Boost Your Book Sales: Expert Advice on Marketing, Focus, and Long-Term Success with Ferol Vernon

319 / What marketing strategies are working for authors right now? Ferol from Written Word Media shares the lessons he’s learned helping authors succeed, the mistakes to avoid, and actionable advice for building your own writing business.

• Transitioning from the music industry to serving indie authors
• What sets successful long-term indie authors apart
• Common marketing mistakes authors make
• Trends in AI, audio, and global book promotion
• The power of connection: conferences, community, and authenticity

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⚡Links:

• https://www.writtenwordmedia.com
• https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/podcast/
• Written Word Media A10 Algorithm Podcast: https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/the-amazon-a10-update-3-things-every-indie-author-needs-to-know/
• May Pod-Pal Shout-Out: Two Authors’ Podcast 
• InkersCon: Use code JAMI26 at https://inkerscon.com/2026-digital-conference (Affiliate code)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But when I go to a conference, people are talking about dragons, right? And people are talking about love stories. And it's like that's just awesome. And so I think I did I didn't know that coming into it.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

And it's really funny that you said we're rational, and yet we're talking about dragons and love stories and who done it mysteries and all that. But I love that because I don't think anybody's ever called authors rational.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to the Wish I Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Beryl Vernon from Written Word Media.

Jami 0:34

Oh, he's one of our favorite people.

Sara 0:36

Yeah. He gave us some insight into book marketing because that's basically what written word media does, is they just help authors find readers. And it was interesting to talk to him from his perspective about what they're seeing from volume of authors and how they're reaching readers and just common mistakes that he sees, trends. Oh, also he mentioned they have a podcast.

Jami 1:02

Yeah, I was gonna say, I've just discovered it. Yeah, it's really great. Yeah.

Sara 1:06

So definitely check it out. He mentioned a specific episode about the Amazon algorithm, their new algorithm. So I link to that in the show notes because it's very, very helpful. So be sure and check that out. Oh, quickly so we don't forget, because I forgot last week we have a new supporter on Substack. Hey. Thank you. Yeah. So thank you to everybody who is continuing to support the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. It really motivates us that you guys are supporting us and getting value from the podcast and sharing back with us. We really appreciate it. Yeah, we do so much. Very much. Well, what's been going on with you? Well, I am continuing to write on the first draft. I like certainty. We've talked about this. I like certainty. I like to know and I like to work it all out in my head. And one of the things Becca has talked about with people who have this characteristic and their personality is you just have to go ahead and push into what you don't know. And in my mind, the way I was thinking of it was you know, the Raiders of Lost Art, the third movie, where he has to take the step of faith and he has to step out into that chasm. As soon as he commits, then the staircase shows up.

Jami 2:18

Yeah.

Sara 2:18

And I feel like that's what I do every time I sit down and do dictation. I feel like, okay, I'm going to step into the creative abyss today. And it will, the words will be there. They will hold up my feet once I get going. But it's that initial getting over it. It's just a huge hurdle. I don't know why it is. And I know where the story is going, but I think it's because I don't have all the details down. But I probably will never have all the details down when I sit down to write or dictate.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah.

Sara 2:48

So just have to do it. Yep. So that is what I've been doing. And that was the image that came to me today. I was like, yep, stepping into the abyss yet again. And I think that's why I like editing so much more because I already have the words there.

Jami 3:02

Yeah, it's the unknown is pretty much taken over. No fun.

Sara 3:07

No fun. Yeah, no fun. So, and then I do have a funny story. I was on a walk the other day. There's a big pond in our neighborhood, and I walk around it. It's about a mile. So I do that pretty much every day that I can. And it's been really stormy and windy. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna go walk today because it's clear. So I go out and go for a walk, and there's turtles in the pond all the time. I see them. And usually they're up on the edge of the water. And the other day I was walking line, I was going, that's the biggest turtle I've ever seen. I got so excited whenever to look at it. Turned out it was the lid of a garbage can that had gotten removed by the storm. We had this big storm come through. And I mean, I I looked like an idiot standing there on the bank of the pond, going, Wow, look at that turtle! But no, it's not a turtle.

Jami 3:52

That's funny.

Sara 3:53

That's the excitement in my life this week.

Jami 3:55

What's going on with you? Oh, well, nothing. My book came out on the 18th, and I was very excited. I am very excited. I, but you know, in the spirit of this podcast and who I am, we'll be on. Full disclosure, I've crashed out more than once this week. So the book did not, the ebook did not break 10,000 in the store. And that was disappointing. I'm just gonna put it out there. It was just disappointing. I mean, it's a wide book, but it was still really disappointing. Interestingly enough, the paperback did break 10,000. It got down to eight or nine thousand in the store. I think today it's uh the ebooks at 17,000 and the paperback's at like 13,000. But they're holding steady. They've pretty much been there for the last two days. But I have really been disappointed. And well, here's here's the pro here's the real problem. I manifested all the things for this book. I and I still believe them. I still believe something amazing is gonna happen with this book. I just did not have a plan for what would happen if it didn't happen immediately. So I've been a little side, you know, blindsided, and I've I can see some mistakes that I made that might have helped the book. One of the biggest is I didn't have a traditional art team with this book because it was a new genre. My art team are romance readers. I didn't really want them posting reviews if they're romance readers. You know, I just I was just worried about that. So because of that, I didn't do a traditional art team. I did NetGally, which I've gotten great reviews on NetGalley, but still those reviewers are not going to Amazon to post those reviews. I've got some, I've got more reviews on Goodreads, but those reviewers are the NetGalley reviewers, they're just not going to Amazon. So the first day and a half, I had one review. I have never launched a book with less than 25 reviews. Not even my first one. And reviews make a big difference. And then with in this podcast that you just referenced, they talk about that. Like it's a big difference. And so when you're sending people to your page to get to look at your book, then they go to the book page and they see one review, then they're less likely to hit by if they're a cold audience. I should have worked harder on that. I I mean, I did assume that those NetGally reviews would go over to Amazon. They did not. So just for future reference, I will probably do NetGalley again, though, because I have 14 purchases on Ingram Spark and I'm ranked 91 on Ingram Sparks, which is weird, very random. Not your usual release. So that is not your usual release. No, and so it turns out that when I said that just putting this book out was the win, what I really meant was it was the win if this book did well. I didn't mean it. I thought I meant it, but I didn't. But it's okay. I today I have come to the place where it's really kind of disrespectful to this book and to everything I went through to write this book to be worried about rank and reviews and stuff like that. It's okay to want those things, but to let it ruin the fact that I put this book out is that's just disrespectful, and I'm not gonna do that. So uh I may crush out more times, but for today, right now, I'm okay. So yeah, that's it. But it's so far the the reception from the people who have read it have has been amazing.

Sara 7:58

Well, I think it's good to share this to let people know that there are ups and downs. And no matter what the book is about, it's a part of you and you want it to do what and as the written word podcast that we we both listened to after talking with Farrell, it talks about how Amazon is rewarding the long, steady, slow sales over instead of the spike. And so if your book performs consistently, it may feel like it's not doing as well, but it may be doing really well for this market that we're in right now. And it's just that's not what we're used to, and it's disappointing when we look at it compared to what happened, you know, five, 10 years ago.

Jami 8:41

Yeah. I mean, the fairy tale would have been had a, you know, I released the book and it hit the top 100 or even the top 5,000 would have been fine for a white book. We didn't do that, and that's okay. That's okay. I mean, again, this book is out there, it's it's the people that read it have really loved it, and they're not just people I know. I feel like, you know, as long as this book is out there, it's got a life, and I still believe it's gonna happen. I just wanted it to happen. Like I wanted the fairy tale. I wanted to come on and shout it from the rooftops, but uh instead I'm telling you this. But I'm you know, I really I'm okay. I mean, today I'm okay, and every day that goes by, I will be more okay. But those first two days were woo, they were rough.

Sara 9:37

Well, we always tell it like it is, so just like it is this week. So let's see, we've got a couple more things to talk about. Uh, one, I don't want to forget, we are going to take a June break. So this will be the last episode that goes out in May, and then in June, we're gonna be doing some re-airs, some things that we've done in other podcasts. You know, there'll be new releases, but we won't be doing intros each week. We're just gonna take a break and then we'll come back in July. And then we have our May PodPal shout-out to the two authors podcast this week. It was Nick and Doug.

Jami 10:13

Yeah, it was good, it was with Shell Haniker and it was about automate uh AI automation. Whoo, that makes my head spin, but it's so good. Yeah.

Sara 10:24

She always has great information, so definitely give that a lesson. Right. And then we also wanted to remind y'all about IncasCon, and that is coming up pretty quickly. I think the window to sign up ends in June. I don't have the exact date right now because my computer is running super slow, but great speakers. It's all online and they have great speakers and they have you know interactive small group things you can do. Yeah, lots of writing sprints and things like that.

Jami 10:52

Yeah, they're having QA's with some of the best sellers, which is great. You know, I mean, that's just gold right there.

Sara 11:00

So we always have enjoyed IncasCon, and so check that out if you're interested in that. There'll be a link in show notes.

Jami 11:07

Yes. All caps, J A M I 26, and you'll get a discount. I think it's $50 off.

Sara 11:14

Yeah. I think so, yeah.

Jami 11:16

Yeah.

Sara 11:17

So I think that is everything we needed to cover. I think. Are we good?

Jami 11:22

Yeah, I think that is. Oh, one thing. Uh the reason I'm taking off in June, swimming lessons. It's swimming lessons time. So if you want to follow me on social media and watch the mayhem and talk about crash out, yeah. Anyway, that's it. Yeah. Here's Farrell.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Hi, Farrell. How are you? I'm just spectacular, Sarah. Thanks for having me.

Jami 11:45

We are very glad you're here. This has been a long time coming. We should have had you on a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Better late than never.

Jami 11:51

It is.

