How to Boost Book Sales Through Public Speaking: Secrets from Bobbie Carlton | Ep. 40

Is public speaking the missing link in your book promotion strategy? 

In this episode of The Author’s Edge, Allison sits down with Bobbie Carlton, founder of “Innovation Women” and a trailblazer in speaker visibility. Bobbie shares how authorship and speaking go hand-in-hand to amplify visibility, credibility, and even compensation. 

Discover practical tips for landing bigger stages, overcoming industry biases, and leveraging your book to open career-changing doors. Whether you're an aspiring author or a seasoned writer, this episode is packed with actionable advice to transform your book into an unstoppable marketing tool.

🎧 Tune in to learn how public speaking can be the game-changer your book launch needs!

What You’ll Learn:

• Why public speaking is one of the most effective ways to promote your book.
• Creative compensation strategies for unpaid speaking gigs (and how to still make money!).
• How to leverage your book for high-profile speaking opportunities like TEDx and international stages.

Resources Mentioned:

• Innovation Women Membership: https://shrsl.com/4ps4k
• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9780062292988  
• Cait Donovan’s Podcast: Fried. The Burnout Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fried-the-burnout-podcast/id1469939920
• Allison's Next Chapter Membership https://www.lanelit.com/offers/bzACbCjB/checkout

Timestamps

• [00:02:30] How authorship amplifies public speaking success.
• [00:06:00] Creative ways to get paid for speaking gigs—even without a speaker fee.
• [00:13:00] Why “speaking begets speaking” and how to get started sooner.
• [00:26:00] Real-life success stories of women authors leveraging public speaking.

Bobbie Carlton is the founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights, and Innovation Women. Known as Boston's "Innovation Den Mother," she empowers startups and women in tech through PR, product launches, and visibility opportunities. An award-winning marketing expert, Bobbie is a passionate advocate for underrepresented voices i

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Transcript

Bobbie 1:16

Get started with public speaking earlier rather than later. Think about the impact of all of the content that you've created, not just your books. And oh, by the way, any content that you create could be fodder for your next book.

Allison 1:58

Today, on the Author's Edge, I'm thrilled to welcome Bobbie Carlton. She's an absolute powerhouse who speaks extensively and passionately about public speaking and how it can be a driving force behind career growth and business success. She's an entertaining, tell it like it is, speaker and event host and an advocate for creating diverse and inclusive stages. She's also the founder of Innovation Women of which I'm a member. Innovation Women is a Speaker Visibility Bureau. She's been featured everywhere. CBS News, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, USA Today. And she's spoken at the United Nations. Today, in this episode, because I record the intro after the interview, I want to point out that we're diving into authorship and public speaking. And how they go hand in hand. How having a book can open doors to bigger stages, to compensation, if you've never been compensated for speaking or higher compensation. And the challenges that women face in the speaking world when you'll hear her share some stats that are alarming. And we can all do something about which starts by taking action ourselves. I think you're going to love her practical advice and her no nonsense style. So, let's get started with Bobbie Carlton. I'm so glad we're doing this, finally. And that I finally launched this podcast so I can do it.

Bobbie 3:48

That's nice.

Allison 3:49

Bobbie, you're just one of my favorite. I want to call you like one of my influencers, like one of my influencing mentors. Even though, I don't know you that well and I'm a member of your membership. I really value you. So thank you for being here. Whatever. You're welcome. It's not really a compliment, I'm just saying, these are the things that are true for me. So, let's get into it. Bobbie, you often talk about how public speaking can be a game changer for career growth. For authors specifically, how does being a speaker complement their role as a writer?

