are you an author looking for a way to create print and sell your books through
all major retail channels or are you an artist educator or non-profit
organization looking for a way to easily publish content through a well
established and reputable company then you'll want to hear from today's guest
expert Chelsea Bennett lulu.com stay tuned
welcome to self publishing with Dale where you'll learn tips and strategies
for publishing your own books today's guest Chelsea Bennett is the
public relations & Events Coordinator for lulu.com one of the leaders in print
on demand services I've been loosely following lulu.com for
the past year and more recently was drawn to their YouTube channel Lulu
press hosted by Chelsea it only takes a few minutes before you'll discover
Chelsea is the perfect mouthpiece for this company for open enthusiasm and
clear knowledge of the business keeps me tuned in every week it's Chelsea's
infectious energy insights that bring her to the channel today welcoming to
the channel a long time in the making Chelsea Bennett how're you feeling hey I
feel great after an introduction like that how could I feel thank you hey
thanks it always throws people off because I always say this we we're off
and like my energy down what kind of chill I gotta turn it on the show man
and I me and I think it kind of annoys a few people but they'll be alright yeah
yeah it's just just like this you know really generic this is you know Chelsea
what's up day on Chelsea how are you doing yeah that's the way we roll and
see this is the kind of you know entertainment that we're providing out
the gate what more do we have to offer here I'm telling you yeah so uh I can
ask you a lot of the traditional questions and
that's just gonna kind of waste our time I want to kind of get down to the meat
and potatoes because Lulu's been around for 15 years am I correct in saying that
yeah yeah around there since 2002 so we're kind of you know the first in the
game you know self-publishing print-on-demand so yeah we're the oh
geez if you will yes the oh geez of it so I noticed that you've had a YouTube
channel for quite some time until a couple of months ago Lulu press on
YouTube had just you know promotional videos they were very well produced and
then you came along and kind of created this disruption and that's what really
kind of grabbed my attention because you were doing some more information based
tutorial style videos why the sudden change well you know first of all thank
you for being a longtime fan first time caller so I appreciate that yes so we
were doing more informational videos and this really goes back to you know very
similar with self-publishing but it's not knowing your audience and
understanding what they're looking for and what information they're looking for
and so we noticed you know google trends people were starting to type in more
longtail questions so you're not typing dog you're typing what do dogs like to
do or you know put your dog's thing cover you know whatever so so just kind
of keeping it with that it's not people with typing in self-publishing anymore
but it's you know how can I sell publish smarter or how can i edit when I'm so
publishing or you know kind of leaking into things like this and we just kind
of saw that there is a you know wish I could take credit for it but I have a
great team that we work together and so we saw that there is an opening and kind
of a need for this information of like when someone comes to youtube and types
in how do I self publish what's coming up or someone's a Texan what is some
publishing you know what's there and you know since as we just said we've been
around for a long time so we're like hey we might have some answers to this
questions that are worthwhile so yeah so we kind of threw our hat during there
and then started Lulu University and it's been it's been really good I mean
just to kind of hear the feedback has been really positive but just being able
to provide information on something that may seem scary or intimidating and
presenting it in a personable and you know interesting and informative way and
there just seemed to be a need for it and so that was
our motivation for the change yeah I really love it the production value is
just off the charts a lot of people will say to me they're like all your
production it's great but then I look over at Lulu press and you guys are just
crushing it and you brought up something and I would like to kind of backtrack
just a little bit here after I gave you a nice little compliment you talked a
little bit about longtail keywords and the value of how its kind of brought in
more of what people are looking for what your ideal audience is looking for do
you see any parallel between the business of video publishing and
self-publishing books yeah I mean I do I think you know nowadays we have so many
tools and resources to where it doesn't have to be just one or the other as a
self-published author and really you should think of yourself if you are
self-taught there your business person and you're managing your own business
and so when you think about it there's no need to think like oh so potion books
is this way and self-publishing your content or videos or this way it's
really a holistic view and now the resources and tools that are available
to entrepreneurs and sub publishers and business men and women it's just there's
no need to try to think of one or the other but they're just so many tools to
be able to do all of it and so there are definitely parallels there and when you
see things that are working with your self-publishing work like when you find
a niche that you're really fitting into then you can bend this people want to
see video content too and then if you're nailing it with yourself publish content
then they're gonna want to see more in different formats in different forms so
you know there's some theories out there about you know unicorn versus donkeys
and donkeys are the boring content that's kind of you put it out on really
carries the unicorns are the content they put out and you just nail it it's
