How to Avoid the Publishing Mistake That Kills Book Sales with Terry Whalin | Ep. 59

What if your book doesn’t fly off the shelves just because it’s published? 

Allison Lane dives into the truth about book marketing myths with editor and author Terry Whalin. From breaking down publisher expectations to showing you how to reverse-engineer your author strategy, this episode gives you the clarity and tools to stop spinning and start selling.

Whether you’ve just launched your first book or have a shelf full of titles, don’t miss this straight talk on building visibility and making your book work for you.

Listen now and find out how to take charge of your book’s success.

What You’ll Learn:

• The biggest myth authors believe about publishers (and what to do instead).
• How to create book marketing momentum using the Rule of 5.
• What works in 2025 for getting reviews, visibility, and real book sales

Resources Mentioned:

• Terry Whalin’s blog spot: https://terrywhalin.blogspot.com/ | Subscribe: https://t.co/W6uU64u6aA 
• Terry Whalin’s Book: 10 Publishing Myths by Terry Whalin: Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed - https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781642794526 
• Publishing Offer - Get the book + $200 in bonuses: https://www.marketing4books.com/us-ord 
• Connect with Terry on LinkedIn over 19,400 connections: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrywhalin/  | on X 175K followers: https://x.com/terrywhalin 
• Join Bestseller Launch School: https://www.lanelit.com/bestseller 
• Book recommendation: Kenny’s Bright Red Scooter: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781636981352 

Timestamps:

[02:00] – The #1 myth authors believe about publishers
[08:30] – How a children’s book author sold 10,000 copies through the military
[17:00] – Terry’s marketing wake-up call and the power of blogging
[24:00] – Why your book needs reviews—and how to get them
[30:00] – The 11th publishing myth and a free resource you need

Watch here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MKfJB_W0WQ 

Rate, Review, & Follow The Author’s Edge

“So incredibly helpful!” >>> If that sounds like you, I’d be so grateful if you’d rate and review the show! Your support helps more authors build their brands, reach their audiences, and launch their books successfully.

Here’s how:

• Click here, scroll to the bottom, and tap to rate with five stars.
• Select “Write a Review” and tell me what you loved most about the episode!

And don’t forget to follow the podcast if you haven’t already. I’m sharing bonus episodes packed with insider tips, and I’d hate for you to miss out. Hit that follow button now.

LinkedIn @allisonlanelit
Facebook @allisonlanelit

🔔 Subscribe for more tips and insights on writing and publishing!
👍 Like, comment, and share this video if you found it helpful!

Transcript

Terry: 0:00

When you connect, I always encourage people, don't just say, buy my book or something like that. I mean, the key is focus on the benefits of your book. Why should somebody your book? What are those benefits that they're gonna get out of reading your book?

Allison: 0:40

Welcome back to the Author's Edge. This is marketing for the publishing world. I'm Allison Lane. I'm your literary chaperone, your Sherpa, book coach marketer, lifelong publicist. That's a story I'll tell you another day. I'm here to help you write the book. You know you're meant to write and actually launch it, so it sells. We're here because your publishing path should be exciting. It should be fun. It should not be an adventure where you're lost in the woods because it should freaking work. You should know where you're going. There should be no guessing games, and no big fat surprises, and certainly the overwhelm. I just don't want it for you. So, this is real talk that moves the needle for you, and that's why I bring in experts from throughout the industry and beyond because marketing and the best of marketing comes from everywhere. Not just publishing, not just from one industry. So, that's what we're bringing here. Today, we are tackling a topic that trips up even the smartest of authors, even people who this is their life. We're talking about expectations. Expectations because now you say you've written the book. Now what? Now what are you supposed to do? What does your publisher do? How do you make sure your book sells once it's out? How do you get reviews and rave reviews? How do you pitch media or get media buzz? And if you want all those things, but you don't know how to get them, you are traveling without a strategy. Strategy is marketing jargon for a plan, okay? So that all these, marketing glossary words, it just means you don't know where you're going, so you don't know how to get there. But joining me today is Terry Whalin. He's an editor and an author of dozens of books, over 60 books, so that I just stopped counting. Former literary agent and acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has seen it all and he's here to help you steer clear of big. Myths and pitfalls so you have a clear view of where you're going. So, let's jump in. Terry, thank you so much for being here and for being so patient with me for my tech mishap. We had recorded this a month ago and then I had to come back to you and say something was weird with the tech, which is not a shock to people who know me.