Bobbie 4:29

Oh, my goodness! I mean, number one, authorship and speaking go hand in hand. get authors who are like, I must go and do my public speaking to move my book. And then, you get speakers who are like, I must become an author. So, often, those things go walking together all over the place. So, if you are an author, public speaking is probably the number one way for you to connect directly with your audience. Okay, maybe the book is first, but you know, you want to be out there talking to your audience. And even if it's something that you are looking at authorship, you should be talking to your potential audience up front. And every time you are on stage, you are probably impacting book sales. People say, I want to know more. I cannot tell you the number of times that I've gotten off stage and people like, do you have a book? Do you have a podcast? How can I subscribe? I'm like, here's my newsletter. It's just not quite as satisfying as, here ha ha plunk down 25 books for my book.

Allison 5:49

Right. They want to take a little piece of your genius with them because they are invested in the moment. And the worst thing I see people do is, Oh, you can go to my website. So, you're giving them homework so that you can do this other thing. So now there are two levels of homework? No!

Bobbie 6:08

Just walk away with the book.

Allison 6:09

Right.

Bobbie 6:09

That's perfect!

Allison 6:10

When you want some candy, you want it right then you don't want to have to go through two steps to get what you want is if someone is having a, like an impulse toward your genius, don't make them jump through hoops. Right?

Bobbie 6:26

Yep, you want to be the candy at the checkout counter.

Allison 6:29

Exactly. And you are. Now, we know that authorship, gives speakers more credibility. Can you explain how having a book can open doors for more speaking opportunities or even higher compensation?

Bobbie 6:48

Absolutely. And I was about to say, there are two aspects of this and one of them is compensation. So, let's start there because everybody always likes to start with the money.

Allison 6:58

Yes. Money, money, money.

Bobbie 6:59

Money, money, money. Alright, money and authorship, money and speaking. First off, understand. Half of all event managers have no budget whatsoever for speakers. Okay, hard truth.

Allison 7:12

Full of good news.

Bobbie 7:13

Yep, I am. 42 percent only pay some speakers. They're paying the keynotes, they're paying the people who are doing workshops, and they've got discretionary funds. So, very small percentage of event managers are paying all or most of their speakers. What does this mean for you? Sometimes you've got to get creative. You've got to have a business model for your speaking. You have to figure out how you are being compensated for the time and the energy and the value that you bring as a speaker. Having a book, being an author gives you many, many more options. For example, an event manager may tell you, I have no budget whatsoever for speakers. Come for the visibility. But you say, I've got a book, you have a budget for swag, gift bags, coffee breaks. You could use that money and put a book in every gift bag. You could put a book on every seat. You could sell the book along with your tickets, like there are so many different options for speaker conversations.

Allison 8:30

A book is so much more fulfilling for a swag bag than another eyeglass cleaner, please. I have three on my desk right now, and they're everywhere. They're everywhere. I mean, I was going to grab one and shake it at you, but I won't. I mean, seriously. And they just never go away because you think like, well, I am going to use it someday.

Bobbie 8:57

Absolutely.

Allison 8:58

But I'm not. I'm not. It's

Bobbie 9:00

Oh, wait,

Allison 9:01

sit on my.

Bobbie 9:01

Oh, wait, I have more.

Allison 9:03

Yeah. So many. We don't need more of them.

Bobbie 9:08

Give them a book.

Allison 9:09

We don't need another bookmark. We need the book. We want something we can use today.

Bobbie 9:17

So, that was the first aspect which was the compensation. Then, there's the credibility. And frankly, there is very little that can surpass the credibility of, I wrote the book. Like, we all want the person who wrote the book. We don't need the people who read the book, who are thefting from the book. We want the actual author on our stage. So, credibility, when you are an author, you just get it in shovelfuls.

Allison 9:53

Absolutely. And PS, you know, you're already credible. You're listening to podcast and you're thinking, well, I'm the biggest poo in my industry. I've mentored everyone. And they all have a bestselling book. Why do I need to have that? I'm there. I'm the expert. Well, the thing is they've made the decision to market themselves as the expert and you are still toiling being their mentor.

Bobbie 10:24

Toiling in obscurity.

Allison 10:26

Yes. You are standing in the shadows and happy to do it, but you do have to take the step forward to say, I'm going to go bigger because you know that you've outgrown the shadows.

