SPS-461: The Book Launch Process

to we're going to talk about launching today launching a book very important part of it because you are in the process at the moment uh we'll talk through that in a second hopefully people have some takeaways from that can be useful just a couple of Things to note.

Now, you sent me something you didn't realize that it was actually relaunched in June, which was the mid-year report from WynWyn Media about how indie authors have attitudes to the industry.

And they do a very good survey a couple of times a year.

But I want to mention one thing because it hadn't really occurred to me before.

So I've spoken in New Zealand about adapting your marketing and your book for the AI era.

which is the era where you've got long form search and users having conversations and finding book recommendations rather than keyword searches, what we had before and what you can do to optimize your book for that.

So I did that.

Inevitably, obviously, you get quite a range of opinion on AI at a conference like that, although my room was filled with people who were using it a lot for different things.

But it only occurred to me, because written word media sort of uncovered this in their survey back in June, that the levels of your opinion on AI as an author is very likely linked to where you are in your author career.

And the most frightened, the most anti-AI people are people at the beginning of their career in general terms this is not specifics In general, the people at the beginning of their career fear it as an existential threat and the people most likely to be doing nothing, not adopting it at all.

And then people who are in the growth phase, building momentum, they're AI curious.

You could say they're starting to replace their artwork and covers and copy and stuff for adverts and maybe newsletters with AI.

And then the people who are happy as Larry and adopting it are the high earners who are seeing AI as a way to grow their business, accelerate their business.

So that's not necessarily the case.

It certainly isn't the case with everybody.

And there'll be people listening to this saying, well, I'm a beginner, I love AI, or I'm a seven-figure author and I hate AI.

But in general terms, that does sort of make sense, doesn't it? I think particularly if you're not making any real money from your books at the beginning of your career or you've maybe you've done a series that hasn't worked you're going to move on to your next is you are the person who's most likely to fear ai is going to take away that opportunity that hasn't even happened for you yet

i noticed that as well and i'm going to tell you a quick story which is somewhat related this week i went out to dinner with some friends and it was our planning one of the many planning get-togethers for the big november girls trip you know Because there's lots to plan and reservations to be made and such.

And the group was pretty large in the beginning.

You know, there's like 12 of us or 10 of us that go.

And then it whittled down to three of us that there were two ladies that I'm very good friends with, but we met at work and we were curriculum specialists together.

And they are two people that I highly, highly respect.

Now, they're not authors.

They're in the education field.

They're both kind of at an administrative level now.

to we're going to talk about launching today launching a book very important part of it because you are in the process at the moment uh we'll talk through that in a second hopefully people have some takeaways from that can be useful just a couple of Things to note.

Now, you sent me something you didn't realize that it was actually relaunched in June, which was the mid-year report from WynWyn Media about how indie authors have attitudes to the industry.

And they do a very good survey a couple of times a year.

But I want to mention one thing because it hadn't really occurred to me before.

So I've spoken in New Zealand about adapting your marketing and your book for the AI era.

which is the era where you've got long form search and users having conversations and finding book recommendations rather than keyword searches, what we had before and what you can do to optimize your book for that.

So I did that.

Inevitably, obviously, you get quite a range of opinion on AI at a conference like that, although my room was filled with people who were using it a lot for different things.

But it only occurred to me, because written word media sort of uncovered this in their survey back in June, that the levels of your opinion on AI as an author is very likely linked to where you are in your author career.

And the most frightened, the most anti-AI people are people at the beginning of their career in general terms this is not specifics In general, the people at the beginning of their career fear it as an existential threat and the people most likely to be doing nothing, not adopting it at all.

And then people who are in the growth phase, building momentum, they're AI curious.

You could say they're starting to replace their artwork and covers and copy and stuff for adverts and maybe newsletters with AI.

And then the people who are happy as Larry and adopting it are the high earners who are seeing AI as a way to grow their business, accelerate their business.

So that's not necessarily the case.

It certainly isn't the case with everybody.

And there'll be people listening to this saying, well, I'm a beginner, I love AI, or I'm a seven-figure author and I hate AI.

But in general terms, that does sort of make sense, doesn't it? I think particularly if you're not making any real money from your books at the beginning of your career or you've maybe you've done a series that hasn't worked you're going to move on to your next is you are the person who's most likely to fear ai is going to take away that opportunity that hasn't even happened for you yet

i noticed that as well and i'm going to tell you a quick story which is somewhat related this week i went out to dinner with some friends and it was our planning one of the many planning get-togethers for the big november girls trip you know Because there's lots to plan and reservations to be made and such.

And the group was pretty large in the beginning.

You know, there's like 12 of us or 10 of us that go.

And then it whittled down to three of us that there were two ladies that I'm very good friends with, but we met at work and we were curriculum specialists together.

And they are two people that I highly, highly respect.

Now, they're not authors.

They're in the education field.

They're both kind of at an administrative level now.