Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this week’s episode I interview marketing and PR specialist, and the owner of Talk Plus Tell, Lyda McLallen. Some topics we discuss include:
- Lyda’s number one strategy for increasing book sales.
- Why saying “Buy my book” might be costing you sales.
- Lyda’s advice for sourcing testimonials for your books.
- Why you don’t need the label of “bestselling author” to be a bestselling author.
- How to, and why you should, romanticise your writing life!
If you’re looking at selling more books while enjoying the process, then this episode will share the practical steps and mindset shifts needed to do both.
Visit the Talk Plus Tell website here: https://talkplustell.com/
Grab your FREE copy of The Ultimate Author Checklist here: https://talkplustell.com/ultimate-author-checklist/
Follow Lyda on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/talkplustell/
Follow Lyda on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/talkplustell
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Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 86: Marketing with Testimonials & Romanticising Your Writing Life with Lyda McLallen
Jo: Hello, my friend, welcome to Episode 86 of Alchemy for Authors: Marketing with Testimonials and Romanticising Your Writing Life. I’m hoping you had a wonderful week. Thank you so much to all the people who reached out to me after Episode 85 dropped: A Permission Slip to Write. It’s obvious that it resonated with a lot of you. I heard from a lot of you via messages and Instagram and Facebook and emails and Buy Me a Coffee as well. So thank you so much.
Just a couple of messages that I wanted to share that I received that really just made my day.
I had one from Bets who wrote: “Jo, this episode was incredibly timely. I attended a wonderful writer’s retreat at the beginning of June and haven’t written a word since I’ve been back. I can give you a mile long list of reasons, excuses, but I think burnout tops them all. Anyway, thank you again for giving a voice to what I’ve been experiencing.”
It always means so much to me, not only to hear from people who listen to the show, but also that the topics of conversation hit the mark. Sometimes all we really need is just to hear that we’re not alone with what we’re going through, that the things we’re experiencing, in this example, not writing or avoiding writing, are normal and there are ways through it. So thank you so much, Bets, for sharing that message and for buying me coffees.
I had a wonderful email too, from Emma who wrote: “Hi Jo, just a quick thank you to say how much I love the podcast. You had me Googling candlelit concerts after listening to the solo episode, and I’m planning a love in with my books for the next new moon. And I’m writing myself that permission slip for some creative rest after a crazy few months.”
And that just makes me so happy that you are doing that, Emma, like making that time for creative rest is so, so important. And so I hope that as this goes live, you are feeling rested up and loving on your books again.
Also, I am still buzzing from the candlelight concert that I talked about in Episode 85. I have taken lots of notes about the experience that I’m sure are going to make it into future pieces of writing and stories and whatnot. And I really am encouraging, if not a candlelight concert like I went to, that you do go out and kind of explore your local area for these hidden gems of things that might just be the spark that you need for refilling that creative well and inspiring your writing even further.
So again, thank you so much to all the people that did reach out to me. There were quite a few of you. I don’t have right this moment access to all the messages and that, but just know that it really does make my day and makes me so thrilled that this podcast is reaching people and helping people, or at least helping to make people feel a little less alone on this crazy, wonderful journey that is the writing life.
In today’s episode, I’m talking to a wonderful guest. I’m always talking to wonderful guests. But today I’m chatting with Lyda McLallen. And Lyda touched on a subject that I really love, which is romanticising your writing life. And I really hope you pay attention to what she has to say about that. I think it is amazing. I’ve talked about it or something similar once or twice before on this show, but I really think that it goes beautifully hand in hand, also with the creative rest that Emma mentioned and the concept of taking yourself on artist dates that I talked about in the last episode.
Some of the other things that Lyda and I are going to be talking about today: we’re going to be talking about marketing and PR for your books. Why saying “Buy my book” might be actually costing you sales. Lyda is also going to share her number one strategy for increasing book sales consistently. Her advice for sourcing testimonials for your book and why you don’t actually need that label of being a bestselling author to be a bestselling author. So it is a really fun episode that I hope you really enjoy.
So when you are ready, grab a drink, find a chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Hello my lovelies, welcome to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. Today I am talking with Lyda McLallen, the dynamic owner of Talk Plus Tell, a book publishing company and renowned hub for authors looking to bring their stories to life. Lyda and her team are on a mission to empower individuals to craft books that readers fall in love with. With over seven years of ownership, Talk Plus Tell has guided more than 200 authors through publishing and promoting their books. What sets Talk Plus Tell apart is its unique approach. It champions self-publishing, allowing authors to retain full ownership of their creations without taking loyalties.
Lyda’s passion lies in turning writers into authors, tailoring her support to meet individual needs. She’s committed to seeing authors succeed beyond publishing, helping them to get their books into indie shops in vibrant cities like New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Vancouver, and Toronto, as well as major chains like Indigo and Barnes & Noble. Her authors have also gained viral attention across social media and PR platforms, appearing in notable publications such as HuffPost, Vogue, Forbes, CBC, and more.
But it is not just about business for Lyda and her team. They become friends with their authors, offering support and guidance through every stage of the publishing journey. With Talk Plus Tell, authors find not just a service provider, but a trusted partner dedicated to their success.
fSo welcome to the show, Lyda. It’s exciting to have you here. Thank you for joining me.
