The Power of Owning Your Reader’s Experience with Matt Briel from Lulu

Episode 205 / This episode is all about harnessing the power of direct connection with your readers. Matt Briel from Lulu discusses the value of direct sales as we move away from a distribution-first publishing model. 

• Importance of owning customer data
• Why you should start building your direct audience even if you only have one book
• Using Lulu for Kickstarter fulfillment
• Order Import Tool: upload csv files for order fulfillment of crowdfunding or direct sales that Lulu prints and ships for you 
• New features that are coming to Lulu, including ribbons and endpapers 
• Lulu’s website plug-ins for direct sales

Website: Lulu.com

Lulu’s Publish & Prosper Podcast: https://www.publishprosperpodcast.com/

💜 🎙 Become a supporter of the podcast! We can’t wait to give you a shoutout in a future episode. https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

If your goal is to continue creating content, then you you really do have to look at the the sort of long-term picture of that. And whether you've got one book or five books, it's never too early to start thinking about building the audience that you want to serve. And that's really where your focus should be first. And so even with one book, you can start successfully building your own audience.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to the Wish I'd Know Men podcast, where we focus on how authors found success, looking at strategies that have taken them to the top of the bestseller chart, as well as what they've learned from their mistakes. Because being an indie author is more than knowing the latest marketing trend. It's about being innovative and creative and learning from your mistakes.

Sara 0:44

Welcome to the Wish I'd Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show, we have Matt Breel from Lulu.

Jami 0:53

Yeah, it was a great interview, y'all. Sarah and I both were like, really?

Sara 0:57

Can you tell us more? Yeah. I had a great time talking to Matt. And he had some great insights about things that authors are doing that they probably maybe don't need to do. What people who do well over time have done, and just interesting uh things about what's coming for books and print books in particular in the future. And using the value of starter and stuff like that.

Jami 1:23

Yeah. And just the value of authors owning um like their data for the people who are reading their books and and how you can do that. And Lulu helps you do that because they provide books for print on demand for direct sales kind of thing. So yeah.

Sara 1:42

We talked a lot about direct sales. So yeah. How do you how to eat how to ease into it? And and another thing he mentioned that even if you only have one book, you can still start with direct sales. And that has not always been the philosophy. A lot of people are like, no, no, hold off until you have more. And he his opinion is you go ahead and get started. Right. I'm thinking that that's probably not a bad thing. You get your toes wet and figure it out, and maybe you build into that as you build your writing career. Right. Right.

unknown 2:12

Yeah.

Sara 2:12

So good, good perspective and good things to think about.

Jami 2:16

Um so what's going on with you?

Sara 2:18

Uh well, the most exciting thing we it's not been that long since we recorded the last podcast. So we were like, hmm, what are we talking about? But Jamie and I did go to Murder by the Book together on uh yesterday, right? It was Tuesday when we went, uh, or no, a couple of days ago.

Jami 2:36

A couple of days ago. Yeah.

Sara 2:37

Yeah. To see an author that I listened to his podcast, the All About Agatha podcast, and he has written a fiction book. And we went to his one of his book tour events, and it was a lot of fun. We met him, talked to other Kimper Donovan. Yeah.

Jami 2:54

Great name.

Sara 2:55

Yeah, it is a great name. And so we heard his presentation about Agatha Christie and writing mysteries, talked to a bunch of readers, bought some books. It was a lot of fun. It was. So yeah, and I I mean, he's a great example of what we talk about in this episode about having a community and having an audience. So he has built an audience of people who like mysteries, who like Agatha Christie, and he has people who are interested in that type of book. And now he's written a book and is like, hey, here's my new book. And people are interested. And he has a way to reach them instead of starting from scratch.

Jami 3:34

Right, right. And to say he's a super fan is really an understatement of Agatha Christie, right? It was fun though. It was fun. I had never heard of him. I haven't listened to the podcast, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I just thought it was very interesting. He read from the book. Um, yeah, I love the way he did the signing. It was great. Yeah.

Sara 3:56

Yeah. Yeah. So that was a lot of fun. It was a book event that we don't have a ton of those that we go to, but we do occasionally do some bookish stuff around here. But anything else? So that was like my fun thing this week. You have anything going on?

Jami 4:12

I've started a project, but you know.

Sara 4:30

Where's chapter two? Because it was really good, and I want to read more.

Jami 4:35

So anyway, but that's what I'm doing. Yeah.

Sara 4:38

Yeah.

Jami 4:38

That's about it. Yeah. Trying to stay not sick. Everybody I know is sick.

Sara 4:44

So yep. I'm still plugging away on my word count for the book I'm working on. And it's going pretty well. So it's going good. And I have, I was going to mention this. I've when I get stuck and I don't know quite how to start, I'll take my last couple of paragraphs that I wrote and I'll put it in Claude. And I'll say, you know, I mean, I kind of know what I want to go next, where I want the story to go next. And I'll just write a general sentence and say, help me get started. And it'll write me a couple of paragraphs. And it's usually not exactly what I would write, but I can take that and start editing it and change it up. And then it kind of helps me get going. Yeah.

