Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #104 of The Writing Coach podcast, I speak with veteran publicist, social media pro, and brand manager Dana Kaye.
In 2009, Dana founded Kaye Publicity, Inc., a boutique PR company specializing in publishing and entertainment. Known for her innovative ideas and knowledge of current trends, she coaches her clients on how to identify and establish their unique personal brands.
Kaye is the author of Your Book, Your Brand: The Step-by-Step Guide to Launching Your Book and Boosting Your Sales, and the creator of Branding Outside the Box, where she helps authors and entrepreneurs become more memorable.
During our discussion, Dana describes:
- What exactly is an “author brand” and why is it important?
- How authors can best use podcasts, emails lists, and social media
- The important difference between publicity and marketing
- How booking marketing has changed over the last decade
- The role networking plays in selling books
- And much more!
Click below to listen now:
The Writing Coach Episode #104 Show Notes
Visit Dana’s website:
Listen to Dana’s podcast:
Get your copy of Your Book, Your Brand: The Step-By-Step Guide to Launching Your Book and Boosting Your Sales:
Episode Transcript
Kevin:
Hello beloved listeners and welcome back to The Writing Coach podcast. It is your host as always, writing coach Kevin T. John here.
I have a bunch of my one-on-one clients right now who are zero in on the end of their book. They’re starting to think about things publishing or querying agents and whenever you’re nearing the end of the writing of a book and starting to think about the beginning of the publishing and selling of a book, marketing comes to mind and in fact I have a new book coming out shortly, a children’s picture book, the sequel to my a children’s picture book from a few years ago. The first book was called Rocket Princess versus Snaggletooth the Dragon and the sequel Rocket Princess and the Princess Rocket Squad is coming out shortly and so, of course, I’ve got book marketing on the mind. Some of my clients are starting to think about book marketing and so this was an absolutely perfect time for me to get Dana Kaye on the show.
Dana is a veteran publicist, a social media pro and a brand manager. She founded Kaye publicity in 2009 a boutique PR company that specializes in publishing and entertainment, known for her innovative ideas and knowledge of current trends.
Dana coaches her clients on how to identify and establish their unique personal brands. Kaye’s the author of the book, Your Book, Your Brand: the step by step guide to launching your book and boosting your sales and the creator of Branding Outside of the Box where she helps authors and entrepreneurs become memorable. We have a great discussion on the show today. Dana describes what exactly is an author brand and why it’s important, how authors can best use things like podcasts, email lists, and social media. The important difference between publicity and marketing, how book marketing has changed over the last decade. The role networking plays in selling books and much more. It’s a great conversation. So let’s cut to that interview now.
Today on the podcast I have Dana Kaye. Let the listeners know about who you are and what you have going on in the world of helping authors.
Dana (04:05):
I am a veteran book publicist and brand manager. I’ve had my company for over 11 years now. When I say that I feel really old. I haven’t aged a day. Um, but I, and so much has changed in that time. It’s kind of a crazy, crazy to think about, but I’ve had my book policy company for over 11 years. We help authors identify their unique brands, get their books reviewed, schedule them for interviews, media events, bookstore events, help them with social media, basically everything that it takes to launch their books successfully.
Kevin (04:45):
So for someone who isnt all that familiar with book marketing or with marketing in general, what’s the difference between, say someone who calls himself a marketer or someone who calls himself a publicist, a someone who calls himself a brand manager? What’s kind of the differentiation in that terminology?
Dana (05:01):
That’s such a great question because there is so many misconceptions about marketing versus publicity. And the really straight forward definition is publicity is earned media coverage. It’s other people talking about you and your book. So when your book gets reviewed, if you are featured on someone’s blog or on their social media handles, and if anyone else is talking about you, that’s publicity. Marketing is you talking about you. So it’s you on your social media, it’s you and your email list. It’s advertising, it’s good reads, giveaways. It’s when you control the message. So it’s what I would identify as placed media versus earned media, which is publicity. And so marketing can be paid or unpaid. So if you are, if you have a small list, it’s free to do email marketing. Social media is free, but it can also mean paid placements like paying for an advertising spot or an advertorial.
