Boost Your Book Sales with the Latest Trends from the Self Publishing Show (SPS) London

Emma Boyer: [00:00:00] Authors are really starting to understand the value that they bring to their audiences. And it’s like that’s, I think that’s just amazing. As a person who has felt like authors have a lot of value and like they undersell themselves a lot of the time, it’s really cool to see them designing experiences, connecting with their fandoms, creating things they know people want, writing them into books, special editions.

Sending letters in the mailbox from characters like the creativity so cool, is just incredible to see. And they really get it right. They really understand that it’s that connection point that it’s them that is what their fans and readers really want to see and connect with. 

Ferol Vernon: Welcome to the written word podcast.

Podcast. For authors who want to build successful writing careers, I’m Farrell Vernon and here with Ricky Wallman. This is the written word, media pod. Welcome everybody again to the written Word Media podcast. I am Farrell here with Ricky as always. And today [00:01:00] we have Emma Boyer back with us. Emma is our VP of Digital operations and author relations.

Welcome back, Emma. 

Emma Boyer: Thanks. Glad to be here. 

Ferol Vernon: Emma just got back from London where she attended SBS. So we’re gonna chop it up about SBS and what happened there. But Emma, I know you were there not only for business. Tell us a little bit about about your trip. 

Emma Boyer: Yes. I was lucky enough to be able to take a little time.

Across the pond with my family and we went to the cots walls, which was beautiful for a few days. It like, feels like you’re in a storybook. And then transitioned from there we headed down to London where I went to the conference for kind of two and a half days, which, I will never complain about a trip to London.

So it was wonderful. And you guys have been traveling too, so it’s nice that we’re all back at it. 

Ferol Vernon: Yes, we had a little bit of a different vibe to our trip. We were out on the west coast at the national parks doing really outdoorsy stuff, but pretty excited to be back. It was a great trip.

Ricci Wolman: Yeah, that’s great. It was amazing. [00:02:00] We as a family, we have this goal of trying to visit all the national parks in the US and there are actually 63, which is a lot. Wow. And every, yeah. Wow. Every trip is a big trip because the national parks are not around the corner. They’re always like, you gotta go to the West coast, or they’re a bunch in the.

Good. They’re a bunch in Hawaii, so we’re trying to start with the accessible ones. And it was really cool ’cause we hit three. We did Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon, and we have this cool little scratch off map so when we get home we get to scratch ’em off and we’ve done nine even though we’ve been at it for three years.

So it’s a really cool way to travel and the parks were incredible. 

Emma Boyer: That’s amazing. What’s, what percentage of your total is that? 

Ricci Wolman: So nine out of 63. So you know not very much. That’s okay. That’s okay. You got time? 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, 

Ricci Wolman: we got time. And we hope it takes a really long time. ’cause the rule is in order to scratch it off.

All four of us have to be together. So it’s like me feral and the kids. And so we’re hoping that it takes, all the way through their college [00:03:00] years and like when they get married and when they have kids. ’cause it’s just an excuse to all get together and spend time together. So it’s it’s great.

Emma Boyer: Oh, I love that. We missed you guys but we held it down at Ren Word media while you were gone. 

Ricci Wolman: Yeah. Thank you. You and the team as always were amazing. And yeah, we came back to everything just being smooth as can be. Love it. 

Ferol Vernon: Smoothing can be is how we like it. But Emma, let’s talk about your, the work part of your trip.

Okay. How, we, if we must let’s start with SPS, like maybe for the folks that haven’t been there or heard of it, just give us like a quick version. What is SPS and who puts it on. And then we can talk about some of what you found there. 

Emma Boyer: SPS is the biggest author.

It’s Self-Publishing Show Live is what it stands for. And it is the biggest author conference in Europe and it’s really great. I, this is the second time I’ve been there and media I think, has attended three times total. That sounds right. Yeah. So it’s a really great show. It takes place on [00:04:00] the South Bank of London, so it’s obviously a really amazing location.