Jami 5:24

So then Claud's and Claude is an AI tool. Yeah. And I will say that I was at my daughter's uh last week, and my son-in-law is um he he does marketing for a fairly large um, he does social media marketing uh and a but a bunch of other things for a PR company and um marketing company. And um he is the biggest AI geek. I mean, he went to an AI club while I was there. Uh anyway, but but he was showing me some things, you know, just idea type things that you can do. Idea generation thing. Yes, I was blown away. Blown away. Um I'm not sure how I'll use AI, but I will definitely use it uh in the idea brainstorming kind of way. Um I'm just not sure how that what that's gonna look like, but I I just feel like, you know, when when eBooks first came out, I it was like my very first romance writers of America meeting. I didn't join at this point, but I went and a woman got up and was like, do not, do not get involved in this e-reader craze. They are going to steal your copyright, they're gonna steal your books, they're gonna do all this. And I mean, it was terrifying for so many people, and I feel like AI is the same way. And are there problems? Absolutely. Are there pol is there policing that issue to go on? Yeah, yes, absolutely. But I feel like early adopters are always the ones that you know do well with this. And and if you can look at it as a tool uh and not the sole source of things, then um you know, you could really do better. Yeah.

Sara 7:27

And I mean, I know that it's right now it's a hot button issue, and it is. We've never really touched it, but you know, yeah, but I mean, I feel like it's here to stay, it's not going away. And if we can use it in a way that helps us write better and faster, as Becca would say, then I think it's a good thing. I think there is a lot to be worked out about it. So so if you're so please don't at us about AI because we're just like gonna be uh not responding to those, because really there's like a lot to shake out still. Yeah. Yeah. And we know that. Um one of the things that I heard somebody say about this, I can't remember who it was, but they said, What if you think about like TurboTax now when you do your taxes and those types of things where you it's all you know, like automated for you and you can just go in and look in the numbers and you're done. It's like that has this type of software has freed people up, freed CPAs up to do other work instead of doing all the grunt work, all the little detailed things that you know used to be more time consuming. And I feel like we can probably use AI that for that for us, like to free up some of the more routine tasks so that we can concentrate on more of the creative stuff. And then it can help us with the creative stuff too. So that's my kind of take on it. All right, that's enough of let's move on. Yeah, oh quick quick um entertainment recommendation. Season three is out, and it is excellent. First season one and season three are my favorites, and partly the reason I'm enjoying it so much is because they're bringing the characters are having an arc and they're letting them continue. And you know how some serial TV they kind of retread things over and over and over again, and you feel like they're not able to make progress. Right. I feel like we're seeing the characters grow and develop, and it's so satisfying.

Jami 9:25

Oh, that's great. That's great. So I'm well put that on a list. So okay. Well, let's get on with Matt because it's a great interview.

Sara 9:33

All right, here is Matt. Well, today we have Matt Breel with us. Hi, Matt. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Hi, how are you guys? Thank you for having me. I'm doing well.

Jami 9:41

Well, we are happy you're here. We're excited to talk about Lulu.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Awesome, thank you.

Sara 9:47

All right, so let's read your bio and then we'll get going. Matt is the VP of Marketing at Lulu. After more than 15 years leading sales and marketing teams in the media and publishing space, he's developed a unique passion for helping creators and entrepreneurs become more successful by leveraging books as a catalyst for opportunities and sustainable revenue, which we love that.

Jami 10:08

That sounds great. Well, Matt, tell us what is Lulu and how do you help authors?

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah. So Lulu is pretty much the OG in the self-publishing world for online self-publishing. We were founded in 2002 as an online self-publishing company utilizing print on demand. So everything we do is print on demand based. Um, and we we particularly uh these days, we focus on uh facilitating direct sales for authors. Wow, specifically direct sales print. We did launch the first Shopify plugin about five years ago. Uh and from there, we just continued expanding. So at our core, though, we're a self-publishing platform. And again, we've been around now a little over 20, 20 plus years. Uh so going strong, having a lot of fun with it, and doing our best to help authors publish and make money.

Jami 10:56

Yeah. Yeah. That direct sales market, uh it's a growing, growing market. So indeed.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Sara 11:05

Well, how did you personally get started working with uh either Lulu or with writers, whichever makes more sense?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Um so before coming to Lulu, I worked for a media company and uh they were acquired. So we got the business to a state where it was attractive for a buyer. They were acquired, and uh most of the staff was was not acquired along with that. So uh my wife at the time worked for Lulu. Uh she worked in their uh global fulfillment department and uh said that they were looking for a growth hacker, uh a marketer to come on and do growth hacking and things like that. Um, so you know, I thought about it, interviewed for the position, got the job, um, and just kind of worked my way up from there and and you know, in the very beginning, realized that I think I'd found the place that I was supposed to be. You know, I went to school for for English and creative writing and literature, and always thought that I would work for a publishing company a long time ago. Uh didn't work out that way, obviously. Um and then full circle, here we are. And and I think that uh yeah, I think I found the place I was supposed to be.