great and then you just keep doing those unicorns you keep having of you make
uniform babies and keep doing what work so if you're doing something you're
self-publishing that's really working and try to translate that to video and
see what happens it's definitely work if you don't like it just delete it man it
probably lives forever but you can really do yeah in most instances that's
amazing the first time on this channel that content has been referred to as
unicorns or versus donkeys to credit the guy who came up with this I forgot his
name right now but I'll get it to you sir unfortunately yeah unicorns
tremendous what makes lulu.com different from other
print-on-demand companies and ebook distribution platforms well I think it
really goes back to the genesis of so our founder his name is Bob young and he
also founded Red Hat software and so it was the co-founder of Red Hat and so Red
Hat is at his for Barry it's really into open source and sharing information and
Bob through his experience through Red Hat wanted to write a book about it and
had a really terrible time traditionally publishing and you had a ton of books
and it was just a really long and expensive and aggravating process and so
he just felt like you know open source is something that can translate the
publishing and there should be a platform where people you know there
aren't barrier to entry and people are able to come until their story and share
their knowledge with whoever they want to share it with you know there doesn't
need to be gatekeepers or publishers sitting you know this isn't really
marketable or you know what this isn't really on trend or in you know 18 to 24
months and we're actually able to publish your work no one's gonna care so
he thought yeah this is a huge void we need something that is available for
people to come and publish the work that you know you have your voice and share
it with people who you don't care and so I think that that is really what sets us
apart it's just in our DNA it's about you know supporting and empowering
people to get their story out there so that's kind of one thing but then you
know the other thing that you know people may argue is even more enticing
is that it's completely free to publish as we move you know it's very low risk I
always like to say it's low risk high reward because you publish for free and
you only pay when you want to buy print copies of the book so if you're doing an
e-book with us you know it's completely free and our revenue slits are the
highest in the industry so we do 80 24 print books so the creator keeps 80% of
the revenue Loui gets 20 and for e-books it's ninety
ten so the creator's keeping 90 percent of the revenue yeah and then we have
global distribution that's also free so I mean not only are you able to sell
through a little bookstore but you can sell through Amazon Ingram Barnes Noble
we do you know iBooks and Kobo and all these other things too so we have a lot
of outlets yeah so those are kind of the three
three of our highlights but I could go on those are three things when people
kind of ask for the quick and dirty why would I go a little ooh that's you know
I think those are sort of the hard hard to argue points if you know why yeah
yeah you've you covered some of the main features so what are a few things people
don't know currently about lulu.com and should well I think that one of the most
important things to know about publishing or self-publishing is that
it's not just for authors so you know of course authors are you know we love
authors and that's a big part of what we do but also as you mentioned in the
intro of me you're selling it for me but like you know educators artists
entrepreneurs and you know businesses alike can also utilize publishing and so
one thing that people probably don't know about Luthor right now is that Lulu
Express is a platform that we just launched to sort of like a stripped down
version of blue so you know as Lulu you can go through the is distribute you
know through our channels I mean stuff for a bookstore but this little Express
you just go upload your content and print so if you have a course that
you're teaching or if you have you know as some menials you want to print out or
journals or workbooks or something that you just want to sell you know by hand
or through your website and you don't need global distribution you don't mean
ISBN number or a nice bin then you can go straight and Hulu Express or just
upload and go and so that's one thing and then even maybe more exciting than
that is that our living Express platform is being integrated into Shopify as so
now will be the first-ever print-on-demand plugin for for sacrifice
I think that's really exciting Wow Congrats on that one that's big news
man I'm gonna have the launch as soon as possible that's really exciting yeah
yeah yeah so that's definitely and that's coming you know in the next
couple weeks so we're super excited about that and actually probably by the
time this is live it'll be out of it yeah that is tremendous that's awesome
kudos that's that's really I'm actually really excited about that yeah but again
it's a perspective listening to your audience in your community and what they
want and you know they all of our creators and all your self up the
surgeongeneral want more control and they want more ways to sell their
content and so we want to be able to provide
that so that's sort of why that can be being head of public relations for
lulu.com can you share some easy ways for people to promote and market
themselves on the cheap yeah so that's something that we were constantly asked
here I would say we go to shows and conferences our authors are number one
question is like how could i market my book and you know writing a book is hard
but the work you know like people say the work starts when you publish because
that's when you have to get out there and start like you know beating up
pavement and getting the word out and so that I you know I referenced earlier but
there are so many tools available today to creators and it's easier than ever
before if you're willing to put the work in to get your book out there and I will