Lyda: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here as well.
Jo: So I was hoping we could start as we always do on the show, with you just sharing a little bit about who you are, and how you came to create your business Talk Plus Tell, to help authors self-publish their books.
Lyda: Yeah. So I’m the founder and owner of Talk Plus Tell. I’ve had it for eight years now, which is crazy and amazing, and I absolutely love it. We’ve helped over 200 authors publish and market and promote their book, everything. And the reason why I started is I actually… like my first job out of university was my dream job working in book publishing. And I loved it. It was the dream, but I left it. And I left it because I wanted to learn something outside of publishing, ‘cause I could see where my path was going to go in that career. And I wanted to learn about, I want to go into different corporations and grow, do the kind of ladder approach and climb corporate career. But I wanted to learn what they did for marketing, what they did for PR, and how other industries used marketing strategies to help promote different products, and then take that knowledge back and start my own company. And that’s exactly what I did. And I was so fortunate that authors kept on following my path while I was in corporate. So it was such an easy process to make the switch and I’m always so thankful for it. But yeah, we’ve helped our authors get onto major publications, like from Vogue, CBC, Forbes, Huffington Post, everything, and helped them become bestsellers and win tons of awards. So I’ve always been really fortunate working with incredible authors.
Jo: Yay. That’s amazing. That’s really cool. I love hearing that you had that book publishing, or worked for a book publisher and then went out to just experience that PR and marketing in other industries so that you can bring it all in and hone those skills. So that’s really exciting.
Lyda: And it’s interesting because like, I find a lot of publishing, like, it’s like such a little mysterious little bubble sometimes. And a lot of the things that the publishing industry does, it does the same thing that it’s done in the eighties and nineties. A lot of things have not changed. Like press releases, they don’t work anymore. And like most industries don’t use the same strategies that you see within the book publishing industry. So I really wanted to bring in new elements.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, that’s really cool. And I saw on your website that you, well Talk Plus Tell really offers a whole range of services for self-publishing and for authors. Can you talk about what some of those services are? Like what you do for people?
Lyda: Yeah. So we do more, a lot of a la carte. So we do packages a la carte, like we help. And no matter where you are in your book, we’ll help you with your book. Like we have traditionally published authors to self-published authors come to us for marketing and PR. And then we have people that have a manuscript and want to see like a great cover and great editing and then do the PR marketing themselves. So we do everything from A to Z. From doing your cover design to the typeset, all the editing from structural grammar and proofreading.
So a structural edit, I’m not sure if your readers know, but it’s more of like the plot. And if your book’s nonfiction or fiction, you do want to look at a structural edit. I really do encourage it because it does make your book absolutely incredible. It’s already incredible, but we always have blinders on to our own work. It’s like writing your own bio. I can’t write my own bio. I have to have somebody on my team write it for me because I just have blinders on my own life sometimes maybe. So it’s the same thing with the structural edit.
And then we do all the promotion. And our promotion and marketing PR’s always unique to the author and their book, especially. It’s never the same marketing for all of our authors. Of course, strategies can be the same, but how they’re delivered is different.
Jo: Yeah, that’s great. And I know so many authors out there have real hangups around marketing their work. And I think part of that is that fear that, you know, like we write a book and we go into, like, we want to publish it because we want other people’s eyes on it and we want to share it with the world. But there can also be the other side that we also don’t want people’s eyes on it because it’s daunting. It’s being vulnerable and putting something we’ve created out there in the world. So what are some of the struggles that you see a lot of authors have when they come to you around PR and marketing, whether it’s the like actual struggles with what to do or mindset struggles?
Lyda: I think it’s always a mixture of both. I think like, I always give like the strong mindset and that’s what they, a lot of people hire me for, ‘cause I filter it for you. I don’t get, I’ve never faced any negativity with our outreach or anything like that for authors. But it’s also like, of course, you’re going to get no’s. Like, you’re going to get a no from JK Rowling if you’re going to ask her for a testimonial. But like a good conversion rate that we get is around 20 to 10%. So if you reach out to a hundred people, like aim for 10 to 20 percent conversion rate. And that’s good. Of course, you might want everybody to have it, but it’s just not going to be the case.
But I think the things that are daunting, to kind of go back into that, I don’t know if anybody, has watched the Bear. I can’t finish it ‘cause it gives me too much anxiety with all the toxicness, but I’m thinking about it in the sense of like, you’re a creative, you’re an author, but so are chefs and so are actresses and artists. And you are in that same bubble as them and that it’s so hard to put your baby, your mind, something that’s so vulnerable out there to be criticized. And people criticize it, and that’s the scary part of it. And I think, like with authors too, if somebody does criticize your work, they’re not your target audience and that’s okay. They’re just not.
If we look at a book that I recently read, which is called Bunny by Mona, it’s such a great piece of fiction, lit fiction. It’s really great. And I loved the writing, but like, it wasn’t a story that I liked, but I’m not going to, I would never write a negative review just because I didn’t like the story. It’s just that it was like a very, like, there’s no happy ending and I wanted a happy ending. So when you think about those things, yes, you’re putting your heart on the table, but sometimes it’s not necessarily criticism towards your writing, it’s just that they weren’t your target audience potentially. Like, not everybody wants to read a book, like not everybody probably likes Lord of the Rings. I don’t know who they are, but it’s there. So you have to think of it like that.
