From $0 to 7 Figures: Two Book Publishing Models That Work

All right. Hey, welcome everybody. It’s Rob here uh with our Publish Promote Profit podcast and I have a great guest. Somebody that uh I’ve known for a while, but uh is doing something some amazing things in the book business. Uh Margie Shard, I guess is a former certified financial planner. You still have the licenses, but that’s how we knew each other. Uh we we helped Margie with uh her uh financial advice book that did very very well. But now uh Margie is a fiction author and one of the most read uh fiction authors in the United States and a number of other countries and is doing seven figures a year in royalty income selling books, audio books, etc. And so we’re going to dive deep with your permission, Margie, into all that you’re doing, how you’re doing it, uh, and how others can potentially model your success and your work ethic because you are a hard worker. I know we had this long conversation before we started recording about passive income and you work your butt off. So, it’s not like it’s passive in that regard, but it is royalty income, which is super intriguing. So, thank you for being uh on the podcast and and on the training and and also thank you for agreeing to come and speak to uh uh to your fellow BSP authors in our next uh client only meeting in February. So, that’s going to be fun.

Well, thank you for having me and um yeah, no, that sounds I’m up for it. So, let’s do it for sure. St. Augustine is always a great place to go anyway. Yeah, you’ll love it. We’ll put you up in a great spot and you can enjoy the town. So, awesome. Um, so let le let’s just take a short bit if we could and talk a little bit about your financial advice book. That’s when we met. It it was a number of years ago, maybe five or six years ago, we helped you launch that book. I think it was longer. Maybe it was longer than I think it was in 2015. That sounds right. I want to say a long time ago. Yeah. Awesome. And uh you told me you’ve used that book to do very very well, maybe somewhere in the range of a half a million dollars in in income. Can you talk a little bit about how uh you use that book successfully? Um because it’s a very different model with non-fiction than it is, of course, with fiction. So let’s let’s talk briefly about your financial advice business and and that and then we’ll we’ll move into what Margie is doing now, which is so cool. Okay. Uh well, so when I did my financial book, I had zero clue what I was doing. I remember I wrote this book. I kept thinking, “Oh, I I should write a financial book. I should write a financial book.” And I actually did it one day. I knew nothing about editing. Um I knew nothing about, you know, I knew nothing there’s different editors that you should use. I had no idea. I paid way too much for an editor and didn’t really understand what I was getting, right? Um ended up having multiple There’s probably still errors in the book. The book’s outdated, by the way. don’t go buy it. I I’ve I’ve taken it off Amazon, but it seems to still be lingering there. I don’t know why. Um but for me, when I did the book, I wasn’t focusing on sales. Um Rob, you had promised, “Oh, I’ll get you the best seller status.” And so, you did that. You followed through on your promise. We we followed everything you said and did it. And I remember the day that the the nice pretty glass um you know, what do you want to call it? Plaque. I think I still have it. I think I threw when I sold my financial firm, I you know, of course I had a wall of like awards and and I think I had thrown everything out except I think I still have that to be honest. Cool. But anyway, so so for me, I gave my book to I bought tons of copies of my book. I gave it to anybody that would allow me to give it to them, right? And I don’t think that clients actually read the book. I mean, I was giving it to clients and then telling them to pass it on to their friends and um and I was getting more money from clients, you know, just because I handed them this book and they were, you know, using it to bring their friends over, who had they been talking to me about and any prospect that came in, I had a folder and the book was always in the folder. Yeah. And so I sold my firm um I sold my firm almost a year to the date that I actually had published my financial book. Wow. No kidding. So that long ago. Yeah. So I think I think I had within that year brought in about a half a million of gross income from new assets. Um just and again I don’t think people read the book. Yeah. Um so and I I think it’s really important when you decide to do non-fiction that you understand that very rarely unless you’re very very very famous you are not going to make money on your book. You are going to spend money on that book. Right? Let me rephrase that. Not that you’re not going to make money but you are not going to make money on book sales on the royalties. cares to buy your book. You know, this is like your your like pet project. You’re excited about it. You’re trying to get a message out to the world and most people really don’t care. But if you use it correctly and you use it to market yourself as that expert in your community, um that’s that’s where the profits lie. And that’s um that’s what I did, you know, and and it was the best marketing tool I ever could have used. I mean, like I said, I don’t think people read it. So, yeah. But it but it works, you know. So it it positions you as the as the authority. Yes. Um and you might be surprised how many people actually do read it. Um you know, maybe not the entire thing, but but they find something within the book that they kind of feel like fits their circumstance, right? And and I think too audio is good. I know you’re probably I know now with your clients you’re talking to them about audio and that was we are really new. It was kind of newer I think when when I was going through this in 2015 with you, but I think audio is a very I only got into audio last year with my fiction books and I didn’t realize how huge of a listener market there is and I know a lot of my non-fiction books I I listen instead of read. So I think that helps. But also if you’re looking to get, you know, I was getting speaking engagements because of my book. Um anytime you can get on, you know, in front of people to speak and be that authority, um you know, it just adds that credibility. So, yeah, I if you’re a professional um and you’re going to have a book, you’ve got to I always tell people like you’ve got to have a marketing plan behind that. And it it typically does not involve selling copies. Right. Right. It’s about how many are you going to give away? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I I love that. Very clear, very concise. It’s easy with non-fiction. Yeah. Rob, I also I had a huge launch party in my community when I when I launched and I invited anybody I knew, clients, I had them bring people and again I gave away I signed I was signing. Everybody thought it was so cool. You know, I’m signing my books and um and again I gave and people came. They were ready to pay that day and I was I wouldn’t take their money. I was like, “Nope, here’s one for you and give this to a friend and and they did.” So love it. Did you? That is very interesting and I want to I want to talk about that for just a second because I think that’s a great idea and I don’t think people use it as much especially if you’re in a business that has a local element to it, right? Um did you were you able to track anything from that launch event as far as like in the next month were there three, four, five that you can remember that actually came from that and said, “Hey, I need I need help. I need to get started with you there.” Well, my I had a very I had an amazing team in my firm. I I mean I I really did. I had like the dream team of all teams. Um still very good friends with with the people that um I had the honor of working with and um you know they were there ready with my schedule. they were setting appointments at that meeting um at that launch event. um you know and from there there were people coming in with their folders and they had my book and you know they were pulling it out and talking and you know prospects um and I know sitting down with prospects that maybe weren’t at that event but you know I’d given them a folder of all the information I normally would and also now that book was in there um they were just the amount of times I heard people say oh my gosh you wrote a book you know and it just made that sales process so much faster because in the financial world, you know, it can take several appointments before people are either ready to move over or Yeah. or the money’s ready to move over. But yeah, so it it made that relationship work a lot faster. And um and it wasn’t just in Michigan, you know, I had a pocket of clients down in Florida and that grew really f I mean, I sent them books. I, you know, I sent them extra books. Um people were, you know, when I went down to visit them. Oh, you’re the girl that wrote the book? Yes, we need chalk. you know, so it was just it was good. It was good all around. I love it. I love it. Congratulations. Obviously, congratulations for that. And thank you for everything you did to help me with that because like I said, I knew nothing about I knew nothing about even publishing and that was my first experience into not only writing a book um but but actually having to get it out there into the world. And your program is so great because it really helps especially busy financials. you know, I was running a very successful financial firm. Um, and you know, hundreds of clients and a team of amazing people, like I said, that I got to work with. However, you know, having your program and that the step by step of, okay, this is what you need to do and now you got to do this and and being able to say, okay, I’m totally lost in this. What do I do here? Or my staff my staff was able to contact you guys. They were great. So, yeah. So you guys are, you know, top-notch and, you know, for any professional that’s out there, um, you know, they really should consider your program and and really do what you, you know, follow the program. Like you have you have it down to a science. There’s a reason like there’s a reason you’re still in business. Like I said, I was 2015. You’re still in business, which says a lot. I will say that for online businesses. True. You’re still in business. And that says a lot because you know to to withstand the the time the time and more people trying to come in and do what you’re doing and and again you’ve stayed you you’re you know what you’re doing. So we’ve seen a lot of them come and go over these over the last 11 years. I’m sure I’m sure. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for your kind words and uh you know I am just super intrigued by what you’re doing. When I heard I was like, “Oh, it I I was so like encouraged and I’m like, I know the non-fiction market forwards and backwards.” To me, making money with a non-fiction book is easy. It’s like falling out of bed. I mean, it’s because you’re using it in in conjunction with a high ticket offer, right? As a as a realtor, as a financial adviser, as a as a coach, a consultant, a doctor, a dentist. In your case, you’re doing something, and I want to I want to hit on that. You’re doing something that is like a mystery totally different. Oh, it’s so cool. I mean, you’re you’re doing, if I can say, I mean, you’re doing six figures a month in royalties. Uh you’re doing seven figures a year last year, this year. Now, you’re just doing audio books, which who knows what what that’s going to lead to. That that could very easily double your revenue. Um, how many books now have you done as one of the most read authors in the United States in in fiction, uh, in romance? So, so I’m one I’m just going to clarify some. I’m one I’m I’m one of the most read authors in the Kindle Unlimited program, which um so just to clarify that I don’t know where I stand on, you know, there’s so there’s authors in Kindle Unlimited and then there’s wide, which means I could have my digital book on different platforms, right? I’m exclusive to Kindle Unlimited and you know 70 80% of my revenue comes from there and I get paid. Somebody has to download my book and actually read it. So, I get paid per page read. Um, and you have millions of page reads every month. Every month. Yeah. Um, which I remember the first time I hit a million a month, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy.” Because I’ve only been publishing for three years. So, this month is three years I’ve been publishing. I started writing four years ago this month. Wow. Um, and I