Terry: 3:35

I'm glad to be here, Allison, and look forward to this. Absolutely.

Allison: 3:39

Let's jump in'cause I know that most people are not full-time author, if they were, they'd be an expert in publishing, right? Or maybe not, maybe they'd just be an expert in their field and they happen to write books. So, what I see happening is that people jump in and they either get overwhelmed'cause they feel like they need to know everything, or they have expectations that are based on somebody else's experience or what they've seen in movie. And they're sure they know, but they really don't. So, that means that they're making mistakes or running into troubles that you're here to clear up. So, what's a mistake people making when it comes to setting expectations for their book?

Terry: 4:28

There's all kinds of them and that's why I've written this book 10 Publishing Myths

Allison: 4:33

Yep, I have it here. Thank you.

Terry: 4:35

But yeah. I find that authors often have the wrong expectation. For example, one of the myths is that my publisher will market and sell my book. Now, that's a true statement. Your publisher, however you publish, is invests in your book and once you to succeed. But the reality is our interest and our passion for the book is divided. At Morgan James, we publish close to 200 books a year, so we have a lot going on at the publishing house. And I like to remind authors that they're the ones that have the greatest passion, greatest concern about their book. So, they need to take that passion and really fuel that into their everyday actions. So they're doing something to tell people about their book out there.

Allison: 5:27

I think that you hit on something too, and I just, I wanna illuminate when we say, you know what, publisher will market your book. Marketing is everything from promotion to website development to events and speaking publicity. Which is earned social media, digital media advertising, digital ads just every activity, every effort under marketing. So that's like saying somebody else is in charge of everything. And it's not true. It's'cause the publisher is not going to pitch you to keynote at a conference. They are not your marketing director. You are your marketing director, welcome to you. Let me introduce you to you, your in charge of your own marketing. And then, the book can certainly be a door opener. A book will certainly give you something to tout in your bio, especially when you pitch. Hey, I'd like to speak on this panel, and I'm the author of 10 publishing Myths. This is credibility that's packaged and pocket size, right? But it is just one way that people can get your genius. You are here on my podcast. That's another way that you're marketing your book.

Terry: 7:05

Yeah, that's absolutely right. Allison and I like what David Hancock, our founder often says. He says, no publisher does enough. He just throws that out there. But then he also says, we do more than most publishers and I really do believe that's true. We're still coaching, helping authors that came to us in 2005. It's pretty unusual, but we're in it for the long haul to help you sell books. We've actually started this, like an open coaching session on Tuesdays that authors can get on call like this. They can all see each other and they can ask their questions. I think that's great that's one of the things that we're doing just to help our authors. We also have a private Facebook group for our authors. They're all interacting with each other, going to each other's events publishers would never put all their authors into a private Facebook.

Allison: 7:54

They really do not.

Terry: 7:55

They don't want them to be interacting with each other. As a group of authors, we're stronger if we cooperate with each other rather than compete. So it's just a different philosophy. We have over 1400 authors that are in our private Facebook group. That's an amazing place just to go over there.

Allison: 8:12

Yeah.

Terry: 8:13

See what other people are doing, ask questions, get ideas. That's a gold mine over there.

Allison: 8:20

I wanna point out too, my observation here is that'cause you did say that you have authors who are still working with you from 2005. Is that what you said?

Terry: 8:32

That's right. Long ways back.

Allison: 8:34

Long ways back. So, that kind of longevity is tremendous, that long-term relationship. And also the landscape evolves, opportunities evolve, the world evolves. Your book is new to the person who finds it today, and maybe you have something else to say. So, I love that you're talking about, authors stick around and they help each other because after launch day is one day, it's like a birthday party. Ta-da blow out the candles. But that's just the start. You continue.

Terry: 9:09

And your connection to other people and to the market is very important. Do a few picture books, for example at Morgan James, we don't do a lot, but we do a few picture books, maybe 10, 15 a year. And the other day David was telling me about this picture book that we'd sold 10,000 copies of it during December last year. Now, if you know a thing at all

Allison: 9:32

Wow.