If somebody gives you a negative comment, they’re either not your target audience or they’re jealous. And that’s like the very sad case around authors is that we’ve always, I always warn our authors, if you get a bad review, they’re not your target audience, or there’s somebody that you know that’s jealous unfortunately. And majority of, we don’t usually get negative reviews if ever, but when we do, it’s usually somebody that’s in their writing circle or somebody that’s jealous. And that’s the unfortunate case on that. And my recommendation of, like, you can’t change that person or anything like that, but you can change your mindset around it. And instead of feeling jaded and angry and upset over it, give them compassion and show them that that’s not how it’s done. And supporting other authors, the more you support other people, the more you’re going to attract that back into your life. That person that wrote you that negative review, they’re going to attract the same negativity, and they’re just, they’re not your target audience.
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. I agree with all of that. And I think like, I love your perspective with support other authors and then that is what you tend to attract. And I’ve had that too. I’ve been really lucky in that, majority of feedback or reviews or anything, whether it’s for the podcast or my books and that, is like 99 percent positive. So I’m really happy with that. And then the people who maybe don’t like my book so much, it really is just simply that it’s not for them. It’s just not their cup of tea. So, yeah.
Lyda: Like if you look at the authors like Joe Abercrombie and like Liv Grossman, so Joe Abercrombie basically founded the genre Grimdark, which is exactly what it is. It’s grim and it’s dark. There is no happy ending. It is extreme grim. It’s like, it’s more grim than Game of Thrones. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea. So like, if they’re right in ………. they probably just don’t like grimdark. It has nothing to do with his fantasy building, his wordplay. It’s just that it wasn’t their cup of tea.
And same with Liv Grossman, who got his own TV show called The Magicians. I think he got The Magicians maybe close to a decade after the book was published. Like it, it wasn’t big until like maybe five or six years after the book was published. It was huge. And it’s just not for everybody, ‘cause it’s more adult. There’s more of like crude language, things like that. And it’s just, it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that your book’s not going to do well because both of those books did. Both those authors are extremely successful.
Jo: Absolutely. There’s an audience for pretty much everything you just need to find that audience and tap into it. So, yeah, yeah. How do you, um, cause I’m sure you have come across this because I don’t know an author who hasn’t experienced this, but how do you help authors move through that fear? Because although we can do that self-talk of knowing, well, you know, we’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, not everyone’s going to love our books, but sometimes we can also get really stuck in the process, whether it’s the writing of the book or the editing of the book or pressing publish, with like getting stuck in moving forward because of that fear and anxiety around what others are going to think or, yeah. How would you… what would you recommend authors do to help move through that?
Lyda: Well, no matter what, it’s hard when you have fear, and you have to like, think about what is fear. Fear is something that is the unknown. You’re fearful of something that has not happened and might not ever happen. So if you’re fearful of publishing, it’s really coming from you’re fearful of people’s like their reviews of it, not working out, but that hasn’t happened at all. So you’re fearful of something that’s unknown and not true. ‘Cause the fear is technically untrue because it has not happened. And you have to remember that part is that like, no matter what, we are fearful of the unknown because we can’t control it yet. But, what I suggest doing, and like, we can, you can do this while you’re listening to the podcast, is take a piece of paper, any paper, can be a scrap, a piece of paper, and you just draw like a big triangle. And inside the triangle, put down everything that you can control. You can control clicking the button called published. You can control doing the SEO for the back end of your books. Like what keywords there are, where you do the research of like what people are searching for. You can control hiring a great editor and making sure that you’re doing, they’re doing their due diligence with you. You can control having a great cover that you like, and you know, your target readers. You can control being active on social media, posting. Like all the things that you can control. And then outside of it, put down what you can’t control. And like, you can’t control people finding your Instagram, that’s up to the Instagram gods, like you just can’t. You can’t control people’s opinions. And that kind of separates it. Because you can put your best foot forward and those are all the things that you can control.
Jo: Yeah. I love that. I think that’s really, really good advice. Thank you. I love that you shared that. That’s great. So when people come to you, and I’m kind of like honing in here on the marketing and PR, because it’s such a big kind of thing that is like a bugbear for a lot of authors and that. Are there things, like, do you have authors come to you who’ve been trying to get their book out there in the world, and maybe you’re seeing some things that they’re doing that, you know, from experience are not really going to get them going to where they want to go, or are kind of, yeah, aren’t really going to work? Like, is there marketing strategies that authors do that really just don’t have a good return?
Lyda: Yeah, I think the biggest strategy, like the biggest thing I see a lot of authors do, and this is also from my time working in book publishing and going into big like events and everything too, and what I see is warning signs as well, is if you sound too salesy. Like, don’t say “Buy my book. It’s a great book”. You hold out your book. Like we always see those on Facebook groups. “Buy my book.” Nobody’s going to buy your book. It’s just not going to happen. You have to really, like, you have to begin with the value. So forget the book. Just forget your book for a second, even if it’s fiction or nonfiction, like focus on the value and lead with that.