really um but for two and a half years, and I don’t I do not recommend people do this. I literally You can You can ask my ex-husband this. people tell you this. Um, you know, for for the first two and a half years, from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed, I was writing or the first year, I had a full list of um I was doing sales funnels online between the time I sold my firm and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was doing and very successful with this and again high ticket high ticket um clients with you know working with financial adviserss and some other people on online sales funnels. Um, so I had a full client load when I started writing. So my I was just working working working working seven days a week and because I wanted to build this and then slowly started, you know, not I would stop taking on new clients after the first year of writing um when I decided to start publishing and just finished up those contracts I had um and knew that this was what I wanted to do. Right. But what was your what was your question? I’ve got Well, there’s a couple questions and we’re leading to it. So, number one, how many books have you done? Okay. In in fiction at this point. I’m currently writing my 43rd book. I’m about halfway through it. Awesome. So, 43 books. One of the things that I I tell anybody that talks about doing a children’s book or a fiction book is that the key to royalties because the royalties are so small relative to selling something high ticket is you need volumes of content and material. And of course, there has to be a process. So, be and it builds, right? I mean, the more you have, they find your stuff, they go back, they read your other stuff, they fall in love with you, your platform grows, etc. Um, t talk to me about I mean, only three years of doing this and now seven figures in royalty income is amazing. I mean, when I said you’re one of the top red authors in the United States, I still believe that’s true. I mean, how what percentage of authors are making a million dollars a year on royalties? It’s got to be a fraction of 1%. A I mean a fraction. That’s my gross. Just to just to clarify to you, I have a lot of expenses. So, just to clarify, that’s gross. That’s not actually in my bank account. Like, it’s not, you know, I mean, it comes in my bank account, but there’s a lot that goes out. So, just just to clarify that, it’s gross royalties. It’s it’s the amount of royalties. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s still okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. And I’m happy with it. Don’t get me wrong. Um it’s it’s actually this year surpassed my financial I took I was 16 years in the financial firm and the last 10 I had my own my actual own firm. Um and I’ve this year surpassed grosswise what I did with my financial firm which is kind of mind-blowing. Three years. So so I you know it’s you’re you’re exactly right. you your new your new material, your new books brings life. It brings it keeps the blood flowing throughout your whole business. So, yeah, we were talking about this before, passive income. Yes, I have passive income on there stuff that I wrote, you know, my first book I ever wrote. I’m, you know, I make money on that every day. Um, you know, so yes, I I make money on the the things that I’ve done, but I also and and now I I’m able to put those into different translations. So, I have a German translation team and I have no clue when it comes over what it says, but I have a wonderful team that that um I put together. I have a French translation team now, which and and I can the only way I can go on it really is my reviews are like this. I have pretty much four and a half star ratings on all my books. Um, and the same in German and the same in French. So, I know the translation team is good. um I sold some uh in Hebrew some rights away just because I didn’t want to put my own team together and they had oops they had um come and and talk to me and so there were three books um that I had had given them you know the where they’ll yeah they’ll they’ll come back and get the rest of the series if if it does well but um so and then of course I added audio in April of 21 so um but not everything is on audio either So, so there’s a lot of ways once you write something, you know, I mean there’s movies and and Netflix series and things like that too that I can go after that I haven’t even tapped into. So, right. So, yes, the the residual is nice. The the passive, so to speak, but I’m always working in that new that new material definitely, you know, because you if you find a new reader, they will go back and read everything that you know, they’ll read your entire backlist and then say, why don’t you have more? You know, it’s like I can only write so fast. Well, and your revenue is growing. You you uh shared with me you’ll do you’ve done 43 books in three years, but this year it’s going to be seven, right? I released Yeah, this year I released seven books and I’m I I decided next year I’m going to release seven as well. Um Okay. So, I have spin-off series um that So, I have a pen name just so you guys know that are listening. Yeah, I have a pen name and I really don’t share it with a lot of people unless you’re super close to me. Totally fine. And you know, I I write it in the romance genre. Um, but I I have series and I I tend to spin them out and um so I have another spin-off series coming of four books. Um, which we’ll see that that probably will get expanded past four books, but um we we’ll see what happens. And then I have a I have a duet, which is my first duet ever that that’s what I’m finishing right now. that’ll come out in February, March, and that’s um two books about one couple. And then, and again, I haven’t done that yet. And then I’ll go into the spin-off series because I kind of needed a break. I needed to cleanse my palette a little bit. I had a holiday book release yesterday. Um so, I just needed kind of like a palette cleanse because I read a lot of Mafia and and other things. And um so yeah. Well, here here’s the reason I mentioned the seven books is because you obviously um worked much harder producing content year one, year two. Yes. All right. And now we’re into we’re starting year four. We’re we’re through year three. You you’ve done seven books. Seven books. You’re going to do seven books next