Jami 12:08

That's right. Well, along those lines with your degree and everything, uh, do you have any aspirations to write?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I get asked this almost daily. Yes. Uh the short answer is yes. Uh, I I don't know that I'm I'm ready yet. I think I think there's still a lot of authors for me to serve uh in one way or another. I think there's still a lot of work that I have to do um, you know, before I sit down to really write a piece of content that I feel like I want to put out in the world. Um, it will probably be something in the nonfiction realm. But yes, I absolutely do have aspirations to write. I obviously take little cracks at it here and there with content we create for Lulu and that we do. And in my daily work as a marketer for Lulu, I I do writing and things. But you know, in terms of a traditional book, I do have those aspirations. I just don't feel like I'm ready yet.

Sara 13:02

Well, you just we talk to a lot of like industry experts, people that work with writers, and uh quite a few of them had had a background in English or they they went to school for that. So it's very interesting that it pulls people in that that is an interest, even if it's in the marketing, you know, they are interested in writing. I've been surprised how many people the answer to that is yes. So it's very cool. So, well, what do you wish authors knew about Lulu, about POD, things that maybe you have to explain quite often?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, I think I think there's two things that we spend a lot of time educating people on, uh primarily authors, uh, but in general, people. And when you talk about self-publishing and print on demand, uh the the first thing we spend a lot of time talking about in education people or educating people on is the process of print on demand and how that actually works. Like what goes into printing a book? What does that mean? What does that entail? What we often get is why does it take a little bit longer to get a book that's been printed on demand, right? When you order a self-published book from anywhere, really, even Amazon these days, um, it typically takes a little while to get it. Um, and that, you know, the print on demand process is different. So understanding, you know, if you're working in that medium of self-publishing, if you're a self-published uh indie author and you are utilizing print on demand, taking the time to understand that process and what goes into that to really create a quality book for your customer, for your reader, I think is really important. Um, and it wasn't until I came to Lulu and I really learned and visited a print facilities and understood that process that I gained a whole new respect for it and what actually happens and goes into creating these printed products on demand. It's amazing. Um, so you know, we've created a lot of great video content out there. People can actually watch the process of a book being um created print on demand.

Jami 14:54

I think oh wow, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah, I think if people really understood that process, they'd have a whole new outlook on kind of print on demand quality and how that gets done. Um, but I think secondarily as it pertains to, you know, we mentioned selling direct. What I wish people knew about the field of self-publishing that we work in and what we do. And as indie creators, understanding that you these days with self-publishing and all the tools that are available right now, you have the power to own 100% your customer journey, your brand experience, and ultimately what the longevity of your business looks like. And only self-publishing gives that to you. Nobody else gives that to you. You can be traditionally published your entire career and you still never have control over it. You still never have full control over anything else that has impact in that career. But self-publishing as a whole, when that's your chosen medium, you have a lot of control, if not total control, over everything you do. And these days, that means also owning that customer data by selling direct and having that customer data as your foundation to continue building your business and never having to rely on third-party suppliers, retailers, or social media platforms or anything else in the long run.

Sara 16:07

Such a good point. Less about worrying about the algorithm and more about worrying about how you can find people and bring them to you and then, you know, get to know them better. Yeah.

Jami 16:20

Um so, like during the pandemic, you know, there was the whole supply chain issues and everything. And I know, I mean, I've never used Lulu, but I know like KDP got behind and everything. Have you did you guys experience that? And have you do you feel like you've caught back up and are uh back to where you were pre-pandemic? Or are you still struggles with that?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, the the main issues I think that affected most print-on-demand companies, if not all of them actually, uh, was paper shortages. And again, due mostly to logistics, there weren't a shortage of trees or anything like that. It was just, you know, everybody heard about it. The the big tanker boats out in the middle of the ocean couldn't get into the ports. And then when they did, the trucks couldn't get the, you know, so it was a it was a paper thing. Um, we didn't get hit very hard, thankfully. Most of our print facilities stay very well stocked on paper. Right. Uh a few of our facilities got pretty low, where we did have to start prioritizing, you know, some big institutional orders over some individual, you know, customer orders. But even then, we were only seeing delays of a couple of days, not three weeks, like some were. Um, we we were lucky. Our our facilities were were very well felt out uh in their supply. Um, and so we didn't get hit as hard as most others, but we did get a little bit of it. Uh, at this point, from everything we can tell in the industry, everybody is back to uh not only a good flush state as it pertains to paper and logistics and things, but in some cases there's an overabundance now.

Jami 17:50

Yeah, of course. Those ships made it in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Oh, yeah.