Dana (06:03):
And so the difference between the two, there’s pros and cons to both and you really need the two to have a successful campaign. So the pros of publicity is that when someone else is talking about your book, it holds more weight, right? There’s more clout there. You’re not, it’s not like, Oh trust me, buy my book. It’s someone else that I recommend or that I know is recommending this book. So it holds a little bit more weight. The downside is that you have zero control over publicity. You have no control over the message. If the reviewer likes your book or doesn’t like your book. If you know we had a an author booked for a TV segment and something happened in the news as apparently it happens every day and her segment got bumped that we had no control over that. And so publicity is so much out of your control, but when you get it, it has a lot more cloud.
Dana (06:56):
Marketing is fully under your control. You control the message, you control when it goes out, how it goes out. But it doesn’t hold as much weight because again, you are controlling the message. So I believe that in order to have a successful book launch, it really takes the two working in tandem. And where does the idea of a author brand come into play in all of that and why does having a brand even matter? It matters in all aspects. So whether we’re talking about a business, a personal brand and author brand, at its core, a brand is who you are. And what you do and it cuts through all the noise. Like I know I talked to so many authors as I’m sure you do, Kevin, and you ask them what their book is about or what they write and they kind of stumble and stutter through that response.
Dana (07:47):
They will say, like I wrote about a book about this guy or something like that and you kind of zone out and it doesn’t really stick. And so understanding and having a clear answer to what are your right. That’s what your author brand is and it sounds really simple, right? I’m telling you it’s who you are and what you write, but it actually takes a little bit of work to really hone in and figure that out. But once you do, it informs everything you do. So when you’re clear on who you are and what you write, you know which media opportunities to say yes to in which to say no to which speaking gigs are worthwhile and which aren’t. You know exactly what you should be posting on social media. It really clarifies all of our decisions. And this is true not just for writers, but if you are a small business owner or a freelancer, it’s having a clear brand and a clear, let’s say mission statement if you will, is really important to everything that you do. It says what clients you take on, which authors you work with, who you don’t work with, how you work with them. It really informs everything. So I view the brand as the foundation for everything else that you do.
Kevin (09:01):
How do you narrow down once you’ve already established a certain niche? So for example, say I’ve written a book on leadership, leadership coaches or leadership experts is still a very big field. Or if I may, romance author, there’s a billion romance authors, right? So how do you work with authors to dig deeper and really find that thing that makes them unique even when they’ve already kind of said, well that’s, that’s my thing. I teach leaders, I write romances.
Dana (09:30):
Yeah. And I think that I actually tell people as much as possible to steer away from a genre because genre gives you a reason to discount that person. So for example, we have, we have an author who, I use her as an example in so many things, uh, because when she came to me, her agent told me, she’s like, she’s a branding nightmare. She writes so many different things and it’s true. She wrote a mystery series. She had a kind of sexy post-apocalyptic trilogy. She had some women’s fiction novels, Rhodes, my AA novels, or she wrote things all over the place. And most writers, at least fiction writers that I know, they, they’re multi-passionate like they have so many different ideas and so many different things that they want to, that they want to identify.
And so the, the, the idea of like, trying to narrow down what she writes is so difficult, but we ended up honing in on a tagline that made a lot of sense. She writes about women doing the impossible to protect their children or mothers, I should say, women, mothers specifically doing the impossible to protect their family in the face of the unthinkable. And that was, that was applied to everything she wrote. And what was so powerful about that is if she were to go up to people and say, I wrote this post apocalyptic trilogy was zombie. It’s like the road was zombies. People would say, Oh, I don’t do zombies. And they would dismiss it out of hand. But as she wrote, I wrote, I write novels about mothers doing the impossible to protect their children and their families in the face of the unthinkable.
