Mostafa Hosseini  00:01

Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. And in this episode we’re going to talk about the biggest mistakes authors make with their books. Why do so many book titles end up in big authors graveyard at working book marketing strategy for your upcoming books are for your existing books, the benefits of niche marketing, and much, much more. My guest today is Susan Friedman.

And we are talking about how to market your nonfiction book with confidence. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Friedmann  00:31

Oh, good to be here. Mustafa, thank you so much great to

Mostafa Hosseini  00:35

have you know, this is a this is a great topic. And I can’t wait to dig into this amazing opportunity and topic and share your wisdom with people on how to market their books, because it helps people to establish themselves as an expert. And, and a lot of people I think, have written books that are not doing well. And they could use a bit of help with your wisdom and you know, take it to the next level. Well,

Susan Friedmann  01:04

thank you. And I’m thrilled that you are so interested in this title. Because, yeah, you know, there are over 2.2 million books published every year.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:16

Wow. Yeah, we’ll get to that. Let me do. Let me do my housekeeping items here and we’re gonna dive right into it. So as usual, if you’re watching or listening, please make sure to like and subscribe to any channel that you’re watching.

If you have any questions, put them as a comment. If you have any comments, put a live comment on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and different channels that you’re watching. If you have a friend that could benefit from this topic, which I think we all do have a friend who have a book or want to write a book, please tag them in a comment say, Hey, Stephanie, you probably should check this out, or see what Susan has to offer here. And that’s that next piece I was going to bring up is the confidence giveaway is coming up. The pages live, you can opt in and join, add the gifts that are going to be released next week.

Myself and a bunch of other contributors are sharing gifts to help you boost your confidence in different areas of business such as mindset, business strategy, speaking and visibility, health and wellness, and a few other categories. So that’s that the link is in the comments and you can go to daily confidence dot show forward slash giveaway to get access to your gifts.

Let me do the proper introduction for Susan here and we’re going to dive into a very interesting topic. for over 30 years Susan Friedman, a certified speaking professional has traveled the world training and coaching entrepreneurs how to wipe out sameness add vitality and differentiation to their marketing. Through her company Aviva publishing. She has guided hundreds of nonfiction authors to use their book to become a recognized expert authority in their field. Susan has written 17 books and has sold over half a million copies of her first book.

Her international bestsellers include meeting and event planning for dummies and riches in niches, how to make it big in a small market. She’s also the host of award winning podcast, Book Marketing mentors. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Friedmann  03:36

Oh, it’s so good to be here. Thank you.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:38

Great to have you. So how’s your day going so far? Excellent.

Susan Friedmann  03:41

Excellent. It’s a beautiful day here in Lake Placid, New York. And yeah, it’s getting dark though.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:48

Yeah, for us the end of the day for you guys.

Susan Friedmann  03:51

It almost is yes. We’re on the East Coast.

Mostafa Hosseini  03:54

Yes, you’re a couple hours ahead of us. We’re a mountain time here. So it’s like 230 here, basically. So Susan, what is your story?

Susan Friedmann  04:06

What is my story? That’s a great question. How did I get to where I am as the founder and owner of Aviva publishing, and long journey, and it started off once upon a time when I got laid off not once, not twice, but three times.

And I suddenly realized that hey, I need to take the reins of my destiny into my hands. And that’s when I became an entrepreneur. Or as I like to call it a niche printer. We’ll talk more about that. And I went into a niche market. Trade Show training.

Mostafa Hosseini  04:55

And yeah, that’s exactly market treasure training.

Susan Friedmann  04:59

Yeah, trade Joe training I was training exhibitors at trade shows how to be more effective in their marketplace. And over the period of about 25 years must offer I went from being a complete unknown in that area two being basically the go to expert. And yeah, and so a lot of my books were published as a result of that they’re all in the trade show arena. And the one that you mentioned my first book, exhibiting at trade shows, tips and techniques for success.

That’s the one that sold over 250, not 200 500,000 copies. It’s a it’s an interesting concept. And if we’ve got time, we’ll go into that. How that how that work, because that’s definitely something that I teach in my abundant or the retreat when we talk about how to build a business around your book. So yeah, and about five years ago, I transitioned from working in the tradeshow industry, to working full time with nonfiction authors, helping them also go from unknown author to expert or authority.

I’ve had Aviva publishing, I started Aviva publishing, just to publish my own work. I didn’t think that I would be publishing other people’s but book coach came to me and said, Would you publish my work and people who I work with? And I was like, I don’t see why not. And so 400 titles later, you know, we’ve been in business over 30 years. And yeah,

Mostafa Hosseini  06:54

400 titles, that’s

Susan Friedmann  06:56

mainly nonfiction. I really prefer to work with nonfiction authors, because I relate to nonfiction better than I relate to fiction, that we’ve got a few fiction authors as well.

Mostafa Hosseini  07:09

Very interesting nonfiction verse, I actually wrote a blog on that nonfiction blog. What I said was that we shouldn’t read nonfiction only.

Susan Friedmann  07:21

Oh, correct. I will

Mostafa Hosseini  07:25

mine my reading strategies that I alternate between fiction and nonfiction, so I have time to digest and understand the information. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  07:36

And I think you’re absolutely right. I also like to sprinkle a little bit of non fiction in with nonfiction, as well. And you get some great ideas from fiction. And when I

Mostafa Hosseini  07:48

read fiction, what happens is that my sense of fantasy and my visualization activates, and I come up with amazing ideas.