Jami 17:54

Well, you know, it's interesting because my husband is in the food business and I knew about the paper shortage before it hit the author community. And so um I had I had some books that I needed for something, and I ordered them early, earlier than I would have needed because of that. I just had this little insight on it because he was having such an issue getting paper products. And um, I was like, that's gonna trickle down.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, and even in some cases, orders were actually prepared and ready to go. There was no packaging available. So you couldn't box them up in some cases. And those were the first indicators, right? Packaging was money low in all industries. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, that's right.

Jami 18:41

I mean, what do you wish you had known about working with indie authors or in the indie publishing space?

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Um that's kind of a tricky question. I don't know if I wished I knew anything before coming into the space necessarily. I'll tell you as an afterthought, what I wish I'd probably been a little more prepared for was just how strong the aversion is for creatives to not deal with the business side of what they're doing. So, you know, I originally it was like, yeah, this is great. I'm gonna come on and work for this publishing company. This is what I love. I'm a huge book nerd, by the way. Print books till I die. I don't touch an ebook, you know. So, but it it was very quickly that I realized a lot of what I would be doing and continue to do until this day is really helping educate and and guide uh authors and creators and even small publishers through the process of really, you know, building their business and creating their business model and and seeing that through to a functioning and and working sort of um brand and business that that is sustainable. Um so many creatives are just and I get it, but you know, they don't want to deal with the taxes and shipping and and the marketing and the sales channel, you know, choices. And yeah, you know, you just want to write and put your content out. And I get that. And it it is it is tough, uh tougher for a lot of the creatives we work with than some of the others. But um maybe I would have been a little better better prepared if had had I known that. But otherwise, you know, I I don't wish I knew anything ahead of time. I love coming into something with uh with wide open eyes.

Jami 20:23

Oh, that's great.

Sara 20:24

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, it's hard to do the both that's the creative and the business. But if you want to stay able to write, you have to do some business, you know, you have to do some marketing. So I think everybody learns that eventually.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Um yeah, and that's our goal is to try and help make at least one facet of that easier for you, right? I mean, we can't obviously help you with your taxes and things like that, but you know, the business of selling your books and and getting print copies into the hands of your readers and helping you build a sustainable database of your customers without forking that over to somebody else, that's an area where we do have the ability to help you. And that's that's what we focus on. Yeah.

Sara 21:05

Yeah. Well, what do you see authors doing that they do because they think they have to, but aren't producing results? Are you do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Oh, yeah, lots of them. Let's see. Um, I'd say the first and most obvious one, probably, but I'll say it anyways, is TikTok. Um not just authors, by the way, everybody has been convinced that they have to be on TikTok or they're not seen. And the actual reality of that is you can get on TikTok all day long, you're still not gonna get seen.

Jami 21:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

So we see and talk to so many authors that have been convinced by one medium or another, whether that's friends and family or the media or anything else that they need to be on TikTok. If you're not on TikTok, you're not gonna get seen, and that's just not true. And in most cases, unfortunately, a lot of people will devote all this time and resource to creating these videos and doing all this other stuff. And, you know, they put it out there in the world and they sit back. And there on baited breath, and then they have like five views, and it's just like womp, womp.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

But it's you know, to me, that's the biggest and most obvious one. I I think another one that we we see a lot. Um I think is this idea, and it it's a carryover, so I get it. And it was probably the staple approach in the industry for the longest time, but now you know, having this idea that you need a distribution first approach to book sales, I think is not the case anymore. And we see it more with newer authors coming into the space than we do with some of the old guard. They've figured that out, but uh, or how to diversify. But there's still a lot of new authors and creators coming into the world of writing and and selling books, and they're still thinking that they have to go distribution first, but they can't start out of the gate planning a direct sales approach or direct community building approach. Um, and in a lot of cases, that's just not paying off for them because they think they go and create the work, they set it on Amazon, and again they can sit back and just you know start collecting those checks. And the reality of today is that's just not how it works at all. And in fact, if you haven't been doing this for a while, you are not going to put anything on Amazon or any other third-party retailer and sit back and collect checks. It's just not gonna happen. Uh, and wasting time focusing solely on that is precious time that could be spent building direct relationships with your fans, building up your own audiences one person at a time, and putting that work in to build yourself a sustainable business.

Jami 23:38

Yeah. That that's an that's very interesting because I do think that a lot of people uh kind of see direct sales as uh what I'll do later, as opposed to what I can do to begin with. And I think that's that's a very interesting uh perspective.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

I think that's fair though, right? Because direct sales is still a bit of a new concept, especially in this vertical in this industry. Yeah. And I do think a lot of people are still very intimidated by the process. So I do think that's it, that's why people, I think oftentimes, even the old guards still are like, well, I'll get to that. You know, I need to put out this new, this new one, and then maybe I'll get around to taking one of my backlist uh titles and and turning that into a direct sales print version or something like that. I get it. It it's again, it's just like AI, right? It's the new thing. And so we're so focused on what we're doing now. We oftentimes say, Well, that's the new thing. I'll get to that. You know, it's not going anywhere, I'll get to it. And it's understandable, but you're you're also trying to balance this desire and this need for building community, for building more audience, for building more reach. And I think a lot of people don't realize that direct sales is a good tool for that.

