit's I think that media, new
media especially is it's complicated, it'sconfusing, it's intimidating to people. I
can't tell you how many authors I'vespoken to, you know, over the
last few years who had a desireto do what you're doing right now,
(17:15):
for example, on this program,but don't know how to do that right
So and desire is one thing,but being able to tactically, strategically do
that things is entirely different. Soyou know, your book helps take not
just authors, but anybody in businessfrom the desire to actually to the execution
(17:36):
of sou And that's I think that'swhere a lot of you know, people
fall down. They don't know howto execute good media. And I think
also, and again people at homewatching the show, they run businesses,
they're entrepreneurs, are very interested inbusiness content. So these type of topics
always resonate with them. Because oneof the things about writing a book,
(17:57):
you know, you think, gosh, why would I write a book?
To your point, you said,there's everything's been written about there's nothing new
under the sun. But it's thatexpert marketing to the top level because the
reality is my expectation going in.And by the way, I'm excited that
we hit the number one in acouple of categories on Amazon for new releases.
(18:18):
That's great. But for me,I wrote this book for two reasons.
One to really help people, becausethere's so many clients that come on
our show or that we interact withit don't understand media, so we wanted
that resource. And then too,it listened full transparency to be able to
say I wrote the book on that. It just is that that level of
expertise, I think, and correctme if I'm wrong, Tom, but
(18:42):
I think we've got about sixty seconds. But I think you get more sort
of indirect from being able to sayyou wrote the book on it than direct
book sales. Is that correct?Well, that's definitely true. It helps
establish you as an authority in yourfield, in your industry. I think
all of us put authors on apedestal of sorts, so in that way
(19:04):
it increases credibility and I think Ithink many authors would say it helped them
even in terms of expanding their sphereof influence. Whether that's an industry,
whether that's a ministry. You know, wherever they're at, whatever they're doing,
it helps in a lot of otherways. And it's probably better to
think about using a book as atool that way than just as an end
(19:29):
of itself and just selling a lotof books. Yeah, absolutely, that's
very true. I look at itas to know, it's kind of a
weird analogy, but when I meetsomeone who's run an iron man, my
respect for them goes way up becauseI know that has to be a gauntlet
to do that, and that's whatI get the feedback again, Like,
man, it's one thing to sayyou want to write a book, another
thing to do it. We're visitingwith Tom Frileying this hour. You are
(19:52):
watching Create, Build and Manage ScottMiller. This is great Bill and Manage.
(20:19):
I'm Scott Miller, your host,and we're visiting this hour with Tom
Friling. He's the CEO of FrileingPublishing. Tom, let's talk about the
different types of publishing that's out there. I know there's a lot of self
publishing options have become available, andthen of course you have your large publishing
houses that you hear about traditionally.You know the Simon and Schuster's, they're
(20:45):
you know, they're they're owned byViacon, they're going after big names.
That's who your former presidents are workingwith. And then you have Frilin Publishing.
You guys are really kind of ahybrid, and I want to kind
of unpack that for for the viewerat home, because I think, because
there's so many fly by the nightself publishing that maybe without naming names,
(21:07):
it can kind of give your industrya little bit of a negative connotation.
So unpack the differences for me andexplain how what the work you do at
Frileying Publishing is so much more thana self publishing entity. It's a great
question. And the idea of ahybrid publisher, and that's how we describe
(21:29):
ourselves is somewhat new. It's somethingthat's emerged certainly within the last ten years.
And we essentially sit between a traditionalpublisher and a self publisher. And
by traditional, as you just suggested, a traditional publisher would be somebody like
a HARPERD. Collins or a Penguin, or a Thomas Nelson or a Zandervan,
(21:49):
and they're very traditional in how theypublish books, and how they perform
really hasn't changed much, probably evenin the last one years. They do
things that are very similar fashion,and a traditional publisher essentially pays you for
a license to use your words andto publish your book. And that's a
(22:11):
great thing if you can get atraditional contract. The upside is you get
to work with a large publishing companythat has a huge network. The downside
is you you lose virtually all controlover every aspect of your work, and
the publisher is certainly in the driver'sseat and essentially makes all the decisions about
your book, and it can bea very in that way, a very
(22:33):
slow process, even taking sometimes yearsto get published traditionally. Then on the
flip side, you have self publishers, and which there are many forms and
fashions of on the Internet today andis essentially a dy model of publishing your
book, and you are either onyour own or partially on your own.