Dana (11:13):
That gets people’s attention. Like as readers, I’m an avid reader, I’m sure you are too, Kevin. Like we like characters, we’re really drawn, concepts are great, but what really gets us going when we read novels is character. And so the more you can hone in on the themes of the types of characters you are drawn to, the more you’re going to connect with other people. So the activity I do, and I can give you like broad strokes, broad strokes, how, how to do it, um, is I ha everyone should write down, if you have one book, it’s easy. If you have eight books, this may take some time. Write down the primary theme of your book. So like not just like the concept of theme and then write down any secondary themes.
Dana (11:58):
And then third you write your PR, who your protagonist is and then finally you write the setting. Whereas your book set, I didn’t include genre anywhere in that. And then if you have let’s say eight books like Sophie did you start highlighting all of the patterns. So that’s where we got, okay, women are like seeking justice for their families are all moms are a women of a certain age. Like we started identifying these patterns and that’s where you get to the root and the meat of what you’re passionate about writing. So for like the leadership person, you’re right, I’m a leadership coach and I wrote a leadership book that’s super general, but getting to the core of what you do and like who you serve. And how you serve them and the why behind it is going to make your brand so much more dynamic.
Dana (12:48):
So for example, I used to just introduce myself as like a book publicist. That’s, that’s super, that’s super straightforward. It’s somewhat easy for people to understand, but it doesn’t open it up for conversation. Like there’s no, Oh tell me more from that. And so what I started introduced, I started thinking about, okay, well what do we really do? Like yeah we publicize books. Yeah, we market books. So like what do we really do? And we came down to it. We’re helping our authors become more memorable and making more lasting impressions. So we want, we help our authors have, have names, book titles, brands that jump off the shelf that jump off the page. We want them to be memorable. And so that’s really the core of what we do. And when I started talking about the idea of that we help authors become more memorable, that is what really stuck with people. Like, cause people want to be known, right? You want to be known as the romance author or the leadership coach. And so that was what was really intriguing, not the publicizing the book. It’s the end result that we were delivering on [inaudible].
Kevin (13:55):
I love it. Let’s return for a moment to this idea of marketing where that’s the thing where you talk about yourself. I think for a lot of authors they think that means going on Twitter and saying, buy my book or not even saying buy my book. Just saying I have a book and thinking that’s going to lead to a bunch of books sales. I says that’s not your recommended two approach to using social media. What do you read, think people should be using social media for and how can it be a part of their marketing and branding and publicity work?
Dana (14:24):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean pupil, it’s so funny. When I talk to authors, it’s either one of two things. They think they have nothing interesting to say or they think everything they have to say is just so incredibly interesting. Like it’s very seldom in the middle. So I don’t believe social media sells books, period. People can argue with me all day. I’d happily have this debate, but I don’t believe that social media in and of itself sells books. So if we take that out of the equation, if we take this idea of selling your book out of the equation, it comes back to what social media was made for in the first place. And that’s networking and community building. That was the sole purpose of social networking. It wasn’t social media before because again, I started this company in 2009 so I had a Facebook profile before it was open to the public and because I was in college and I had a Twitter account when Twitter first launched, like this was not social media was social networking.
Dana (15:26):
So if we go back to that, if network, if social media is made, if Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and ticktack and whatever is made for as bait specifically for networking and community building, how does that change your approach? I would argue that it changes who you’re connected with, who you’re engaging with, who you’re following, whose posts you’re commenting on, what you’re sharing with your audience. And I think reframing that alone will put you in better shape than most. So if your goal is to, if you take selling out of the equation and your goal is to engage with readers, that’s going to look a lot different and you’re already ahead of the game. So obviously what you post, how often do you post and the tone you take is going to depend on your audience, your brand, all of those things. But ultimately social media, the purpose is to connect with other people. And so heading into it with that mindset is going to make a world of difference.
Kevin (16:27):
So with this idea in mind of networking being so important, if I said I would think social media is one aspect of building a network, but what are some of the other things that peeve Campbell can do to really build those meaningful connections that can move their careers forward and ultimately sell books?