Jami 24:50

Yeah.

Sara 24:51

Well, what would you say to someone who I think a lot of the thought in the indie author community used to be, I'm going to write a bunch of books and then like Amazon will help me market book one, and then people will read through. And for if somebody's, and you know, it it did work up until a few years ago when the market started getting flooded. So if somebody only has a book or two, would you still recommend doing direct sales? Because I think there's a mentality that, oh, you hold off on direct sales until you have three, four, five, or six books.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

So direct sales or distribution for that matter, in in today's world has nothing to do with uh uh discoverability necessarily. It's not necessarily a direct correlation on how many books you have versus which route you might want to take. One is a little easier than the other, absolutely. Um, there is a little bit of discovery to still be found on Amazon, but again, just as you said, gone are the days where you can write a good, decent book, put it on Amazon, and it's going to get some sort of discoverability just organically. That's gone. Like, and it's been since that was happening. Let's be real. Um, you can you can certainly invest in some paid Amazon ads and things like that. Um, and you can work with some great companies like Written Word Media or some of these others to get some more exposure. But at the end of the day, if your goal is to sell another 20 ebooks and walk with a you know a dollar or less per ebook, you need to back up anyways and look at your strategy and what you're doing and why you're doing it. But if your goal is to continue creating content, you know, in perpetuity, like that, you just want to be a writer and you just want to write and live that that, then you you really do have to look at the the sort of long-term picture of that. And so I would say whether you've got one book or five books, it's never too early to start thinking about building the audience that you want to serve. And that's really where your focus should be first. And so, even with one book, you can start successfully building your own audience. And based on that audience-building activity, that's where you can start to form your sales strategies and how you go to market with each each book you come out with after that first one. Um, but we don't really see a correlation between the number of books you have and when you should implement a direct sales strategy. You can do it with one book, you can do it with a hundred books. And we have people that start at any point in that spectrum and and based on their activities and their efforts, either have success or they don't. But again, the end goal is really what's going to determine which which path to take. Yeah.

Jami 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

Yeah.

Jami 27:26

Well, besides that, are there other common mistakes you see authors making kind of over and over?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Sure. Yeah. Um let's see. Uh let's pick on social media again. Um I think a common thing for us too as creators, whether you're writing fiction novels or creating, you know, just a new blog post, a piece of content to put out in the world or something like that. Your natural inclination is you want to be everywhere where you think that your your readers and viewers and fans are going to be. And with social media, that's the biggest trap you fall into because there's so many channels available. And just like TikTok, everybody has a favorite channel. So they're going to tell you you need to be on that channel. And what ends up happening is there's so many authors and creators that are trying to be on every channel because they're scared to death. They're going to miss one more reader or one more fan or one more buyer. And when you're trying to master five channels versus one or two, it's just like trying to get straight A's versus like, oh, if mom just tells me I got to get one A, like, oh, I can do that. That's no problem. I can get one A and four C's. But trying to get five A's, straight A's, that's really tough. And most people don't succeed at trying to master all channels. So I'd say pick one or two channels that you're already comfortable with that you can show up authentically, consistently. Um, that's where you're going to find success. But that's a big one is people trying to be on all social media channels. It just never works. Um, another one we see is again with um this one actually spreads the gamut. We see this with people who've been in the industry a long time and people who are just coming in, is their first inclination is to uh load up the credit card and spend a bunch of money on paid ads. Um and unless you're working with uh a company, a platform organization that that is uh highly skilled in that, that is a black hole you'll never return from. Uh so spending a bunch of money on paid ads, whether it's Amazon, Facebook, or anything else, if you don't know what you're doing, if you haven't been doing it for a while, uh, I'd steer clear of that. It's it's it's a black hole. You're gonna lose a lot of money. Uh, you really absolutely have to be an expert in Amazon and Facebook ads these days to even think about stepping your toes in those waters. Uh, so I wouldn't, or I would pay somebody who's really good at it. Um, and I think lastly, and again, this is a newer one. We talk to a lot of authors who they're just convinced that their readers won't buy print copies of their books. Um, but they don't ask them, they don't try. Uh, and in many cases, when they do, they realize, oh my God, people love my books enough, they are gonna buy the print version. Or if I do this special version with a really cool cover that's print, you know, or I do a Kickstarter for it, yeah, they will show up and buy it. Um, so assuming that you know what formats, what content your reader really wants, uh oftentimes can get you in a little bit of trouble.

Sara 30:21

Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about that on this pod podcast before. Never assume like you think you know certain things about what your readers want or who's reading your books, and it's better just to actually ask and find out.

unknown 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah. So many people are afraid to do that though, but it's it's just another great opportunity to establish that direct communication and connection with the audience. They love it. We love it. I'm an avid reader. I love it when I've asked for my feedback.

Sara 30:48

Yeah.

unknown 30:49

Yeah.

Sara 30:49

Well, do you see any commonalities in writers who've been successful over the long haul? Because I'm sure you've worked with some writers who've been doing this for a long time since y'all have been in business so long.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Yeah. Um, a couple of things. The main one would be consistency in your efforts for sure. So whatever you're doing, being consistent with it. And that applies to social media. So pick one or two channels, be consistent. You know, don't show up on Monday and and drop a little update and try to engage a few fans and then don't show up again for three weeks. Like that's just not it. It's not going to work. Um consistency in what you're doing, and that includes in your publishing cadence, you know. If you promise your fans the third book of that trilogy, you better produce it when you said you did, you know, be consistent and and and show up. Um, I think the other one is again, you know, I'll harp on that point of um the commonality there of treating your your writing as a business. When you see those those writers that are really treating it like a business, the success shines through.

Jami 31:48

Yeah. Um I agree. I think that um, I know that's true. And I know that's true because of my own personal experience. So um, but yeah, I think that that just consistency in everything, not not just when you post or but consistency in branding, consistency in message, consistency in book content, just all of that really pays off in the long run. Absolutely. So you've worked with a wide range of authors and genres. Do you see any trends? What's hot right now?

SPEAKER_02 32:30

I bet you guys could probably answer this question better than I could.

Sara 32:35

Not me. I'm always like the last to learn anything.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

And I'm gonna surprise you here, and I'm gonna say direct sales. Yeah. Um and uh uh AI. So, you know, in the AI camp, you're either adopting it or you're averted to it. You know what I mean? Uh people have strong feelings one way or the other. So I'd say right now, those are the two trends most people we talk to, they want to know about either AI tools, um, AI in general, um, or you know, direct sales. Yeah, absolutely.

Jami 33:08

And um so like Kickstarter, you guys have been really pivotal and fulfilling stuff for that. Am I correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah, we um Kickstarter was one of the early ways we saw people experimenting with direct sales years and years and years ago. Um, and so we started working with Kickstarter, and then what we did uh is we created what we call an order import tool. And it's basically uh whenever your Kickstarter has ended, your campaign's ended. Uh and this works for other platforms too, by the way. But we developed it for crowdfunding in general or subscription. But uh anytime that you have a situation where you're left with a CSV file of orders, so again, Kickstarter campaign, uh Patreon monthly subscriber list, you know, whatever that might be, right? Maybe you're doing pre-orders on your site, all your own. And so then you have this spreadsheet, this Excel file or whatever. Anyways, you can bring that file to your Lulu account, and as long as that project, that book lives in your Lulu account, you can upload that CSV file into your Lulu account in our order import tool. And then we'll literally print and ship every single one of those orders and send them out for you, uh, even with some white label packaging. Uh, so it doesn't even say Lulu is a good one.

Jami 34:21

That's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, that was something that we developed specifically from working with Kickstarter and people who were utilizing subscription platforms like Patreon and some of these others. There was really no other way to take 500 orders in bulk upload them to a print-on-demand platform and and to be able to accommodate and fulfill those orders that way. So um, now that doesn't help you out if you promised autograph copies. Obviously, you have to have all 500 shipped to your house, and then you've got to sign them. And yeah, but what we're seeing is a lot of people are getting um a little more savvy to that and in the idea that okay, maybe it doesn't have to be autographed. I can do something else cool on the book with the the actual manufacturing, right? And you won't feel bad, and they'll I can just ship those automatically. So finding ways to automate what you're doing, I think is a big thing right now. Yeah.

Sara 35:13

Right. Yeah. And you could have two different tiers. You could have a tier that's just the book, and then maybe a more expensive tier that's the signed book, you know, that one could be shipped. That could save you some time and money.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah, we've seen um even cooler uh breakdowns of that where people do, okay. Well, this tier you get the paperback, right? This tier you're gonna get the the hardcover linen wrap, and it's got a nice dust jacket, uh, maybe a ribbon bookmark in it. And then third tier will get the same hardcover, super nice, but it's autographed. And so the first two tiers, you just upload those spreadsheets in your Lulu account. All those orders just get printed and shipped. You never have to touch anything. Uh, that third tier, obviously, you're gonna get those shipped to your house, you're gonna sign those and then send those out. But yeah, you can do all kinds of really cool stuff with it now.