year, but your income rose 30% over last year. So even though even though you’re not necessarily creating 30% more books every single year, right? Your income is still rising considerably because those new readers are finding your old books and it continues to build. Can you talk about that for for sure a few moments? Sure. Um, so one of the things, the biggest thing I concentrated really hard last year and and this is something that you should be doing whether you’re fiction or non-fiction, but I really got serious about growing my newsletter. So I I think I’ve got about 40,000 subs now, 44,000, something like that. Um, I got serious about making sure I had content every week going out and utilizing that newsletter. Um, yeah, obviously I have a big presence on social media as well, but um, I, you know, I added audio. That was another revenue stream, although it costs a lot of money because every time I put a book out, it’s about five grand depending on, you know, but I I chose my narrator narrators very closely. Um, you know, I specifically went for narrators that have followings in my genre because listeners will buy a book because of a narrator. They just will. Good point. Yeah. Um, so I started building that. Um, and then I started going into translation. So, French just started a few months ago. Um, German I started last year and really that all even though every time I translate a book it’s another five. It seems like everything’s five grand. Five grand to go into German, five grand to go into French, five grand to go into, you know, um, but I, you know, so now it’s looking at those other streams. I also just started um, putting books. So I can’t have my books anywhere digitally besides Kindle Unlimited. However, I can have my paperbacks other places and I finally started uploading my paperbacks and I have more that I have to get done. My assistant’s been working on it, but um I’ve been putting the books on Ingram Sparks, which is another way to distribute paperbacks besides just Amazon. And I got over $1,000 in royalties last month and I’m like, “Oh, this does work.” Okay, maybe I should have done that before, right? I mean, hello, stupid here. Um, and I know there’s more like German has some other sites. Um, I know um I forget what it’s called, Heleno or something. There’s some there’s there’s so many different ways. So, I think for me at this point besides continuing to create new stories that my readers, you know, it’s building this readership. So, when they pick up my book, there’s an expectation there of what they’re going to get. and I have to deliver that as the author every time in order to not lose that reader, in order to keep them really wanting, you know, my next book. And so, um, and I’ll tell you this, there’s going to there’s crap that happens. You know, last, not this past release yesterday, but the release before, you know, I had over 3,000 pre-orders, which was about 15 grand of revenue, and Amazon just canceled all my orders. Um, they canceled all my orders. They, even though I had uploaded the manuscript, they said I hadn’t uploaded the manuscript. I sent them the emails showing them and the screenshots showing them I had done everything. And their response was, well, I’m sorry, but you know, you we already canceled the orders. We can’t we can’t go back and charge people now. Oh my gosh. And I had built those pre-order because there are pe readers that pre-order. There are readers that are only KU Kindle Unlimited, you know, and then there’s readers that buy only during the day. Well, those building your pre-order list. So, now I’m having to go back and rebuild my pre-order people and I’m having to catch those people and I had to spend more money on advertising to let them know, hey, the book is out. Oh, and then Amazon ended up releasing it two days early. And then the audio just got uploaded like a couple days ago, which you really want to release your audio and your paperback and your now hard coverver too and your Kindle or your digital copies all at the same time because most eyes are on the book and so you’re going to get more revenue from that. And so it was like the worst launch. The book still did well. I’ve still in the profit zone. However, you know, when you look at the expense it goes into now for me now versus when I started making Yeah. a book, you know, my editors are better. I have several layers of editors. Um I have copy editors, I have proof editors. Yep. Um I buy exclusive photos, which I used to use um stock photos. Yeah. Know I have more expensive cover designers. Um you know, so I have audio. So by the time I’m I’m done with a book, I’m testing covers. you know, I’ve I’ve dropped 10 grand easily, plus you know, your your translations. I I want my launch to cover my German and my French translations, too. I wanted to cover all that like the minute it goes live, right, with those pre-orders. So, that was really sucky. And I in the world, you know, you’ve got fiction authors that hate Amazon and they’re considered wide, so they have their books everywhere digitally. Um, and then you have your KU, your kind of unlimited authors, which I am. Um, which for me would be suicide to leave. Um, but you know, everyone’s like, “This is why you don’t, you know, you’re not, you shouldn’t be with Amazon and blah blah blah.” And I’m like, “You know what? Crap happens in business.” Yeah, it happens. You got to roll with it. And, you know, I probably lost 15 grand, but it was like, “Okay, this like I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is move forward.” And part of me, the knee-jerk reaction was kind of like, “Yeah, they’re right. I should I should leave.” You know, but it’s stupid. No, I shouldn’t leave. I’m getting bonuses from you unlimited. I, you know, 70 80% of my readership is Kindle Unlimited. And so, um, you know, it’s, you just have to, it’s like any business, you know, you you have to just roll with the punches and and get through it, you know, and hope it never happens again. I love it. I love it. I’m taking notes, by the way, on all of this because I think it’s so intriguing. Um, so there there’s there’s multiple questions that I have, but I don’t want to lose at some point. I want to talk through your launch process, how you launch a book, and what you do, but let’s get to that in a minute. Okay. Um, two things. One is you said you