Dana (16:47):
Oh, this is a big question and I teach a whole course on that. I was, let me think if I can distill this down a bit. So let’s start with the people. Kevin, do you identify as an introvert or an extrovert? Extrovert. Extroverts. So you see, this is why you’re the podcast horse because you get to talk to the dog. And I like the sound of my own voice. No, it’s cause you get energy from engaging with people. There’s other, I myself, I’m an introvert, so like talking to people I I thoroughly enjoy but then I just need an app. And so for people who are more introverted, we can start with social media because it’s not face to face, right? Like it’s not a in real time interaction. And so social media X, actually one of my primary tools for networking lately has been social media.
Dana (17:36):
I am active on Instagram. That’s my platform of choice. And I don’t spend as much time posting. I spend way more, much more time getting into people’s, um, DMS. So I will share, if I listened to their podcasts, I’ll connect with them on Instagram. I’ll send them a message saying how much I love their podcast. If someone signs up for my membership program, I’ll make sure to follow them. I may send them a video message or an audio message welcoming them to the program. I will connect with future pot. I have a podcast of my own branding outside the box and I’ll connect with potential podcast guests, follow them for a little bit. If I feel like they’re a good fit, I’ll DM them and say I’ve been following your Instagram. Think you’d be a great guest on my show mind if I shoot you an email.
Dana (18:23):
And so getting in with people online is a really great way to network. My biggest recommendation for any networking situation is to serve before you sell. So thinking about ways that you can help other people is going to make a far better impression cause you want to leave a positive impression. Then if you immediately jumped to, Hey I have a new book that I think you will like. And so this is that, that’s across the board. So for those of you who are more extroverted and are mobile, let’s say like if you’re able to get out of the house and get around, cause I know it’s a challenge for many. Um, or if you live in a smaller town where there’s not as many networking opportunities. If you get out and go to book events, you go to library, library events, book signings, book festivals, publishing industry, networking events, small business networking events.
Dana (19:19):
I love meeting with people in person. It’s so much easier to make a lasting impression. But again, when you’re talking to people, a lot of people think, okay, how’s this person gonna help me? How’s this person can help me? How’s this person can help me? When in fact they should be thinking the opposite. How can I help this person? What can I do for this person? Because if you serve and you help others, you’re gonna make a far better impression than if you’re always out for something. So when I’m networking with people, I’m listening to what they do, what they’re about, I ask questions, ask a lot of questions. I ask what their challenges are. I ask, you know, what they’re interested in and what they love. And I’m thinking of ways that I could maybe help them in some way. So maybe it’s introducing them to someone else that they should be connected with or sending them a resource that would maybe help in their challenge.
Dana (20:10):
It could also just be like, we ended up talking about a Netflix show that we both like, I could send them like we talked, we really liked, um, I don’t know shit’s Creek and here’s another show I think you will like. And so thinking about ways that you can connect and not sell is the best way to make a lasting impression. So I typically, my networking approach has changed over the years. But I think what I encourage a lot of authors to do if they’re trying to build relationships and build their readership is to first be a good literary citizen. So show up to your local bookstore signings, show up for other authors, events, become a member of writing organizations. So like if you re, if you write mysteries, join mr [inaudible] America or sisters in crime. If you write women’s fiction, join women’s fiction writers of America, um, write romance, hold a beat with RWA, they’re going with some of their, some changes. Um, but maybe I hope that the organization, um, pull through, but there’s tons of organizations that support writers and show that you’re a part of the community. So I think the first step is to be a good literary citizen and serve other people. It will come back to you, but don’t show up with that intention. And if you are, if you’re able, if you’re unable to get out of the house and it’s difficult to meet people in person, then social media is a great way to network with bloggers, booksellers, librarians, and even readers.
Kevin (21:41):
It’s funny that that human centered approach to things is like really what you’re saying. It sounds like you’re recommending people do, it makes me think someone I knew once, like messaged me on Facebook or something, it must’ve been like a script they were working from or something, but they were like, Hey, I think you’re really into exercise. Are you? Here’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay. Not really interested. And then like the next day they were like, Oh my God, I’m so sorry about that. It felt so awkward. I was like, you know, someone had like told them to use the script or something. And I was like, I know you like just talk human being. Why? It’s funny that when people start marketing, they suddenly think they need to become a robot or use a script or whatever. When it’s like human connections are, are really the most valuable tool anyone can have.