Susan Friedmann  07:55

i Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Yeah, me too. Me too.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:01

Taking a break for me. Yeah. Yeah, cuz

Susan Friedmann  08:05

we can, yeah, it could just be nonfiction all the time. And it can get old.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:11

Absolutely. I mean, there’s so much we could read and understand. So we have to give yourself I guess, time to, to learn it, to apply it to digest it to make something out of it. Well,

Susan Friedmann  08:21

I think you hit the nail on the head, there is that creativity that I believe fiction authors have that often nonfiction authors don’t. I mean, I’m very much a tips and techniques, how to do this, how to do that. Whereas fiction authors, they use story and story cells, as we know now. Yes, absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  08:45

Well, we’ll talk more about that. So Susan, what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

Susan Friedmann  08:49

So I serve nonfiction authors, and primarily speakers, coaches, trainers, small business owners who want to have a book or have a book, and they want to use that book to gain credibility in their marketplace, because really a book for this audience is a big fat business card that says, hey, look, I’ve I’m an expert. I’ve written a book in this area. And yeah, this this is my endorsement of credibility.

Mostafa Hosseini  09:27

Got it. Love it. Love it. Love it. So let’s dive into book marketing. What are some of the biggest mistakes that authors make? Oh,

Susan Friedmann  09:36

thank you for asking that because I hear it and see it all the time. And one of the first questions I ask an author when they come to me and say, Susan, you know, would have ever publishing published my book and I said, Well, who is your book for?

Tell me what they say myself. Have? Do you know what? Usually? Yeah, you got it. My books for everyone. I’ve got a universal message. And I want to change the whole world. Absolutely. And I’m like, that’s great. And how do you plan on marketing to everybody? Because not even Procter and Gamble, try that. The biggest of the big duck deep and dry that.

So, you know, Mr. Mrs. Entrepreneur, why do you think you can do that? Or how are you planning to do that, which is, which is a big issue. So having a message that you believe is for everyone is a huge, huge mistake, and rather have that message, go to a specific group. And you and I talked a little bit about niche niches earlier. And we can talk a lot more because I love that subject. My my book, The riches and niches, how to make it big in a small market. I just love I love niche marketing, I believe that is the key to unlock many riches in your marketplace.

Mostafa Hosseini  11:19

That’s huge. I’m a huge fan of I think that’s basically the only way to go. Yeah, yeah, I work with talk more about that. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  11:30

So would you like another mistake? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let’s go for more. Oh. So another mistake that so many authors make is that they don’t invest in marketing. They put so much money into producing the book. And then they think that I will somehow it’s magically going to market itself? Or that they’re going to rely on good old Amazon.

I’m going to post my book on Amazon. And then I can just sit back and wait for, you know, the sales to come rolling in. Unfortunately, that is a myth. Absolutely. A big, big myth. And I hope anybody who’s listening watching us that please don’t rely on that. Yes, put your book on Amazon. But it’s a shop window. And you have to bring people to that shop window.

Mostafa Hosseini  12:41

Absolutely. So so far, we got running and trying to please everybody, and then not marketing it. What What else do we have for mistakes?

Susan Friedmann  12:52

What else do we have for mistakes? I think it’s more not knowing exactly who to market to, you know, having that marketing plan of how you’re going to do this. One of another mistake is relying on social media. And, you know, people I say, Well, okay, who, who’s you’re following how, you know, how many people do you have in your database?

Oh, I’ve got 1000s of people on Facebook, or I’ve got 1000s of people, you know, on LinkedIn. And I’m like, That’s great. What if they go away tomorrow? Where did these people go on, have them on your list, and find a way to entice them with a lead magnet with some kind of giveaway that they will pop with their name and email address, and you have got their information so that you can market to them directly?

And if people don’t get anything else from this program, please do that. Because you’re building a house on rented land. You’ve probably heard that before. You know, and we know Facebook went down a few weeks ago. And what if it had gone down forever?

Mostafa Hosseini  14:17

Yeah, no, that was I think it was gone for like six hours. Exactly.

Susan Friedmann  14:21

It was nerve racking. I mean, people were like, Oh, my goodness. What? What can I do? What should I do? I can’t get ahold of people. I can’t do anything. So yeah. Big mistake. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:34

So why do so many book titles end up in a graveyard and they just don’t do anything, despite all the work and all the amazing, you know, designs that they’ve done for the cover and you know, I feel like a million dollars but my bank account does not reflect my feelings. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  14:59

So it’s exactly what we talked about earlier is not having a niche and putting that book out and trying to sell it to everyone. When you sell it in a niche market, you have much more opportunity to be that big fish in a small pond, which is exactly, you know, going back to my own experience in the tradeshow market, where I was one of less than a dozen people in the world, doing tradeshow training for exhibitors.

And so I was niche by topic, and industry. But I covered all different trade shows in all different industries. And at one point I thought of, well, how about going, let’s say, just into healthcare, and that would have niched me by topic and industry, which you can do, you can do it by topic, by topic and industry, you can niche by geography as well. If you want to just stay within your state within a certain the East Coast, the West Coast, North America, you know, South America, you know, if you find a niche and area globally that you want to work in, you can. But you’ve got to define all that upfront. It is. Yeah, yeah.