So for example, I was just talking to one of my authors before our interview today, and they have a sci fi book and it is like really cool. It’s a YA book. And how I’m going to describe it is that it looks at the question of what if earth is trapped in a prison and we’re secretly being monitored by an alien race? So maybe start with that because then it creates intrigue. What is this book? And then you can go through it afterwards, but give the hook and the intrigue and the value first, lead with that. And don’t even say “Buy my book”, just do that and create and put your cover on there or something like that, but lead with the value don’t lead with the sale.
Jo: Yes. I like that. I like that. And I find too, that I think the people whose books, um, unless I kind of know the author and I’m just like love them as a person, then I will buy their books. But it’s also the people who kind of lead with story, whether it’s like the background of what their actual book is about, or just a personal story that kind of leads into what inspired them for their book, or yeah. What led them to write it or something like that. I find that always grabs me as well.
Lyda: Yeah. And that helps too. And I think another one that’s a good example, have you heard of The Discovery of Witches? It’s a TV show now, it’s the book. So when they first did their marketing, how they did their marketing, they did not talk about Discovery of Witches. They said like, if you like Harry Potter for adults, this book is for you. So it’s like already leading you, the reader, if you like this, you will like this. And think about how you recommend a book to a friend. I wouldn’t say like, you should read this book by Dolly Alderton cause it’s right in front of me. You would actually lead like, I read this book. It did this for me, like, it was just so good. And share it like that. Like there’s so many examples of that, but think about you as the reader, not the author all of a sudden.
Jo: Yes, absolutely. And I find talking about the emotions too. I was listening to actually a group of teenagers yesterday talk about their favourite books and TV shows and that. And it was always like, “Oh my gosh, have you read this book?” “Oh, it made me absolutely cry at the end.” “I fell in love with the, like the hero in the book. Oh my gosh.” You know, so it’s all about the emotion, like, Oh, it made me so happy or like.
Lyda: Exactly. Everybody has a fictional boyfriend. So maybe talk about the fictional boyfriend there. I guess like the same with like A Court of Thorn and Roses, the ACOTAR that’s going around. They don’t talk about read ACOTAR. They talk about all the emotions and all the things you’re going to feel while reading this book. Cause it’s also a fantastic book. If no one’s read it, please do.
Jo: I haven’t read it. I haven’t read it, but I see it everywhere. And you’re absolutely right. So that’s the thing too, is when people legitimately talk about a book or something that they enjoyed and they don’t even have to say what the plot is. Like I actually have no idea what the book is about or anything, but I just know that people get so excited and go, Oh my gosh, it’s the best book ever. I love it. And that’s what sells it.
Lyda: And yeah, I think like how it started with that book too, is that they did do like, there is a formula to use when you’re writing descriptions and it does start with the hook, the pain, the gain, and kind of leaving the mystery. And there’s a specific formula. We see that with Red Rising book. We see that with Hunger Games, ACOTAR. All books that are fiction and nonfiction follow the same thing. And we do the same thing for our authors as well. And that’s how ACOTAR really rose. But also, one of their main hooks they were doing was just like they were really going after like young females that love fairy romance. Cause there was at the time it was a very, very small niche of females and they captured that small niche specifically. And then it just went boom.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s something that a lot of people need to be aware of too, is I know sometimes people get a little bit fearful that they’ve chosen such a small niche to write in, that maybe no one will read their book. But there’s always like, it is going to appeal. There is going to be an audience. It’s finding the audience. But then, you know, if you’ve written a good book, if it’s appealing to people and people are talking about it, it’s going to appeal to a wider audience and maybe not be quite so niche as you thought it was going to be too.
Lyda: And that’s how Game of Thrones started too, they did with like the D & D Dungeon and Dragons groups, like a lot of Subreddits, like a very masculine group of males. And then it took like a long time, because those are really big books to read. But I mean, look at where it is now.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, things can sometimes just build momentum and then, yeah, your audience just increases. Absolutely.
Lyda: Because those become the super fans. And when you like a book a lot, you want everybody to read it. I’m like, I tell my friends, I’m not talking to you until you finish this book.
Jo: Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, I love that. So then when it comes to book marketing, you’d mentioned in your email to me that there is a book marketing strategy that you can use to get daily sales, daily book sales and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what’s at least one strategy that my listeners can take away to try and put into action?
Lyda: Yeah. The one strategy I give all authors, if they have no budget and they need to do it themselves is it, it does take the longest time at first, but you can’t, you will get daily sales from it, and that is testimonials. And that’s like testimonials, we overthink it a bit too. But if you look at every traditionally published book, they launched and they have testimonials under their realm. We, for one of our books, like, I don’t know if it’s on camera, but for one of our books, Crystal Robinson, Finding Myself, we ended up getting a testimonial from Jack Cranfield, who’s the co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul. That gave us so many sales, like it was incredible. So if you can think of like that one sale, like that one testimonial can mean so many book sales.
And what you do with that testimonial is you use it to get more testimonials. So what happens is then those people that provide the testimonials will share the book to their audiences, which will produce more sales for you. And then you can also run ads around those testimonials where you say like this, just like a three worded, um, like three words in the ad are very small about your book, about like as social proof and run ads around that, and that can help you produce daily sales, specifically those ads.