Right on the tens, you can see the house is a parliament from right outside, which is, as inspiring as it gets, I think. But inside it’s also super inspiring and I am just. More impressed each year with how organized this conference is. But it brings in lots of authors, I think, but I don’t know the actual number of attendees, but my guess just eyeballing it is somewhere between maybe 700 and a thousand.

Oh, wow. Independent authors, they all converge on the South Bank Center, and it’s a super good mix of inspiration as well as like real useful stuff. They do a very good job of striking the right balance. And I would say most of the authors who attend are at least, have at least published one or two titles.

They’re in that. I think many of them are early career as far as their indie author careers [00:05:00] go. They’re always. Super. I’m always very struck by how much energy there is in the room, how excited people are to be there. The sponsors are like right outside when you walk in like the, we’re first when you walk in and we at Ri word media had a sponsored table this year.

I got to meet people as they were coming in and whether they. Were people who had been attending the conference every year, or this was their first year. I think the enthusiasm level was the same. People are just so excited to come, get a sense of where the industry is, meet other indie authors, and James Blat puts the conference on with Katherine Matthews and I just can’t say enough about what a good job they do, but also the people the attendees are really, I think.

Fans of theirs anyway, listening to their podcasts, in, in the self-publishing school, Facebook groups, all of the above. So it’s a great show. I, this year was a little different. The format was the first day was just how I described as a single track conference where [00:06:00] the vast number of authors come, go, listen to sessions, come out.

Kind of mill about between sessions and day one is pretty focused on where the industry is. Some kind of base level, I don’t wanna say base level because it’s not, it’s not entire. It’s not like how do you put a book on KDP? It’s not that level, but it is. Okay. Do you wanna level up your marketing or learn more about audio books?

Like it’s very much starting from a point of assuming that you’ve published, which I, these folks absolutely have. So I think you could attend day one and you would’ve have had a wonderful, well-rounded experience. Day two this year was a kind of dedicated mastermind and the attendance was much more limited, I don’t think it was limited. I don’t know this, but I don’t think it was limited on any criteria, but number so I think there were about 250 authors on day two. And this was like if day one was the 100 level courses, day two was the 300 level courses. It was deep [00:07:00] dives into to particular topics and there were I think five, and they were a little bit more workshop focused. So it was I, and day two was I think, much more focused on the nuts and bolts. But I think if you walked in there on day two and wanted to learn anything about kind of some of these topics that were hot topics like direct sales or using AI automations.

You absolutely walked away with a concrete plan as well as some kind of inspiration on how to level up your author career. So I think that’s exactly what you want from a conference and they just do such a good job. 

Ferol Vernon: That’s amazing. Let me ask you this question. So you said it’s the biggest conference in Europe, which, most of the conferences we attend, are in the states.

Like what portion of the attendees would you say were from? Like the European continent versus elsewhere? Like how many people traveled from different countries to get there? I’m just curious. 

Emma Boyer: A lot of people traveled from different countries, but I would, I do think they were. 90% European. [00:08:00] 

Ferol Vernon: That’s so cool.

That’s great. That’s 

Emma Boyer: awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I think there, there were some like US and Canadian based folks that I did chat with but. Mostly we were, most, I think most of the people from the US were vendors, honestly. So it was yeah, I think it’s cool. And like you said, Farrell, I think that’s really right.

In, in years past this is changing somewhat, but most of the indie author conferences have been really centered in the US so it’s really amazing for folks who are, it’s not in their budget, whether it’s time or money. Go to Las Vegas or Florida multiple times a year. It’s really wonderful for them to be able to do a little bit of a shorter trip and head to London.

Ricci Wolman: James does such an incredible job and Catherine as well. It’s just like a really cool conference. I’m also a huge fan of the single track conference because it takes away all of that decision fatigue, to stand there and be like, oh, what session? And then have fomo because there’s a session that you’re not in, but you’re in a different session.

And I feel like it just streamlines the whole process for authors. [00:09:00] And that’s my favorite type of conference is just like one track. Everyone’s doing the same thing. And then there’s also a lot of good time for milling about and talking to other authors, which is really cool. 

Emma Boyer: Yeah, absolutely.