Sara 11:52

Let me read your bio so people can learn a little bit more about you. Farrell is the COO of Written Word Media. He holds an MBA from Duke University with a focus on technology and entrepreneurship. He is honored to have served independent creatives, first musicians, and now writers for the last 13 years. When not at work, you can find him running trails, drawing cartoons, reading science fiction, or hanging out with his family. Isn't that just wholesome?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

There it is. I know. I actually need to update that because it's actually been almost 18 years at this point. Because I was in the music industry for six years and I've been in books for almost 12.

Jami 12:26

Oh, wow. What did you do in the music industry before we get into these questions?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, I worked in at a company called Reverb Nation that was serving independent musicians, bands, building software for them, widgets, websites, email newsletters, stuff like that. And so I got to know the independent creator artist.

SPEAKER_05 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

And I have some over a drink sometime. We can talk about the difference between authors and musicians, but it's a fun contrast.

Jami 12:52

Tell us how you got started working with writers.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah. So it's interesting to it all started with one writer who's my mother-in-law, and she wrote a book. And this is back when I was in the music industry. I was doing product development. My wife and my co-founder, Ricky, was doing marketing. And her mom wrote this book. And we were like, hey, we're young and smart and tech, and we can sell that book. And swing and a mist didn't work. And so we built this website called Freebooksy, and we did it so that we could give away her book.

Jami 13:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Literally. We just built the whole website and picked a bunch of free books and put it on there so that we could promote her book and put it up there and make it look official. And that worked a little better. And then Ricky was running an agency at the time. And so she was running ads, like this is the early days of Facebook ads. She was running ads there. And so it started to get a little bit of traction. People were signing up for the Facebook page because they were liking it based on the ads. And there's a little bit of traffic coming to it. And then one day, and I actually I wish I remembered who it was, but an author emails us and says, Hey, can I pay you to be on the website?

SPEAKER_05 13:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

And entrepreneurship 101, when somebody offers to pay some less, figure it out later. And we did, and that was almost 12 years ago. And so that's how we got started is really it's a family connection, but it's been an absolute blast getting to know the authors over the years.

Jami 14:15

That's great. Yeah, we met a smart artist in Australia.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah, in Texas. That's right. A long time ago.

Jami 14:21

2019. That sounds good. A long time ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah.

Sara 14:24

We like to ask everybody do you have any aspirations to write? You said it says you're a cartoonist in your bio. Do you do any prose writing?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

My mom was an artist. She was in textiles. So she built, she made the most amazing thing, quilts, really modern looking stuff. You think of quilting as sort of patchwork, everybody has in their mind. But my mother made just really cool, sort of modern stuff out of fabric. So there's a studio in my basement that I spent a lot of time being around art and creation is not new to me. It feels very familiar, very normal. I've always drawn because my mom had a drafting table and a million cool pencils, and she could draw still way better than I can, but that was fun. And uh I haven't really ever had aspirations to write up until the last few years. I've been after about a decade of doing this and talking to all these brilliant people, I'm like, God, it would be really cool to do that. So I've started writing with my daughter because I kind of realized I need an accountability partner. So my accountability partner is 12 years old. And I write when I have time. And then she says, Dad, do you have any pages? And I'll print the pages out, leave them on her bed. And then she reads them and gives me notes. And so that's that's our process. So I'm still not done. I have a lot of empathy for how hard it is, what y'all do. But yeah, that's where I'm at on it.

Sara 15:36

That's very cool. Yeah, I love that because you're writing, but then you're also connecting with your daughter and doing an experience with her. That's wonderful. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, it's really a lot of fun. And my son is really into sports, so we connect about sports and running and stuff. And then my daughter's is more interested in artistic. She draws on everything. I don't know if anybody out there has a child like that, but beautiful stuff, but maybe not on the walls. And so it's it's fun to jam with her on these things.

Sara 16:03

Sounds like that artistic vein runs in the family.

Jami 16:06

It does. It does.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

It does.

Jami 16:08

What do you wish authors knew about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, I think in terms of authors, what we do is really marketing. That's what we've always done. And we have a large audience of readers, and we sell ads to allow authors to access those readers. And it's very, so that's very simple. I think the thing that we've realized in the last few years, and that's been very successful for us, is the way our product works is we send out a newsletter to a bunch of readers in your genre. You pay us a little bit of money in exchange, we put the right book in front of the right reader. And that product works really great, but I can only sell it one time, right? And then you can come back and run it 60 days later, 90 days later. And that from a business standpoint, that's a little bit of a problem. But more importantly, when authors want more help or more things around us, like one after another, we couldn't offer that until a few years ago. And so we started offering products that are like a lot more robust in terms of the amount of stuff that you can buy. So we have promo stacks, you can buy a bunch of different promotions that go around a whole week or even a two-week period that have been really popular and really effective. And then the other thing I think that still most folks don't know that we do is we do run meta ads or Facebook ads for authors. And we do that with a really small package, right? It's 150 bucks for a five-day run. And we can do that as much as you want with any link that you want. So I think while that product is very effective, what I wish people knew is that with the rise of direct store links, right? Or people want to promote their Kickstarter link or whatever, we can do that through our reader reach product. And we're excited to work with authors on these sort of new frontier things. But because we have this reputation for being a really effective place to promote your Amazon link, sometimes people don't know about that.