And I know you talk a lot about it. And I know you believe in it. Because you’re not trying to sell to everyone that goes back to who’s this book for, you know, if it’s a book on leadership or sales. Well, what industry do you want to be known in? I had one author, staffer who worked in the printing industry, and but for small printers, so he, he really took down, you know, not only not just any printer, it was printers in, you know, small printers that he wanted to work with.

And so he took his book on selling into that industry. He knew that industry, often it’s your background, that you you fall back on. So yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:21

So how did that how did it work out for this printer guy? Oh,

Susan Friedmann  17:24

excellent. And he’s now actually teaching courses at a school where they work where they teach printing, printing industry. So he’s, he’s selling, he’s selling really well.

Mostafa Hosseini  17:41

Good for him. And he teaches them how to run their business or how to market how to

Susan Friedmann  17:45

run, how to do the selling in that business. Because he knows that business, he’s got credibility, because that’s his background. It’s like one of my Speaker, colleagues, and she was an RN, a registered nurse, and she got burnt out doing that. And she said, I want to get out of healthcare. I said, Karen, what do you want to do?

She said, I want to take humor into the workplace. And I was like, okay, yeah, she said, I want to make people feel less stressed, as like, well, who needs that more than anyone? But they want Yes, thing and you’ve read ability, you’ve walked in their shoes. They know.

They know that, you know, their situation. And now she’s created something called neuro humor. And she’s the number one in the world because she’s working in that environment. And, you know, nobody necessarily outside of that environment knows who she is, as people didn’t know who Susan Friedman was in the tradeshow, you know, unless you weren’t in the tradeshow industry, you didn’t know who I was and what I did.

And that was okay. Because you, you know, if you weren’t in that industry, what you weren’t my target audience.

Mostafa Hosseini  19:11

Very interesting. Yeah. I’m a huge fan of subject and industry. So mine is simple marketing plans for coaches. There you go. That’s it. That’s it. I don’t have to explain too much as to what that means. Yeah,

Susan Friedmann  19:26

not at all. I mean, right there and then anybody who’s not a coach isn’t necessarily your market. Yeah. Now, you could niche that even further saying, you know, life coaches or coaches, certain types of coaches, but just coaches in and of itself, and you’ve got something very specific that you’re teaching them, which is dynamite. We

Mostafa Hosseini  19:52

could do female coaches, male coaches, yeah. Coaches between 35 to 55 hours a million ways or quarters in California are coaches, there’s a difference. Exactly.

Susan Friedmann  20:03

You can cut and dice and slice. At the end of the day, you’ve got to find out is there are there enough people in that market to make it viable for you to do what you do? And sell what you sell? Yeah, absolutely,

Mostafa Hosseini  20:17

gang. If you’re watching or listening, feel free to put any questions or comments you have about publishing or marketing your books, in the comments as we’re talking, and we’ll do our best to cover your questions. Now for Susan, for someone that has a hard time letting go of everybody. And sticking to a or finding a niche market, how do I how do you? Let’s say, that’s me, I’m having a hard time. How do you convince me to do that?

Susan Friedmann  20:44

It’s called a fear of focus. Or that fear that FOMO that fear of missing out, do you think oh, my goodness, if I only stick to coaches? What happens if somebody who is a speaker who is a trainer, or maybe who’s a small business owner, and isn’t a coach? If they came to me, does that mean that I can’t sell to them? Absolutely not. Not saying you shouldn’t do that. But when you put your energy and focus into one market, you can be much more effective and efficient in your marketing. Plus, you cut out, you know, so many competitors, too.

So if you’ve got your competitors, you can be more visible, you’re more effective in your marketing. And listen to this, you can charge more. If you are the only game in town, or one of the only games in town, guess what people will pay? Because they can’t get what you offer anywhere else. Does that make sense?

Mostafa Hosseini  21:51

You’re speaking my language. I love it. Like when you say only do this for this specific group of people, you eliminate 99% of your competition. Exactly have no competition at all, exactly. Don’t have to do a lot of selling, you don’t have to do a lot of convincing. And like you said, once you establish yourself a little bit, even even from the beginning, you could charge extra. Why? Because you specialize in this specific thing. They’re not. There’s nobody else that does that.

Susan Friedmann  22:26

I know I was I put together 50 checklists for exhibitors. And it was all based on my book that I showed you the exhibiting at trade shows tips and techniques for success. I’m very good at cutting, dicing and slicing books I you know, and trying to repurpose them in many different ways.

Any, any event, I did these 50 checklists, and they were downloadable checklists. $50 Now you’ll say, Well, that seems like a lot. And people said, How could you sell checklists for $50? I’m like, nobody else was doing it. And guess what? People paid it.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:13

Oh, my God, I got so many checklists. It’s not even funny. You

Susan Friedmann  23:17

You can pop them. Yeah. So. And yes. I mean, I’ve

Mostafa Hosseini  23:23

got a lot of checklists, people

Susan Friedmann  23:26

hate most of the people love tips. And they love checklists. And the market out there. And if nobody else is doing it, hey, do it. Make some money with that?

Mostafa Hosseini  23:40

I put it on Item sell checklists.

Susan Friedmann  23:47

Very good. Very good. You go there.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:49

I’m the same way I come up with processes and checklists and how to do something, break it down step by step sorting, so I get done.

Susan Friedmann  23:56

People love it. People love it. I mean, yeah. And as I said, if you, you know, when you’ve written a book, you take that book, and you look at what you can do with it. And I’d love to take people through the process with this book of how it’s sold. Half a million copies Can I can I guess. So we start off with exhibit A, which is exhibiting a trade shows tips and techniques for success.

Now, this actually was a traditionally published book, it was published by a group called Chris publications, they did what’s called a 50 minute book, you can read it cover to cover in 50 minutes. That was their, you know, little gimmick, and they they sold hundreds of these, any event. So when that key book came out, I thought to myself, I don’t want to sell books in onesies and twosies. How can I sell these in bulk?

So So I thought, Well, who would want this book who has the same target audience as me? That is exhibitors at trade shows, but are not my competitors. So I looked at the people who provide who build the exhibits, the booths, the stands and all different let you know different, you know, there’s a it’s called different things to different people in the States, we call them boots on in Europe, they call them stands. Any event, so I went to the one that makes what’s called Custom exhibits, those are the ones they cost about half a million dollars to produce.

And they these huge monstrosities that companies put up in trade shows. So I went to a group and I said, How would you like this book? And they said, Yeah, okay. So they had the book done, exhibit it, let’s get that in the camera exhibiting at trade shows. And it was their book was exhibit group, they sponsored the group. The only difference between this book and this book, is that the cover, and at the front, there was a letter from the president of that company.

The rest of the book was exactly the same as the original. They bought 2000 copies of this. So I’m like, Hey, we’re on to a good thing.

Mostafa Hosseini  26:40

This is working. This is working.

Susan Friedmann  26:42

So I thought, Well, I’m not going to go to their competitors. I don’t want to do that. So I said, we’ll, I can’t go to Custom exhibits. But there is what’s known as portable exhibits. And these are the ones that the small ones that you can just pull up and boom, there, there’s, there’s an exhibit. And so I went to a company that I knew well nematic display, and I said, Would you like to do this, you know, provide this to your clients, along with the exhibit.

And they we looked at the price, it was too expensive for them. So they said, you know, between us, we came up with something creative. And I said, Look, I can take some of that material, and condense it, same material. So we came up with tips and techniques for exhibiting success. And so you’re

Mostafa Hosseini  27:42

presenting just to clarify, you’re presenting this idea 2020 exhibition company,

Susan Friedmann  27:48

this people who sell the exhibits,

Mostafa Hosseini  27:51

like booth at trade shows, correct. Okay. All right.

Susan Friedmann  27:55

Have the same target audience. Okay, so they bought 250,000 copies of this one, and they translated into five languages.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:12

Okay, one deal 250,000 50,000

Susan Friedmann  28:16

same material, just different format. Love it. Okay. So then, that was such a success, they came back to me and they said, could we do this again, but I want you to put it in another format. So we did same material 120 ways to successful exhibiting, and they ordered another 250,000 of these and English and German, those were the two languages that things are different contents are same content, same content, just formatted differently.

In fact, this one is more tips, you know, little tips as one tip and maybe 50 words 50 to 100 words about each tip.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:04

I love that idea. So you go to the person that could use this and did they just give this to their customers? These

Susan Friedmann  29:11

actually they used as lead magnets.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:16

They are okay can walk us through that walk us through that and how that works. So

Susan Friedmann  29:21

they had a postcard the this was before in the olden days. When we still use Mail,

Mostafa Hosseini  29:33

it still works mail works. Oh, mail works.

Susan Friedmann  29:37

It works very well. So postcard, fill this postcard in to get a copy of your, your, your booklet. And so they would fill it in. And then a salesperson in that area, you know, let’s say in Chicago would have those cars and then go to the prospect, give them a copy of the book, and then hopefully sell them an exhibit. And

Mostafa Hosseini  30:09

then they will follow up with a phone call saying, Hey, did you use it? Is this useful? We’d love to have you practice the tips here. And they give this away for free as a leader.

Susan Friedmann  30:20

That’s one they gave away for free. Yeah, both of them actually gave away for free. Because, you know, they, they want their exhibit, they want their clients to be successful at shows. So I was helping them with my material to make their clients successful at their shows.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:41

What do you say about doing this digitally? Where you would give the copy of the book for free pickup their first thing? On number? Yeah, yeah. And then follow up with a phone call?

Susan Friedmann  30:53

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Or you could even follow

Mostafa Hosseini  30:57

up with a webinar.

Susan Friedmann  30:59

Absolutely training, training for nomadic display several times. I actually trained salespeople on exhibiting techniques, so that they could help their clients with that. What

Mostafa Hosseini  31:17

do you say to people that are really stuck on selling their book, and they’re not willing to give it away for free?

Susan Friedmann  31:26

So sell it? Yeah, I mean, but don’t think about selling it in onesies and twosies. Think about who well, who could benefit. And this is the this is how niche marketing can really help you. Because then the more narrow, you can look at who else has my target audience, but it’s not a competitor? Mm hmm. So that’s the thinking here. Mustapha, that who else?

It’s that? I mean, in marketing lingo, it’s called upstream, who’s my upstream? Who else has my target audience as well, and that we’re offering complimentary either products or services. Does that make sense?

Mostafa Hosseini  32:15

Absolutely. Absolutely. So for, for example, look, can we talk about us? Oh, absolutely. I don’t do publishing. I don’t do trade shows. I help people create their marketing plan. We could refer to each other all day long. Absolutely. And benefit from that and complement each other. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  32:33

Because my audience, I mean, one of my audiences are coaches, that coaches, trainers, consultants, speakers for the most, because those are the people who write books. Because they want the credibility of being seen as an expert, a thought leader in their within their target market,

Mostafa Hosseini  32:56

absolutely want. The same I have I have coaches and authors, coaches and entrepreneurs that are out there. They want to write a book, or they have a book and they need somebody to help them with. Yes, thank you. Let’s talk to Susan. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  33:10

Yeah. It’s something totally different. It’s a different way of looking at it. And that’s what I love. And it’s, it’s not rocket science. I mean, I’m far from a rocket scientist. But I look at things differently in terms of if everybody’s zigging, I want to zag.

Everybody’s going down this avenue. You know, why? You know. And that’s actually one of the mistakes too, that often authors make, you know, they’ve got a friend who published a book, and they did this with that book. That means they need to do this with that book. And, you know, they bought Amazon ads, or Google ads, or Facebook ads, you know, they bought ads, because somebody else did it. And it was successful.

And I’m like, Are you comparing apples with apples? Are you comparing apples with oranges? Yeah, no, I mean, did I write the same book as you would write? Absolutely not. So why would I try and market it the same way?

Mostafa Hosseini  34:21

I have. I have a habit of trying to turn my workshops and what I talk about into books. And because I’m not a writer, and if you could put a gun into my head, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t write two pages. But if you asked me to talk about a topic for three hours, no problem.

Susan Friedmann  34:42

Okay. Have you got no recorded that require? Yeah. Okay. All you need to do with Mustafa is to have that transcribed, and I use a company called rev.com. And they transcribe it You give that I’ve got developmental editors who would take that material and just clean it up.

You don’t have to do anything. They would take that and boom, you would have a book. I hear the same thing from people. Oh, I’m not a writer. I’m a speaker. I’m a trainer. I’m a coach. Okay, so record it. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:22

We’re actually going to turn our podcast episodes into a book.

Susan Friedmann  35:27

Absolutely. I transcribe all my podcasts, my book marketing, mentors podcast. They’re all transcribed. I’ve got 297 at the moment. And that would be volumes of books if I wanted. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Material is dynamite. Absolutely. As is your material? Hmm. Let’s do it. Mostafa. We got to do this.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:54

We got to do this. Yeah. Tell us about self publishing and going with a publisher. What is the difference? Like I have zero clues about that. Okay. To clarify, I know you can go on Amazon and publish your book. Yeah. But I don’t know, what’s the difference between that and going with a publisher. Okay,

Susan Friedmann  36:19

so there’s a there’s a group in between. So you’ve got self publishing on one side, you’ve got traditional publishing on the other side, and in the middle is something called a hybrid publisher, which is, in fact, that’s what Aviva publishing is.

So it’s halfway in between. So traditional publishing, you know, the Wiley’s the Simon and Schuster’s, the Ramdan house of these world, the hash shots, you know, as a first time author, you better have something that is so dynamite that they could not resist publishing, I think is hardest for a first time author because you’re an unknown.

So getting a deal with a traditional publisher, is challenging. Now, people think that once they have a traditionally published book, they don’t have to do anything. And that is another that’s a big mistake. Because traditional publishers, one of the most important parts of a book proposal that you would put to, you would send to a traditional publisher needs to be your marketing platform, they want to know that you are going to be able to market that book for them.

They, and it used to be that publishers took on the marketing, not anymore. The publishing industry has been turned upside down, especially with Amazon and with ebooks, and, you know, Audible books, I mean, audio books. So yeah, they’ve had to rethink everything, and they want you to market it. They want you to do the, you know, the grunt work, they’re not going to put that much money into marketing it. So unless you’re a celebrity, and then it’s going to sell itself,

Mostafa Hosseini  38:15

they have to do it. Yeah. As he says, I think I should talk to Susan regarding my book, great feedback. So I see Yes, when I reach out, I’m going to later we’re going to share a gift by Susan that where you could book a time to chat with her.

Susan Friedmann  38:29

Absolutely. Yeah, they get 20 minutes, I’ll do a brainstorm with them. And you know, I would be delighted. It would be my honor. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  38:38

You guys wanted to have a 20 minutes session. With Susan, click on the link and book your time with her now. And then, you know, see how she can help you.

Susan Friedmann  38:53

So, should we go back to the self publishing versus?

Mostafa Hosseini  38:56

Yes, so I am, I am wondering, what does a publisher actually do that I cannot do? Nothing. Do they have like a network? Do they have? Yeah,

Susan Friedmann  39:11

I mean, there’s there’s a network. But you could do it. The the thing with this is where a lot of waters fall down? You know it because it’s so easy just to stick a buck a, you know, book on Amazon. And there’s a stigma about self published books.

And that is that it’s not a real book. Okay. You know, is it true? No. However, you know, a book when you come through Aviva publishing, I want your book to look like a traditionally published book, you know, this is one of our latest the economy of kindness. Then there’s a The color of courage. I mean, these are beautifully, you know, cover, the feel the look, everything about this book smells like if it was in a bookstore, right next to a traditionally published book, the average person would not know the difference.

And that’s the kind of quality that we want, you know, when we when we work with the authors, so they, they’ve got to be invested in this. It’s not a cheap game. Yeah. And it can be you go, you know, you just put it on Amazon, publisher? I mean, there’s some crappy stuff out there, which, sorry, excuse?

Mostafa Hosseini  40:44

No, I think it really depends on who your target market is, as well. Like, if you are trying to target a bunch of say, doctors, right, and you come up with a, a, an immature, mediocre looking, you know, non professional, non professionally designed book and try to attract them, they’re going to look at and be like, This guy or girl doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking

Susan Friedmann  41:12

about. Exactly. It’s a beautifully

Mostafa Hosseini  41:15

designed and published book where it feels good, they could touch it, they could open it now. You know, that makes it different. However, if you’re going after a target market that does not care about quality, so much. Right? And they care maybe more about the content and how it helps them. You may not need to, like spend all that money to I’m on the right track here.

Susan Friedmann  41:42

Yes, and no, it would be such a shame that if you had such valuable material, that you don’t take the time to get a book cover design professionally. And you’ve got so many resources, things like Fiverr, fiverr.com, Upwork, you can get inexpensive, you don’t have to have, you know, a graphic designer.

There are less expensive ways more cost effective ways of doing it, without having to, you know, invest 510 15 grand grand on publishing the book. But you still got to be invested in it. And it’s got to be professionally edited as well. There’s nothing worse than, you know, oh, my friend edited it. She was a schoolteacher. And she taught English. She’s not an editor. Yeah. And there are different types of editors.

So working with a publisher, they know the ins and outs, is it something that you could do? Absolutely. But having the clout of a publisher, you know, a hybrid, or obviously a traditional publisher makes makes a big difference. And some people won’t accept a book that hasn’t been published by a publisher.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:23

For sure. So once we have a book, how can we make the the book popular?

Susan Friedmann  43:29

Well, again, goes back to what we’ve been saying is, who is your target audience? You know, how can you get it out there? Your what kind of following do you have? How can you promote it, you could promote it, you can use it as a resource. You talked about doing webinars? It could be part of the webinar fee that they get a copy of the book?

And is it a book that could be used in the in academia? Could you know, I mean, some of my authors have connections or have made connections with different programs. I’ve got a woman who wrote a book on health literacy, the A to Z of low health literacy. And she her book is used in almost all the nursing schools. And they just constantly asking me, Can I have a desk copy of this book? And I’m like, you know, I always send those to the author and say, Hey, you take care of this. Now, they take care of those sales.

We don’t take care of sales. That’s, that’s our model. So you have as much control and our policy at Aviva publishing is that you make as much money as you can on the book. That’s what we want for you. We want for you to be able to make the money and we’ll help you with the ideas. We just don’t do it. For you, we just guide you along your author marketing journey.

Mostafa Hosseini  45:06

Love it. Love it. Yeah. And it’s a profession, and you need to tap into the knowledge and wisdom of someone that knows how to do it. Yeah. Some some people make it sound so simple as much as Oh, yeah, we’re like, publish your own book. We over a weekend. Yeah. It’s and I think there’s a lot more into it, though. I mean, to, to do it. And I think I could put a blog together in a cop put it on Amazon and publish it as a book.

Course you could, I probably could. But will that do me a lot of good, we’ll have to see about that. But there, I think there’s a process and a way to do it properly, like you said to do professionally so that it brings your business so that it gives you expertise and credibility and brings your customers and, and the rest of it. You know,

Susan Friedmann  45:56

that’s part of your branding, as well. Yeah. And if you’ve got a crappy looking book, what is that telling me about your brand? Do I want to do business with you, if you’re not taking, you know, attention to detail about this book represents who you are in the marketplace? And if you want to be seen as a credible expert, it needs to look the part. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:29

Absolutely. I mean, that’s, that’s my image. What’s out there. So, exactly. That’s my representative. So I need to make sure that it is that I’m being represented properly. Exactly.

Susan Friedmann  46:39

You want to be represented properly. So people see, you know, this guy is a pro, and I want to work with him. You

Mostafa Hosseini  46:49

got it. Susan, can your first book be a best seller?

Susan Friedmann  46:54

If you wanted to be there’s a game out there. Anyone can be a best seller on Amazon. Unfortunately, you know, it’s sort of been cheapened in a way. But yes, if you want that status, it’s a game, it’s a matter of finding the right genre to put your book in.

And that it’s a genre where, you know, you’re the only person producing a book that week, that day, that hour in that genre. And for a hot second, you’re an Amazon, Best Selling Author, you’re number one in that category.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:33

What about, say a New York Times bestseller or an international bestseller?

Susan Friedmann  47:37

So international bestseller, same kind of thing? I’ve got people who can do that, if that’s what you want. New York Times is one of those hidden secrets. People don’t really know exactly how, you know, they make that selection. It’s often quantity of books sold. That’s, you know, if you look at the best sellers. It’s rarely an unknown on that list.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:14

Also, mostly celebrities and people,

Susan Friedmann  48:16

celebrities, when there are a lot of pre sales. I mean, if a celebrity puts out a book, I mean, I was talking about Michelle Obama’s book, the earlier becoming. I mean, before the book was out, it had sold millions of copies. That

Mostafa Hosseini  48:35

I loved that strategy. Yeah, I saw I saw Laura lankhmar talking about it. Yeah, the fact that like, they put a cover out there with the title and descriptions. They sell the book first. Yeah. And then they start writing it. Yeah, that’s

Susan Friedmann  48:55

me. I had a I worked with a coach once who, once he got the book cover out there. It was two years before the book came out. But he’d sold it in beforehand to help pay for the printing.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:09

Yeah, brilliant. Editing and design and salutely Oh, man, I love that idea.