Bobbie 10:37

And there's a huge amount of credibility that comes from public speaking. When you are on stage, people think you've been vetted. People think that you know more than they do because you're on stage.

Allison 10:51

You have been vetted.

Bobbie 10:53

You have been vetted, sometimes.

Allison 10:55

Well, it's not a favor.

Bobbie 10:57

But when you are on stage, I want to point out something. Often, when you are on stage, you are elevated above the audience, literally. And yes, I know the meaning of the word. You are taller than they are. They are literally looking up to you. There's a psychological impact to that. You look at somebody and ta da! They were on stage above you. That is awesome for your credibility. So, think about it that way.

Allison 11:29

Right, right. And one effort, one gig leads to the next gig.

Bobbie 11:35

Speaking begets speaking.

Allison 11:38

Correct.

Bobbie 11:38

The more speaking you do, the more speaking you will do.

Allison 11:42

How can authors strategically leverage their book to land these high profile speaking gigs like TEDx events or international stages? I know you've spoken at the United Nations. So I, you know,

Bobbie 11:59

I'm not an author though.

Allison 12:01

you're a badass. your badassery has no bounds. So, how can authors leverage their book to get those high profile speaking gigs?

Bobbie 12:12

Yeah. And a lot of times we think about books as the one pound calling card. Like these are Bar none, the top of the line pitch for you as a speaker. And I'm thinking back to a company that I worked with in the 90s. Big enterprise software company. And one day, a little box appears on my desk from the CEO of the company. And it is Jeffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm. And all of the senior executives in the company are reading this book. And Jeffrey Moore is going to be coming in to consult with the company. And oh, look at that. Now, he is a keynote speaker for our user conference. So, you see how these things snowball. Somebody gets the book, they love your ideas, and then all of a sudden there is consulting and speaking that comes along with that. You can be pitching those opportunities as well. Here's my book, everybody on your team can read the book. And then, we talk about me coming in to hold a workshop and for me to speak at your conference. So, You know, these things all come in a straight line.

Allison 13:39

Right. I think that a lot of people who know that they're meant to write a book, and a lot of the people I work with, they feel like, is this going to be worth it? And I think what they're really asking is am I going to make my money back from hiring someone to help me with the writing or working with me to package the book proposal or to even launch the book to reach out to the right agents. And they think that the,'is it worth it' is the advance they get from the publisher, but it's not. In fact, that's not how authors who aren't J. K. Rowling make money.

Bobbie 14:23

Correct.

Allison 14:24

Most books sell for less than$40,000 and that is given to you over four payments. Usually, across two years. So, doing the math, that's not great. You can't live on that. But it's what the book opens up as a compensation opportunity for you. And you have to be in charge of that.

Bobbie 14:48

Yeah, I mean that same payment structure that you just talked about could be a couple of speeches. It could be a couple of workshops. And when people write books, the payroll doesn't stop when the book is out the door. It doesn't stop when you are selling the book. You know, it's so much more that comes from the credibility of being an author.

Allison 15:15

Right. Speaking gigs are often perceived as unpaid or underpaid. Can you demystify the different ways that speakers earn money through speaking engagements. You gave a few, but like, let's break it down.