Jami 17:56

Well, I didn't know you did that until just recently I ran a free bookseat. And when I was on the side, I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize you were doing that. So that's yeah.

Sara 18:06

Well, is there anything that you wish you'd known about indie publishing or working with authors?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, that's such a big question. It's sort of like the community is so cool. And I think I didn't know that. The first few years of our business, we had small kids, and we were kind of really focused on just building something that worked, right? And Tammy, it's uh it's probably about Jamie, that it's right about that time when I met you, where we started going to conferences and talking to our customers in person or on the phone, or you know what I mean? And that was really cool. And I think before that, I was like, oh, I'm building a product that works and that's neat, and I like to build stuff that's fun. But then when you start talking to your customers, you're like, oh, this actually is like helping somebody. And it's that's not free. I'm not trying to say it's altruistic, but it was cool to be like, hey, and people would say things to us like, I really wish you did XYZ, right? And then you'd be like, oh, cool, we could totally do XYZ. When you go back, and I think back just how we started the show. When you talk to musicians who are also a really cool customer to work with, they're more interested in like fame. Like these are people that were born to be on a stage, right? It's very cool, something that I don't necessarily have, but their desires are very different. Whereas authors are a little more, and I'm generalizing everybody's different, uh, thoughtful about this would help my author business. Why don't you do this? And I think that community is so giving in terms of what they want and so rational and also just like fun and cool. And so, like, I think I wish I'd known that going in, and maybe we would have done connected with folks like y'all and others a little bit earlier in in the company's history.

Jami 19:48

Yeah, I can imagine from being at conferences and talking to the authors, you do get ideas. I've heard Damon Courtney talk about that. Somebody came up and said, I wish you would do this. And he was like, Okay, I'll build this.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

And yeah, we just did it.

Jami 20:03

And so for you guys that do that kind of thing, I I just think it's probably good.

Sara 20:08

Yeah, yeah, it's like firsthand market research instead of trying to survey people and find out what they want. You can just go talk to people at a conference. And yeah, and we appreciate it as writers to get to meet people face to face because then we're like, oh, I remember him. He does these things, he's written a book with his daughter and does cardio. It's like you know them as a more as a little bit more as a person instead of just as the company, which is great. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And I think that totally happened by accident because I think it was maybe 2017, back when that the conference now called the conference formerly known as 20 books, now it's automation, was getting started. And Michael Anderley, who some of you and your listeners may know, uh, was a big customer of ours. And I was on the phone with him about something very innocuous, like some promotion you want to run. And I mentioned totally throwaway comment that I was flying to San Francisco because my sister just had a baby and I wanted to see my new niece. And he's all you should come to 20 books. And I was like, what's 20 books? That was the first conference that I went to. And I think I spent like 24 hours in Vegas because I'm not a huge Vegas person. But I was like, oh, this is awesome. And so I think that was really like the start when we were like, okay, this is just a super cool like group of people that are making stuff. It's like I talked to some other friends in other businesses, and their customers are doctors, the customers are lawyers, great, wonderful, noble professions. But when I go to a conference, people are talking about dragons, right? And people are talking about love stories. And it's like, that's just awesome. And so I think I did I didn't know that coming into it.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

And it's really funny that you said we're rational, and yet we're talking about dragons and love stories and who done it mysteries and all that. But I love that because I don't think anybody's ever called authors rational.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah, I think if you ever get a chance and you have a friend, you know that friend you have that's in a band? Most people have a friend that's in a band, right? And you ever kind of talk to that person and then Talk to an author and you see some of the difference, right? There are both creators, both cool, but something about wanting to be on stage is like a different product that you're building for that person.

Jami 22:09

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Is there anything you uh see authors doing that they do because they think they have to, or they hear other people doing it, but they're just not producing results?

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, there's a few things. I think the in there, I'll give you some, I'll answer your question directly, but I think there's a couple things I see. One is this analysis paralysis. There's so much to do, right? And there's all this stuff coming down, and you hear this author's doing that, and that author's doing this, and it's just it can be overwhelming as hell. And I think one of the things that they sometimes authors make a mistake is they get stuck or they try, they spend a little bit of time on this thing that they heard about, a little bit of time on this thing that they heard about. And a good example that I see a lot of this is organic social. So, like if you go into Facebook and you post two or three times, that is going to do nothing for your brand. If you go into YouTube and you make one video, that's gonna do nothing, right? It's really about picking your lane, biting down on what works for you. And so I think when I talk to authors who are somewhat lost, a lot of times that's a common thread. It's like I tried this and then I tried this, and then I tried this, and then I tried this. And it's that curiosity to try new things is very good, right? That's a very positive sign.