Terry: 9:32

about the book market to sell couple hundred picture books during the lifetime of your book that's cool. But to sell 10,000, that's unusual. So, I said, how in the world did the author do that? it turns out this picture book has a connection to the United States military and it highlights all the different branches of the service. And this author had a connection to the Navy. And she told us about that connection and then used that connection to get the book into every commissary in the world about Christmas time. And so you can imagine parents went in there, they saw this cute little book, and they bought it. So, that's how those 10,000 copies happen.

Allison: 10:18

But that happened because the author introduced that conversation to you, right? It wasn't you saying, okay, let's see how we're going to improve distribution. Can you tell us what the book is and I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes.

Terry: 10:36

Book is, and I think it's called Kenny has a bright red scooter or something like that's the name of it. But and you a retired military guy that rides around his scooter and is interested in other veterans and that kind of thing. I guess the reason I told that is it all begins with an active author that understands that they have to do something the book to sell. Now, we have the connections to get the book out there into these commissaries, all over the world. But the author has to sort of drive that passion.

Allison: 11:09

Okay, so this is the book is Kenny's Bright Red Scooter by Amanda Klein and Julie Bourne is the illustrator. So, I'm gonna make sure that this is in the show notes because this is, it's actually a true story of a senior citizen Navy veteran who accidentally, but not surprisingly, captures the hearts of people around the world on TikTok. How charming. Okay. Awesome. I think that's such a good example of an author being their marketing director and then including the publisher in that opportunity. I'm sure you guys were happy to figure out. Okay, how are we gonna manage this now that we know there's an opportunity, but it's not your job to figure it out. Which goes back to what I want people to know is it's up to you to find that path and to include your publisher, or your digital marketer, or your ads person or your publicist. none of them do everything and none of them have access to everything else you're doing. So, you are the hub as the author.

Terry: 12:28

Yeah, that's right. And I mean, the crazy thing about the book business is that there's not just a 1, 2, 3 formula. Each of us are on this journey and we have to figure out where do we find that right connection for us to get published, and then also to market the book. It takes who you know as much as what you know at the end of the day. And that's an ongoing process for all of us to try to figure that out.

Allison: 12:53

Yeah. I do think that a lot of times, now that people are hearing this, they're like, maybe I know somebody at the Navy and maybe I can get into the commissaries. What I want to point out is what works for one author and one book is not necessarily right for you. It's like saying, I like those pants. Do you want my pants or do you want pants that fit you, that are inspired by the pants that I'm wearing? So, we need to make sure that authors are paying attention to what other authors are doing what activities they're doing, get inspired by. But don't say, they did that, so I'm going to. Because you have to drive your own marketing plan. When it comes to marketing, I'm sure you see a lot. What is a popular effort or tactic that's just not working anymore?

Terry: 13:52

Oh, it's not working anymore. I don't know. I think all the different efforts will work if you get in the right place at the right time with the right stuff. I don't know that a lot of things aren't working, but the key I think is to be trying and possibly failing and then trying something else. Even the chicken Soup for the Soul authors that have sold to a bazillion books, people forget that those guys were rejected over 160 times before they finally found the publisher in Florida. And they told their publisher, once they found them that they were gonna sell a million books in the first year. And their publisher laughed at them because they'd never sold a million copies, anything at that point. They thought that was a ridiculous idea. Well, it took'em a year and a half, Allison to sell their first million books. When I heard them speak, they talk about how they follow what they call the rule of five. They got up every day and they did five things to be telling people about their book. They did a podcast, a radio show, a guest blog post, a magazine article, a newspaper article. There are dozens of things that each of us can do to be telling people about our book, but they did it over and over. And that's one of the keys here is to be consistent and persistent no matter what happens.