And you don’t really feel like you’re missing out on something if you’re having a conversation during a break. And the other cool thing is because the South Bank Center is like a, it’s like a performance venue, I think it really feels, it feels cool. It feels like an event. Like you’re in a big room, like where you would see a.

Rock band play. And James is up there with the lights on and and it, so then I think that just adds a little something to the atmosphere too. 

Ferol Vernon: Emma, what was like the vibe at the conference? You talked a little bit about the format and organizers and stuff, but what was the tone, you said it was exciting, but what were people talking about?

What was like the, usually there’s like a main theme or two at a conference that’s the buzzy topic. What was that? 

Emma Boyer: There were definitely a few main themes this year that, that were different from conferences, other conferences that I’ve attended. The first one I would say [00:10:00] was, this doesn’t sound new, but I think it’s a new bent which is audio books, I think, in audiobooks are not a new thing, not a new thing for any authors either.

But I think there are some kind of major game changing things happening in the audiobook space that are bringing audiobooks to top of mind again for authors, one of which is AI narration which is obviously making audiobook production much less cost prohibitive. In addition to that. One thing that I hadn’t really clocked but I thought was really fascinating was there’s a lot of conversation about how there’s a shift in the audiobook space from kind of subscription models to, from that to streaming models and so that has been.

Really interesting as far as changing the marketplace and sales opportunities. So whereas with eBooks or print books, there are a very small number of retailers that, people are going to, and, [00:11:00] essentially buying in one way that is no longer true. With audiobooks, people are listening to them on lots of different platforms, in lots of different formats, like in little bits or big bits, and those.

This poses a really cool opportunity for India authors to diversify their revenue streams. And yeah, I think the, this is a place where I think we’re starting to see authors actually get more control over their distribution and better royalties, which is something that, is not a new conversation for indie authors for sure.

But it’s really cool to watch that happen and see this open up as, as far as. New channels for authors. So yeah, a lot of conversation about that. And questions for me specifically about okay so if I do this, if I go after promoting, like making my audiobooks and making them available on my direct store and on Spotify and all these other places, Libby and Overdrive and libraries and everything, like how do I actually promote them?

So that [00:12:00] was interesting. I think that much more. A much more substantial share of kind of the time and energy was spent on audiobooks than any conference I’ve been to before. 

Ferol Vernon: That’s really cool, really interesting. I think, one of the things we hear all the time is there’s a lot of people talking about ai, right?

And the opinions are all over the map, right? Some people are like, oh, it’s the devil. Some people say, oh, it’s amazing. A lot of things in between. I think audio is one of the most interesting applications because especially for independent authors where, to get an audiobook produced, even with a, relatively inexpensive narrator is gonna cost you at least a thousand dollars historically.

Almost that’s, almost cheap. And now with AI narration, which I’ve listened to some snippets, I’ve actually listened to a whole book, but I listen to some snippets like it’s pretty good. And so it’s just really interesting that author could, have their book read by AI that might cost 10 bucks or 50 bucks or something instead of a thousand.

It’s just a dramatic reduction in cost for them. 

Ricci Wolman: Yeah. And a lot of the platforms are starting to build that in. So if you wanna [00:13:00] distribute through, an Audible or a Spotify, they’ll actually help you with the narration if you wanna use like a regular ai. But then if you wanna actually use your own voice.

11 Labs has some really interesting technology and the technology’s only getting better, so I think we’re just at the beginning. So it is very exciting. Yeah, 

Emma Boyer: it was, it was actually really interesting. Sorry. There’s Sean McManus is the, I think the vice president of Dreamscape, and he was talking, he gave like a 10 minute talk about kind of the state of audio where he sees it, and exactly what you said, Ricky we’re on the precipice of the big jump.

And he said, like if people asked me to choose, I would still say like a human narrated audiobook is better. But I don’t know that’s gonna be true in a month. Or six months or a year. So that was really interesting. And I think you’re exactly right as far as the timeliness goes. 

Ferol Vernon: That’s a really honest answer.