SPEAKER_05 23:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

But once something works, stay. You know what I mean? And if you're like, if you figured out Twitter or X, rock it, and that's where you should spend your time. Or if you're comfortable in front of the camera and making videos works for you, stay on YouTube. You know what I mean? And I think that's one of the biggest things is splitting your time and attention between too many things. And I think that's not just authors, that's people, but authors are people too.

Jami 23:46

And there's only so much your brain can hold. There's just only so much your brain can hold. And so a lot of times what I have found that I think because I know that about myself, maybe because I'm a little older, it's there are things I hear and I go, that's interesting. And then I just physically or pick it up and set it to the side because that is not something I'm gonna invest in right now. It's interesting, and I want to know how it's working for you, but I know I can't do that right now. But I think the problem comes when because there is this sense of being frantic right now right now that everybody's grasping at things and really divide your attention in non-positive ways right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

It's yeah, that's very well said. Frantic, I think, is a great word for how I think a lot of people feel. Um, and I read this book a long time ago, not a long time ago, a couple of years ago, called Deep Work. It's written by a guy named Cal Newport. I don't know if you've ever read it, but that book changed my life because it's just I have trouble with attention, just like everybody else. And with the advent of all this technology, which I love, it's my job, but it's hard to stay focused.

SPEAKER_05 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

And you have to make really conscious decisions about your how you spend your time and what you want to get out of your life, right? And if what you want to get out of your life is to write great books, which I think for a lot of authors is their goal, that doesn't mean scrolling or right before bed, right? That doesn't mean certain things. And you have to actually change your habits if you want to change your focus. And that's really hard. I'm not gonna sit here and preach and say, I've done everything. I still have my phone by my bed some nights. Some nights I'm strong enough to plug it in another room. But it's you do have to be intentional about that stuff.

Jami 25:34

You know, with the new technology, AI, right now, and it a lot of authors are talking about using it for their administrative stuff, like on the back end of their business. Yep, yeah, which is fantastic. It can lighten your load if you are an AI person and whatever. But there is a learning curve. And is that is the time that it takes for the learning curve worth it in the end? If it is, then take that time, split your focus for a short period of time, and then you can give that off. Or maybe it's not for somebody like me. It takes me longer to learn things just because my focus is really I have a hard time with focus. So there are some things I'm like, that's good. That automation would work well. If is it how easy is it for me to do that? If it's not very easy and it's gonna require me to spend a bunch of time on it, I have to know I just have to say no, or I can't get anything done because I will hyper focus on something to avoid doing the writing because the writing's hard.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

So it's hard. Yeah, I think that's so important. It's like this stuff's hard and it's just getting a little better each day, is all you can really ask yourself. And saying no, I think you said something you said it's like saying no to things is as important as saying yes to things. Um sometimes it's harder.

Sara 26:53

Sometimes it's more important to say no, which is so hard to say no. So I was just gonna say this is a good point to ask this next question. Have you noticed any similarities between writers who've been successful over the long haul? Because you've been doing this for a long time, and you probably have people that you see over and over again and or immediate conferences or whatever. So, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. The first is the successful writers treat their writing career like a business. Okay. And and businesses sell a product. And so you're writing a book, and yes, it's art, and yes, it's artistic and it's creative and it's important, but at the end of the day, it's a product. And products need to be sold. They don't sell themselves. And one-on-one marketing, they teach you sell the benefit, not the feature. And I think too often a lot of authors talk about the feature of their book. Oh, it's a fantasy novel. That's great. There's a lot of those. What's the benefit to me, right? Like, how's it going to make me feel? Right. And is it gonna make me happy? Is it gonna make me excited? Is it gonna make me what is it gonna make me? And I think that is a marketing skill that's a little some authors consider this sort of braggy. I don't, but I understand where they're coming from. And a lot of times that's something that the good authors are okay doing that, saying, hey, my book's great, right? And here's what and here's why. And I think it's okay to have that confidence. It's okay to be proud of what you've written. It's a hard thing that you did, and it's okay to sell it a little bit. And the authors that have been successful are comfortable with that.

SPEAKER_05 28:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

And then I think the second attribute that I've seen a lot is authors that are comfortable with experimentation. We, when you talk to somebody who is like, oh, I'll never do this or I'll never do that. That's sort of what my kids would call a fixed mindset. And those people tend to struggle. And it's not because they're doing something wrong, it's because they're not finding more things to do right. And the authors that we see that are successful are not the ones that buy the same thing necessarily. It's the ones that, like, hey, I buy this kind of promotion. If it doesn't work, I stop buying it. If I buy this and it works, I keep buying it. And like when something new is out there, it's hey, I'll try that. And if it works, great, if it doesn't, that's okay too. And they have that both business-minded approach, but also like emotional fortitude to say, hey, I spent a hundred bucks on something and it didn't work, but I learned something, right? Yeah, businesses do this all the time, right? I would go on about wasting money on things that didn't work, but like you find things that do work, and I think those two attributes is like treat your book like a business and be comfortable selling. And then two, be open-minded about trying new things. And then the last thing I'll say, and this is almost counterintuitive, but like when you do find something that works, like just keep doing it, don't get fancy with it. Like we have one customer, and so we often coach authors you should be promoting every 90 days.

