Behind the Scenes of My Book Launch

Hello. Today, I am doing something a little different than I’ve done before, and that is, walking rare, Florida is rare, usually. It is way too hot for that. And on my list of things to do today, I was recording a podcast myself. But if there’s anything I love, it is multitasking and getting my steps in while I’m working. So here we are. Last week, I told you why I wanted to self-publish my book. Did that on the podcast Tuesday.

2 days later, if you are on my email list, you got the offer to purchase the Kindle version of my book for 99¢. That is something you can still do, and I apologize for the wind, people. I’m walking, so the audio on this episode isn’t amazing, but work with me here. I’m trying to be a healthy girl. I am going to leave the Kindle book up for 99¢ until the end of the month. So until Halloween, you can get that bad boy. So if you’re listening to this in real time, I believe that’s today. Yeah.

That’s today. Up until today, you can get that book for 99¢, the ebook version. And then you can also, of course, get the paperback version. But if you wanna get the paperback version for free. All you have to do by the end of the day, again, if you are listening to us in real-time, is purchase the Kindle version for 99¢. Leave me a review on Amazon. Screengrab that review, And then email it to me at christina@mediamaidenandmore.com, and I will send you a signed paperback copy of the book. Thank you so much for your support.

1st time to do something like this. I told you why I was doing it like this last week. And right now, I’m gonna give you a little bit more behind-the-scenes of the whole process. I gave you some last week, but I wanna start from the beginning. And that is me just thinking I should write a book. I love to read books, So why not write a book? Like, I’m always creating this content. I have an online course. I have a boot camp.

I’ve got 1000000 podcast episodes. Not a 1000000. Almost 300 podcast episodes. Like, why is all of this not in an organized form in a book? And, so I wrote the outline, And I started writing the book. I explained last week how a proposal came first, and then I was speaking with somebody about getting a book deal. And she said, well, a lot of times you just need the book written. And a lot of times when you send a proposal, they wanna see some sample chapters. And sometimes the sample chapters aren’t just chapter 1.

They wanna see something else. So I said, right. Screw it. Let me just write the whole damn thing. I had an outline to follow. Again, that was from the proposal. But when it came down to actually just sitting down to write the book, I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to do other things.

Now once I got started, I was good and I was in the flow. And a lot of people, count how many words they write. I mean, they don’t count them right. The computer tells them how many words they write. And I think a lot of people try to do 1,000 words a day. And I do believe that, like, a traditionally published book, like, the size you see in the bookstore is around 40,000 words. My book is a little bit more than half of that. It’s 20 some 1,000 words.

That’s why it is a paperback book and not a hardcover. Plus hardcovers are just crazy expensive to produce. Oh, I’m gonna make a U-turn here because we have some landscapers. You don’t need to hear that. So at first, I was like, okay. Well, everybody does 1,000 words a day. I’ll just do that. But it was so hard for me to sit down and write it.

And then while I was writing it, again, I would get in the flow of it, and it was fine. I just didn’t wanna do it. And so it made me think, like, do I wanna write a fiction book? Because I love reading psychological thrillers. I have all these ideas for books, but I don’t know if I have it in me. I just didn’t enjoy the process as much as I thought I would. So this may be the only book you’re getting out of me. I don’t know. At least right now.

Right? Our goals change. What we wanna do changes. At least right now, I wasn’t loving the process. But after I got started, you know, I had thousands of words written. I spent so much time on this proposal. I spent 100 dollars doing workshops, learning from people about the book writing process, getting a deal, or self-publishing all of those things. So I was like, I just gotta finish this because if not, then all of this would be for nothing. So I finished it.

And I can’t give Anna David enough props. I mentioned her last week. She has been on the podcast before talking about self-publishing and traditional publishing. She’s done both. Her course, Legacy Launchpad Publishing, was a savior. I told you that I hired a company for, like, $5,000 to do the book cover, the formatting of the book inside, and the design inside and then paid somebody for that company to do project management, paying them to upload it to Amazon and get me my ISBN, which is that code and barcode you see on the back of books. $5,000. But then once I got into Anna David’s course, I was able to do all of that in no time, and it was so easy.

And, again, listen. I feel like when it comes to the service-based business, a lot of what people do for you is easy. It’s just a matter of knowing what to do, a, and, b, taking the time to do it. So I’m not knocking this company for charging $5,000 for this. However, it was just something I didn’t mind doing that I could do quickly once I knew what to do. So If that is something that you think you would be interested in and I didn’t think I was. I was like, no. I don’t wanna do this.

I don’t wanna mess with it, but I want to know how easy it was to do these things. And I dabbled in them a little bit before. Like, when it came to the book covers, I told you what they brought me was very disappointing, so I created my own in Canva. I love to play around in Canva. I’m in Canva almost every day doing stuff for my business. So that wasn’t too hard for me. My kids wrote books, and, they published them on Amazon. So I was familiar with uploading things to KDP on Amazon.

So that wasn’t hard for me. When it comes to buying your ISBN, you literally go to a website and you pay I mean, it’s like buying anything online. That was easy. And then format the book, people will charge you over $1,000 for this. But all you need to do is get this program called Velum, which I believe I paid waft maybe $250 for, for lifetime access to it, and it automatically does it for you. You just upload your manuscript, move some things around, and that’s that. It was super easy. So I’m glad that I did it myself.

At least the 1st time, if I do it in the future or if I pay somebody to do it in the future, I know the process. So that’s that. That’s the behind-the-scenes of the writing. That’s the behind-the-scenes of getting it ready to publish so people could buy it. Now let’s talk about marketing because this is the biggest piece of it. I feel like so many people write books, and not just write books, but so many people start blogs launch podcasts, or create online courses. And it could be the best content in the world, but if you’re not marketing it and telling people about it, then it really doesn’t matter. So let me tell you about the marketing behind the book because this is the big part.

And, again, I got a lot of these ideas from Anna David. Laura Briggs is somebody who was actually in my media mentoring program. And when she joined, I think she just had 1 book under her belt, and now she has multiple. And she sent me some resources that she uses when she launches her box. So I’m gonna tell you what I’ve done. You know, the first one, I think may be the biggest one. Now remember, I am recording this episode before I launch my book. So I don’t really know how this is gonna go, but so far, I think it’s going okay.

And I say so far before the launch because I am stuck on that Thursday, October 26th date because that is the date where I send the email out to over 7,000 people on my email list asking them to buy the book for 99¢. Leave me a review, and then I’ll send you the paperback. Some people don’t care about the paperback. Some people don’t wanna spend the time leaving a review, screenshotting it, and then emailing it to me. But if you’re a book nerd like me and you like a physical book, then you may care. You may want to do this. I am a member of the lab with Jay Plouse. We are all in a community together online called CIRCLE, And I posted in there prior to October 26th letting people know, hey.

Listen. I have this book coming out. If you guys wanna buy it on this day and you leave me a screenshot of a review in my inbox, I’ll send you the paperback, whatever. Gave them the whole spiel. And I didn’t link to the book because I didn’t want them to do this yet. I wanted to do it on Thursday because I won a whole bunch of sales in one day to make a best-sellers list. The best sellers list on Amazon, especially, I don’t wanna say it’s not legit because you get the best sellers list when you get a bunch of people buying your books, and that’s how you do it. However, You could go in there and buy 100 of your own books and make the best sellers list.

Like like anything else, it can be finagled to your benefit. I think James Patterson, who is, like, the world’s best-selling author will make the bestsellers list no matter what he puts out. I believe he has talked about how the New York Times bestsellers list is a joke and how the way it’s done is not accurate in the fact that this is the book a lot of people are buying. And there’s so many things that go into it. It’s like those awards or, like, the Inc. 500. A lot of this stuff is p to play, and people on the outside don’t realize it. But there’s so much I don’t wanna say shadiness, but there’s so many it’s it’s like our government. Right? Like, there are so many loopholes on how certain people can benefit and others can’t and ways to get on this list or be mentioned here or there.

And it’s just it’s a thing. So, anyway, my understanding with Amazon is If you get a bunch of sales in a short period of time for at least that time, that hour, whatever, You will be an Amazon bestseller. You can put that in your marketing materials. You can put it on the cover of the book. The only reason this interests me is because I was part of a book launch a few months ago over the summer, and it was a compilation of authors. I submitted a chapter to the book. It’s called Mission Possible. It is designed for women in business who are in their 1st few years of business, and they wanna start and grow it.

And this is what they did. They did a big live virtual book launch event, and really pushed on sales for a day to get on the best sellers list of all these categories. Now I am not going to do a live virtual event. I am not honestly, I’m just not that driven to do it. That’s just a lot of time and energy, and I don’t like having stuff like that on my calendar. However, My friend Jessica Terzakis, who was on this podcast before and is so sweet and so giving with everything that I do, offered for me to go live to her audience. And I feel like going live to her audience is more beneficial than me going live to my audience because You already know me. You’re already listening to podcasts.

You’re already getting my emails. So I’d rather spend my time, my extra time getting in front of a new audience because you guys are already here. Right now, I’m building a relationship with you. When I get in front of somebody else’s audience, they discover me, and then they listen to podcasts, and then they join the email list. Like, there’s growth, and then there’s relationship building. So the biggest thing I’m doing when it comes to marketing is emailing my list with that 99¢ offer. That’s number 1. Number 2, I’m not just emailing the list about it.

I’m telling you on the podcast. I’m a part of a lot of communities. I mentioned the lab with Jake Klaus. I’m sharing it in there. And then in other communities, I’m in, where I am asked of a favor like this or not so welcome. On the launch date, October 26th, I am going to post in these groups and say, hey. I just launched my book. You can get it here for 99¢.

So I’m kind of promoting it, like kinda giving something away because it’s just 99¢. I’m not going to share the screenshot of the review to get the free paperback because that may seem shady to some people. Like, I’m paying you for a review, which I’m not. I’m just incentivizing you because I feel like today for people to leave a positive review they need to be incentivized. For some sad reason, people are more likely to leave a bad review when they have a bad experience, But not leave a good review when they have a good experience because the positive reaction is just expected. Like, that’s how it should be, so you shouldn’t have to leave a review. But I still think it’s important, and it really means a lot to the person who is giving you that good service or that good product. So on the day the book launches, I’m going to share everywhere far and wide that it is available for 99¢, and I will do that for, what, 4, 5 days or so until the end of October.

I also jumped on Fiverr to get some mock-ups done. It’s hard to make an ebook look pretty on your own. And, I mean, you can pay a genius on 5 or 5, $10 to do this. I paid somebody. I think it was $10, and He created 30 different mock-ups of the book in a paperback form and why. The companion workbook in a digital form. So the book also has a companion workbook and this is something that I hope to build on. So as you’re reading the book and going through the companion workbook to help you implement what’s in the book, like, I’m hoping I get back because it’s a download.

So I can update it anytime I want. Like, oh, this is helpful. This wasn’t. I would love to see this in it, then I’ll update it, and you can get the new version to help you implement what’s in the book. The goal for the companion workbook is twofold. 1, it’s to help you actually implement what’s in it. As you will hear in, the next few podcasts, I am going to go through my takeaways from Atomic Habits. And that is because I listened to the book once, and I was like, oh, this is great information.

And then a few days later, I forgot all about it. So I said, let me listen to it again Or let me read it again. Let me actually buy the physical copy, read it with a highlighter, mark everything I’m highlighting, and then do a podcast episode about everything I highlighted. So I’m saying it out loud after I highlight it, so then I can retain it better. So I know having a companion workbook will help you retain and implement what is in the actual Become a Medium Haven book. That is the goal for that and it’s to build my email list. To get the companion workbook, you need to leave me your name and your email address to download. And this is something that, again, a conversation with Anna David, helped me realize.

When I first started chatting with her, I said my book was going to be about how moms can start and build a business without any mom guilt because I’ve never felt guilty for being a working mom, having a business, or any of that. And, apparently, that’s rare. Apparently, a lot of moms do feel guilty for this. And I was like, well, I can help moms with this, and I can say, like, this is how you do it, and this is why you shouldn’t feel guilty doing it. So it’s, like, half business book, half self-help book. And Anna David was like, no. No. No. You’re not gonna do that.

And I was like, why not? I was like, this is brilliant. And that’s actually the book that I was pitching to agents to get a traditional publishing deal when I first started this whole thing. And she said the purpose of your book is to build your business. You don’t have a business based on moms not having mom guilt. You have a business helping people get exposure through PR, So that’s what your book needs to be about. And I was like, oh, it was like a moment where you’re like, yeah. That makes that makes pretty good sense. Like, what’s the end goal of the book? I don’t think I’m going to be, you know, the next James Clear of Atomic Habits.

I’m not willing to do the work it takes to be the next James Clear of Atomic Habits. So if this book got me more paid speaking gigs, my email list, got me more podcast listeners, then that’s the win. So I need to make it about my business and not how I don’t feel guilty having a business. So that is what shifted my mindset when it came to what the book was gonna be about and why I wanted to use it as a business-building tool in addition to something that could help people. Okay. Let’s see. How else am I marketing this? You can tell I’m outside on a walk, not looking at any kind of outline or notes as I do this. But, really, I mean, it’s just sharing it everywhere and then asking close friends and people in the industry to share it everywhere.

So I sent messages to Jessica Trzakis, I mentioned, and Lisa Simone Richards and a few other people who are, like, business buddies of mine. And as I say this, I’m thinking of other business buddies of mine, like people who I message on social or people who I’m boxing on a regular. If they could email their list to me and tell their list about the 99¢ offer, then that would be amazing. So that’s something else that they’re doing for me. And then I’m also going to send the physical copy to people that have influence that I look up to that are, like, mentors of mine. So I’m sending 1 to my friend Amy Landino. I’m sending 1 to Jake Miles in the lab. I’m sending 1 to Pat Flynn, who I worked closely with years ago when I was in his mastermind.

So people who have helped me along the way, even if they helped me from afar and they don’t really know they helped me, I’m gonna send them a book, and I’m going to leave a little note, a personal note, to each of them in the book. I’m also gonna send 1 to Alex in books. If you are on my newsletter, you have seen me talk about how much I love his content. Like, if I could have his job if I could replicate his business. Oh my gosh. What a dream job. He I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot more to his business than what I see. But from what I see, he reads a nonfiction book a week and shares all of the amazingness about that nonfiction book with his followers once a week.

And he monetizes this on his podcast, in his newsletter, on social media. He’s got products. He’s got merch. Like, What a job. Right? So I’m gonna send in my nonfiction book, and then I’m gonna send some people who I like and follow on Bookstagram, my book because I love and Bookstagram is more so fiction. I don’t follow a lot of nonfiction Bookstagram accounts outside side of Alex in books. But I’m gonna send them some books too because why not? You gotta get the word out, and that’s how I’m getting the word out. It’s really just How many different ways can you tell a bunch of people about your book? So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m not planning on doing any Amazon ads or any advertising right now. In Anna David’s course, she did talk about some sites that do book reviews. I may look into that a little bit more, but, again, I think some of that is pay-to-play. And I’m trying to go the all-organic route. And I don’t know if I always do this because it’s like I want to experiment, And I just wanna see how far I can go without spending money on ads, but I think that’s it. Like, I just wanna see the challenge. And I’m a big believer in practicing what I preach. If I’m all about getting attention without ads, then this is how I gotta do it.

Another thing I could do, haven’t done yet, is pitch the local media. I probably, in the next few days, will send a pitch to not the Palm Beach Post, which covers all of Palm Beach County. I may, but there is a small local newspaper where I live in Wellington, Florida, which is a village, is what it’s called, but it’s a city, really, in Palm Beach County, and they have a little newspaper. They covered my sale of podcast clout. So if a local business owner is releasing a book for other business owners, Then that’s newsworthy because it’s hyperlocal to where I’m at. I’m also part of the local chamber of commerce. I’m gonna send an email out to all of the members there through the chamber’s email. I don’t know if this is good for local TV because it’s very focused on business owners.

If I play up the fact that I’m a local author with a business that serves local business owners, Maybe that’ll help me a little bit more. So there’s that option as well. Again, how can you tell as many people as possible about your book in as many ways as possible? It really just comes down to making the list. And then sharing on social media. That’s a big one. I am gonna do this on the regular sporadically, but the week The book launches, I am sharing something almost every day. I’m sharing I mentioned those 30 mock-ups.

I’m sharing this I paid ever again, like, ten, $15 to create a trailer for the book. You see this a lot with, you know, the big New York Times bestsellers, the books you can find in bookstores where they make it look like a movie trailer but it’s for your book. So I’m gonna do that, and see how that turns out. Still waiting to get that one back so Be on the lookout for that. And then there’s also getting your book in bookstores. You can go into any Barnes and Noble or independent bookstore in your area and just ask them. They actually like ordering books from independent authors or self-published authors because it’s a lot easier and it’s less of a headache in with the big publishers. You just have to go in, make friends with the book buyer, and tell them, hey.

I’m a local author. You can also have an event there. Again, this is something that I’m not doing because I just don’t have the energy to do this. And I really don’t know how many people would show up to my event. I’m not gonna lie. Maybe that’s a mindset thing of mine. But I am this is something, actually, Amanda Tice. She has also been on the podcast.

She’s a friend of mine, who lives in Austin. We used to work together in the news back in the day in the Bronx, and she had a book signing event at a local Barnes and Noble. So that is something you can do. And then independent bookstores, you know, you could go in, sign a few, leave them in there. I mean, if anything, It’s good for exposure. Like, I’m not trying to make money off of this book. I’m just trying to build my business, and the book is the fancy business card. Let’s look at it like that.

So I appreciate you being there with me while I’m walking and huffing and out of breath and just ranting in a nonorganized fashion about everything I’m doing because I have 0 notes in front of me. I’m just walking and trying to dodge the lawnmowers and the big trucks. But if you have any questions about marketing the book, let me know. I am gonna share a link to Anna David’s course because I mentioned that a few times. And if you are thinking of self-publishing anything, I mean, even if it’s like your kids wanna write a book and you wanna get it on Kindle, That’s fabulous. One more thing I didn’t mention that is in the course. When it comes to finding keywords, Amazon gives you, like, a spot for 7 keywords for your book to pop out at. And I was just like, public relations, marketing, PR for business owners.

You know, like, what you would think they are. Well, she shares software that you can purchase again. Not that expensive. And it does this, like, SEO keyword research for you in Amazon. So I did this for my book, And then I went back to the 2, like, children’s books that my kids wrote, and I looked at the keywords that I put in there. And it was like, No. They would never be found with these keywords because either nobody’s searching for them or there’s way too much competition. So I used it to see what the keywords should be, and then I made those edits.

So that’s another thing when it comes to you guys think of Amazon as, like, Google SEO. There’s a 1000000 things on there, and you wanna be found in search. So sometimes you need software that’ll help you do that. So I did that. And the thing is with the the software to put the book together and the software for the keywords, You buy it once, and you have it forever. So if you do wanna do something down the road or if your goals change or if your kids wanna do something, you have that there. And, again, this is why it may be better want to learn how to do this yourself and execute it yourself before hiring somebody to do it for you so you know what goes on behind the scenes. I know when somebody hires my agency to do PR and they’ve worked in PR before before I worked with other agencies before.

It is a much smoother process because they’ve been there and done that. Just something to think about. If you go to become a media maven.com, you will not just see the podcast there anymore. You will see a link to the book because I titled my book Become a Media Maven. I’m just trying to keep things simple. I think it’s easier to be found when it’s all the same name and when it’s all the same domain. I mean, I put my podcast and my book on the same page. Right?