It was. I think it, that’s really cool that, that somebody gave that, because I think that’s so true is like with the pace of technology changing as fast as it is, like you really can’t say like when some of these changes are gonna happen. [00:14:00] And a lot of people try to pretend like they really know what’s going on and say, oh, it’s gonna be five years before X, Y, Z and I just don’t think that’s an honest answer.

I think that’s very dismissive given. How fast everything’s moving. 

Emma Boyer: There’s also for me personally, and I’m curious to hear your experiences about this too, but I feel super entrenched in kind of the ebook world as far as distribution and marketing obviously. And from my publishing background, like the.

Print book World is something I’m super familiar with as well, but audio and these kind of new frontiers of audio in terms of like international audio rights and international audio sales and like library distribution and streaming, like it is a really different world and some things are transferrable from the other formats that we work with so much and some things I think are really new and that’s really cool and exciting.

Ricci Wolman: Yeah, it really is. And we’re always looking at how we can help authors with the marketing side of things. And it’s interesting because, audio Thicket, which is one of our promo sites that only helps promote audio has been around for quite a few years [00:15:00] already. And in the beginning we wanted it to be a multi-platform.

Promo brand, like the initial emails and audience building was around, Hey, here are books and you can find, go get it on, apple Books and Google Play and Audible was only one of the options, and the audience wasn’t there. We basically found that all the clicks were on the audible books and everyone still had water audible membership, so we basically changed the offering to where like the primary.

Weekly email for promotion for authors was on Audible because that’s what actually worked and that’s where the audience was. And now I think really just in the last 12 months, and I think Spotify has spearheaded a lot of this audience, consumers are actually listening on multiple platforms. And Audible isn’t the only option that’s out there.

And we’re internally now looking at, okay, let’s start. Changing the audio thicket offering so that we can now get those audiences built into our platform so authors can reach them. But it is really interesting how so much of what [00:16:00] works in marketing is about the convergence of timing and technology and also where the consumer is.

’cause a lot of times we. As authors ourselves or as technologists or entrepreneurs, we’re ready for, okay, we wanna market on here and we want people to buy this on our store. And the consumer’s no, that’s too hard. Or, I’m not there yet. I still like this little place where I am. And that’s really starting to change in audio, so it’s super exciting.

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, I think, consumer reader slash listener preferences are always something that, we have to be really mindful of as a marketing company because while our primary customer obviously is authors, our product won’t work unless we understand what’s going on with the readers. And so I think it’s always good to talk about that.

I, I actually think that’s a nice segue, Emma. ’cause we’re, the other thing you mentioned was direct sales. And that’s been a really hot topic in the industry for a while. And direct sales is something where authors, I think clearly are ready for it. Whether or not readers are ready for it is something that we’re still exploring.

But what was the sort of vibe about direct sales and some of the talks there at SPS? 

Emma Boyer: Yes. It was interesting. [00:17:00] Before this conference, the most recent conference I’d attended was Author Nation last fall. And of course different audience, different show, but it, I saw a market difference I think.

We’ve seen a lot of hype about direct sales for the past few years, but I think this is the first time that it very much felt like part of the fabric. It’s just like a foregone conclusion that people will be direct selling, and that was definitely a shift that I noticed. I think that, Ricky, it’s interesting, you’re, you were talking about tools there with audio books.

That this is the same thing. I think tools are starting to catch up a little bit. This is an area where authors were ahead of the tools for a while, like what they wanted was ahead of the tools. But people are starting to support authors better with direct sales. There are the direct sales accounting companies that are helping authors like.

Keep track of their royalties across all platforms in a really easy way. There are actual direct sales platforms cropping up [00:18:00] that, that help authors do this without having to build an entire e-commerce structure for themselves. So yeah, I think what you said is really right. Farrell direct sales are not new.

But the way authors approach them is absolutely evolving and the industry is catching up with them and authors are really like understanding, which I think is really cool to see. But authors are really starting to understand the value that they bring to their audiences and it’s that’s, I think that’s just amazing.