(22:53):
And the great thing about that isyou have a lot of control the process
and you can do things very quickly. The downside is there's a lot of
pitfalls, and you don't know whatyou don't know. And I've known many
an author who went the self publishingroute and essentially fell flat on their face
(23:14):
because there's just a lot of thingsthey didn't know and they discovered it along
the way, which isn't always agood thing to want to do when you're
publishing your own book. So ahybrid publisher basically sits in the middle.
We perform and behave like a traditionalhouse does. We're selective, publish only
high quality material, and use alot of the same distributors and others that
(23:37):
the traditional houses use. So ourbooks look and feel very much like a
book that was published by a traditionalhouse, are found at the same places,
even in Barnes and Nobles, thattraditionally published books are, but the
author still has an investment in theproject, much like a self publisher.
So we are essentially sitting between thosetwo. And it's something that you know,
(24:03):
we believe is of great value tothe author because they're still getting a
book that they can be proud of. And in many ways, even the
trade views us or looks at usas a traditional house versus a self publisher.
Now, I think that's a greatway to explain it. And you
know, from the self publishing standpoint, again, it runs a game and
(24:25):
I look at it sort of inthe media space that I'm coming from,
which is of course video. Anyonecan create a video and put it out
on YouTube, like does it takea lot of skill set to do that.
And that's nothing against people on YouTube. There's great content on YouTube.
There's also not so great content.And then it takes a different level if
(24:45):
you have a television show, becauseobviously not everyone gets a TV show,
but we work with parent company bisTV, we work with people that come
in and we always kind of referto it as kind of a co op
model, like you help cover someof the cost to get your content out
there, and then we both makemoney off the ad cell. So it's
(25:07):
very similar. So I'm familiar withthat, you know, coming from from
the video side. But just likeyou, we're very selective, like you
have to this is our name.We're not going to put just any show
on the network or push it outon radio or anything like that. So
I think that's that's key and Tomfor me, and again I'm coming from
from the person first time author andhaving you and not just you, having
(25:30):
your team there to do things likehelp design to cover the name is something
that you and your team came upwith because you knew what would sell and
you don't get that when you doself publishing. Yeah, and I think
too. I think something maybe readersand authors don't understand about the publishing businesses
(25:51):
that like any other business, there'strends, there's patterns, there's certain things
that as a publisher we identify what'shot and what's not, so to speak,
right, and then as we publishbooks we can we can take that
into into consideration. So it's likeany other industry, and those who are
(26:12):
deeply involved in on a day today basis are going to understand, are
going to identify some things that maybe a first time author or any author
certainly a reader can't identify, wouldn'tknow. And because that's what we do,
and the same with your business.So that the analogy is perfect action,
the YouTube analogy is perfect well.And again just to peel back the
(26:34):
curtain on the process. The firstthing that we did is I sat down
with a couple of outlines and saidhere's what I'm thinking. And you are
real quick to say that's too broad. You need to go in this direction.
It's more niche because with so manybooks out there, when you can
go niche, I think you havemore success than if you just try to
(26:55):
be all encompassing. That doesn't seemto work right now. That's true,
and that's primarily because Amazon is asearch engine, just like Google or any
other search engines. So we don'tapproach Amazon like a bookstore. In a
bookstore, you browse the aisles andyou'll find books that you'd never thought existed
or new existed, and you usuallyleave a bookstore with a book that you
(27:17):
didn't anticipate on buying in the firstplace. But when you go to Amazon,
a lot of times you're looking forsomething pretty specific and you're putting in
the search field. You know,something like you know better understanding media or
leveraging media for my business or somethinglike that. So it's important to meet
(27:37):
the reader where they're at. Youknow, what are they looking for,
and if you can meet that needin a niche way, then you have
a much greater likelihood of selling abook than rather in a very broader,
generic way because we're not thinking broadlyor generically, we're thinking pretty specifically when
we go to Amazon. Lucky there. So what Tom's is saying is this
right here is the seo. Thisis the key word that people are googling
(28:02):
that finds the book. That's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. So what are
the trends right now? What arethe topics that readers are most interested in?
Interesting time and history? We're comingout, we believe, coming out
of the pandemic knock on wood,but we're coming out of an interesting season
in the history of the world.So what are the trends right now?