have 40,000 subscribers to your newsletter. That is surprisingly low for as many books as you’re selling. Is that because you started later? Um, like like t talk me through that. Like I I you know, you’re getting millions of page reads. you are making seven figures on royalties alone which I know how hard that is. So like was it just like an afterthought to focus on the newsletter and and tell me about that. Um, so really I would say a well I would say at the beginning of 2021 I’m I had finally found um the fiction world and I don’t know if this is just romance authors or all authors, I don’t know. Um it’s kind of high schoolish and I’m very careful about who I even talk to online because it’s it’s just a lot of high school drama and I don’t have time for that. So, I finally found a group of authors that were like my caliber. Um, some of them a little higher at the time. Um, I think we’re we’re probably all pretty even now. Um, and we all just started helping each other and and there was one author that was specifically like, “You have to build your newsletter.” And they started talking about how they were doing it. And so, I really got serious about it. So, I had at the beginning of 2021, I had 9,000 subs. So my subs have just been from the last like almost almost two years I would say you know 30,000 of them. Um but I spend a lot of money on social media on advertising. Um there’s a whole platform to that. Um you know and there’s three main sources we use for that. So um and this is all a part of the launch strategy. Um so we use Facebook ads, we use BookBub and Amazon ads right now. And um I used to do some news sometimes I I jump into people’s paid newsletters but I also do a lot of author swaps um and you know there’s Facebook groups and things. Tik Tok is huge although I haven’t really cracked the Tik Tok but I have some friends kill it on Tik Tok. Um so there there’s a lot of different ways to promote but um you know you just you kind of have to find what what’s working for you and um so a lot of those readers are coming from social media. Well, I I want to talk about specifics of your launch strategy and that would include the the social media stuff, but that’s interesting about I guess you’ve built your newsletter with social media as well. Are you running direct ads to your newsletter or No, what I do No, mine is all um back matter. So, at the back of my book, I write a special steamy scene. One last steamy scene and my readers want that steamy scene. So, so they have to opt in. So, they opt in. Yeah. And then I use um it’s all a salesunnel really what it is. Um right you know I use and I I I do have to say this I really believe because I did sales funnels for a few years with coaches and consultants and uh and I had started doing sales funnels in my financial business. Yeah. having that knowledge really it it helps made a difference just does um so it wasn’t so foreign to me like the whole salesunnel concept but um yeah so that extra free content is how but those are my readers like those are people that read my books you know my open rate on my newsletter is about 40ome percent uh 40 45% mostly that is high very high very I’m happy with it yeah and my click-through rate is typically 3 to 5% so where they’re clicking and going to wherever. So, um, we’re always trying to get better on that, though. How often are you emailing people? We do it every Friday at noon. And thence, but this was a release week. So, uh, yesterday, no, Tuesday. Tuesday, we released a book. So, Tuesday, um, a newsletter went out and then we do like every 48 hours the people that didn’t open, we resend it to them and get about another 10% that that open it. So, Love it. Love it. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Okay. Talk me through the launch strategy. You have a you have a book that’s coming out next year. Uh my assumption is that uh you’re preparing your you know like you’re you’re pre-selling and all of that in advance. So talk me through uh five steps, seven steps, whatever. Uh I’ll I’ll I’ll order. I don’t know how many steps it is because it’s a lot. Let’s just figure it out. I’ll I’ll I’ll start ordering it myself. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. So, for me, I have to go backwards between what date is it going to launch? What date can I get because I get 15 days on Audible for pre-order and that’s it. Um, when will the how long do I have to give narrators? Okay, so narrators are getting it here. I’m getting it back from the proof editor here. I’m getting it back from the copy editor here. I’m getting it back from my alpha. I have alpha readers that read as I’m re writing per chapter. I have a beta team that reads after editing. So, I’ve got to go work backwards to figure out when all those um deadlines are. Yeah. Um and then I have to go and I have I have a ton of different contractors I work with. You know, I have a personal assistant. I have a whole team of social media people. I’ve got a lot of people that now are are helping me, but I have to find covers. You know, we have to find photos for covers. Then I have to, you know, I have to have my designer has is scheduled in there. You know, she’s a really great I have great designers. They’re all busy, right? So, I’ve got to get on their schedules. I’ve got to meet all these deadlines. Um, so meeting the deadlines the first thing, but I always at the back of the story. So, I write a lot of of stories that the series are typically each book is a different couple, but the plot goes throughout the whole series. And then I’m typically bringing the characters from my spin-off series into that series by the end so that the readers are dying and they want and they’re like they’ll say on social media or they’ll email me they’re like I want you have to write a book about these people. So I have I have some side I have some side characters that I still haven’t written on a couple of back series that I’ve got readers that are just to this day just like please write his story and it’s always the guy they don’t care about the girls they want to know about the guys. Um, so, so I’m I’m I’m doing that as I’m writing to make I’m mentally like, okay, I’ve got to I’ve got to get it so that they fall in love with this character before and they they’re dying to read this book. Um, and then I always put like the blurb, which is the book