unknown 29:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So, like that gives us time to acquire new readers for your book. It gives time to kind of like reset the algorithms, but that's roughly how often you should be promoting each title. And then we have one customer who promotes every 30 days, which is the minimum that we allow, right? And he buys a specific product. And I've reached out to him a number of times and I said, Hey, like you could wait a little bit longer. And he said, Nope, this works. This is what I'm doing. And it's okay to have that confidence. Hey, I have this train of promotion or this train, or like for your, I don't know, your cover designer, editor, like whatever works, it's okay to keep doing it, right? That's called scale. And that's how businesses grow and that's how authors can grow. And so I think there's, especially for folks who are creative and exploratory, there's sometimes this, I shouldn't do the same thing I've always done. And I would say it's okay to do the same thing you're always done if it's working.

Sara 30:40

I we have a tendency when we're writing to do, oh, I've already written this book about, you know, a runaway ride ride or a locked room or whatever. And so I need to do something else. But that is probably what drew readers in the first place. So why wouldn't we do it again? I think we get bored with it at times. And so we have to remember it it's okay. The readers want that. So go ahead and do it again.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yeah, it's like you know, when I read, like I love reading science fiction books. I love spaceships, they're cool. You don't have to stop writing about spaceships. That's neat for me. Yeah, but I think please don't, right? Yeah, please don't, right? And so I think, but it it is, I understand where it comes from. So I'm not trying to be judgmental about it, but I do think like, you know, replicating what has always worked in the past is one of the quickest ways to achieve success in the future. And some sometimes authors discount that. Yeah, I would say the biggest mistake that I see, and this when I say mistake, I just this is I try to frame it as learning, right? But what authors who have learned things is is breaking the deal with the reader on genre. Right. And so there's this deal we talk about with the reader that kind of goes like this, and we touched on a little bit before, but right, hey, science fiction book, dark cover, white text, spaceship on the cover, that communicates to me that I know what I'm getting into, right? And the blurb communicates and the font communicates, like all these things communicate. And then if I open that book up and it's just say a small town romance, I'm gonna be upset. That's not what I signed up for. And I think I'm being, I'm exaggerating to make the point, but a lot of times you'll talk to somebody and they'll be like, well, it's this genre and it's that genre, and the cover's sort of this, and you're like, Well, you're gonna have trouble making a deal with the reader because the reader doesn't know what they're getting into. And genre is so important. And that is, we've done all this analysis over the years, and genre is still the number one way to help somebody discover a new book. If you read romance, you're most likely gonna like romance stories. So, and that's okay, right? And so you have to, it's that deal that the cover, the title, and the blur makes with the reader before they start reading, keeping that deal throughout the story. And if it's a sweet romance, they gotta get together at the end. Or or what there you go, that's right, exactly. And there's all these little we call them tropes and we call these things, but the way I like to think about it is when a reader grabs a book, you've virtually shook their hand and said, Okay, this is what you're gonna get when you read it, and you gotta make good on that promise.

SPEAKER_05 33:16

That's a great idea. Yeah.

Sara 33:25

Do you see any trends either in genres of what people are writing and interested in, readers what they're interested in, or industry trends?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah, I mean, there's so much going on right now, and you touched on AI a little bit, and we're AI agnostic, right? Artists get to choose their tools, not us. But that is changing things, and we're seeing that. I think the two places that maybe it's having the biggest impact right now is in audio and in translation. So a lot of indie authors where audio is just out of reach out of reach from a price or time standpoint, like all of a sudden they can do it, and then translation all of a sudden becomes doable, or at least a lot lower cost. And so we're starting to see more authors who are like, Hey, do you have can I promote my books in Germany? Or can I promote my books here in a new language? And we're starting to see definitely the growth in audio for sure. And I think those things both started to happen before like the AI revolution a few years ago, but we're seeing them pick up steam. And then the other thing that we're seeing that I think is really cool, and this also started before the AI revolution, is like a just an overall increase in quality. I think the information out there, your podcast is great. There's other podcasts, there's courses, there's articles. There's a lot of information out there for indie authors now on how to do this well. You know what I mean? And I think we're seeing that, right? We run thousands of promotions every month, and we see the overall quality picking up. Like covers are a little better, names are a little better, reviews are a little better, like all of these things. And I think that's a cool thing for those of us that have been around a while to see, right? So I think that those are probably the big things. I think the one trend that is both interesting and maybe a little surprising to me is the sort of deep, I don't want to call it cultural, but like opinionated approach to AI, where there are some authors that are really against it and some authors that are really for it. And how those groups are having struggling to coexist. That's yeah, and that's like a little surprising to me based on like how cool the community of people that we've been a part of is. That's certainly a trend that we're seeing, that we're watching, but yeah, it's not, I would say it's a little surprising for me. Yeah, I think the thing that we've launched most recently that has been both the most successful and the most interesting is our longer duration promo stacks. Like I'm gonna try to do my best to explain it without getting super nerdy, but I have to get a little bit nerdy, so bear with me. Amazon has updated their algorithm, okay, and it's called A10. And this is not something that happens overnight. It's not one day, it's A9, and then it's A10. They slowly roll it out and it changes stuff. But the A10 algorithm is the dominant algorithm on Amazon right now. We did a podcast on that a few weeks ago, a few months ago at this point, that was really popular, and we were unexpected that it was that popular. What came out of that research is that the longer you promote on Amazon, the better it's doing. So essentially, like promoting instead of stacking all of your promotions around one day, spreading them out over five days is going to give you a better bang for your buck. Taking that further, we started launching 10-day and 15-day promo stacks, which means with one swipe, you can basically buy four or five, six, seven promotions over a two-week period, which one saves you a ton of time because you don't have to like manage all that stuff. But two, we're actually finding that's more beneficial in terms of driving sales and reviews and all the activity you expect from the retailers. And I think that's the thing that we're probably the most excited about, and that we're seeing people buy, at least the successful authors have been with us for a while, are buying that a lot. And so that that's probably the thing I wish people knew. And the only reason people maybe don't know is because it's fairly new. We've just rolled this out in the last few months.