Jo: I like that. So it’s a little different than having ARC readers who leave reviews pretty much as soon as your books go live and that. So how do people go about getting testimonials?
Lyda: You have to ask the author. So what I do is I follow them on social media or like sometimes I already know who they are and like they’ve known me for a bit too. But it’s just asking them. But say, like mentioned, don’t just do like a random email, like with 500 words in there, just do like an email with 50 words, like, Hey, I really loved your book on this. Like the, like it actually inspired me to be a writer. My book is on one sentence or two sentences, not anything more. Nobody wants to read an email with 3000 paragraphs in it. And then like, if you’d like, I’d love to send you more information and I’d be happy, I would love a testimony from you. Then if they say yes, that’s when you give them the long email, not beforehand.
Jo: Wonderful. I like that. I like that. I know a lot of people who use testimonials. I’d never actually contemplated doing it myself. So really like step one would be starting to compile a list of authors whom you think write in a similar genre or something like that, that you could potentially contact.
Lyda: Exactly. Like for this book, her, this is her memoir. She’s a retired basketball player from the Liberties, Crystal Robinson, Finding Myself. And it was about the challenges that she faced. And it’s very similar to like the book called Educated, um, very similar to like Glass Castle, like things like that. So we targeted those authors, but we also targeted people that spoke about overcoming big struggles but not necessarily authors. So you can do the same thing. It doesn’t have to necessarily be people within the book publishing industry, it could be outside as well. And we see this tactic, actually, in a lot of products, and you probably see influencers trying on new makeup. Those are technically testimonials. And then that makeup brand uses that and promotes ads around it forever. And that’s the same, you’re using the same concept that a lot of brands outside of publishing already use.
Jo: Oh, I like that. I like that. I think you’re the first person who’s come on who specifically talked about testimonials.
Lyda: I feel like the publish industry just doesn’t share it. But I’m like, if you look at any book that was just published, like this one, I think is a new one. It just has testimonials everywhere all throughout the whole book. So it’s there. They can be hard to get at first, but once you get a few, it just becomes like, it just snowballs after.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that because I know like for myself and for a lot of other authors I talk to, we have like Beta readers and ARC readers and things like that. Like I usually send my books out to an ARC team who will be ready to write reviews for me as soon as it goes live. But yeah, but I hadn’t specifically sort testimonials. And I think maybe part of that is because I still think of myself as a bit of a baby author with you know, still single digits of books out there that there’s a little bit of that. Um, yeah, I guess a little bit of that imposter syndrome still sneaks in with who am I to reach out to this person to read my book.
Lyda: And that’s fair. And you don’t need to reach out to somebody that’s famous. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Yeah, we’ve had authors want to reach out to Oprah. I did get a hold of Gail once for one of her books. I hunted her down. That was also like, I’m representing you. It’s a bit different, but I think, like, think of it as a ladder effect. If you want to get like somebody like I don’t know. I can’t think. Like if you want to get Liv Grossman who wrote Magicians for example, don’t reach out to him first. Look at who he provided testimonials to, who did they provide testimonials to, and then work your way up.
Jo: Nice. Oh, I like that. That’s great. Yeah. I love that.
Lyda: Or like, think about where you want to be in two years, one year and reach out to those people. So think of like, if you’re just starting out and it’s your first book ever published, maybe reach out to people that have maybe a hundred to 500 Amazon reviews. Not lik,e they’re not New York Times bestsellers, but they’re on the same path, they’re on a path of where you want to be in a year or two years.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, I love it. This is just, this is just golden to me. This is amazing. Yeah. Like I said, you’re the first person that’s actually talked about it in this way. So that’s cool.
Lyda: Yeah. Yeah. It’s the easiest marketing tactic to do. I think if you have 10 hours a week or even five hours a week, just do it, just spend it doing that.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yay. You had also talked about in I think your email and that to me, the psychology behind bestselling books and why that term, um, bestselling might not be the best one to use, how it might be working against you. Can you talk a little bit about that? Cause so many people are like, I want to be a bestselling author. And yeah.
Lyda: It’s like, I mean, I don’t know if it’s controversial. I don’t think it’s super controversial, but I think it’s like for my authors, all of them are going to be Amazon bestsellers, but I don’t really care. ‘Cause they could, that means that they might’ve sold one book. It doesn’t really matter. A lot of the bestsellers that we see today, a lot of them are bought to become bestsellers. So it doesn’t have the same credibility that it used to. Or if you tell a bunch of readers, I’m an Amazon bestseller, readers are smart. They don’t really care anymore about that term. And that’s what I mean by it, is that like, to say you’re a bestseller, it doesn’t have the same type of meaning. New York Times bestseller, Today Show bestseller does. In some genres, not all of them though, because people do buy their way into it.
And what I mean by the psychology around that is that it’s just more of the readers are smarter because they know that, like a lot of publishers have gamed the system where it doesn’t mean that you’ve sold a lot of books. It just means that maybe your company bought the books, which made you a New York Times bestseller. It doesn’t mean readers actually bought the book. And then in terms of like how, like, the psychology a bit about that to go a bit deeper is that in North America, you are allowed to discount books. So when bookstores and retailers discount the book, it comes off of their profit margin, not the authors in most cases, I’m sure. So what that means is that they will discount books to prep it to become a bestseller. So like a lot of times it’s a bit, it’s like subtly controlled. Whereas if you go to Europe, and maybe I’m not sure about New Zealand, I know in Europe, in most of Europe, there’s actually rules where you cannot discount books. They have their set price. They will never be discounted. And that makes it more of a fair playing ground for books to rise towards bestseller status. So bestseller status does mean more in some countries, but compared to North America. And that’s because of the controlling of how books are discounted. ‘Cause as the author you don’t have control of it. Publishers don’t have control of it. It is the retailer in most cases that do.