Dana (22:31):
Yeah. And you, you need to dig the well before you’re thirsty, right? Like we can smell you. Like we can smell the thirst. And so what I love is when I can tell when someone has a new book coming out because all of a sudden they’re posting on Instagram, like all of a sudden they’re coming out of hibernation. I’m like up, up. I bet he has a new book out. Um, and you want to avoid that. Like you want to be engaging with people all year round. And I think the other piece of this is someone I hear, I talked to a lot of people and they’re like, we need to make this many connections and I need to reach this many people when in fact the less is more. I mean we all, I mean we’re recording this in the evening because our days are so chaotic that this is the time we could do it.
Dana (23:18):
And we were busy, right? Like we’re all really busy. So how is making more connections going to make it easier for you? It’s gonna make it harder. Instead, why don’t you nurture your most important connections, the ones who are going to really make an impact and, and just do those better. So if you are like, I need to reach 10,000 readers, so I need to really focus on boosting my social media and running Facebook ads and dah, dah, dah, dah. Like instead, what if you were to just nurture a really good relationship with the librarian who loves your genre of books and who could potentially like recommend your book to the patrons, have you in for a book club or a book discussion or host an event. What if you were to nurture a relationship with a blogger who would potentially review your book and promote your book? What if you were to nurture one relationship with a fellow author who you could potentially tore together and cross promote and do all of those things that will have exponentially a bigger rate of return than trying to reach individual readers.
Kevin (24:27):
So we’ve talked about social media and we’ve talked about getting out in real life events and attending things. Where does email fit into all of this? Cause we certainly hear a lot of talk about, you know, build your list and nurture your list and all of that. Where do you see email marketing fitting into this whole spectrum of publicity and marketing?
Dana (24:49):
It’s a crucial piece. So I know people are like, Oh, you’re actually saying I must use email marketing and right now, yeah, you kind of have to like, I don’t think, I can’t think of anyone, at least off the top of my head, I’m sure someone will prove me wrong, who should not use email marketing. I think it’s so important for many reasons, namely reasons. I’m sure your other guests have probably covered, you know, you own your list, you don’t have to deal with algorithms, you can control the message, et cetera, et cetera. But I also think that an email marketing plan is a really great way to engage with readers. Readers read like they list some of them listen to podcasts, some of them watch you two videos, but readers read and so and writer’s right. And so what better marketing tool for a writer than to write something for a reader to read.
Dana (25:44):
The way I see email marketing gone wrong is the same idea that you mentioned earlier of sell my book, buy my book, I got a book. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s the same thing that you use as a network. In a networking situation as you’re providing value first and selling second. And the best part is is you don’t actually have to sell anything. If you provide value, you can let people make the connection on their own. So if you are providing, like one of our, a good example is one of our authors writes this historian wrote a historical Gothic horror novel that’s based on a real town in Ohio and she wrote this great behind the scenes look at this town with complete with photos and weird history about this town. It’s really creepy. And just reading about that background makes me want to buy the book.
Dana (26:43):
I don’t even have to know what else the book is about. She can just say, when I was researching my book, it takes place in this town. Here are some of the weird things I discovered that’s providing entertainment. It’s providing information, it’s preying value, and it’s not salesy. And when people come to a conclusion that they want to buy on their own, they’re going to feel way better about that purchase and if it’s shoved down their throat. And so I think that when we think about email marketing for authors, it’s a lot easier for nonfiction authors because you’re you, you’re giving information like you are doing, you know self-help, you’re doing business, you’re doing memoir, you have like factual information to share. For Novelis it’s a little bit trickier to figure out what exactly to write, but I think if you think about what your target reader would be interested in and providing that for your target reader and just thinking, putting the reader first as you write that email, I think it’s a lot easier to come up with ways to provide value.