description, the cover, and then the um prologue into the back of the book so that they can read with the links to go pre-order and buy it. Okay. So the so the previous book is leading to the new book. Yeah. With with teaser copy in in the previous book that goes to the order in advance. The pre-order. Awesome. Great. And that’s and that is how many months in advance? Three months, six months. As soon as I can put something on pre-order, I do. So I have I haven’t put my whole next series. So I have my I have February and March is going to be my next release because I re I released this I’m going to take a couple months off. So, February and March are already up for pre-order, and then May is going to start the spin-off series I’m doing. So, that book is up. I’ve not put the pre-orders up for the following books. Um, but I have pre-orders up in Germany for like months in advance. I’ve got French that’s months in advance. Um, yeah, you know, if I can Audible is different for the audio. I have to have it submitted and then they only I have to submit at least 30 days ahead of time and then they only allow you to have 15 days for pre-order which kind of sucks. Um but it is what it is. So yeah. So um and then we have ads. So ads are a big Yeah. So so getting getting closer now to the launch. We’re getting closer. Sometimes sometimes I will do an ad retargeting my audience with a sneak peek. So it might be like one chapters one through three, okay, where they’re able to download and then of course it’s it’s leading right to the buy, you know, to the go pre-order your copy or whatever. And if I do that, I typically do it a week to 10 days ahead of time. You pay more money for that. However, for the beginning of a series, it makes sense because my my model is all based on read through typically, which is kind of interesting that I’m doing I just did a standalone and I’m doing a duet now. Um, which I’ve never done, which doesn’t have a lot of read through because there’s not a lot like I have a 10 book series and you know, I make bank on plus it’s a really popular series for me. So, I make bank on that and that leads into my spin-off series I just finished doing this year. And so the read through, you know, because your ad money, for me at least, my ad money is all going to that first book um to get them into the series. So I will do those sneak peeks to get somebody into the series because if the readrough is going to be long enough and I don’t care if I spend more money on that, right? So, but I also, you know, so, so you’ve got the read through, but on release, when you’re releasing a book, the month I’m releasing it, you know, we we might be spending maybe up to 300 bucks a day on ads. Okay. This is primarily Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. uh BookBub, Facebook, Amazon, but but for that fir for a release that first month and then that’ll start to we’ll start to bring that down as we start to see the drop off start to happen on the re you know on the read. So because you’ll have that big boost at the beginning and but I don’t target I’m not I’m not unless it’s book one I’m only retargeting my people and I’m not going to cold traffic. So if it’s book one I’ll I’ll spend way more and I’ll go to cold traffic. Okay. So, so let’s So, 300 a day on ads is is primarily your No, no, just on that book. That’s just on that book. One. Yeah. Right. On one book. We’re just talking. We’re talking launch on one book right now. Yeah. I got ads running all the time to my book once. Clearly. Clearly. Clearly. So, we’re just talking one book, but those $300 a day on ads is for one book and that’s to your warm audience that is retargeting traffic. Okay. Yes. And then how much would you spend on cold traffic during the launch for that brand new book? I wouldn’t unless it’s book one and there’s re So so right now I I released a book yesterday and it’s a standalone. It’s not part of a series which I I’ve never really done. Okay. That I’m doing um just warm audience. I’m not doing well. I’ll do a little bit of cold traffic unless the profit starts to eat at the profit because I’m not going to have I can typically on series you’re going to your first book is a loss leader. So you’re going to spend a little bit more to get people in so that you can make the money once the books are all ready. Gotcha. Gotcha. So if it’s let’s say I’m on book three or book five or 10 or whatever it is, I’m not going to cold traffic on the release month. on the release month for those books, I’m just doing warm traffic and then I will move down, you know, move that. So, I I inch up. I don’t start at 300. I start at like maybe 100 and start to inch up as the at the release and then it comes to like a peak where you you can’t seem to really scale as much and then you start to come back down. So, and then I’m, you know, so, so then after like that, after I see that that’s not worth like putting money into that one, I’m at that point just cutting that off and going, you know, but but ads are always on to book one. Right. Right. So, um, with with um a typical salesunnel like like for me, for my book, we look at cost per acquisition, not of the book, but cost per acquisition for a client, right? Is there a way that you’re able to track cost per acquisition on the individual book or is it more you’re just kind of So that’s thumbnailing it, you know, uh which is a little more iffy. Yeah, it’s a really interesting uh question. So um I always say that this has this I came from an industry with a ton of transparency because it was financially regulated by the SEC and and yeah, now I’m in an industry that has very little transparency. I don’t have a client list from Amazon because we don’t get that. They won’t give it to you. Yep. Nope. Um I don’t have, you know, until about a month ago, we were not able to track Facebook. Like if I had a Facebook ad and it went to somebody clicked on it, went to Amazon, I couldn’t track whether they bought or not. Right now, there’s these links you can use on your ad. I’ve seen that. It’s brand new with Amazon. Yeah. But this has been my our experience. Okay. When I say our, I mean our team that’s that’s running some things for me. Um, when we use that link, the cost per click is skyrocketing. I mean, four or five times what it would cost me. So, for me, I’m like, this isn’t worth it. Like, it’s And it’s