say the caveat that the content is good so if you don't have good content then
no amount of free or paid marketing is going to get you anywhere so make sure
that it's good content so assuming that the content is great any better great
cover you know the social media is kind of always the go-to because it's so
accessible and you're always going to be able to find communities there that you
can fit in to you with your genre so I'll start with emails so I'm sorry I'll
start with social media so social media is a great way to start because there
are so many different communities and people are so active on social media but
you know the thing to note about that is that you don't want to spread yourself
too thin you know you want to identify where your audiences and then focus on
that channel or you know channels depending on what your what your genre
Nisha's so once you kind of identified the platform's where your community is
most active then you know it's very inexpensive me to put 10 dollars 20
bucks 50 bucks into its ads on Facebook or on Twitter and then it'll kind of
it'll get you pretty far so you don't have to spend thousands of dollars and
see no results you can kind of test all the waters and put ten dollars behind an
ad or twenty dollars and then if it did well you know continue to pay for and if
not then kind of change your strategy there so social media is a great one of
course then one thing to note about that is you find other authors in your genre
or find other people that are talking about what you're writing about and then
work with them I know for authors starting out especially you can see
other authors as competitors but you know none of this just reads
so it's really good to team up and make these relationships and and then you
know build communities together and share audiences so that can be a really
inexpensive way and it virtually cost nothing to join a group or reach out
with someone in your area and say hey we write it similarly let's work together
and share our communities so that's a great one
if you don't have an author website Squarespace
or WordPress are really great I'm definitely build your off your website
and have kind of a home base to send people and then from that you can start
an email list so I know that MailChimp for example has a free free I think up
to 2,000 subscribers but that's a pretty hefty email list size so emails are a
really great way to engage with your audience and this is a very you know
intimate for lack of a better word way to do it because you're not giving your
email address everybody you're giving me the people who you want to communicate
with so it's a little bit more direct than some social media channels cuz
you're not just constantly competing with like what your grandma did last
night or what her cats doing today and so so it's a little bit more direct so
those three things are all pretty inexpensive and I would say if you're
just starting out and you haven't invested in one or all of those then our
website email list in social media are gonna be the best way to get get your
foot in the door and all like I said pretty inexpensive that would be my
starter kit excellent tips and darn you grandma seriously yeah you can wait what
are the most common mistakes you see when people submit their manuscripts to
for poor distribution through lucam yeah so the biggest mistake I think that we
see is people not understanding sort of the endgame coming to lose so what I
mean by that is when you bring your when you're ready to publish and you have
your manuscript you always want to think about what is your end goal is it to
raise awareness about a non-profit is it to raise money you know raise revenue is
it to you know just get the word out that you're writing out what is your
goal in mind and if it's to raise revenue then that's still a different
than if it's just to like hand out at a show or everyone to a conference and
want to get this information so it's important going into it to know
exactly like I know for this book I'm ready I want to be able to sell it on
Amazon I want it on Barnes and Noble I want on Ingram like I want all these
distribution channels and that's great but if you do that then you need to be
aware that different channels except different sizes of formatted books they
need you know you didn't have an ISBN if you want to distribute like that's just
kind of standard practice so that's something that I see a lot of people
getting sort of you get along the process and then you know your metadata
isn't right and you want to distribute all you have to go back to square one so
it's I would say it's a combination I'm not understanding what you're in goal is
for your book and then not understanding that the metadata has to be perfect to
get it there so so I would just encourage anyone who is kind of on that
self-publishing journey and is in kind of the beginning stages or maybe you
just finished your manuscript in your exploring platforms just go ahead and
skip to the end and your ideal dream for your book what is it you know and figure
that out and then working backwards to say okay so I know I wanted to serve you
through these channels so I know they they accept these formats I know I'm
good there I know any nice bin so I'm going to go ahead and get it I know that
my metadata needs me right because I'm gonna distribute the reason for channels
and sort of build your checklist that way so that's definitely one of the
things that we see a lot of people not understanding in the beginning and then
kind of paying for it at the end nice you touched on something I'm just
seems like it's a perfect transitional time tell me about the international
standard book number also known as the ISBN is it important to buy your own or
can we rely on distribution platform assigned ISBNs well again it kind of
goes back to what he wants to do with the boat so if you are thinking you know
lutely we see a plethora of reasons why people are publishing you know from you
know your grandma holster publisher cat pictures into a book to you know people
who want to be you know bestsellers and have aspirations that are sort of in
that more traditional vein and so it goes back to thinking you know if you
are planning on being an author as a business then I would suggest buying a
nya Stan so you can buy it through Lulu we saw them I think the $99 so you can
and that just gives you more control it's just another step and more control
of the content so if you're thinking you know I want to have it on this platform
but I may want to move the content and want to do other things with it and it's
just a safe bet to go ahead and buy that I spin alright so there's no you know
that's your key on it but I will say that we also have is beans for free so
if you come to Lulu and you think you know I want to have this book and I know
they don't want to sell it to retail so I have to have a nice pin then it's
really easy to go ahead and we'll assign one for you or you can take a free one
from us and then you know if you want to one of the great things about Lulu is
you can essentially use this as a white label service so you can come to Lulu
and change the imprint name cute so say I'm publishing a book and my publishing
houses Chelsey's the best publishing so you
know I changed my imprint names you chose as the best publishing and then
everywhere you see it you know you're not going to see Lulu anywhere so even
if you use it yeah unless you want to for whatever reason but yeah so you can
do that and so you can take one of our free eyes bands and just change the
imprint name to your in front and the only reason it would default so Lulu as
a publisher is if you don't fill out information out so there's a couple ways
to go about that is really cool you just inform me on something I did not know
about Lulu and then almost as getting anywhere I'm kicking myself because you
can't necessarily go to and I'm not trying to throw any of your competitors
under the bus but I'm just gonna go ahead and say create space isn't gonna
allow you to change the imprint it's going to stay under create space and of
course Amazon's big you know all-encompassing juggernaut like size
platform so that is really cool that you can switch the imprint from Lulu over to
your own man that's awesome I'm really excited I got goosebumps right now so
here we go here's a common question I get and I hope hopefully you can kind of
help shed light on it how much money can assault published author realistically
expect to make in their first I'd say a year to two years in the business okay
so I wish I could just say $100,000 still I mean come on don't we wish it
was all true right hey but this is this is so different for every single
person because you know non-fiction books you know are different than
fiction books I mean you can be very generous Pacific human so my advice to
someone you know because like I said it's different for every person and it
just depends on your goals so my advice to anyone who's asking this question is
get clear on what you want and then you'll be able to decide what that
number is and then you can decide if you want to work to achieve it or if you
know this is several years down the line and that's you know it's different for
everybody but what we do and one way to look at it the kind of an algorithm to
kind of think of what you need to do to get to that place is thinking of your
yearly monetary goal divided by the amount of fans you have that's gonna
sort of people the revenue that you would need per month this is saying
yourself or to meet your goals so some people here your goal is actually paying
my Netflix bill I just want to be able to write in payment efforts bill and
order pizza and that's my writing careers that would cover that
so that's your golden you take that you know $200 or whatever take that amount
and then divide it by how many active fans do you have today
how many engaged active fans you have and that can be kind of tricky and you
know so I'll go back to my email list when I was talking about building out an
email list your email list and how many people you have opening your emails and
interacting with it can be a really good indicator of your engaged fans how many
people you have that really are interested in your content so you know
again it's different for everybody but you need to kind of find out how many
people you have that will buyer your information your content regularly and
then that will kind of help you dictate okay so I've got 20 fans that are
willing to pay this amount of money every month you know when I put them on
conjugant I know I have 20 people they're gonna pay for it so then that
can kind of help you dictate how much money you're gonna make so that is not
you know as glamorous or sexy as me saying like could you guys dollars a
year you know which you know would be great but honestly it's it's just about
building up that base and I would I would suggest anyone who's asking that
question that it's the wrong question to ask because you should be thinking we're
gonna be in three or four or five years not you know in twelve months or 24
months because really you know if you're self-publishing and if you're a writer
and most the time you should be in it for the long game because your content
isn't going anywhere it can live forever on these platforms
and you should always keep writing you know I think there's so many success or
it's self-published authors in traditional authors work it's not their
first book it's not their second book that's not their third book it may be
the eighth book before it really picks up and then they're back this will start
spelling so my you know the best recommendation the week in Maine from
what we saw our authors is get clear on your goals and what does it mean for you
to be a successful writer because maybe that is just hey I can pay for my late
library charters now that's great so that's you know $15 a month or whatever
so what getting that number and then figuring out kind of working backwards
and thinking okay this is what I wanna make this is how many active fans I have
and so this is how I'm gonna figure this out every block so again you know she