Jami 37:24

And so the benefit of that then is just keeping your book kind of steady as opposed to having a big spike and then a drop. Or I'm uh that's what I would think, but I'm asking, is it yeah?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

It's it is that it's lots of little spikes versus one big spike, is the way to think about it. You know, yeah, you have a promo go out on Monday, a little tail on Tuesday, another promo out on Wednesday, a little tail on Thursday, another promo out on Friday, tail over the weekend, another one on Monday, that kind of thing. And our system figures all that out for you. So all you have to do is buy the 15-day stack and it plots everything for you. But that's probably the coolest thing where we actually looked at the science behind what Amazon is doing and figured out what's going to work for our authors. And then we also had the technology in place because we have all these partnerships with other promo sites to be able to offer that.

Jami 38:15

Can you can you explain to us why that were why that approach works, you think works better than what we've done in the past?

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Yeah. And to be clear, what you've done in the past when we say that, like running the one-day sale with a promo spike still works great. Like it's not like that stopped working, but what sometimes works better based on this new algorithm is spreading that promotion out over long periods, longer periods of time. And that is like essentially Amazon trying to figure out essentially what's really popular and what's artificially popular. And the truth is everybody's advertising on Amazon. But because they're trying to figure out what's truly popular instead of what's artificially popular, they're overweighting links that come from sites that are not Amazon. So where before you may have been able to just run your Amazon ads and make that your business, that's not as not working as well anymore because they're weighting this external traffic from like promo sites like ours, but also like your Facebook ads is running like basically anywhere else. And so they're saying, hey, if traffic's coming inbound to Amazon, that's more organically popular than if I can see somebody's just dumping money into ads.

Jami 39:28

I think so counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah, it's it's one of those things where like the paper that we read, they actually published this like scientific paper, which was like crazy that they did that. And they the algorithm that they changed that had to do with like contextual advertising or contextual recommendations was like a 0.7% increase in sales, which if you're selling your books, 0.7%, like who cares? But for Amazon, that's hundreds of millions of dollars. And so, and so it was a big win for them. And that's part of the inception of all that.

Sara 39:59

Interesting. Well, I want to go back to the Facebook ads. And for me, I understand the appeal of that because I don't want to run my own ads. I think to me, that sounds like a great thing to do. But for somebody who's on the fence and thinking, eh, why don't I just do it myself? What would you say to that? Do you all have more data, more experience running these than an individual author would that's hit or miss?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yeah, I think where I like to sell reader reach is on the convenience, not on the power. So, because there are these courses out there that if you take them and you learn Facebook ads, like they are valuable. And doing it yourself is valuable. So I don't want to dismiss that. It takes time. And anybody who's ever learned how to do it themselves, you waste time. And you often, when you make mistakes, you waste money because Meta's really good at spending your money. It's safer, it's quicker, it's more convenient. And yes, we have some audiences that you don't have access to because we built them over the years. We have millions of readers. It is better from like a targeting standpoint, but we charge a fee. So not all of that $150 goes to ads, but you can check out and start running Facebook ads in about a minute and a half, right? It's just a checkout form like any e-commerce checkout form. You don't have to check budgets, you don't have to learn anything, you don't have to do the creative, you don't have to monitor. So it's like it's an easy button approach to do that. And I think that's resonated with a lot of authors. The only caveat I say is that if you're super gung ho about learning this stuff yourself and you get some expertise and they're like, well, I bet I could do better. It's like, you might be able to. The pro the product was designed for people who would rather spend their time writing than learning this stuff.

Sara 41:33

Even if you write something super niche, would they would you be able to run ads and help an author that has a very small niche? Or is it more general?