Allison: 15:15

Oh, consistent and persistent. I like it. I think things have changed too. I agree that there's not one activity that works or doesn't work. I think what doesn't work is choosing one tactic and only doing that, or I'm only gonna do bookstore. People think, maybe in a land far away bookstore tour was it. Now, when you go to a new city, maybe you visit a bookstore, but maybe you partner with a bookstore to provide books to an event that you're having at a community center. Because the bookstore has limited space. So, these opportunities are evolving and maybe before a bookstore did have space. But bookstores are getting smaller and they're not necessarily set up even like acoustically for a talk, for a visit. So, I think while it's still working, all of these things are evolving and they're up to you. That's what I see. And I think that gives people a lot of flexibility, which is good.

Terry: 16:36

Yeah. No, I agree. And you said when you introduced me here, I've been doing this for a very long time. And it was actually my wake up moment, Allison happened in 2007. I was running my little literary agency in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Mark Victor Hansen, the co-author on Chicken Soup for the Soul, invited me to come out to Los Angeles for mega book Marketing University. They were having this event with over 400 people there. And so, I took pitches from people during that event. But I also sat there and I listened to all the different speakers. Now, at that point in my life, I'd written about 50 books for traditional publishers.

Allison: 17:14

Sure.

Terry: 17:15

Publishers were paying me advances. They were putting pretty books in the bookstore. All kinds of things like that were happening for me. When you write a book for a traditional publisher, once a year or maybe quarterly, they will send you a financial statement about how your books are doing out there. I was getting my statement and all of my statements were in the minus category. They weren't earning back, they weren't earning, they weren't selling. And so, as I sat there and listened to all these speakers. About halfway through, it was almost like I woke up from being asleep because I realized how little I was personally doing to sell my own books back then. Sure. I had a terrywhalin.com website, but I was doing almost nothing else in that area. So, one of the speakers at this conference was Jack Canfield, the other co-author on Chicken Soup for the Soul. And Jack Canfield's book called The Success Principles that I have on my shelf up here. Now, that very first success principle says that I will take a hundred percent responsibility for my own success. Now, none of us want to take a hundred percent responsibility. We want somebody else to do it. Want some publisher, publicist, marketing person, please, somebody other than us. But I decided during this event, I was gonna take a hundred percent responsibility for my own success. So, I started blogging back in the early days of the blogging, and I'm still blogging. Every week, I have over 1700 entries in my blog at this point. And I have this thing that searches for my name out there online. And about a year ago, I found this article of the top 27 content producers out there, Seth Godin, Ryan Holiday, people like that. And my name was among those 27 people. Now, they say there's over 600 million blogs out there. There's a lot of blogs. But it's not that I'm doing anything fancy or I'm just doing consistently. Every week, I write a blog article and I put it out there, and people read that. And so, that kind of consistency is really what can pay off for you. And anybody can start doing that. Start today, start tomorrow.

Allison: 19:30

And be committed to it. Like you said, persistent. Yeah. When it comes to what authors can expect though, because a lot of people think I'm gonna write this book and it's gonna sell and it's gonna make me money. You and I talked the last time we talked about how the book is really, very few people make money on just the book'cause that's not the end. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how authors can use their book to fuel their next steps?

Terry: 20:07

Oh yeah. I mean, that's the very first myth, for example, is that I will make a lot of money. Every author figures that, just like the Kevin Costner Field of Dreams movie, that if they build it, they will come,

Allison: 20:19

yeah.

Terry: 20:19

They think. But that's not really true. And so, it's really hard. I tell people that making books is easy selling books. Now, that's another story. And they say statistically, even with the self-published books, there are over 11,000 new books that come out every day. So there's a lot of competition in this whole area out there. But we, as authors have to understand that your book is a great door opener. It shows that you're an authority in the area. You can get speaking gigs, you can get on podcasts, you can get on radio shows, get on tv. There's all different kinds of things, but there's cautions on all this. I mean, I've had authors that have been like on Dr. Oz with supposedly about their book. They talked about their situation that was in their book. But these particular authors, it was like they didn't even have a book when they were on. Dr. Oz didn't mention it. They didn't promote it. They didn't do anything. So, there's some actions that every author has to do when they get talking about their book. 10 publishing myths that we're talking about, for example. I've created a website. If people go to publishingoffer.com, if you're listening to this, just think about publishing offer.com. You can see where you can get this book from me for only$10, including over$200 worth of bonuses, and that includes the shipping. I'll pack it up and ship it to you. I try to make it easy for people to get the book. But I have to say that information just like if you're on Dr. Oz's show, you have to weave that into your conversation. That's called media training folks, so that you actually say about your book while you're talking.

