Tom Freiling has collaborated with, represented, and published multiple NY Times best-selling authors, professional athletes, celebrity musicians, journalists, political and faith influencers, and notable thought leaders. His expertise encompasses editorial, book production, marketing, and the distribution of books in the USA plus international markets.
Tom’s books have sold millions of copies. The industry-leading digital publishing company he founded earned revenues of more than $75M and was acquired by a NASDAQ-listed media company. He has been published by Thomas Nelson, Harper Collins, and Fleming H. Revell. Tom is also a member of The John Maxwell Team.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Tom Freiling about traditional publishing.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
- How Amazon and online publishing has evened out the playing field for all authors.
- Why social media is the most effective way for authors to gain a following.
- How giving your book away helps build your audience and helps with word of mouth advertising.
- Why you must find an expert who understands publishing if you want to write a book.
- How making one small error could potentially ruin an entire project.
Connect with Tom:
Links Mentioned:
freiling.agency
Guest Contact Info:
Twitter
@TomFreiling
Instagram
@freilingpublishing
Facebook
facebook.com/freilingpublishing
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/company/freiling-agency
Rob Kosberg:
All right. Welcome everybody. It’s Rob Kosberg here. Excited to be back with you for another episode of the Publish. Promote. Profit. I have a great guess for you today that I think you’re going to learn a great deal from. I have a number of questions about the things that he’s done, but Tom Freiling is a 30-year veteran of the book publishing industry. His books have sold millions of copies. He was the industry-leading digital publishing company that he founded, earned revenues of more than 75 million a year, and was eventually acquired by a NASDAQ listed company. He’s been published by Thomas Nelson and Harper Collins. He’s a member of the John Maxwell team. We have a lot of potential synergies, he and I, and he’s worked more in the traditional publishing space. So, I’m really excited about talking to you today, Tom, and having you on the podcast. Thanks so much for being a part of it.
Tom Freiling:
Thanks for having me, Rob. It’s good to speak with you today, and it makes me sound really old when you say 30 years, but it’s true.
Rob Kosberg:
It’s what your bio said. I wondered that, too. I thought I would be speaking to somebody that was a lot older, but you look younger than me.
Tom Freiling:
Well, publishing will do that to you, I guess. Right?
Rob Kosberg:
I guess it will. It’s good to have you on. You’ve done some really cool things. Talk to me a little bit about the traditional publishing industry. That’s the industry that you were in prior to your publishing company being sold, and congratulations on that. Compare that to what’s going on in the hybrid or self-publishing world today. Talk me through what you see as the positive and negatives of both.
Tom Freiling:
Traditional publishing, it’s changed a lot. Obviously, of course, over the last 10, 20, 30 years, even over the last five to seven years, there’s been a lot of change, and I think we can attribute most of that to the demise of the bookstore. It used to be we would all, at least myself, probably you, too, I’d go to bookstores all the time, but most of us don’t even have a bookstore near us anymore. That’s had a lot of consequences for the traditional publisher. Traditional publishing, before the demise of the bookstore, the bookstores were the gatekeepers, right? They were the key holders for their titles, and the primary job, task of a traditional publisher, was to get books in the bookstores and to get them front and center, stacked high on the front table, and if they could do that, they could sell a lot of books. Well, that’s just not the case anymore. So, for better or for worse, probably for the worse for traditional publishers, we are now all beholden to Amazon and the other online book sellers. From my perspective, this is a good thing for authors. It puts all authors essentially on the same level. You can be a brand-new author, nobody’s ever heard of you before, and in many ways you’re on the exact same playing field as an experienced, more successful author. That’s a good thing. I also feel that traditional publishers don’t have the leverage that they used to have in terms of being able to promote, market, and publicize a title. Again, it’s really for the same reasons, but I feel that an educated author, somebody who’s taken the time to understand the business, and somebody who works with somebody else who understands the business, can certainly be as effective as a traditional publisher can be these days. Now traditional houses, they still have titles where they’re selling tens, or hundreds of thousands of copies, but by and large, that’s not the case anymore. Early in my career, I could sell five or 10,000 copies of just about anything. That’s not the case anymore either. It takes a little more smarts, a little more savvy than it used to.
