Behind the Book Cover

Many authors are afraid of getting sued. Many authors are confused about copyright. (It's legit confusing.) Many authors don't know that they should establish an LLC. That's why author and attorney Maria Riegger's advice and suggestions were so useful.  In this episode, we talked about how to copyright your book, the risks of writing about someone you know and the importance of setting up an LLC, among many other things. She's also written a book, Legal Issues Authors Must Consider, that's entirely focused on these topics. So dig into this episode. And protect yourself! IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH. GET YOUR BOOK ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Oh, wait a treat this one is! Here you're getting four for the (free!) price of one: a round table interview with four of my clients at ONCE: Barbara Legere, Tamar Hermes, Chris Joseph and Lauren Schwarzfeld on the anxieties and excitement of their first book launch. Only listen if you want to hear the disparate experiences authors have on their first book launch! IF YOU'RE WRITING A NON-FICTION BOOK, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Jeremy Enns is the founder of Podcast Marketing Academy, the only growth-focused podcast education platform for experienced creators, brands and marketers looking to build long-term, sustainable audience growth systems. We met five years ago at the World Domination Summit in Portland and I've followed his work religiously ever since. I've had other guests on before to talk about how authors can get booked on podcasts but I wanted to bring him on to talk about how authors can turn their books into podcasts (think Tim Ferriss' Tools of Titans). In this episode, we talked about why you don't just want to make your podcast a rehash of your book but more a jumping off point, a way you could release a podcast while writing your book, thereby making your listeners into beta readers of sorts and how the way to be successful in a book-to-podcast transition is to have a strong thru-line. IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Boy, does Craig Stanland have a story to tell. It starts with the FBI knocking on his door, followed by two years in prison. But that's not really what we delve into here. Instead we talk about the book he wrote on his experience—and the one major mistake he made. Now that he's at work on book number two (title TBD—we get into that in the conversation), he's approaching everything differently. Find out about that, as well as how he's planning to use videos to launch his next book, in this episode.  IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH. GET YOUR BOOK ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Holly Darling is the owner of Holly Darling HQ, a business that focuses on helping authors create and implement their email marketing strategies to sell more books and build their brand loyalty.  In other words, she was the perfect person for me to interview about why you need to start your author newsletter list now—and the most effective ways to do that. In this episode, we talked about so many things, including but not limited to: which newsletter provider is the best one to start with (hint: it's not Mailchimp), average open rates (and why open rates have been inflated lately), why to be vulnerable in your emails, how and why to split test, whether or not you should re-send emails to subscribers who don't open, where you should put your newsletter sign up in your book and finally why it's great to not have many subscribers. In other words, actionable AF. So dig in. And take action! IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Craig Tuch is doing God's work. At least when it comes to the author who really wants Amazon reviews. See, Tuch started a company called Hidden Gems that, among other author services, provides a way for authors to gather reader reviews for their books. As anyone who has managed an Advanced Reader Team can attest, getting people to follow through on actually writing the reviews they've promised is no simple feat. Hidden Gems to the rescue—with very reasonable prices to boot! In this interview, Tuch broke down how he gathered a list of 15,000 avid readers who love to review, why it's good to have bad reviews and how sticky the Amazon review process can be. IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Rich Goldstein is a patent attorney, speaker, host of the Innovations and Breakthroughs podcast and, most relevantly for this show, the author of the bestselling book The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent, which was published by the American Bar Association. He's someone who understands through and through what a book can do for someone's business and in this episode, we got into all that as well as how writing a book changed Rich's career, why he sends a copy of the book to anyone who requests it and how writing a book could, theoretically, make an entrepreneur a cool five million. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

This solo episode is material from the book I'm currently writing (working title The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Preparing, Promoting and Profiting from Your How-to Book). I'm sharing it with you for several reasons: 1) If you're writing a how-to book, you need it. It is all about the WHY, WHAT and WHO of conceptualizing a how-to book. 2) I am practicing what I preach in this book, which is SHARE WHAT YOU'RE WORKING on with your audience so the people you're writing it for can give you feedback. On that note, do you want ALL the advance intel about this book? In other words, do you want to be the first to hear about the latest tips and techniques when it comes to preparing for, promoting and profiting from your non-fiction book? Do you want to potentially be included in the book? PLEASE SIGN UP HERE. Excited to share the journey and all the exclusives with you! SIGN UP FOR EXCLUSIVES ABOUT THIS BOOK IN PROGRESS HERE!

Alex Sanfilippo is the host of the top-rated podcast Podcasting Made Simple, the founder of PodPros.com, a software company focused specifically on the podcasting industry and the co-creator of PodMatch, a service that matches podcast guests and hosts together for interviews. That's not all! He also co-founded PodcastSOP, a project management tool that helps podcasters keep up with their episode releases. You get it: the guy is POD OBSESSED. So who better to come on the show to talk about how authors can book podcast tours? Everything he shared was fascinating but what I found especially fascinating is what he had to say about why authors should pass on opportunities to go on certain shows and why appearing on smaller podcasts can be way more beneficial than going on the big ones. Good one! Don't miss it! IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Today, in this solo episode, I'm answering the five most common questions first-time authors have. They are: Do I need a copyright for my book?How many copies of my book will be printed?If I launched a book, and I didn't sell many copies, should I relaunch it?Should I sell my book only on Amazon? Forgive me, that's four. I honestly thought when I recorded it that it was five. I am truly this bad with numbers. Good thing I can do words, no? IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM