May 3, 2023
Episiode 211: How to Publish Like a Pro: Insights from a Self Published Bestselling Author
In this episode, we tackle the tough questions aspiring authors face when trying to break into the competitive world of book publishing.
With over 60 million books on the market, how can you ensure that your work stands out? How do you build a loyal fan base and make a profit from your writing?
Our guest, a seasoned self-published bestselling author, shares his insights on what it takes to succeed in the publishing industry.
From developing effective marketing strategies to creating a buzz around your work, you'll learn the key ingredients to make your book a success. So, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your writing career to the next level, tune in and discover how to become a bestselling author.
Links and Resources:
Buy a copy of Lars Emmerich's best selling books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3oY5v7r
So I've really been getting into plants a lot lately. I've been searching Facebook marketplace trying to find all of these local plants, these people that are, you know, needing to sell these plants. And I know this is gonna sound obvious to a lot of people, but I keep killing these damn things. So this is my effort to help save some plants out there.
I know that, again, this is gonna sound obvious, but what I never. Took into account was actually, you know, sticking my finger into the soil and I found out, I've been doing a lot of research on, you know, how to do things. I basically have been wa overwatering plants, right? So what you want to try to do is stick your finger into the soil about an inch or so, and if it feels dry, the plant needs more water.
Most often, uh, if, if it feels wet, then don't water it anymore. So that was a huge tip that has started me being able to keep these plants alive and have them start flourishing. So hopefully that helps some other people not slaughter their plants.
On the Invest in Square Feet podcast, we unlock the secrets of wealthy entrepreneurship. I'm Matt Shields and my mission is to help you business owners, protect and grow your wealth so that you can invest passively into multi-family real estate. If you've been an entrepreneur for any time at all, I'm sure you probably have been proposed or run across the idea of writing a book for whatever industry it is that you serve.
But the problem is, is that writing a book is extremely difficult. So today you're going to learn the best way to be able to self-publish your book, to be able to maximize your exposure and give you the best opportunity to be able to profit from your book. Today's guest is Lars Emrick, who is a thriller author, and to the best of his knowledge, he believes that he is the first author that has been able to make a career out of selling directly.
To his fans and his readers. Lars drops a few nuggets here during our interview, but he is a bestselling author for the series, the Special Agent series that revolves around Sam Jameson. You're gonna spend a lot of time writing and working on this book, so you want to give yourself the best chance for success, and Lars has figured out how to do that.
And we cover that today on Infest in square feet.
Well, at the time, it was three years after Jeff Bezos, you know, young, skinny, enthusiastic kid, uh, goes on, I think like Good Morning America or something and talks about this weird thing called the kind.
And so, uh, it was the beginning of the independent publishing revolution. And so as I was trying to figure out which direction should I go, should I go try to land an agent who will then try to land a publishing contract? I said, well, I should probably look at the publishing contract to see what that's all about.
Mm-hmm. Before I choose my life vector on the strength of one idea or another. And I read the publishing contract terms and I was like, this. Freaking stupid who signs this? The only people who sign this are probably people who don't have another option. And there was no option before. That's how the contracts got to be so terrible.
Uh, and the terms just are atrocious. And so I said, well, I, you know, it sounds strange having spent 20 years in the military, but I, I have authority issues also. So I said, ah, screw it. I'm gonna go do my own thing. And, uh, so that I never looked back. Never, never had a moment where I felt like, oh man, I really wish I had a publisher too, you know, To not do that.
Yeah. And, and did you, so I, I know that there are all kinds of, I guess, um, secrets, techniques, whatever to, you know, publishing in Amazon. Did you, did you learn all of that type of stuff right off the bat, or is this? You know, and I'm not, I'm by no means an expert in it at all. Um, but I guess I'm, I'm just curious, did you, did you know about any of that stuff when you published it, um, you know, the first time or was this just sort of a very much so trial and error, um, type situation?
It's, it's both. I did a lot of re I tend to nerd out a little bit, so I spent a lot of time, um, digging through all of that stuff. And I had, uh, I guess I had started my entrepreneurial journey officially, like in 2003, so maybe already like nine-ish years before. So I knew my way around a bit. I mean, things changed quickly, but it was, um, I wasn't starting from a dead stop, you know, I, I had, mm-hmm.
I had some momentum already and I, I had some sense for how things worked and, uh, so those pieces fit together fairly quickly for me. Um, I was able to follow some of the best practices that people had around to get a good bit of traction on, on, uh, at the time there were a number of platforms that were, that were major players, you know, uh, Apple Books.
Um, a Canadian outfit called Cobo. Obviously, Amazon and Barnes and Noble had stuff going on. They were a bunch of smaller, independent, more independent, um, privately held. Concerns were also published. And so the strategy at the time was to go wide, be every place. Um, Kendall Unlimited, I think, had kicked off or maybe was beginning, uh, was launched maybe shortly thereafter.
Um, so my strategy was to be every place books are sold, uh, to the extent possible without a distribution pipeline to be in like airports and mm-hmm. At the time there was still a bunch of bookstores. And so it's hard to get into bookstores without, um, sort of playing the old Yeah. The old school, uh, process.
Yeah. But, um, and then everything consolidated, you know, like, like frequently happens. There's only one player that really makes a difference now, and that's Amazon, of course, in the, mm-hmm. In the field. Um, but the interesting thing about that is, you know, for my fellow math nerds, that's a power law kind of game, meaning, The rewards are very, very big for a very, very, very small number of authors, and for ever, for everyone, an author who has ever in his lifetime or her lifetime, earned over a million dollars.
I'm not talking about in a year, I'm just talking about total career total. Mm-hmm. There are 1.67 million other authors who have not. Yeah. And, uh, in fact, 0.06% of authors have ever sold a thousand copies or more. Wow. Lifetime. Yeah. So it's a tall mountain and it's a very steep slope, and it's only getting taller and only getting steeper.
So it's an interesting ecosystem to dive into.
So, so if you were starting today, Um, and you, uh, you know, obviously you've, you've done this many times over, you know, becoming, uh, you know, a bestselling author. What would be some of the tips and strategies that you would use to be able to, you know, achieve that goal?
And this kind of gets into. You know, some of the things that I think the way that you know, Amazon and the other platforms work with how you, um, you know, position yourself maybe in a, an area that, uh, or a, a field or category that might not be as popular and you kind of just make your way up through the ranks that way.
Is that, is that how it works? Or, you know, just, I guess kind of go through some of your, some of your thoug…