Rob Kosberg:
I couldn’t agree more. I think as the world has moved online, and certainly as bookstores have closed, and as Amazon has opened the floodgate, which is both good and bad, there’s more to compete against, but you’re not so much competing against a book that’s potentially better. You’re really competing against the fact that your book may never be seen because it gets lost in a sea of opportunity. There’s a lot more that needs to be done from a marketing perspective. Even if you have a smallish, or no platform, as you said, you can stand on the same level playing field. Talk to us a little bit about that. What would you say are some of the best ways that an unknown author could sell more copies, become more well known, and build their platform?
Tom Freiling:
The great thing about that these days is it doesn’t cost very much money. In fact, if you’re just using social media, there’s really no cost involved. It’s the cost of your own time. I think, by and large, the easiest, most efficient, effective way to build a platform is using social media, and I know that a lot of authors do that. A lot of us do that. I think the key to that is regularity and consistency. You have to post good content a lot, and if you’re very regular about it, you make it a habit, and your content is strong, you’re going to get a following. I find oftentimes authors poop out a little bit too early, get a little frustrated. They’re not building the audience, and I encourage them to keep at it. You will find your audience if you keep at it. You’ll learn a lot as you go. You’ll learn what users like, what they don’t like, what works, what doesn’t work. It is free in terms of, it doesn’t cost you a dime to open an account on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Instagram. It’s just your time. If you’ve written a book, you already have a lot of content. Extract the content out of your book, maybe tweak it a little bit, post two or three times a day, keep on doing it, and after a while, you’re going to get a following. It’s a bit of an uphill challenge at first. You just have to be patient about it.
Rob Kosberg:
I often think Joe Rogan has the most popular podcast in the country, maybe the world. Joe was pretty unknown, even though he was a celebrity, maybe a B or C list celebrity, doing Fear Factor, but as a podcaster, he was pretty unknown until he wasn’t, and then everybody had heard of him. He’s done something like 1,300 podcast episodes. That is a lot of content that he’s put out there. Each of his podcasts is hours long. You have to be willing to pay that price if you’re not going to pay with your dollars and your cents. Are there other ways? Are there some things that you would suggest if somebody’s willing to write a check and pay a little bit of money for advertising, PR, et cetera?
Tom Freiling:
Lately, I’ve been advising authors to give books away. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it really is all about getting over that hump, getting enough readers to talk about your book to other people, right? It’s all about word of mouth. You have to think about this one, but maybe the best, most effective way to do that is to give away enough books to get enough people reading it to get that started, get the dominoes going. It certainly is a very efficient way to get readers quickly. Rather than thinking about, “How do I market my book,” maybe the question is, “How do I get people to read my book?” Maybe the answer is to give some copies away to get them reading it, especially if they’re influencers, gatekeepers, key-holders, whether that’s a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a pastor, a ministry leader, or a political leader. Sometimes it just takes that one important influencer to like or love your book, and they tell other people about it and spread the word for you. Then, certainly, that can be a very effective way to get the word out.
Rob Kosberg:
You work with some influencers, professional athletes, and politicians. For curiosity’s sake, what is the most interesting book that you’ve done? What are some of them that come to your mind and why?
Tom Freiling:
That’s a great question. I would say one of the most interesting books I worked on was a memoir, an autobiography by Dan Peek, who was the founder of the band, America. He was the founding member of the band. Dan was a fascinating guy to work with. This was a while back, but he still looked and sounded and felt like a hippie left over from the ’60s. He was an extraordinarily humble guy, very fun and easy to work with, and he had a pretty extraordinary story. The funny thing is that we were in Denver for a planned book signing, and his car broke down on the highway not very close to the bookstore. He did finally make it, and I asked him how he made it, and he said he hitchhiked, like he’d always done. So, hitchhiking, of course, was fun in the ’60s and ’70s, but you don’t see many people doing it these days. He hitchhiked his way to the book signing.
Rob Kosberg:
What’s the title of that book?
Tom Freiling:
I think it was just called America, I believe.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, that’s a perfect title. That’s what I was thinking it was, but I wanted to double check.
Tom Freiling:
Dan had a really hard childhood. He was very sick as a child, and then after he hit stardom, his life really went bad. Alcohol and drugs, and he was not a happy person at all, and he literally gave up everything to save his own life. He left the band, left music, really at a time when he was on the verge of even Beatles level celebrityism. They were really getting big. He gave it all up and got his life worked out, straightened out, and he and his wife lived on a small farm in Missouri for many, many years after that. It was a really fun experience. Dan passed away, I don’t know, maybe three or five years ago, sadly, but that was probably my most interesting publishing experience.
Rob Kosberg:
In our industry, there are so many moving parts. There’s writers, there’s editors, there’s people that handle the graphics and the design, people that do the ads and the press releases, and maybe a lot of them are doing this on their own, and people that are listening to this podcast are trying to figure out, “How can I write and how can I get my book edited?” Whether someone listening is one or the other, a writer that wants more writing work, or a person writing themselves, trying to figure it out, what advice would you give somebody in that situation? How do you get more opportunities for writing, for editing, if that’s what you do, or, on the other hand, how to figure how to finally get your book completed, et cetera? Are there synergies between these kinds of people? Are there maybe some tools that you could share about that?
Tom Freiling:
There are, and I think what I would say not to go it all alone. We live in a day and age where you can do almost anything, at least try to do anything on your own, whether it’s fixing a leaky faucet or drawing up a will. You can go to YouTube or you can Google just about anything, but I really believe too many of us think things are easier than they are, and just because you watch a video on YouTube or you Google something does not make you an expert. If you’re going to pour your heart and soul into writing a book, then at very minimum, find somebody who really understands the business, who really knows what they’re doing to get them to help you. I have counseled many, many authors who didn’t do that and did it all by themselves and then later regretted it because they make just one mistake. Sometimes you just make one small error, and it can ruin the whole project. I just encourage folks to find somebody or somebody who has been there, done that, and understands the business, because it is a business and it’s an industry. It’s not just an art form. That’s my number one piece of advice. Even if it costs a little bit more to do it that way, at the end of the day, it might cost you less than more because you’re not going to make any mistakes, right?
Rob Kosberg:
That is really good advice. I have so many different examples in my own mind, both personally and of my clients. I have a client, I won’t say who it is, and a good friend who’s written multiple New York Times bestsellers, and this person signed an agreement with a partner and didn’t really pay great attention. This was a very, very trusted partner. He basically signed away half of everything, not just the book, but the rights, and rights of anything that would come from it, and it was a mistake that ended up costing millions of dollars because there was really never an intention behind that. That’s great advice. You’ve got to be careful, and oftentimes, you become very penny wise.
Tom Freiling:
It’s a more complicated business than it appears on the front end.
Rob Kosberg:
Going along with this for just another moment, there are a number of traditional publishers that will sign you to publish your book for nothing more than paying for the editing and the design of your book, and they get 80% of the rights, royalties, and control of it, and all they’re doing is having an in-house editor go through it for you for. They own it. I don’t know why someone would do that. It always seems strange to me from a business perspective, but I think, and maybe you could even comment on this a little, what I have seen of the people that seem to fall into this is, it’s not so much a monetary thing as it is this issue of pride around this publisher, “This traditional publisher wants me.” They’re trading a Beanie baby for a BMW. It just seems mind blowing. I don’t know why anyone would do that with their content. Have you run across situations like this? What would you say?