Susan Friedmann  49:15

And there are all these GoFundMe opportunities as well. The crowdfunding, you can you can raise money that way. Yeah, I say get people say to me, When should I start marketing my book? I said, as soon as you’ve got that book cover, get it out there. Let’s get

Mostafa Hosseini  49:34

book ideas. I think for me, it’s would be as easy as testing the idea first to see if Would you read a book on this topic? Exactly. You don’t want to have a book. Exactly. People say Oh, hell yeah. Sign me up. I might have an idea. Exactly. Gotta

Susan Friedmann  50:04

go. Yes, I’m, that’s one of my strengths is to really work at that creativity. What can you, you know, what can you come up with? And how can you take that book? And then as I said, repurpose it, you know, could you put your a course together an e book, you know, a mini book, you could take chapters of the book and make those separate little mini books, as well. You could do the checklists, the tips, you know, those can all be books, or booklets that you could sell separately.

So one book and multiple different ways of which you can use the material, you don’t have to reinvent the material, create new material all the time. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:54

One of my favorite ways to publish a book that I’ve been fascinated by was that there was this author that was releasing a new chapter of their book, like once a while, once a week, once a month or something. And people they got the first chapter and now they were dying to read the second chapter. Yeah, that is brilliant. Yeah,

Susan Friedmann  51:16

that works well, in the fiction market, particularly, because you leave somebody with a cliffhanger. It’s like, Oh, my goodness, what happens next?

Mostafa Hosseini  51:26

I know, I’m thinking we could do it with third nonfiction as well. Like, in the next chapter, I’m gonna show you how to do this. And they’ll be like, oh, I

Susan Friedmann  51:38

need it. They need to know how to do that. That’s your cliffhanger. Yeah. Absolutely.

Susan Friedmann  51:44

That book for the next chapter.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:45

I love it. Love it, or the open? Some people call it

Susan Friedmann  51:49

Oh, yeah. People can’t stand up. What’s

Mostafa Hosseini  51:52

your Susan? What is your you’re getting close to the top of the hour. So what is your favorite out of the box? book marketing strategy?

Susan Friedmann  52:05

I think what I told you is finding a complementary service or product, and somebody who you can form a strategic partnership with and you know, sell your book to them. It’s usually somebody with deep pockets. So you’ve got to think broader as well. So with with, with my authors, we look at how can you find, you know, direct to suppliers vendors, and then indirect could be as well, as long as you have the same target audience in common. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:57

Love it, love it. I

Susan Friedmann  52:59

hope your listeners and viewers like it to

Mostafa Hosseini  53:03

Susan, tell us about your gift, your 20 Minute brainstorming session,

Susan Friedmann  53:06

I’ve got a 20 minute brainstorming session brainstorm with susan.com. And yes, I will spend 20 minutes with you. And we’ll talk about so what do you want to do with your book,

Mostafa Hosseini  53:20

but

Susan Friedmann  53:23

an honor to work with your people.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:25

I appreciate the that’s a generous offer. Now gang if you have a book or if you have a book idea, and you want to get feedback on how to publish it and promote it and marketing and get it out there and get creative about it and work with someone that has published over 400 titles. claim that 20 minute brainstorming session with Susan and you know have a conversation with her now. Susan, can I ask you some personal questions?

Susan Friedmann  53:53

Oh got a date tonight?

Mostafa Hosseini  54:01

You do? So they’re gonna be like, quick and quick and easy. Go for what’s a what’s a new thing you have recently tried recently?

Susan Friedmann  54:13

Huh? What’s a new thing that I’ve tried recently that’s that’s a really good one.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:22

It could be like anything in life, business. Anything. I’m

Susan Friedmann  54:25

just thinking my mind’s going crazy now. It’s like what? That’s a tough one. I mean, I try thing new things all the time. Oh, you know what I did? Yes. was crazy. And I am doing a retreat at the moment. Actually, I’m on it now.

And what they had us do this afternoon was just get creative and draw the cover of a book with your non dominant foot. You put the pen between your toes. And you draw a book cover. How about that for a different? Well, the idea behind that was to offer was to get over the fact that you feel awkward. And when you’re writing a book, there could be awkwardness about it. And you don’t have the same control as you usually do over things. So allowing yourself to just do something that you don’t know how to do. It well, so yes.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:43

Love it. So what are your top two or three favorite books that have made a massive difference in your life or business?

Susan Friedmann  55:51

Anything by Seth Godin, I absolutely love his marketing books. I love to pieces. What are the books I’m looking at my bookshelf here. It’s like

Mostafa Hosseini  56:07

something that has made a difference or you have recommended this book like more than any other books. Yeah.

Susan Friedmann  56:17

you putting me on the spot? I wish you’d told me this before.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:22

When it would have been fun.

Susan Friedmann  56:25

It would be if I could think of it. Oh, of course. My mind’s gone blank. Yeah, no, I. If you remember my favorite authors, I tell you another one. David Meerman. Scott, I love I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his work, the new marketing and PR. And I love his work.

He also just wrote something called Fan talk cracy as well. That’s become so his work is really, really good. I also love Jeffrey Gitomer, his work. He’s getting you know, Jeffrey, he’s he’s a friend. He’s a colleague. And I just love his said as it is. I just love that about I

Mostafa Hosseini  57:23

really like his style of sales. And yeah, I’ve read. I’ve read a few of his books. And one of my favorite books was the sales Bible was obviously one of the good ones, the Red Book of sales, and then there was the Golden Book of attitude or something like that.