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Yeah, I would say fiction does better than nonfiction, roughly. But if somebody has a specific book about leadership or something, like that would be fine. I think it the niche matters a lot less than like the packaging. Obviously, like Meta figures out how to spend your money, but the better the packaging, the better it works. Because the way Meta is working these days is really using the creative, which is essentially the book cover, to figure out who wants to see that thing. And so if your book cover, like we said, breaks the deal with the reader or maybe isn't that strong, it's a little bit less effective. But like I said, the overall quality trend we're seeing is moving than I would say most indie authors who are customers, it works great.

Jami 42:26

Anything else you want us to know about written word media that we don't know?

SPEAKER_00 42:30

I think the longer duration stacks, running reader, reach ads for you, those are the two things that often when I talk to people they haven't heard of. I think the big thing for us that we're most proud of is the podcast. And so Ricky and I, you know, we we run the business together, we're married, and now we do this podcast together where we sometimes we have guests, sometimes we don't, but we sit there and we spend a lot of time on the pod breaking down what's going on in the industry, what we're seeing. We did a whole pod, like I said, on that Amazon A10 algorithm. And that's been really fun and really rewarding. And we've got a lot of really positive feedback on it. So I would say for folks that are looking to learn about stuff that's going on, check out that pod.

Sara 43:09

Yeah, it's a great podcast. And I think anytime you can have content like that where it's long form and you can really dig into whatever feature you're talking about or whatever's talking the community is talking about, I think that's great for your company and for people to get to know you guys. It's wonderful. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yeah, I think that's we did it because we've been meaning to do it for three years, but we finally did it last year. But I think in this new world where I know there's all these scams going around, people trying to scam authors just breaks my heart. But it's not just authors, it's anybody. I think authenticity and being a real person is really a big deal right now. And Ricky and I are both somewhat private people, and I like to build things, and we haven't been that forward, but the podcast has been a really fun way where I still get to just stay in my office by myself. But I can talk about all these things that are really interesting to me and share it with a lot of people.

Jami 44:00

And it's interesting because you were talking about earlier going to going to conferences, meeting writers, they get to know you, you get to know them. It creates this, like you said, legitimacy and authenticity. But not everybody can go to a conference, and you can't go to all the conferences. Right. But we found with the podcast when people listen, this is how we were with listening to podcasts before we searched one. You feel like you know that person after you've listened for a while. Like really know them. Poor Joanna Penn, she has a million close friends and doesn't know it. Just not fast enough to get away from me. I got to say the first time we met her, I latched on to her and like we were old friends. And it's a little embarrassing, but we laugh about it today. Well, what do you think the best thing you've done to set yourself up for success has been?

SPEAKER_00 44:50

That's a great question. I think for Ridword Media, the best thing that we have ever done really is our brand and really staying true to that brand. And we've done that forever. And I thought that when we first did it, I was like, this I'm going through the motions. As we started doing it, you start to realize that the things that you do instinctually are actually part of the ethos of this brand. I'll give you a good example. We used to, when somebody writes in and they're really upset that the promotion didn't do well, we give them a full refund. And we used to do that just because we're like, that uh that feels like the right thing to do. And anybody that has a customer service experience, like with Verizon or like one of these companies, you're like, this sucks, right? It's so annoying. And I didn't want that to be the experience that they had, right? And so we train our customer service people really well. We spent a lot of time on it. And I think that has really paid dividends over the years that we've stayed true to who we wanted to be. And it's very close to Ricky and I's own personality as founders, but there are some things that the company cares about that we maybe not wouldn't have done instinctually, but we're really thoughtful and intentional about doing them. And I think that's that's been really helpful and I think guided us and why we're here today.

Jami 46:04

And I will say that I find that to be true. You know what you're getting with written work media. You just do. I run them, they work well for me. And my I only have seven books. So it's not like I've got a huge catalog, but every time I do a free booksee, it works really well. And I think that's because I know you guys are doing what you promised to do on your end, and that's important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

It is, and it goes back to what we talked about earlier in the show. It's sometimes it's maybe not as exciting and new and different, but we do the same thing. Like we've been exactly we have a really complicated system of acquiring readers, but you're doing the roughly the same thing for a decade, right? You rely on the fact that like we're doing that boring thing every day forever.

Sara 46:47

Right. But it's like us, like we were talking about, how if you find something that works, you lean into it and keep doing it. So y'all are doing it, and we appreciate that because we like the consistency of it. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, that's that that warms my heart to hear. Thank you for saying that.

Sara 47:00

Exactly. Thanks for being here today. It's been great to talk to you and catch up.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Yeah, it's been great seeing both of you, albeit virtually, and hopefully we get to to hang out in person at some point this year.

Sara 47:10

Yeah, it'd be great. We'd love that. So we'll have those links for the written word media and the podcast and that special episode. Those will all be in the show notes for today. And you can support the podcast at wish I'd known for writers.com slash support. If you've received some value from the podcast and want to send some back our way, that's where you can do that, or also on Substack. And we will see everybody next week. Bye. Bye.