Tom Freiling:
Yeah, for sure. In fact, sometimes, maybe all the time, authors believe that these larger houses, whoever they might be, are going to spend of time with them, marketing and publicizing a book. I’ve been published by four traditional houses. I can say with fullest confidence that I never heard from any of them after my book is published. I wasn’t upset because I knew that’s what was going to happen. That is the business. Essentially, a traditional house, what they do, they throw as much stuff out there as they can and hope that something sticks. That’s their business model. It works for them, but they’re not going to pay much attention to any particular single author or single title they’re going to put out there. What does putting it out there mean now? It means putting it on Amazon, which a hybrid publisher could do just as effectively, and probably spend a lot more time with you individually to make the project successful. It’s a dirty little secret in traditional publishing that I understood, but many authors are shocked when they don’t hear from their publisher.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, it is shocking. I often will get somebody that traditionally publishes and then comes to me for marketing help because the publisher hasn’t done anything, and then I ask about their publishing deal. In essence, their publishing deal was, “They paid for my editing,” or “They did the design work.” There’s nothing, or maybe very, very common as a check for 5,000 bucks or less, but then a requirement, in essence, to invest all of that in buying the books back, which is another dirty secret, right? The most I ever ran across was someone came to us and said, because we do marketing besides the ghost writing and those other things, but they said, “I have 8,000 books in my garage. How can you help me?” I was like, “Oh my gosh, you poor dude.” Let’s change gears. We talk about the writing of the books, we talk about the publishing of the books, but we all are doing that for a reason. We’re doing it. If we think from the standpoint of making an impact on society, we’re doing it for the reader, but truth be told, we’re doing it for ourselves as well. We want our books to make an impact on our way of life. We want our books to make money. We want our books to be successful. What are some the great examples, stories of various successes that came your clients, your own books, et cetera? I would love to hear a little bit about that.
Tom Freiling:
That’s a great question. I helped A.C. Green publish a book once. A.C. Green was a three-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and was the humblest of guys. Sitting at a table with him, he didn’t feel like a competitive beast like he was on the court. He was a very extremely ethical, high integrity, high morals individual, and he wanted to write a book, not really about his life story, although some of it was, but it was really about how to be a person of integrity, right? The book was really aimed at young people, probably more young men than anything, and it was a cool project to be a part of because of that. I know that he was a hero. Many sports fans and young kids looked at him as a hero on the basketball court. He did such a great job of helping people understand, especially guys, what it means to live a life of integrity. Of course, the book sold very well because of who he was and who he is. It helped a lot of people understand that it wasn’t just all about the game. It was about life. That’s one example that comes to mind. It wasn’t just that it made an impact, it was the kind of impact that the book made on other people. I like to remind authors that when your book changes one life, then it also changes all the lives around that one life. It changes the lives of family members and friends and coworkers, maybe folks at church. You’re not just impacting the readers, but you’re impacting a much, much broader community of people that interact and engage with that reader on any given day. Books change lives, I think, more than anything. I certainly have never met anybody who said music, or a movie changed their life. Almost all of us can point to at least one book that maybe didn’t change our life, but maybe changed the direction of our life in some way.
Rob Kosberg:
I don’t think there’s any question about that. Well said, my friend. Let’s give some links. Where can our listeners learn a little bit about you, Tom, and what you do and how you can help them? I know you’re a John Maxwell certified coach as well and do a number of things around publishing. Where can our listeners learn a little bit more?
Tom Freiling:
It’s really simple. It’s freiling.agency. I really appreciate you asking. I think book publishing, it’s in my blood. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I’ll always do, and always love to chat with anybody and everybody about it, for sure.
Rob Kosberg:
Tom, great to have you on. Thanks for sharing genuinely and letting your passion come out about what you do. It is a fun and crazy industry. I love the A.C. Green stuff as well. Thanks so much for being on. It is freiling.agency for anybody interested in learning a little bit more. Thanks again for being a part of the Publish. Promote. Profit. podcast.
Tom Freiling:
Sounds great, Rob. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