(28:22):
What are people interested? What dothey want to read? It's a great
question, um So. One thingwe've noticed is books written by by female
business leaders or entrepreneurs are certainly verypopular right now. And if you look
at the list, you'll you'll you'llidentify that, um A lot of a
lot of the trends kind of mimicwhat's going on in the culture, right
um so. Um Usually it's nottoo surprising to see. For example,
(28:48):
books on race or racial reconciliation havebeen hugely popular over the last couple of
years because, of course, it'sbeen a topic that many of us have
thought about and read about and seeingthe media, you know, a regular
basis. So I'm certain that inthe near future we will begin to see
more books about Russia and Ukraine andeither from a historical perspective or whatnot.
(29:11):
So in so many ways, whatyou see in the news is what you
end up seeing in book publishing.Sometimes it lags a little bit, right,
right. You know, a yearand a half ago there were so
many books about the elections and DonaldTrump and politics and conservatism and liberalism,
etc. Hugely popular. Now there'snot many books that are selling well on
(29:33):
that topic. After the elections inthe fall, we'll probably see a resurgence
of books on that topic. Soum, you know, you basically look
at what's in the news and that'sreplicated in book publishing in a probably in
a more focused way. I'll tellyou what I think the hot topic this
is. This is going to beyour next bestseller book. Find an expert
(29:53):
to write on this. But howwe have weaponized business. We're literally using
busines this now as a weapon.And what you're seeing the West, how
they're reacting to Russia. That's interesting, right, We're weaponizing business, So
who knows where that's going to leadus in the future. That sounds like
a good book to me, definitely. I hadn't thought of that one.
(30:14):
Scott so this afternoon, I'll startlooking for a month and on that one.
But I agree that that would bean interesting read. Yeah, I've
blogged on it just because we followedthe business trends with our daily show,
so we've talked about it. We'vehad cybersecurity experts on But to me,
that's a topic that I'm interested in. Someone who owns a business, I'm
interested in, you know, amI secure? Is my business secure?
(30:36):
Because it really is a new warthat we're fighting. You got time to
stick around for one more segment.Let's do it all right. We're talking
with Tom Franleen again. He's theCEO of Franlein Publishing. His website fling
Publishing dot com. You see itright there and go on on this next
segment. I want to ask you, Tom, just to get you ready
to have this commercial break. We'regoing to dive into some other books that
(31:00):
Tom is right now has available andyou are watching Create, Build, and
Manage. We've been visiting this towerwith Tom Triling and Frylene Publishing, and
(31:27):
Tom, I want to get intosome other books that you have available right
now. I feel like you knowcousins to the other authors you work with,
So we are on your website.Here, let's take a look at
some of these other titles you haveand kind of give me a quick overview.
If Jesus gives a ted talk,that sounds interesting. Yeah, that's
a terrific book. It's actually oneof our one of our better selling books
(31:49):
over the last I think it waspublished maybe six months ago by Charles Stone.
It's a very well written book.And if if you know you're a
public speaker, experienced or maybe notexperienced, it's basically a deep dive is
to how to be a persuasive publicspeaker using some of the principles that Jesus
used as a public speaker himself.So it's interesting both for a from a
(32:15):
public speaking perspective but also from aspiritual perspective. What are some other books
you got at right now? Sobrand new book you're showing it right now.
Choosing Resilience by Tyranne Jackson. Thebook released gosh, maybe a week
ago, maybe two weeks ago.It's really an extraordinary story, a heartfelt
(32:36):
story. Tyranne's story of both theloss of his wife in a tragic accident
and the amputation of his leg.And Tyranne is a CEO in Atlanta and
the book. Basically, in thebook, he shares his story but then
offers really some very inspirational, motivationalwords for any of us who have experienced
(32:59):
any kind of tragedy, trauma,or or you know, trying to overcome
up a big challenge in our lives. So, um, love the book,
love the author, and I thinkit's going to be a strong seller
for us. That's awesome. That'sawesome. And and all these books,
of course, you can get themon Amazon, you can get them wherever
books are sold. Um, canyou buy them from from your website as
(33:20):
well? Um, you know,you can go to our website and but
we link you right over to Amazon. So the most efficient way to buy
and sell books. Um, wehave we've found over the years that that's
where people want to buy their books. Sure, rather than rather than fight
them, you join them. Soum, but that's uh, yeah,
all of our books, if yougo to the website, are essentially for
(33:43):
sale on Amazon, and that's whereit links you over too. Sure,
well, you can go to thewebsite Frilene Publishing dot com just to see
what books are out there and uh, and what you're available. They're all
interesting books. You have a lotof faith based books, um, not
all faith based, but you certainlythat's that's one of your sweet spots,
working in the faith based category.But it's all inspirational books. And you
(34:07):
don't get a lot of fiction books, do you do you you publish any
fiction books. We've done some fiction, UM, I would I would say
it's not a core specialty um ofours as a publishing house, and even
mine in my experience, I've certainlypublished some fiction, but a lot more
nonfiction than fiction. You know.Our our core competence competencies really tend to
(34:29):
be books that are either in faithbased genres, business leadership, entrepreneurship,
also a bunch of stuff on healthand wellness as a strength of ours,
um. But we do we dodabble in fiction. If we find a
particular title we feel is um youknow, is really high quality and good
and might find an audience, youknow, then we'll do that, um.