Allison: 22:05

No one is curating everything you do. And a lot of people think I put it on social. Social platforms only show your post to fewer than 3% of the people who are already even connected to you, and those are the people who want to see your post. They're not even shown your post. So, social media is not like a skywriter. Like not everybody's gonna see that. You do have to curate your content and show people. I learned that too when I first started this podcast. I didn't include it in my social profiles. Like why Allison? That's kazoo. I help people pitch their books, find the right publisher, launch their books with my bestseller Launch School. And I have this podcast which allows me to share all these methods and invite experts like you on, so that we're all helping people and we're making it so much easier for people to find the information that they need in a trusted, easy to digest way that they can listen to while they're folding clothes, or picking kids up from carpool. Or nobody's sitting in a cabin in the woods saying, I just need to sit in this cave while I write my book. Life it keeps going.

Terry: 23:36

It does and social media's important, don't get me wrong.

Allison: 23:39

Oh, yeah.

Terry: 23:40

Is important. They've pretty much proven that somebody has to hear about your book 7, 8, 9, 12 times before they actually pick. Decide to buy that book. So that exposure is very important. As publishers, we're always interested in what your numbers are and where you're connected and all that kind of thing. But when you connect, I always encourage people, don't just say, buy my book or something like that. The key is focus on the benefits of your book. Why should somebody your book? What are those benefits that they're gonna get out of reading your book? You gotta be wise about this, but you mentioned book reviews. I mean, a travesty, I go buy people's websites and their book has been out for six months and they don't have any book reviews. The American psychologist, Robert Cialdini said the other day that he wrote this book called Influence. It's a bestseller. And he basically said that they've proven that 95% of the people that buy a product online have read a review about that product before they buy the book. So, what does that say, if you go by somebody's website and they have no reviews or two reviews or something like that's not a good message. So, you have to be proactively doing something about that as an author.

Allison: 25:07

You have to feel comfortable and get over yourself and ask for what you need. And don't ask, God, I hate it when people do this. They say, if you would please leave me an honest review translation, please critique my book. That is not what we're asking for. That's for someone who buys your book and they are welcome to leave you a blah, blah, blah, honest review. But if you're approaching someone, they know that you're asking for a marketing review. This is not a surprise. A marketing review is an endorsement of the work that you're doing. It's not, how good is the writing on page 10 or in chapter seven. It's is this book something that people who have a need or are want more happiness or wanna improve their relationship or they wanna change jobs. Is it something that those people are looking for, they need, and is this author trusted? That's the purpose of a marketing review.

Terry: 26:17

Yeah. When you say marketing review, I assume, at least it sounds like to me, you're talking about an endorsement that's

Allison: 26:23

B blurbs, Yeah. The jargony jargon is, yeah. When you ask people for blurbs.

Terry: 26:29

Yes.

Allison: 26:29

Is an endorsement that's used for marketing. You gotta stop saying, I'd love it if you'd give this an honest review. Like freaking a ask for what you want. Can you endorse this or not? You know, not, I love this book'cause that means nothing to the reader, the book buyer. But you've gotta ask people to give something that's useful to you and the book.

Terry: 26:52

When you ask them, you have to make it easy for them to say yes at the end of the day. Because many people forget about that. I mean these people, the bestselling authors particularly, are asked over and over to do this. So, what I've learned is to make a short ask for one thing, but also in your ask you can offer to send them a draft endorsement if they don't have time. Or you can even write a couple of sentences and put their name on it and say, Hey, would you be willing to say this? And often, they'll look at that and change a couple words and say, go with that. You made it easy for them to say yes, you know.

Allison: 27:37

Right. You're not trying to give them homework. Here's my book, please read it, and give me an endorsement. I agree entirely that no one wants a request that comes with a task that they don't have time to do right then and they won't actually get to. So, you do have to give them a way to go down like drafted sample endorsements. And go, yeah, number four, that feels like it's serving the audience or my readers or the people I serve. That seems like it was written directly for me. And if you're smart, you know who you're gonna ask for endorsements. You should be writing draft samples with them in mind,'cause you know the things that they're interested in.