Sara 35:59

That's well, since we're talking about this real quick, tell us like what special things, like if somebody was doing a Kickstarter and they wanted to make their print copies special, what can they do through Lulu? Like they can do the hardcover uh case laminate and wrap, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Sara 36:15

So color, maybe. Do you all have I'm sure you have color, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah, you can do obviously all of the standard things. So any combination of paperback books, obviously, black and white color doesn't matter, white, cream interior, full color, you know. Uh, and then for hardcovers, we offer two options. You can do the case wrap laminate, so you know, full color case wrap, hardcover. And we're gonna be introducing um uh case wrap laminates with dust jackets soon. Uh, but then you can also do the more traditional linen wrap hardcover with the dust jacket, the more classic look. Um, and then we are gonna be incorporating uh very soon ribbon bookmarks, um, and then some other cool little customized features like what we call uh printed in sheets, so uh or customized end sheets. So when you first open the book, that first, first, first inside uh for a hard cover.

Sara 37:06

It's attached to the cover, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Right, yeah, and normally always white, and then that first subsequent page is also white. That's the end sheet. Um, we're gonna pretty soon be rolling out customized in sheets. So you could have graphics on those end sheets and stuff. So we've got a couple samples that look really cool uh when somebody did that. And we partnered with an author named Jillian Dodd, who also did a Kickstarter, and she did all those bells and whistles on hers, and it just turned out great. Um, so she had different graphics on the case wrap, hardcover limit, and then uh graphics for the dust jacket that were different from the case wrap, the full ribbon, you know, bookmark, as well as printed in sheets on the inside, custom printed in sheets, and it just looked really cool.

Jami 37:47

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

So uh that's probably the bulk of the customizations we we offer or will be offering here in the very near future for those types of things. Um, we do a lot of one-off stuff too, though. So if you're an author who could pretty much guarantee at least a hundred or more units from their Kickstarter campaign, and you come to us and say, Hey, I know you don't offer this widespread right now, but can you do this? There are a lot of custom things that we can do behind the scenes that we will work behind the scenes with you on and be able to fulfill those things. So we've done some other cool things, and it's just a matter of can we take those things and then make them available at scale in mass because everything we do, we try to make it consistent across all of our print facilities. And we have print facilities all over the world. So if we do something here in the US, we really like to try and make sure that our print facilities outside of the US can also do the same thing. So that if you sell a book to a fan in Missouri, but then you also sell that same book to a fan in France, we want them both to get the same quality book with all the same features. Um, so sometimes that means we can't do certain things like leather-bound covers because one percent print facility might not be able to accommodate that at the time. And so we have to make those decisions.

Sara 39:04

But but that is good to know about if you have an idea. Yeah, might be able to do it like a one-time thing for like a Kickstarter or a launch on somebody's website, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Absolutely. Yeah. And like I said, our US print facility, man, that they are state of the art. Every bit of customization we do starts in that facility, and then we try to spread it out to our other facilities. But we love doing that. And most of what we've been doing over the years with innovating in terms of our apps or our printed products, they're all driven from authors, feedback from from you guys. So we love that stuff. And we can't always say yes, but you know, getting those ideas is always the first start. That's the genesis of something cool.

Jami 39:46

Right. Yeah, right. Well, how has indie publishing changed over the years that you've seen?

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Yeah, so I've been, excuse me, with Lulu about eight years now. Um, before that, obviously, I wasn't in the publishing industry. I was just, you know, an avid reader. But I'd say just in the eight years I've been here, um, a lot has changed, especially in the last probably three years, right? But I think one of the biggest things is there are much better tools and there's much more access to data for indie creators. Right. So when you have top of the the technology stack tools and you can pair that with really good data, the sky's the limit for you because now you start to have a better understanding of just exactly what your buyers, fans, and readers want. Um, whether they're telling you or not, you can start reading that in data, not only in your own data, but in other people's data. And as data gets better and people start sharing that data, then that's where you know the rising tide lifts all boats, right? So this idea that, you know, over the last couple of years, not only print on demand or self-publishing technology, but with AI and some of these other things, technology in general has allowed indie creators and authors to be able to do a lot of cool things. Um, and so I think what's changed are these tools and this access to data. And it's really allowing people to shape their business and take it to new levels without those dependencies on a lot of these third-party systems we've been talking about. You know, you you look three years from now, five years from now, I guarantee you the atmosphere and the ecosystem is gonna be completely different than it is right now. The the amount of dependency on Amazon and some of these other big sort of retail chains and outlets is gonna continue to dwindle. And even the top five publishers, they're gonna have to start taking a really long, hard look at just how they acquire new authors and new manuscripts and what those contracts start looking like as it pertains to authors wanting to maintain control of their audience and customer data, as well as the rights to their work.

Sara 41:49

Right. Yeah, that's actually our next question was what do you see coming? And so we've kind of already delved into that. I mean, we've talked about AI, direct sales, um, I think these trends of people wanting to control their audience more. Do you see anything else or anything more that you want to discuss on those lines?