Jo: Yeah. And I find that has really changed over the last few years as well, too, with more and more people self-publishing or indie authors and that going direct, so selling through Shopify and that. So there’s a lot of authors out there who are killing it on Shopify, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean it looks like they’ve got many reviews or they’re a bestseller or anything on Amazon. So, yeah, so it’s not always clear cut that, um, exactly what you’re saying, that unless you specifically for yourself want to have that title of being a bestseller, then yes, there’s multiple ways to game the system. But otherwise like it’s maybe getting really clear on what your why is. Because if it’s to reach a larger audience, or if it’s to make a profit and that, you can do both of those without necessarily having the label of being a bestseller, depending on, yeah.
Lyda: Exactly, and like, if you think of these big authors, we don’t really associate with them with the term bestsellers. It’s just kind of like, you already know, you don’t really need to say it again. It’s just that it’s known. And I think that the bestsellers just doesn’t, it doesn’t mean as much anymore. Like New York Times bestseller, that’s different, especially for fiction. But it’s just, readers just don’t, you know, they do care to an extent because that’s how books can be found, but not necessarily if you are, or if you’re not. And also like, just because there’s a lot of reviews on Amazon, or if there’s no reviews on Amazon, doesn’t mean the book didn’t perform well. Like one of our books, that we got in a testimonial from Margaret Atwood, which is huge, and Conrad Black. Like, it was amazing. We never worked on Amazon. We just went across Canada to all the Chapters, which is Indigo now, which is the same as Barnes & Noble. The Canadian version of it. And we were on the front Heather table, so if you’re Canadian, you know what the Heather table is.
Jo: Yeah, yeah, I absolutely do.
Lyda: Absolutely. So, you know. Yeah. But yeah, so it was like absolutely amazing. And we didn’t focus on Amazon reviews, we focused on bookstores instead. So it worked out really well for that author.
Jo: Yeah, that’s really cool. And I think that’s really important too, for people just to know that there are lots of different options to reach your goals out there and yeah, and it doesn’t mean that you necessarily need the public title of being a bestselling author. You can still make profit and that without that title.
Lyda: Yeah, yeah. The biggest thing for me of like when a campaign’s not doing well. And even for myself, when I see a campaign not doing well, it’s like you have to give it two weeks, just like give it your full energy for two weeks. And things do take longer for a book. Because people have to read it. Testimonials take a bit longer to come in, even though it can produce and will produce daily sales. You have to be patient a bit. And as authors, I’m sure everybody knows that. But the biggest indicator if you’re seeing like your outreach and you’re like, all your marketing is not doing well, it’s probably because your messaging is wrong. And you have to rewrite your messaging and your sales process. Because even though you might not be selling your book, like when I gave the example of don’t just sell buy me on Facebook. Talk about the value. But if nobody’s hitting it, like no one’s getting the value, you have to change it. Then it’s like either the wrong audience you’re targeting or, and it’s the wrong messaging.
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s really important. So I kind of want to change direction a little bit here. Because I saw like, so you’ve got an Instagram account for Talk Plus Tell, and you had a concept on there or I saw you talking about a concept that I’ve talked about once or twice on the show, but I think it’s really cool. And that was romanticising your books or your writing process. Can you please share your perspective on that? And what that means to you? Because I just, I love this idea.
Lyda: Yeah. I think it’s so important. Like it’s just about like, cause I mean, it’s a mindset. It’s a trick as well on your mindset. Because your mind can’t really tell the difference between reality and conscious, like thoughts going into your head. So I romanticise my work all the time and I romanticise like doing work and everything. I also generally love what I do, but it’s also like, I get excited in the morning. ‘Cause I’ll have my coffee or I’ll sometimes go walk my dog and go get a latte and I get excited about it. But that also is tied and attached to work. ‘Cause I get excited to work then. And I like to have a little chocolate or something sweet while I work. And just things that. I genuinely love is like, I just picture myself the night before, ‘cause I just like, Oh, this is going to be such a lovely day. I’m going to have my coffee in the morning with my little biscuit. Or like, if you’re writing, I like to just set the mood for myself. But it’s kind of, it’s like, think of yourself going on a date. When I’m doing something like work for just myself. Like, I don’t like doing Instagram reels for myself. I don’t mind doing it for my authors, but for myself, I’m just like, oh, I have to do this. So I’ll set the mood. I’m like, okay, I’m going to edit today. I’m going to have some nice tea or a glass of wine, or I’m going to do my hair, or something like that. I’ll just set the mood for myself more than anything, if that makes sense.