Terry: 28:30

Yeah. But a lot of people don't even think to do that. They wanna send the book and encourage that person to read the book. And they're simply not gonna do that. I've written forwards for Jerry B. Jenkins that was on this book, for example mark Victor Hansen was wrote the Forward for another one of my books. Billy Graham, when he was alive, wrote the Forward for another one of my books. And the way we got those forwards is I wrote that material for that person. Sent it off to them and asked them if they were okay with that. And so, I made it really easy for them to read it and say, eh, I don't think I'd say this'cause it's easier to fix something that's already in motion than to create it from the scratch.

Allison: 29:17

Right. From the blank page. And you risk them positioning like or giving you something that's not what I would've called out about the value of this book. Like they're not your marketing director, they could end up giving you an endorsement that is not what you've identified as the benefit. And that is also something weird that you might have to address. And that kind of takes the fun out of I got this great endorsement. Except I can't use it'cause it doesn't, it's too vague or that's not really the positioning of the book. So you do have to meet someone, and make it super easy for the yes.

Terry: 29:58

Yeah. And endorsements can lead to other things. Alice Kreider, who's an acquisitions editor, when she sent me back her endorsement for my 10 publishing miss book she said, oh, Terry, you're missing the 11th myth. I'm like, okay I'll bite. What's the 11th minute? She said the 11th minute should be that if I send my book to Oprah Winfrey, she'll book me on her show. And I'm like yeah, that's a pretty good myth there. I like that. And so, what I decided to do when I was writing this book, I decided to write that 11th chapter, which isn't in the book, but we designed it to look exactly like the book. And people can get that 11th myth for me for free, totally free. All you do is you go to terry links.com slash 11th myth one one TH, myth, and that'll take you to the website. Put your first name and your email address in. Then, you'll get this 11th myth for me, totally free and automatically on your email.

Allison: 30:57

I love that you're giving people so many resources and I agree that when you are promoting your book, I think the myth. This might be the 12th, but your book is not news, period. Your book is if your positioning of, don't you wanna cover this book? No, your book is not news. It's not something someone wants to cover. It has to be relevant. It's your job to pitch a book club or an event or a journalist with how your message serves their audience. Even if it's a podcaster. Sometimes I get pitches for people who wanna be on the podcast and it'll just say, coming out with a new book. Wouldn't you like to interview them? First of all, if you listen to the podcast, you know that the crux of marketing is to do the work and to consider the filter like filter would be me for their audience. So what does the audience need? They don't need to be pitched a book. Don't you wanna buy the book? Nobody likes a hard sell. But do they have a perspective that might help? So, you do have to meet that journalist or the event planner more than halfway, and that takes empathy. You've gotta consider, what needs did the audience have? How can I greet them with that so that what I'm offering checks that box for them'cause they're scanning emails.

Terry: 32:42

Yeah, no that's exactly right. That we have to make the right pitch. And I always encourage authors write for magazines, print magazines, online magazines. I mean if your book sells a thousand copies over the lifetime of the book, that's a good number. But in magazine writing it's very easy to reach a hundred thousand, 200,000, half a million people with your magazine article. And at the end of your magazine article, you can say Author of 10 publishing myths and give you a little website there when you do that. Magazine writer, magazine editors rather tell you what they want because they have this thing called guidelines of telling you what they're looking for. Google it. You can find the guidelines, read the guidelines before you make'em a pitch. Many of these magazine articles will take personal experience stories. All of us have strange personal experiences in our life. So if you write those up, have a solid beginning, middle, and end, have a takeaway a point. Get published in magazines. That's one of the reasons that Allison, over the years, I've written for more than 50 magazines. I'm still writing for magazines because that's a great way to get your message out there as an author about your book, but also just to reach out and get the reader in that effort.