not like my sales are skyrock, you know what I’m saying? Like, so for me, I went back to not tracking it and looking at it to get my cost per click back down and and it’s just revenue. So, what I look at is I’m looking on a daily basis. There’s a whole spreadsheet we have and the person that that um my ex-husband actually still runs my ads. Um so, that’s interesting. It is interesting. That’s that’s a whole other podcast. Um but anyways, we we have a very good relationship. We have a son together. We we co-parent very well and and he’s you know, but but he runs he’s running my ads right now placing them. uh we do all the graphics and copy and everything, but he’s placing the ads still and he has to fill out a spreadsheet for me. And every day it’s it’s on what the series profit is. And then we also look at what’s going into book one and then what is um what’s actually you know what was the revenue on that book and then we can tell if things are going up or down or because if I’m not getting if I don’t have a big profit or if I don’t if I’m not getting people into book one I’m I know it’s there’s going to be in a few weeks it’s going to hurt my series profitability. Right. Now, the other thing I did, this is interesting. Um, so I took one of my back list series. It was an older series that had done done um really well for me and I was starting to see that it was going down and no matter and it also was in German. So, I had it in English and German and I was realizing like didn’t matter what we did, we couldn’t seem to revive the life into it. So I actually took the you know as you as you grow as an author you learn a lot of things and one of the things I did not do very well was really understand what writing to market was. Okay. While I did write to market I wasn’t marketing to market it. So what I did is I I retitled all six books. I bought exclusive photos because at the time I had used um uh I was using photos that were from like deposit photos or wherever. Yeah. Yeah. um royalty-free photos and I my new designer redid everything, rebranded everything. I launched the series and a audio as well, which I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to recoup that and I’m pretty happy with how things have been going with that. It’s actually been kind of surprising. But by by new book descriptions, new titles, new covers, now that series was making, it was grossing um it had gotten to where both in English and German were grossing maybe like three four grand a month, which I was just sitting there going, what is going on? And now it’s back over 14 15,000 a month for those. So you 5xed the same content, but with just a fresh coat of paint on it. Yeah. New title, new description, new cover. It was very to market. It was super to market and I need to do it with the rest of my backlist, but I just haven’t had the time because again I’ve got to go find photos. So I’m in the process. Who’s got the time to make 500% profit? I know. But but you have to understand too when I release a new book. Yeah. Then releasing you have to be very careful. I have to be extremely careful with my time and where I put it because for me writing is that new content that is the lifeblood again. Yeah. Once I release, my income is way higher. And you can see a drop when you’re not releasing. You really can. And so, you know, I have to and again now I’m supplementing that with my foreign translations and things like that. But I have to be very careful about my time right now. I’m trying to get it with all the different um talented people that I’ve surrounding myself with. I’m really trying to get at that. You know, I just run the manage the business and write, but that’s not there’s too many things I have to do, unfortunately, that I can’t seem to get out of. But, but you see what I’m saying? So, like if I release a new book and it’s going to bring in, you know, that let’s say a new series is going to bring in half a million dollars for me. Yes. It’s great that I would five times something and work on something on my back series. Yeah. And it drives in people to reading that. So, yes, it needs to be done, but it’s I get it. It’s problems, Rob. I get it. It’s a good problem. It’s a problem a lot of people would like to have. Yeah. Um, one more question on on the launch stuff. Um, and then gosh, we’ve been It’s almost one uh we’ve been going for a long time. This is so intriguing to me. Um, you mentioned Amazon ads. Talk to me about that. Um, how how do they work for you? um you know in general uh are they successful? Are you just looking to break even on your Amazon ads? Because then that gives you new readers. Talk talk to me about the strategy and and what that looks like. Okay. So book one, if I break even or lose a bit, I’m okay. But if right because that feeds the entire series. Yeah. Um so the cover it drives everything on Amazon ads. Everything. Um, and that’s, you know, Amazon, the problem with Amazon is I could tell Amazon to go spend $1,000 a day and it’s not going to necessarily, right? Or it might, right? Yeah. So, the thing with Amazon ads is it’s really is all about your cover and whether they are going to put it in front of people and and again, if you have that cover that people are responding to and clicking and downloading, you’ll you’ll be able to spend more money. So, it’s sometimes Amazon works how we want it to and sometimes it doesn’t, you know. Um, and it’s the better my covers have gotten over time, the better I’ve been able to utilize um Amazon. And and the thing about Amazon I do like I have to say this with Amazon, you can actually see your KU reads, how many pages have read, and you can also see if people have purchased and you see how much they estimate the dollar amount. So you know whether you know you kind of know where you’re at where you know again Facebook you don’t unless you use that link but that link wasn’t success you know when we tried to do it it wasn’t successful for us so right Margie I I love it uh congratulations like big time um you know I can’t wait to hear more uh as you come out and speak any anything that maybe we we didn’t cover um probably a lot but anything else that that you would want to add uh to the conversation and and if not then we’ll we’ll just end it and maybe people I I’m I don’t know where to send people because we don’t want to give your pen name. No. Uh