Susan Friedmann  57:41

I’ve got them all on my bookshelf. But, yeah, I mean, it just anything he produces is is phenomenal. as well. So yeah, yeah. There are some there are some great people out there with with great books. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  58:01

Absolutely get them are great. So what’s one advice that has made a massive difference, Chen is your massive change in your life or business?

Susan Friedmann  58:12

It doesn’t have to take 15 years to become an overnight success. But it does take time and energy to to accomplish that, what’s known as that overnight success. I think that is that’s key. And something else that I always talk about is throwing a pebble in the pond and letting the ripples flow outward.

And I’ve got a great saying here, actually from the Dalai Lama, just as ripples spread out when a single Pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far reaching effects. How about that for various? That’s at the center of niche marketing, I believe?

Mostafa Hosseini  59:07

Absolutely. To have that ripple effect. Yeah, yeah.

Susan Friedmann  59:12

And that’s what you can have. When you throw that pebble in the pond and you you look at where where the fish are, are. They’re not all over the ocean. Where are they feeding?

Mostafa Hosseini  59:26

Absolutely. So Susan, if you had a Facebook or a Google ad, where everyone on the planet with access to internet could see what would your message be for people of Earth

Susan Friedmann  59:50

find the people who value you and your message

Mostafa Hosseini  59:59

system worrying that

Susan Friedmann  1:00:01

spend time looking at really and that goes back to what we’ve been talking about so much in this program is, is find your people find your niche market, and really penetrate that that niche. Because that’s where the riches are in the niches as exactly what you know, I wrote about in my riches and niches how to make it big in a small market that so yeah, I believe that riches are in the niches.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:00:36

love it love it love it Susan, what advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Susan Friedmann  1:00:41

What advice would I give my 20? You yourself ask for advice when you need it. I was always shy about asking for help. Because growing up, I was expected to know things. And if I didn’t know them, I had to go find them out.

And I was very frightened about asking for help. Because I would it would maybe look as if I was stupid. And I’ve learned over the years that asking for help is is really the key. Because you can’t do it on your own. You need other people.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:31

Love it asking for advice when you need it. And I think a lot of us get gets stuck there for a long time.

Susan Friedmann  1:01:39

Yeah. And not being frightened to ask for it. Because again, as I said, you know, people think oh, well, you’re expected to know that. Well. I’m like, yeah, maybe yes. But I’ll ask it anyway. Now. I’m not sure.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:53

That’s actually a sign of strength to go for advice? Absolutely. You’re, as we talked about the car on the confidence show, confident people ask for help and advice. Yes. Yeah. If you’re if you’re against it, that’s a sign of insecurity. Because you might you don’t want to look. We can and unknowledgeable or, you know, you don’t want to sound dumb and stupid and all that. But any smart people can, you know, have multiple advisors and coaches and

Susan Friedmann  1:02:26

yeah, actually, I’m listening to a book at the moment called who not how I highly recommend that to Dan Sullivan. And that talks about asking who can help you not? How can I do this?

Mostafa Hosseini  1:02:47

Hmm. The entire book is on that topic. Correct. Dan Solomon? Yep.

Susan Friedmann  1:02:52

Dan Sullivan. Who not how love it. Yeah, it’s a great book. Highly recommend that one. You’re talking about no one had time to think through. Books that made a difference? Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:09

That’s a good one. I’m gonna I’m gonna put it out. It’s who not how.

Susan Friedmann  1:03:13

Yeah, love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:15

Love it. Love it. Suzanne, this has been an absolutely amazing conversation. For those of you who are watching or listening later. Feel free to put your questions in the chat box. Make sure you like the show and subscribe to the channel. Susan, is there anything that you’d like to add that we didn’t get a chance to talk about?

Susan Friedmann  1:03:34

Oh, probably a lot.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:36

We want to mention so

Susan Friedmann  1:03:38

much I really have. And just again, that I would be honored to help anybody out there who feels that I might be a good person to chat with and yeah, brainstorm with susan.com. And yeah, I would, I would be thrilled to talk about your book talk about your niche market. If you don’t have one. Let’s find one for you. Because I do that well, I have to admit.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:10

Love it. Love it. Now gang if you’re watching or listening and you want to tapping Susan’s wisdom, and expertise, go to brainstorm with susan.com to claim your 20 minute session with Susan, have a conversation with her and take it from there.

Now. A couple of other housekeeping items. Again, make sure you like and subscribe to the channel that will help us spread the message. Help other people and reach out more to more people around the world. And tag your friend whoever could benefit from this conversation tag them there. And another piece that is coming up as soon is simple marketing formula is coming up in December if you wanted to create your one page marketing plan for 2022 and do that before Christmas so you have a very relaxed holiday time.

Now knowing exactly what you’re going to do for your business with a plan and a strategy and you name it, you want to check out simple marketing formula bootcamp coming up in early December so it doesn’t interfere with holiday time or shopping. We do it early December. And the link is going to be in the descriptions of the show and in the comments as well. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Susan. Appreciate your time and expertise.

Susan Friedmann  1:05:25

Thank you and,

Mostafa Hosseini  1:05:26

and we’ll see you guys on our next episode. Bye now.