Jo: Yeah, I really, really love this idea. I really love it. Because I know I’ve kind of used that for myself and I’ve recommended that to my listeners for when you’re making excuses as to why you’re not writing, if that’s specifically around not having enough time. Because we all know that feeling when we first start dating somebody. And it’s not that our schedules change at all or we suddenly gain a whole lot of extra time, but we make time because we are really excited to spend time with that person. Right? So, yeah, so I have talked about that and like, kind of treating your writing like a lover, I guess. In that, yeah, you’re excited to see them. So you kind of put them first and you find time and you just fall in love with the process and yeah.
Lyda: Yeah, exactly. And do it the same time every single day. Just like I start work the same time every day. I wake up the same time. I literally hit the same hour of my morning. It’s exactly the same every day. But like, I inhabit that as a habit, but also make it enjoyable for yourself too. ‘Cause like, can you imagine, how do we picture JK Rowling writing Harry Potter? Even though I’m sure there’s a different reality for it, ‘cause she was a single mom and everything. But like definitely the third book when she’s in Scotland, in Edinburgh, writing at the cool hotel. I definitely think about like, Oh, she’s like, probably like warm by the fire, writing. And think of it like that. Like how a reader would imagine you writing some of their favourite parts.
Jo: Yeah, exactly. Or how we, because I think we all do, like, I still have this, even though, you know, I am an author and it’s not particularly nice to look at my process. It’s pretty ugly. But like I still have in the mind that fantasy of Oh, you know, like being able to roll out of bed, and you’re not having to go to a day job, and you’ve got all the time in the world, and it’s beautiful outside and you’re looking out a window at a beautiful scene, or the sea’s crashing in the background or, and you’re drinking your beverage of choice, and you’re sitting down and inspirations flowing, and yeah, and the words are flowing onto the page and it’s all good. Yeah, I think when we tap in to that kind of fantasy too, of what it would be like in our perfect writing life, we can bring that into our reality as much as possible and act as if.
Lyda: Yeah. ‘Cause if your brain already sees that and you’re tricking your brain into that, it cannot tell that that’s not reality. To them you’re tricking your brain that that is reality and that will be your reality in a funny way.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely love that. So yeah, I just thought that was really cool. I haven’t seen many people talk about romanticising your writing or definitely not in that term, but I love that when I saw that.
Lyda: Yeah. Oh, I’m glad. I’m so glad that you’ve talked about it too. I haven’t seen anybody do that because like, I take it, I do that in my own life. ‘Cause I read a couple of books about, I’m like, Oh, like I could see that. I guess I’m already doing that with my morning coffee and little biscuit. Yeah.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just making the process kind of special in a way and yeah. And I think we’ll get more enjoyment out of that. And when you’re getting more enjoyment out of the process, it makes the whole thing easier. And yeah.
Lyda: Yeah, because like, we all want to jump to like the ending of like winning the lottery, but sometimes like you, it’s the journey part too is also just as rememberable. Not that everybody’s going to win the lottery. That’d be great. It’s kind of like the same thing of like, it’s not like the ending or like that part that you’re trying to aim for won’t be as important unless you enjoy the journey towards it. Or else it’s just whatever day, because how would it hold any significance without the hard work?
Jo: Exactly. Exactly. I personally, I love the process, of writing and that. There are days where it might not seem like I love the process, but yeah, I absolutely do. Yeah. So I’m curious. You’ve had a background working for book publishers and whatnot. You’ve been doing Talk Plus Tell for eight years or so. So you know, your stuff in and out around self-publishing and PR and marketing and that. I’m a curious, have you written a book yourself?
Lyda: I’ve always wanted to, but it’s more of like, I love all the authors that I work with and so I just get distracted. It is on my radar now. It would be a fiction book. Most of what we do, like, I’d say 60, 70 percent nonfiction and like, uh, like it always varies. Like it always varies, but it would be fiction, but it is on my radar. I’m just so happy where I’m at right now with all my authors that I’m like, just, we’re launching so many books this fall that that is like, that is my biggest goal is for my authors, not for myself.
Jo: Yeah. Well, that’s the wonderful, because we need people cheerleading us along too, holding our hand to get these things done. So we need people like you doing that.
Lyda: And it’s hard, like, I think like thinking of writing your book description and your taglines and your hooks. Like when I say with my other authors of like their sci fi fiction, lit, fantasy, romance, nonfiction, writing your bio and your book description is somehow the hardest thing to do on your own. It really is. Like, I can’t write my own bio. I do suggest to work with somebody outside of it, just at least write those ones for you. Because even though you’re going to want to correct them, like, Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t want to do that. And that’s okay. That’s normal. But you do need some outside opinion. You can’t do it all on your own for everything. Definitely like the book description and the bio. Maybe not the bio, but if it’s the bio, if you want PR stories and things like that where you’re talking about yourself and your book as a detail in it, then that’s different. But yeah, writing about yourself and your book description is sometimes harder.
Jo: I personally completely agree with you there. And I know I have this weird hang up too where I’ve been in situations with friends who have read my books and they may be like introducing me to somebody I don’t know. And they’re like, Oh, Jo wrote this book. It was amazing. And then the person will turn to me and go, Oh, so what’s the book about? And I’m like, I don’t know, can you like, and have to turn to my friend and say, can you tell them what it’s about? Because I don’t know how to like summarize it.