Dana (27:43):
I think that’s the other thing you hit on earlier, Kevin, about like kind of this idea of like people get on Twitter and stand on a soapbox and shout and I think they sometimes do that with email marketing when in fact like if you were writing an email to somebody, you would never do that. Like if you’re in your Gmail or Hotmail or whatever, I’m writing an email you would never just broadcast, but because it’s MailChimp or active campaign or whatever, they all of a sudden feel like they’re broadcasting. So I always recommend thinking about when you’re writing the email, think about your ideal reader, your typical reader, or maybe it’s a super fan that you actually know sitting across the table from you and direct the email to them. It’s going to feel a lot more personal. It’s going to feel a lot more human and it’s going to land with the recipients a lot better.
Kevin (28:33):
You mentioned off the top near the beginning of the interview, you know you’ve been in business for over a decade and that has a lot, has changed during that time. What are some of the changes that you’ve seen on the publicity and marketing and branding fraud over the last decade and where do you think things are headed?
Dana (28:52):
Gather round. Let me tell you the story of my space.
Kevin:
You did drop in a Hotmail reference there. That’s what got me thinking on the changes here.
Dana (29:04):
We have clients would have hotmail accounts. It happens. Um, I mean yeah, like it can, we didn’t have Gmail, right? We all had SPC global and AOL. Um, well there’s lots of platforms that aren’t around anymore or don’t matter anymore. Like my space. And I mean the biggest thing I think was the education from publishers about where this whole online world was going. So I remember when I was talking, I was in a publisher meeting and he was with Harper and I was explaining Twitter them and I was saying, cause this was 2009 so Twitter officially opened in 2007. But realistically I think it just started getting traction in 2008 and I was saying, okay, so Pete, you have this account, you post things, you can only post 140 characters and people follow you. And they thought that was the creepiest thing they’d ever heard in her life.
Dana (30:01):
Like this is what is this a stalker platform like you sign up to be stopped like that. The word follow was not commonplace. And that changed within I think five years of launching the company. So that was the biggest thing was the education on social media and the role it was going to play. So again, like Instagram wasn’t a thing, tumbler was around, but like it’s like Tumblr came and went like in my life, in my business lifetime. It was very interesting. Um, and so I think, Oh and the idea of a blog tour, like I’m sure right now you guys are here blogged who are like, Oh my gosh, that’s so put. So 2010 but the term blog tour was not a thing. And I was trying to explain again to publishers that the bloggers were going to be the new, the new reporters, the new critics.
Dana (30:51):
Because I came from a background. So before I launched my company, I was a freelance writer and a book critic. The reason I launched my company is because I saw the changing media landscape. I was writing for the Chicago sun times and its competitor. The Chicago Tribune had filed for bankruptcy and I was like, okay, we’re probably not far behind. I got to get paid. This seems really uncertain. And so I was thinking about what, what I liked about reviewing books, what I thought the future was going to hold, and I saw that there was this thing that there were places popping up these other influencers. Again, there wasn’t, influencer wasn’t a word. Um, in 2009 and I saw what the future of book promotion and book criticism was going to look like and it looked very much like blogs at the time. And so I saw the writing on the wall.
Dana (31:42):
I shifted and pivoted and I started. That’s how I built my business, honestly, because the traditional publishers were doing the radio tours and the newspaper reviews and all those things, but I had to fight to get them to send a book to a blogger. And once that started to gain traction, that was within two or three years that that started to gain traction. Then it reached this bubble. The term blog tour came and became a thing and then it turned into something else. And then then I was looking at the other avenues that people were using to promote books. That’s when I started looking at book tubers, which again wasn’t a thing. And I had to try to explain to publishers that, Hey, there’s these like 13 year olds on YouTube that talk about books. Can we send them some books? They’re like, no, we’re not going to send books to random people.
Dana (32:31):
I’m like, no, no, no. They’re talking about the books. They have like hundreds of thousands of followers. And so now we see the Instagram tour and the book tube tour, like we’re seeing all these things. And so it’s interesting to see how the evolution of media and influence and publicity has changed so quickly and yet the publishers still are a few steps behind. That’s why I have a job because I get to stay ahead of the trends and gets us and stay ahead of what’s working. And so now what’s working is podcasts. I mean Seth Godin said at first, but I think I had the idea before Seth Godin said that podcasting is the new blogging and I believe him. I agree. I’ve been saying that and so like I remember doing podcasts when it was still like blog talk radio. Like do you remember blog talk radio and like an old everything.