so there’s maybe nowhere to send people. Nowhere to send people. Um so this this is a little bit of maybe a little inspirational thing. Um tell me I was 40. I’m gonna be 44 the day after Christmas coming up here. Um, I was 40 when I finally figured out what I wanted to do. You know, I I I loved my financial business. I loved the clients, but it came to a point where it was just like, is this all there’s going to be for me? Is this right? You know, I’m going to be here 30 years from now and okay, I’ll have more clients and more money, but is this really everything, right? And so, it was a big deal for me to sell my firm. And I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I did, you know, everything I I did I did well at, but I wasn’t really enjoying it. Um, and so I actually started having this dream. I started having this dream and I was telling my friend, I’m like, “Keep having this dream.” And she’s like, “You need to get that down on paper.” And that’s how I became an author. And I wrote it and I sent it to my twin sister and she said that was really good and I you need to write about this side character. And so that started, you know, me writing. Okay, now I’m going to write this. And then I had four books by the time I, you know, finally said, it was probably about nine months later. I had about four books done. And I was like, okay, I have to get serious and figure out how to actually make money at this because if I’m going to launch this, I’ve got to do it. And so you learn, you know, you’re never too old. I guess I guess what I’m trying to say is you’re never too old to to switch switch gears and do something else and to take that risk and just say, you know what, there is something else and maybe I don’t know it quite yet, but I’ll figure it out. And you know, I knew nothing. I mean, we what we did was touching the surface of what this beast I have of a business now is, but it it happened. I I don’t necessarily recommend that people, you know, work 247 for seven days a week for two and a half years, you know. However, you know, you got to put the work in. You got to figure it out. You got to really learn and constantly learn. I’m constantly learning. I don’t feel I don’t feel like I know anything about this industry to be honest. I mean, I really there’s so much more I could learn. And so I think if you just you have to realize everybody has a starting spot and if being an author is something that you think you want to do whether it’s non-fiction or fiction. Um and and I I just released my 42nd book yesterday, no 41st book yesterday, two days ago. And I will tell you every time I’m I’m always like I wonder if people are going to like and and it helps because I have alpha readers and beta readers that are like oh no no we will. You know they’re going to love it. They’re going to love it. But you’re always like, “Okay, please don’t let you know,” you’re always like, “Okay, how do I how do I make sure this doesn’t flop and it it gets the eyes it needs and the attention and the readers and and it continues to make my readers happy.” And so, um, but my point is if you you know, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you know, you you got to just do it. Like, you just do it and you figure it out and you put in the work and you just try to get better and and if you do that, you’ll be successful. Um, but again, I think your program’s absolutely amazing and um, I wouldn’t have even for me something that really was a really big aha going into fiction and coming from writing not one non-fiction book with you is I knew how hard it would also be to sell books because I knew my book didn’t really sell. you know, like I was a bestseller and and that first launch week, we did what we needed to do, but then it’s not like it was selling, but I made money from it. But I knew this way, okay, now I have a $4.99 book. And at the time, honestly, I I launched with 99 cent books. I mean, I mean, I literally the mistakes I made along the way, I will tell you, I made some crazy really expensive mistakes um that I don’t even want to think about. But but coming from your program and knowing what it took to be a non-fiction, you know, successful non-fiction, what what that looked like and then, okay, now I’ve got to I’ve got to really figure out how to sell books. And so, um, and sell books that are not based on me at all because, right, I went in with a pen name. You know, frankly, I was tired of putting my face out there and being social media all over the place. And I just I don’t know. I wanted to write and not be judged and just write what I wanted and see what happened. And I’m so glad I took a pen name. I’m really happy I took a pen name because there’s some crazy crazy fans out there. I will say that. However, I I really think that, you know, having to know how to build something when, you know, now it’s not based on my reputation, right? you know, I got to really, you know, so so there was a a really good perspective coming from your program that I’m really grateful for because I feel like if I hadn’t gone through your program, one, I knew how to do some things just because of your program, but I feel like I feel like I really got to see both sides of both non-fiction and fiction. And I I think it really helped me accelerate in a big way quickly. Well, I’m obviously uh I’m encouraged to hear that. Thank you for those kind words, but uh boy, you have done an amazing job in a in an industry that is really tough uh selling fiction. Um and and I I I I’ve learned a lot and I’m sure that our listeners uh have learned a lot too because um there’s just so many pieces to this. Uh even for someone like you saying, “I feel like I don’t know anything about this industry.” is like, “Holy cow, you’re doing a you’re doing a million bucks a year and you don’t know anything.” So, I don’t know anything. I claim to know nothing. Very cool. So, thank you, Margie, for being on. Thank you for having me, Rob. My great pleasure. Obviously, we’re going to be in touch. I’ll give you all the details to have you come speak at the event. Um, and uh maybe we even have a follow-up to this down the road and talk about your mistakes because now I’m very intrigued about all your mistakes as well. So, anyway, Marie, there’s a lot. Congrats. Congrats. Great to have you on and thank you for being a part of things. Thank you.