(34:52):
But it's certainly not a first choicefor us. A first choice for
us really is my sweet spot arethe books that I really get excited about
or those that inspire motivate people,books that talk about leadership and how to
be a better leader in your industryor in your field, and as an
(35:14):
entrepreneur, as a business person myself. You know, that's um, they'll
get really excited about about books inthat genre. Yeah, are you going
to write your next best sling authoryourself? Are you going to write a
book? Oh? Gosh, it'sso much work, as you know,
I don't know if I'm up forit again. It's been years since I've
written my home book rum and Um. Right now it's not on the priority
(35:37):
list, so it'll probably get thereagain soon. I think about it,
you know, frequently, but Ihaven't even written the first word of the
next book, so I don't knowwhen else going to happen. What what's
the average time you find for firsttime authors? How long do they take?
I'm sort of judging my own timelinewith with the normal to see if
(35:57):
I was normal or not? Yeah, I was six months? Is about?
Is about typical? Um? Butyou know it varies a lot.
There's some are real fast writers,some are real slow. You know,
it took JK. Rowling ten yearsto write the first Harry Potter books,
So um, there's no really,there's no rule of thumb on that,
you know, but I would sayfor us, it's probably around six months
(36:20):
maybe nine months getting j end SoI wrote mine in thirteen weeks, so
I would see them the competitive natureto me, right, Yeah, that's
really fun. That's faster than normal. Yeah. So Tom, let's talk
about because someone's watching this, sothat you piqued their interest, no doubt,
and so they want to find outmore information. Let's walk through what
is that process for you? Whensomeone reaches out and contacts you, rather
(36:44):
you know, via email or yourwebsite or they call you, what what
sort of process do you take themthrough to see if they qualify, to
see if it's somebody that you wouldwant to to go forward with. Yeah,
that's a that's a great question.Um. The process US is informal
and casual, but essentially we begina series of conversations UM and talk to
(37:06):
the author about UM. First ofall, why do they want to write
a book? You know, whatare there, what's their real desire,
what's in their heart? Why dothey want to do it? Um?
And then and then talk about expectations, what their expectations are, UM through
the process and of course at theend of the process, UM and UM,
(37:27):
we want to make sure aligned inthose areas and make sure we're you
know, essentially on the same basein terms of not just the process,
but what their expectation is, youknow, after the book is published um
so um, and then obviously talkingabout what do they want to write about
and some of a very clear ideaum, and some don't. Some are
still kind of developing that which isfinal soo UM. We prefer to be
(37:49):
involved as early on in the processesas possible because we feel like we can
add value um and give some somefeedback that's going to make a big difference.
So I would say typically we arelooking for authors who want our feedback
and have a listening ear and wantto lean on us to help them guide
them through the process. And youknow, our goal is to publish the
(38:12):
best book possible, so always lookingfor authors who are are wanting to and
willing to listen to the advice andcouncil that we give them as we dive
into the project. So essentially theprocess is a series of conversations, and
we want to be aligned. Wewant them to be as comfortable with us
as we are with them. Publishingis as it's all about relationship, and
(38:37):
we're interested in long term relationship,not short term. So we want to
work with you know, those authorswho feel great about us and you know,
feel like it's a good fit.So it's publishing is a two way
street, it's not a one waystreet. So we're looking for authors that
you know agree with that also andunderstand that, Tom Priling, And again
(38:57):
its website we've been showing you isPriling Publishing dot com. That's where you
can go and look at that schedulea free consultation. It's that easy.
Just click the schedule now right thereon the website. Tom. As always,
I appreciate your time. I knowyou're busy and you got you got
books to read and books to selland future authors to talk to. So
we appreciate your hour with us tonight. Thanks a lot of scottis right to
(39:20):
be on the show again. Proudof your publishers. Well, I'm proud
to be working with you as well. It's Tom Frainle and again at Frlein
Publishing. I'm Scott Miller. Untilnext time. How long everybody
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