Dana (33:24):
I found some like old lips files and like all these things. And so now podcasts are the next new wave and we’re seeing that there’s so much evidence not just in the amount of podcast listenership versus the amount of actual podcasts that are out there. I wish I had these stats on me. Maybe I’ll send you the stats later and you put it in the show notes, but there’s something about how there’s more podcast listeners than YouTube viewers and yet there’s like 1.5 million YouTube channels and only something like 500,000 podcasts. Oh, that’s like the density, like the supply and demand for podcasts is so much denser than YouTube. And so what it tells me is, okay, there’s all this demand for content. People want to find new podcasts. People are actively listening. I think something like 85% of podcast listeners said that they listened to podcasts all the way through.
Dana (34:22):
Like how many blogs have you read all the way through? Probably 10% maybe. Yeah, and so this is, so this is the next kind of wave is now what I’m fighting with publishers about is doing podcast advertising. So like we’re pitching, we’re getting clients on podcasts and booking them for interviews. I’m getting their books reviewed. There’s lots of podcasters that just review books that talk about books, but I also want to do advertising because I feel like those advertising spots hold more way because people are not skipping them. They’re listening to them and especially if you’re listening to them over and over and over again, it starts to stick. I listened to, I have terrible insomnia and so I listened to this podcast called sleep with me. This guy’s hilarious. It’s just this guy talking in a Delta tonic meandering manner that you can’t follow but you it drowns out any other thoughts and you puts you to sleep and he has sponsors that I am purchasing things.
Dana (35:24):
I’m like, why am I purchase? What am I going to Casper mattress? And it’s because I’m listening to this dude every night talk describing him, curling up in his Casper mattress and it’s working. And so I think that that’s what I’m seeing is, so what part of my job is to always just look at what is the next thing and why and how best to utilize it. And so whereas I started talking with like I started focusing on Twitter and blogging and then later Facebook when it became open to the public and every, all the older people all of a sudden had a Facebook page where I was in college when it launched. So I had a profile for a long time and I knew how to use it. And then it went to Instagram and YouTube and focusing there. And now we’re shifting a lot of our focus to podcasts.
Kevin (36:15):
Well, all of this I’m sure sounds somewhat overwhelming for the new author out there, or even the spirits author who’s looking to grow their audience, they’re like, Oh my God, this is so much,
Dana (36:26):
sorry, I can geek out. I think I dove a little too deep. I can geek out on this time. Like, I do this for a living. So this, I love my job and so I can talk media outlets and trends all day. But yes, I know for most authors they just want to write their books and don’t care about any of this stuff.
Kevin (36:44):
Well, for those people, I know you have a lot of resources available. You do have a book, you have courses, and I know you have a membership site as well. So maybe talk about some of the things that you offer offer that can really help people work their way through this labyrinth that is branding. Sure.
Dana (37:00):
So I, so we launched, when I launched the company, I’ve always offered one-on-one services and those services have grown and evolved over the years. But we’ve always had a very specific mission on the types of authors we pick, the types of authors we work with. And what that means is I, my job is to help authors have a long time career not to bankrupt them. And so for authors who I didn’t believe my efforts would yield a return on their investment and the investment significant, it’s thousands of dollars, I w would turn them down. Or if they, or if maybe they would earn our ROI or an ROI, but they didn’t have the budget I would pass. And so for years and years, I w I, we get, I don’t know, anywhere from five to 10 inquiries a week. And I only say yes, I only schedule a call with like 1% of those.