Bobbie 15:33

Yep, and I often tell people that We don't just vault up onto stages as keynote speakers. You need to have the right message, you need to have the big ideas, you need to be offering more than the audience can get if they run off to Google and do a single search. So, you have to have your own big ideas to offer to that audience. And you also have to be a good deliverer of that information and that message. And that all takes practice. That's one of the reasons that when people are like, don't take any non paid speaking gigs. I'm like, you know what? Cool your jets. People need to actually do a good job before they earn the right to earn as speakers. And you know, a lot of people wait too long to get onto the stages. You know, they're more advanced in their career. They think that only C level executives get on stage, and they're speaking at every different level. When I first started Innovation Women, which is my speaker platform, I started it with the first project that we did was a panel of young women who could talk to college students about how they got their first job. And two of them were still in their first job. And one of them had just graduated a year before. And they yet still offered great information to college students who hadn't yet been through that process. So, speaking opportunities at all levels, you need to work up to paid opportunities. And a lot of times when we're thinking about public speaking and getting compensated. I always say getting compensated, not getting paid, because there are different forms of compensation. When you are a speaker who is getting paid by the organizers, which is I think what a lot of people think about, that's only one way. When you are that kind of a speaker, you often come to the table with some basic tools. Number one, you have a speaker sizzle reel or video of you knocking it out of the park and doing a fantastic job on stage. People need to see that you are good at what you do. You need to have a speaker one sheet or collateral that an event manager can use when when they are considering speakers. You need to have a fantastic speaker biography, which is filled with those credibility points. Things like, I've spoken at the UN. I have spoken next to Glynn Washington from NPR's Snap Judgment. Like, these are things that I've done that add credibility to my speaker biography. You need to have those credibility points. And oh, by the way, I was not paid to speak at the UN. I was invited to speak at the UN, and I didn't stop to say, how much are you paying me? Because I know that that little data point can be money in my pocket in the future. So, you need these basic tools, you need the experience, you need the big ideas and a value added thing that you can do is be an author, where you have that credibility from being an author. These are all things that drive the potential for paid public speaking gigs. When you are doing visibility driving speaking gigs, you need to be able to capture leads. You need to be able to stand up on stage and say, I am doing this here. Wouldn't you like me to do this at your company, at your event, where you potentially have a budget to pay for speakers? So, there's a lot of sales process that goes into paid speaking gigs. I think a lot of people think like, I am brilliant, I am a genius, I have this long resume of experience. I should be paid. Well, no, you should be putting into place all the tools you need for getting paid and the experience that you are offering to the audience. You have to deliver value.

Allison 20:12

Okay. That was amazing. That was first of all, that was amazing because this is exactly what you help people understand in innovation women. So, let's just introduce that because I'm a member and I'm so happy that Kate Donovan, who's the host of the podcast fried, it's the burnout podcast said to me, you have to join innovation women. Bobby Carlton is a genius. And I was like, I will do whatever Kate says. So, you can.

Bobbie 20:42

Kate is brilliant.

Allison 20:43

Yes. Kate is brilliant. And we will link to Innovation Women and to Kate Donovan's podcast in the show notes. So, let's break this down. There are a few basics that you guide people through when they join Innovation Women. And again, I'll put the membership link in the show notes. But say more about, you briefly said it's a visibility membership, but let's break it down.

Bobbie 21:12

Yeah.

Allison 21:12

Introduce us, exactly.

Bobbie 21:14

Okay. The idea here, and by the way, I've been on this kick for 10 years. Saw the problem way before that finally had the gumption to do something about it.

Allison 21:24

And what is the problem?

Bobbie 21:26

The problem is what I call male, pale, and stale. The same four old white guys over and over again on stage, women don't get that same opportunity. Two thirds of all conference speakers are men. Leaves women out of all these career and business enhancing opportunities. We need to have more women on stage so that we are not being mind brainwashed into thinking that the only leaders, the only experts are older white men. And when I say male, pale, and stale, the stale aspect, people are going,'Oh, that's cute.' She's talking about old. Not necessarily, what I'm talking about is generally the same people over and over and over again. If you go to multiple conferences for a particular industry, you will often see the same people on stage. And hear the same perspectives and the same stories. It's like, enough already.

Allison 22:31

Don't you sometimes wonder? I sometimes wonder, did they go to summer camp together? team. This seem like they're really old friends. Were you in the scouts?

Bobbie 22:41

Or on the same bee you hocky team?

Allison 22:43

Sure.