As a person who has felt like authors have a lot of value and like they undersell themselves a lot of the time, it’s really cool to see them. Designing experiences, connecting with their fandoms, creating things they know people want, writing them into books, special editions, like sending letters in the mailbox from characters like the creativity so Cool, is just incredible to see.

And they really get it right. They really understand that it’s that connection point that it’s them that [00:19:00] is what their fans and readers really want to see and connect with. And that’s just. I think that’s really cool. And it also made me think a lot about the way authors are treating kind of their whole ecosystem as content as opposed to like book.

That has been interesting. Yeah. Like that. That was really. An interesting thing. It’s things that we think about a lot on the marketing side. Here’s content. How can we use it? How can we repurpose it? How can we reach audience with it? Authors are starting to do that in a really fun and creative way.

So I found that really inspiring and also just like heartwarming. I was I’m really happy that the industry is catching up here, but yes, absolutely. And as far as written word media goes, i, it was great to be able to tell people like, yes, of course we support direct sales. Just include your link and.

We’re happy to include it in your promo. So yeah, people definitely, they are interested in pushing traffic to their stores, building their audiences, building their lists all that kind of good stuff. But yeah, it, it [00:20:00] was really fun to see 

Ferol Vernon: any standout direct sales takeaways for the listeners.

Was there, there one overriding. Piece of advice or theme that kept coming up? Or was it really, like you said, much more woven into the fabric of discussions? 

Emma Boyer: If I had to say one thing, I think the other, there’s a shift that authors are implementing from selling a product, which is their books to building a relationship, and that relationship is really.

Influencing the strategy that they’re using for kind of everything else. And yeah, I think that’s, as far as marketing is concerned, that obviously has implications as far as the content they’re creating and even the books they’re writing. It’s really interesting to see it, it shift from more transactional to more relationship focused.

Ferol Vernon: That’s so insightful. I think that’s such a good point that like, and it’s such a cool thing to see. It’s, brands is and companies from the beginning of history have created relationships with their customers and that’s how they’ve been successful, right? There’s people around the line at the Apple store, right?

People like [00:21:00] wearing, Nike stuff, like on their shirt, walking around and associating yourself with the brand has always been. Something that people do, and to see authors really leaning into that, I think it’s both heartworm, but it’s also really exciting. It’s really cool that they’re starting to use those techniques and I think that’s gonna pay dividends for anybody that pursues it.

Ricci Wolman: Yeah. I think we always say people connect with people and people wanna support people and with authors, the author is. Themselves are the brand. So I think it makes it a lot easier in some ways because you don’t have to create like some big corporate brand that stands for something. But then I think it’s also challenging in other ways because if you are a more introverted or private person, finding that balance between how much.

Of yourself, you wanna put that out there as a brand versus, how much you wanna keep private, at least in the beginning can be fairly daunting. But I do think it’s the future of where authorship is going and the successful authors have figured out how to build those relationships in a way that’s comfortable for them.

Ferol Vernon: Absolutely. I think even like collaborations, we’re starting to [00:22:00] see. Put their brand under one author name or one pen name. Because, the whole world has built around resonating with that brand. And I think it, it works great. Emma, I know you had a table and you had a lot of authors walking by and chatting to you and, we’ve talked offline about how wonderful things they had to say about us and you in particular.

But what were some of the questions that might be interesting to the listeners that you got as people were passing by and saying hi? 

Emma Boyer: Yeah I’ll give you the questions, but you gave me the answers. I did it. I did it so many times. How answered these questions and I’m 

Ferol Vernon: trying to throw it to you, Emma.

Emma Boyer: I’m done. That’s how this works. You guys answer it? No, I did it so many times. It’s your turn. But yes, so there was a lot of interest in our subscriber search giveaways product. Obviously the connection there is people are trying to build audience for, to bring to their direct sales platforms or their audiobooks platform, but.

People were really interested in how many subscribers they would get, as well as how many books they could run at a time. So if they had a big back list, how many books would we let them run? 

Ricci Wolman: Yeah, [00:23:00] I’d love to talk about this ’cause I subscriber surge giveaways or SSG as we call it internally is near and dear to my heart.