Dana (37:57):
And so I kept thinking like, Oh God, there has to be some way that I can help. These authors are writing really good books, but they either don’t have the budget or I don’t think our efforts are going to, it’s too niche of a market or it’s indie pub or a small press that isn’t doing print runs or whatever it is. There has to be a way that they can increase their sales and I can help them without bankrupting them. And so we went through several iterations of different things and I think we finally got it. Um, we, I launched your breakout book, which is a membership site that gives authors access to video tutorials, checklists, worksheets, plans as well as a monthly live training with me. The option to, to be paired with an accountability partner. I’ll say that I have noticed dramatically better results for those who do opt for an accountability partner.
Dana (38:53):
Shocker. And, and also the option to add one on one coaching. Um, cause there’s some authors who are fine to just do the live trainings and do the homework, but some people want that one on one experience. So, um, there’s an optional add on for that. And so when I think I figured out, I think that the membership site was going to be something, we beta tested it. We had a beta group, the beta group helped me build it. So these were eight? Yes, eight authors that basically they would go through the trainings and they would tell me, okay, this is what I need next. This is what I need next in the process. How do I do this? And that’s how I built the curriculum and how I built the program. And because it’s a monthly membership, those videos are updated all the time.
Dana (39:37):
So like I was recommending MailChimp for a long time for authors and MailChimp changed all their free features. And so guess what, I went in redid those videos and now I recommend MailerLite cause MailerLite has better functionality for the free accounts. And so I’m constantly updating the content. So you know, everything is up to date. I, I that was really important to me because I wrote a book. If you have any nonfiction authors out there, my recommendation is don’t write a book about social media because it may be obsolete in a year. Um, so like when I wrote my book, my broke, my book is frozen in time and I mentioned things that are no longer applicable. Like, you know, good reads, giveaways now cost money. When I wrote the book, they were free. Um, I have a section on Tumblr. Tumblr is no longer relevant.
Dana (40:27):
These things haunt me at night. I think about these things that are no longer, um, again, most of it’s real, but most of it is relevant. These are just tiny things. But I knew that when I created something, the next thing I created had to be a living, breathing thing. It couldn’t be frozen in time. And so your breakout book we’ve had, gosh, I want to say we have 50 members currently. I haven’t counted recently. Um, go and [inaudible] many of them had been in the program for several months. They have one member got his book featured in entertainment weekly. Another one was on the cover of her local newspaper. Another one just uh, one of our longtime members just signed a three book deal, uh, with a new publisher. So like these, the authors are doing amazing things and because it’s only $49 a month, I am 100% confident that they’re all earning a return on this investment. I love it. Well, for people who are interested in checking it out, where should they go? Where can we send them online? They can go to K publicity dot slash your breakout book. It’s K a Y E publicity.com/your breakout book.
Kevin (41:42):
Well after all the awesome insight you’ve shared in this discussion, I’m sure people will want to go learn more about that program. David, any final thoughts or anything you want to leave the listeners with?
Dana (41:54):
I think that we can talk about marketing and promotion and publicity, but the number one thing for the writers listening is you need to write a damn good book. Like that’s the number one thing you have to do because you could sell a million copies of that book, but if the book is not good, no one is coming back for book two. So through all of the marketing and the promotion and the social media and everything, just keep in mind that your most important priority should be to write the best book you possibly can.
Kevin (42:33):
I think that’s a beautiful note to end on. Dana, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today.
Dana (42:39):
Well, thank you for facilitating such a great conversation. I really appreciate it.
Kevin (42:46):
There you have it, my friends: my interview with Dana Kaye. If you’re thinking about how to sell books, I hope you got a lot out of that conversation, and I’m sure you did. This whole idea of an author brand and the marketing your work, it doesn’t always come easy to people, so it’s great that there’s experts out there like Dana who are able to guide authors along that path towards the book marketing success that they’re after. For full show notes for this episode, head on over to www.kevintjohns.comcom you can find links there to Dana’s book and to Dana’s a website and all that good stuff, as well as my coaching services and book, everything you could need. So head on over to www.kevintjohns.com. That is it for this week. Thank you so much for tuning in again, and I will see you on the next episode if The Writing Coach.
Learn more about Kevin’s children’s book: Rocket Princess vs. Snaggletooth the Dragon.
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