could be an easier answer but it's just different for everybody and it's just
sort of the way it goes nailed it that was awesome as exactly
that was not exactly the exact answer but that was really the answer that was
awesome so what do you think holds a lot of people back from actually publishing
their content it's scary terrifying because you're you
know in one fell swoop saying I have something that deserves to be read by
people or deserves to be seen by the public and you know so that's can be
really intimidating to people but I also think that publishing is a scary word
because it just has a lot of connotations with like you know a group
of people judging your content and then putting it up and then publish like I'm
a published author or you know creator or entrepreneur and that can be really
intimidating and I think that that's what it is I mean people get really
scared and they think about the work that goes into it and you know I I'm not
gonna lie to you there's a lot of work you know putting forth any kind of
anything that's worth people seeing and noticing and creating conversation takes
work and as it should but you know that's just a small part of it and you
know I think that anyone on the other side of that publishing wall that says
yeah I did you know jumped off the foot I could jump off that's a terrible
terrible analogy but and I did it you know I I did it you know I saw this
through and I finished and I have this book in my hands I don't think that
there's a very overwhelming population of people who are thinking I really
should have done that unless they didn't do it smart unless they have 12,000
books in their garage that they can't sell they're like how could I do this so
I would you know I would say that it is you know all of the anxiety you have
that's probably there's probably valid and that's good and that's kind of a
fire in the belly kind of thing but you know there are always gonna be people
who don't you know and I mean that's just as easy as that they're always
people don't do it but nowadays like the day that we live in the time that we
live in there are so many tools and resources available to people that make
it so easy to do and remove so many barriers I mean for Lulu
you know we're print on demand you can order one copy you can turn your bad
poetry into a good book and then if you decide oh my gosh she's less terrible I
don't know what I was thinking put it in your drawer and move on like you never
have to look at it again so I mean I would just encourage everyone who has a
desire to self-publish and is intimidated by it suits a understand
that there are abundant resources available to anyone who really wants to
do it and then be you know you're not committing to anything right putting
your work out there like I said I mean you can put it up there if it's not
going great take it down or remove it or change your name on the internet or your
pen name I mean there's virtual like there's so many ways to be able to
reinvent yourself and change directions and again with self-publishing and
especially if you choose a print-on-demand model you want and done
if you want to so yeah I mean I think that it's definitely an intimidating
thing but it's never been easier to be out there and publish your work and so
do it yeah I could say this that having
printed scores of books the nerves never go away it doesn't get less scary it
still does and I renowned then when I go to look at my reviews I got to take a
deep breath and go no way let me know I mean no whammy no whammy given the
choice would you choose passion or profit
I would choose passion because I know that it would be able to make me a
profit so that would be my answer I mean if you're passionate enough about
anything then you can probably monetize it at some point so I mean you know I
think it all goes like I feel like I'm not to beat his deadhorse any longer but
like you know with all the social media platforms things like podía or you know
ping tree on that we mentioned or you know these blog ways to monetize your
blog there's so many ways to get eyes on your content and reach the people who
are gonna value it so it's not like you have to put something out there and have
other people validate it you can get to your community you can do the research
and find out who's looking for the content that you have and how can you
reach them and then make it available to them and so you know if you're really
passionate about something then there are probably other people who feel that
way about it too and it's just kind of building that community and thinking you
know is this an activism thing to have a platform to be an activist and how can I
use this to you know activate other people and get my message out there and
so yeah I don't think you know passion first and then and then the profit I
think would be much excellent I love it well we're gonna start to wrap things up
so of course I want to know how can the viewers get in touch with you yes so I
will put this out on the interwebs my my email address is C Bennett at Lulu comm
and we have you know on social media Lulu calm on Facebook Twitter Instagram
and then YouTube Lulu you so yeah Lulu press is our YouTube channel so yeah
check us out there we do new content every every Friday for the foreseeable
future so check us out yeah very good well folks we've covered quite a bit of
ground here and I really do appreciate you taking your time here with me today
Chelsea it was really awesome you gave me some really eye-opening things and
that's what I'd love to get out of interviews like this so if you happen to
be watching this and you're really enjoying that make sure that you click
that thumbs up and of course go visit Lulu press on YouTube there's a good
reason why I say I like it and it's not like Chelsea's paying me you know I I do
legitimately enjoy her channel and the content that she puts out there so I
think if you're enjoying mine you most definitely will transition over there in
the meantime and in between time till later it's been self-publishing with
Dale the
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