Bobbie 22:46

Yeah. So, when we are talking about the problem that we're solving, it's really gender equity on stage. But the outcomes that come from that are what I'm really focused on. It's like, I have a hidden agenda. I want to see pay equity. I want to see more women on boards. I want to see more women in the C suite. I want to see more funding for women founded companies. You know, less than 3 percent of all venture capital goes to women founded companies? 3. 3%. I think some of the latest numbers are something like point 9%. It's crazy. And part of this is women don't have that same level of visibility. How can you invest in something if you don't know it exists? So, we need to get women on stage to kind of cure a whole bunch of societal ills. Women need this opportunity to get on stage. And when I talk about getting on stage, it can be webinars, it can be podcasts, it can be conferences and events, big ones, little ones, I don't care. Speaking opportunities give you that visibility that helps drive career and business opportunities. So, that's what we need to do. Innovation Women is a platform. Event managers can come in and use the platform to connect directly to awesome speakers and subject matter experts who just happen to be women. We allow the women to create a profile of themselves, we help them, we guide them through that process. We have a huge amount of educational material in what we call the green room. And in speaker vernacular, the green room is a place where speakers go to prepare to be on stage. Innovation Women has a massive database of constantly, updated opportunities or calls for speakers. A call for speakers is when an event manager is standing there going, Hey, come at me speakers. I want to know what you want to talk about. Like these are opportunities for you. They are asking for you. They are beseeching you. Come to me with your speaking ideas. And then, we have the whole community. We have a Zoom call on Friday, sometimes two, called Speaker Friend Friday. And we also have our whole online community. So, the Innovation Women Online Network. And these are all places where people can ask questions, can answer questions, can connect with other speakers. The most successful speakers have speaker friends. People who are going through the process, maybe you're a little ahead of somebody in one area, and they're a little ahead of you in another. This is peer oriented help aiding and abetting each other as we seek to get women more visibility.

Allison 26:13

I love it. The more successful speakers have speaker friends. Mic drop moment, people. That was amazing. You've worked with so many women who've transformed their careers through public speaking. Bobbie, can you share a success story of an author who used their book to break into speaking or grow their visibility?

Bobbie 26:40

You know, it's interesting. I think a lot of the speakers that, and I don't have permission to name names right now. So, I'm going to give you some not named names. We have one speaker who came to us. She had a book and she was out looking for opportunities to talk about the subject matter for her book. And I think she was excellent in terms of understanding that the book gave her so much flexibility when it came to pricing, when it came to compensation. One part of this that I love is she actually did a book with her son. And when they went to conferences and events, she's very proud of the fact that sometimes her son's book outsold her book. And that's because when she's at a conference, she said, I recognize that people might be going home and want to bring something home for the kids. And so, she would sell books when she was at these conferences and events. But soon she was negotiating larger and larger deals, doing trainings. And she and another speaker in Innovation Women, connected. They connected in one of our breakout rooms and they started doing speaking engagements together. They had a little confab here in the Boston area and invited me out to dinner with them because they had connected through Innovation Women. And they did basically, blossomed into a whole business for the two of them. So, super excited to see those connections being made. Speaking of Kate Donovan, she is one of the many speakers we have on the burnout topic, probably one of the better known ones. And there was a whole group that created a panel of burnout experts and they pitched a burnout panel at some industry conferences and events. We also had them in to do a webinar. And it was fascinating to me to see people that ostensibly are talking about the same topic. All of the different points of view and the different specialties. This one's looking at how to protect your team from burnout. This one's looking at how you protect yourself. They had so many different aspects of burnout and how you could help yourself or get help for the people around you. It was a great conversation. Great webinar.

Allison 29:24

I think that that's so interesting. It's such a good example too because they didn't see each other as competitors.

Bobbie 29:31

Yes.

Allison 29:32

We're all collaborating. The tide is coming in and we're all getting boosted. So, we can always look to somebody who may be with the word competitor, it is really your peer.