Allison: 34:04

And the magazines, I'll just say this for people who think like, well, you know, they already covered this, like Cost covers. You know the color palette of the season, women's rights every year, mother's Day comes around. These magazines are niche, they cover the same content and they have an editorial calendar. So, yes, their angle of a story might change, dating advice or career advice, but it's still there. So, there's still room. I used to, when I was leading PR for the Body Shop and Bert SPEs and Unilever, I used to meet with magazine editors every month, all of them. So 50 or so magazines, and I would go to the Hearst Building or the Conde Nast building and go up and down the elevator every 30 minutes for two or three days. Because I had a pitch for them that fit into their editorial calendar, that served a need that they had. And also, I didn't wanna give them too much. It's not their job to be like, here's my pitch for the all the pitches for the year. Give them just enough to say yes. And also be a helper. If they need background, if they need access to an expert, it's not always about what do you get? But a journalist is doing a job. Sometimes they just need help. Sometimes they need a quote. They don't want a buy my book. They want to fill in an expert quote, which is also credibility building for you that you can put on your website. Which you've been in every magazine. I have been quoted many times in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and that is authority building. But if you're not using the result and leveraging it, then you're not doing your job as your best marketer. Oh, sorry, I'm gonna get off my soapbox, but I really want authors to be in charge. And let's pivot now that I'm done, beating a drum. Terry, you're such a big reader. Can you tell me one of your favorite books that you told me it before, but I want you to, if you don't remember, I'll tell you'cause you sent this to me before.

Terry: 36:52

I think it was probably the professor and the madman.

Allison: 36:55

Yes.

Terry: 36:56

A book that I was actually in a session in New York where we talked about this book being a bestselling book. And I have a signed copy by the author Simon Winchester, as well as his agent, his publicist. They all signed the front of my book by the way. This is a, a little known story really about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, the largest dictionary in the English language. When they made that dictionary, one of the people that was the greatest contributor to that dictionary never showed up at the meetings. Professor Murray couldn't figure out why this guy never came to their meetings. He found him actually in the Broadmoor Asylum in England. He was locked up in a cell that was there. He had been a Confederate, or, no, he was a union soldier. And was a surgeon and actually made him as a doctor for people that deserted to heat up a branding iron and brand people's cheek with a letter D, which is a horrible thing. So, the fact that he had to do this as a doctor just drove him crazy. And so he was out in London, stumbling in the streets and imagined somebody and pulled out a gun and shot them and killed them. That's why they locked him up in this asylum for the rest of his life. But he was still getting a stipend from the US Military. And so, this guy bought books, so he had his whole cell lined with books and so he was one of the greatest contributors to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. It's a fascinating book, and it

Allison: 38:39

I loved that book. I loved it. I remember reading it, thinking like, wow. Alright, Terry, let's bring it home. Let's hear one tip that everyone can do today to get their book in the world. I

Terry: 38:58

guess the biggest tip that I would give you is to not just be soaking in knowledge and actively reading about different things that you can do, but take action. I guess at the end of the day to do something, to be telling people about your book. Maybe it's a little video you put on TikTok. Maybe it's a podcast that you pitch. Maybe it's a radio interview that you pitch, a magazine, a query letter that you write. There's dozens of things that you can do, but don't just read about them. Actively, do something today.

Allison: 39:31

You heard it here, it's time to take action. We're here giving you all the goods. And I know that you're in carpool or you're sitting in a parking lot waiting for your daughter to get out of basketball practice. That's just me several times a week. But you do have to pick up a pen, or put together your pitch, or join a writer's community, or learn how to market your book. You could join my bestseller launch school and get every thing all the tools, all the templates, all the best practices so that it's easy. But whatever you don't lament, don't do it alone because we're better when we're together. Writing is solitary. Being a writer, it's better when you're part of a community cause we're here to help each other. I want to thank you, Terry, so much for being here. And thank you for listening, for showing up for yourself, for sharing this podcast and this episode with someone you know needs it. They're not gonna find it unless you send it to them. So stop and just forward it. Send them a text. You need to listen to this. Terry's brilliant. Allison is so fun. She really knows her poo. Whatever you do, take action. Share what you know, and ask for what you need. That's your job. That's my challenge to you. And if you have a question you wanna send to me in the show notes. Click the button, send me a question. It'll say, send me a text and then you can send me a text and I get it right away. It's magic. Alright, I'll see you next week.

Terry: 41:23

Thank you.