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah, that last one you just said, audience. And so again, we've talked a little bit about the importance of building audience and community. And community is a big one. Um, community can be mislead misleading, right? But audience, we'll we'll stick with that for a second. Right now, we live in a world that's changing, but we still live in the world that that started out as um, they have the audience. You want that audience. You're creating a piece of content, you're going to take it to them because you want their audience. So again, Amazon and a lot of these other people, they have the audience, and that's why you had to go there. But as creators and and authors are now getting much more savvy and understanding about how to build their own audiences and maintain those audiences and keep control of those audiences in their own ecosystems through email lists and customer databases and things, you're gonna get to a world that I spoke of earlier where now you've got top five publishers or retail outlets that are going, wait a second, this author has a community of over 500,000 readers and buyers in their own ecosystem. We want access to that. Let's go seek out that author and that creator because we want access to their audience. It's gonna flip and it's it's not gonna be overnight, but we're already seeing that, you know.

Jami 43:18

We are seeing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, we work with creators right now. You'd be amazed at some of the creators we work with that have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans and followers, and and in many cases buyers in their ecosystem, in their email lists, and their customer databases. There are so many brands and businesses and retailers that would love to get their hands on that information, that would love to work with those creators and authors. And so that's why we're so passionate about pushing authors and creators to either start or continue building your audience and your community, because that is the lifeblood and sustainability for your business. You're not going to be able to rely on these third party systems much longer. It's just not going to happen. So you've got to Take control of that.

Sara 44:01

Yeah, and print books are a good way to do it, especially if somebody is like NKU, they can control their print distribution. So print books are a great way to start kind of widening out and testing the waters. Even if you don't go all in with direct sales, you could try it with uh and you guys have plugins for uh Shopify. And do you do WooCommerce as well?

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Yeah. So right now we have plugins for Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix. We also have a custom print API where if you've got you know some crazy state-of-the-art website that you've had built already and you don't want to use one of those plugins, our dev team can help you just plug right into our back-end print network. Uh, and that works globally. And then we also have that order import tool I talked about, where you can literally just bring a CSV file of anywhere from five to five thousand orders, upload that thing, and we'll print and ship them all.

Sara 44:51

Uh wow. That's great. That's amazing. Yeah, we've learned a lot today. Yeah, we have we have I've used Lulu before, but not to this extent. So it's great to know all the things that you can do with it. It's very cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Thank you. Thank you.

Jami 45:03

What would you say that Lulu's done, the best thing they've done to set themselves up for success?

SPEAKER_02 45:10

I think that if you were to ask that question internally, beyond just me, collectively, we would all say that we've invested in innovation. Um, you know, when Bob Young started this company in 2002, he came into it as a tech investor, as somebody who had just sold his company Red Hat uh for a big IPO. He had a ton of money from that IPO, you know. Um, and so he wanted to tell his story and he couldn't get published. Uh a new billionaire, you know, back in those days. Like this was big news and he couldn't get published. And he thought here I am with all this money and all this influence and all this, you know, privilege, and I can't get published. Imagine everybody out there that doesn't have that. And so he started his own publishing company. And but that spirit of technology of innovation that has never gone away, like that drive that Bob has always had to innovate and want to, you know, a lot of the stuff we do is open source, which means it's available to anybody out there in the world to use to build off of our technology because he's very committed, and we all are to that idea of just continuing to innovate. So we we sort of reinvest a lot of our dividends and profits right back into innovating. That's why we were the first to come out with direct sales plugins and we just keep looking for what's new. Where can we keep taking this so that we don't fall into that same old status quo? Um I think that's really what's been setting us apart and allowing us to really take things to the next level and and hopefully provide more value for authors and creators these days than than ever before.

Jami 46:38

Yeah. Great answer. Yeah, that's a great answer.

Sara 46:42

Yeah. Well, tell everybody where they can find information about Lulu. And do you all also have a podcast as well?

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Um, so we started a podcast late last year. It's called Publish and Prosper. And you can find it on any of the podcasting channels that you use wherever you like to listen. Um, or you can go to uh publish prosperpodcast.com. Uh you can also find anything you need to know about Lulu at Lulu.com. Very easy. L-U-L-U.com. Um, and then you can find us on social media at lulu.com.

Sara 47:15

All right.

Jami 47:15

Well, we have wonderful. Yeah. You are on TikTok?

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Even on TikTok. I don't know that we're doing it well, but we have one person devoted to TikTok. So hopefully it's it's uh but we're having fun with it.

Sara 47:28

That's good. Oh, that's great. Well, we will have all those links in the show notes. And just thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all this information with us. I think it'll be really helpful.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Thanks so much for the opportunity.

Sara 47:39

Yeah, it's been great. Yeah. So um, you can find all those at all the notes at wish I'd known for writers.com. And if you want to support the podcast, if you've received value from it and would like to help us out with the podcast and the editing and producing of it, you can find the support link at that same wish I'd known then for writers.com slash support. And thanks to Adriel Wiggins for doing the admin and Alexa Larberg for doing the editing. We'll see y'all next week.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Wish I'd Known Then podcast. We hope this episode inspired you, empowered you, and made you laugh a little bit too. If you loved it, tell your friends about it. And if you feel so inclined, leave us a review. We look forward to being with you again next week.