Bobbie 29:47

Absolutely. And I feel that a lot of times public speaking as a business, as an industry, ends up being unnecessarily competitive, where people are very secretive. A lot of people who do public speaking, they're not going to share their strategies, their processes. I don't know why. But I don't know, maybe in the back of their mind, they're like, I am a public speaker. I could potentially sell this knowledge. And these are people who are very good at monetizing things. So, maybe that's their plan in the back of their mind. After I'm done with the speaking gigs, I sell my speaking knowledge. But Innovation women, we're looking at this a little bit differently. We rise faster together. We go farther together. So, the more we can help each other and learn from each other, the better off we are.

Allison 30:47

Totally. Absolutely. Now, we're going to pivot. Let me ask, what's a book you can't wait to read right now? What's on your.

Bobbie 30:58

What's on my list? Because Innovation Women has a special profile, we call it the content creators profile for both authors and podcasters, a lot of our members send me their books. So, I have a huge pile in my office to read and also on my bedside table and there's a lot of books running around this place. Right now, I'm actually, coming back to a book that I picked up at South by Southwest a few years ago from Amy Webb, she's a futurist. And right now with the rise of AI, I wanted to kind of dive back into Amy's book and look at what she's saying about AI. We're doing an event in a couple weeks here in the Boston area, AI powered women. You know, one kind of side effect of the fact that there are fewer women on stages is there tend to be fewer women at conferences. And sometimes that means we're not exposed to the latest thinking. And that means we tend to be a little bit behind the eight ball on technology use and such. So, that's one of the reasons that this particular conference is so important. It's really hoping that we help women get up to speed on the use of A. I. in their businesses.

Allison 32:26

Awesome, I'm going to include that in the show notes. This is great. I don't think that was on my radar, but now it's going to be. Okay. Before we call our chat complete, what's one thing you want to leave people with?

Bobbie 32:39

Mm hmm. I mean, I always do come back to, we don't get started with public speaking soon enough. We do have a lot of women in Innovation Women who are like, I should have done this a decade ago, two decades ago. So, get started with public speaking earlier rather than later. Think about the impact of all of the content that you've created, not just your books. And oh, by the way, any content that you create could be fodder for your next book. But I do think that speaking and authorship go hand in hand and we need to think through how we do both of those things strategically so that they become sustainable efforts for us.

Allison 33:32

Yes. And the first step is join Innovation Women, right? I mean, the annual membership is less than$200. And it's just a gimme.

Bobbie 33:42

Yeah. I mean, I know there are a lot of people out there selling memberships to speaking clubs and everything like that for quite literally tens of thousands of dollars. When I started Innovation Women, one of my first, you know, this is my goal, this is my strategy, this is how I'm going to make this happen. I've put in place like, I don't want the price tag to be a barrier for anybody, but I do want to make sure that people have skin in the game so they use the tool that they are paying for. Before I started Innovation Women, I'd actually started two previous companies, and I've worked with startups for several decades. And I know that, you know, a lot of times people are like, it's free. I'm like, you know what? People don't value free.

Allison 34:35

They don't.

Bobbie 34:35

Absolutely, don't value free. And I did a free thing. I helped launch 1500 new products that got more than 4 billion dollars in funding, of which I got a big old zero. And that work was very much a passion product, 11 years, a 135 events. But people didn't value it because they didn't pay for it. We were driving between 2 and 3 million views a month through our social media amplification program. And people would look down their noses at what was a grassroots initiated event because they weren't paying for it. So, third company, learned my lesson, no more free ride.

Allison 35:26

Yup. Equal. Same here, that's why the podcast is free. But I had a free Facebook community. I closed it because people don't show up for free. They don't engage in free. Now, I have a low cost membership that you can join for a month or the whole year. It's called the next chapter. I'll put it in the show notes. And it's for women who want to catapult toward, what's next for them. They are a speaker. They know they need to be an author or they're an author and they want their book to get to the right publisher, the right agent, or to launch in the right way. You know, you have to bring those people together. And you're right, that we rise together.

Bobbie 36:08

Yes, very much so.

Allison 36:10

Thank you so much. Bobbie Carlton, you are amazing. I appreciate you so much. And I will see you on Friday at the Speaker Friends Fridays. Looking forward to it.