Lyda: And you need a two-sentence summary too, when, during this conversation, you can’t just go off on a tangent and be like, my book’s about, well, and then you go off on like a three-paragraph story. You’ve lost them then. You need a two-sentence, no matter what your book’s about, it has to be two-sentences.
Jo: Yeah. So I probably need to do more prep around that, but I do find that I’m like a deer in headlights when it comes to being asked to talk about my book. And I normally have to lean on my friends who’ve read it to say, uh, so can you explain what the book’s about?
Lyda: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. And you know, what I always do is look at other books, what they’ve done. Like my favourite example of this year is Red Rising. ‘Cause I was just using as examples, like I was taking what they wrote for their book and reusing it for my, the books I’ve been working on. Like they just did such a great job of writing that description. And literally it’s the first paragraph. I feel like any book, nonfiction or fiction could follow the same format that Red Rising did for their book description. ‘Cause I’ve also done the same format for all of our books. This one version as well. So I know it for a fact.
Jo: Oh, that’s awesome.
Lyda: Like, let’s see how you can put it, it’s like a puzzle. Think of it as that. So like, how do you… And if you don’t know how to describe your book the other area that you could do is think of two books that are different than yours, but the same, like, it’s like when Harry Potter meets Practical Magic. And it doesn’t have to be books. It could be movies. And just describe your book like that.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I had a friend who also happens to be an author who read my latest book, Hades’s Haunt, and she did that actually in her review that she just left on Amazon or whatnot for me. And she said, it’s like Harry Potter meets Charmed or something like that.
Lyda: Oh, that’s such a good, I would just describe it like that. It has like all the feel good, like energy, from Charmed and the adventures from Harry Potter.
Jo: Yeah. Or Harry Potter meets Ghosts or something. I can’t remember, but it was something like that. And I love that. Like I just love, yeah, when people do that for me. I’m like, yeah, okay. I can see that. I like that.
Lyda: Just use it. I would use it all the time. Yeah. It’s the best way.
Jo: Yeah. Love that. Love that. So, just as we kind of wrap up here, if people are interested in learning more about Talk Plus Tell and the services you offer and working with you and that, how can they reach out to you? Where do they find you?
Lyda: Just on my website, Talk Plus Tell https://talkplustell.com/. And you can just email me at the same Talk Plus Tell. I’m on Instagram. But I also have like a free eBook that I can give people. So I guess I wrote a book, but not, I don’t consider it, but it’s like, it’s a book where you do not need me, where you can get the A to Z, like everything, complete guide from like marketing and PR and just how to publish it. So it’s like, where you would not need me to do it for you, if you want to do it yourself, of course. But it just gives you every single step and like, how to do it yourself as well. Because I think it’s neat, because some people, they want to do it themselves and that’s perfectly fine as well. I think if you’re doing it yourself to publish your book, I think you just want to make sure it’s at the same calibre as traditionally published novels, especially from the cover. ‘Cause people do judge it, and the structural edit. If you don’t, it’s going to be really, really hard to get into stores. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s just going to make it harder.
Jo: Yes, absolutely. So where can they find your book? Is it on your website?
Lyda: I’ll give you a link to it. I’ll give you a link to share with everybody.
Jo: Perfect. And I’ll put that in the show notes. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Lyda. I so appreciate you coming on the show. It has been such a blast chatting with you today.
Lyda: Thank you. I had so much fun. Thank you so much.
Jo: So I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed chatting with Lyda. She is such a lovely person, and I highly recommend you go check out her website if you are looking for more information on self-publishing or marketing your books. So takeaways from today’s episode:
1. Use testimonials as a way of increasing daily sales.
2. If someone criticises your work, they’re not your target audience, and that’s okay.
3. The more you support other people, the more you’ll attract that into your life.
4. When you find yourself being held back by fear, remember that all fear comes from fear of the unknown. Spend time to really get clear on what it is you can and can’t control around the situation, and let go of everything you can’t control.
5. When promoting and marketing your book, remember to focus on value first. Lead with the value, not with the sale.
6. You can be a bestselling author without having the title of being a bestselling author on bookstore platforms.
7. Experiment with using comparisons to popular books or movies as ad copy for your own books.
8. Romanticise your writing life. Enjoy every moment and live your dream.
So there we are, my friend. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today’s episode, or if there’s something that really resonated with you, I would love to hear what it is. You can send me an email at jo@jobuer.com. You could leave me a DM or a message on Instagram or Facebook at @alchemyforauthors. Leaving a review on whatever podcast app you’re listening to this too is always highly appreciated. And of course. If you’re feeling super generous, you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. As I said at the beginning of this show, it really does make my day, my week, my life, really hearing from you and knowing that this podcast is being listened to, resonates with people, and you’re hopefully taking something positive away with you after listening to it.
All the links to connect with either Lyda or myself will be in the show notes and you can also go to my website at https://jobuer.com, click on the tab to alchemy for authors, and you can read the transcript online if you prefer as well.
So on that note, I will leave you to a wonderful writing week ahead. Make sure that you are getting the creative rest in that you need, maybe some creative play, that you’re spending time refilling that creative well, go on an artist date if you can, and consider romanticising your writing life.
So until next time, bye for now.
author mindset, Book Marketing, Romanticising, Self Publishing, Testimonials