It’s also one of our services or tools that I’m really close to. I’m literally looking at the numbers every week to see how many subscribers our authors getting, making sure that it’s working really well. To back up for a second, I’ll just explain how it works and then we’ll talk about what to expect.

But a subscriber search giveaway is basically a grouped. Giveaway. So you sign up with us at Written Word Media, and so do a bunch of other authors, usually between 15 and 20 authors, and you grab a slot or a spot in one of our giveaways. The giveaways start on the first of the month. So you sign up and you say, okay, I wanna be in your.

August giveaway. And then on August 1st what we do is we package up the 20 books and a free Kindle and we say to readers, consumers, Hey, enter this giveaway to win 20 books plus a Kindle, or 15 books plus a Kindle. And we run the giveaway out over 60 days. And what [00:24:00] we’re doing in the backend is we’re marketing that giveaway really heavily so that a lot of readers are coming in to that page, they’re entering the giveaway, but as part of entering to the giveaway, they’re also joining.

The email lists of the authors who are participating in the giveaway themselves. So we’re monitoring how many people are signing up for each of the lists over that 60 day period. The number of subscribers and author will get is somewhat dependent on the genre. So on average, our giveaways are producing three to 400 subscribers per giveaway, but some of them are vastly more popular.

So like a steamy romance or a fantasy romance can get five or 600 subscribers for each author. And then some of the more niche. Like self-help or business might be on the lower end where it’s two to 300 subscribers per author. The really cool thing about the giveaway is as an author, you can grab those subscribers as they come in, so you don’t have to wait for 60 days [00:25:00] to then email those subscribers.

You go into your portal, on August 3rd, and you can grab those 10 subscribers and you can go back in the next day and grab the next five subscribers and you just import them into your email service provider. That might be kit or MailChimp, or. Constant contact, whatever you’re using, and you can start communicating, building a relationship with those readers right away.

And then at the end of the 60 day period, we choose a winner. We do all the fulfillment, which I think is slightly different from some other giveaways out there. We will gift the books, we will gift the Kindle. There’s no more work that the author needs to do. All you need to do is sign up, pick your slot, and you’re included.

And then make sure to grab those subscribers and start communicating with them. ’cause the earlier you communicate with them the more deeply you can build that relationship and those new subscribers don’t get stale. 

Ferol Vernon: Just to bring us back the, Emma’s question was two part one, like how does it work and how many subscribers do I get?

So that’s. We have that check mark, right? And then like, how many books can I run at one time? Which I thought was a really interesting question because it’s [00:26:00] not one that we see a whole lot in the inbox, or at least I don’t see it in the inbox a lot, but it is, it, I think demonstrative of how effective.

This building can be that people are like, how much more can I get? How much more can I do? Yeah. Ricky think we just 

Ricci Wolman: have done this. They’re like, they’re, gimme more first of every month they grab a slot on August 1st, then they’re grabbing another slot on September 1st. So how the giveaways work is that they are genre specific.

So what we recommend is if you’re a mystery author, you only promote one book per giveaway because you’re with every book that you put in. You’re getting that subscriber opt-in box. So putting two or three books in isn’t necessarily gonna increase your odds of getting new subscribers. So I think it’s okay or it’s recommended to do one book per giveaway, but you can do giveaways every single month.

With different books. The other benefit to the giveaway is your book is getting a lot of impressions because we are running ads, so a lot of the ads will have the cover of your book, the name of you as an author, when readers come in and hit the giveaway [00:27:00] page. Your book is listed there, so you’re getting a lot of really great brand impressions as part of this as well.

Now what you could do is you could participate, say you’re like, I really wanna do this, and I really want more than one giveaway in a month. If your book fits multiple genres, so say we have a mystery giveaway and a separate thriller giveaway, you could put one of your books in mystery and one in thriller.

If it’s. Fits that. And that way you would have two books running, quote unquote two giveaways running. And you would get that three to 400 subscribers from each of the giveaways. And the way we run our marketing is each giveaway has separate marketing. So we’re not marketing to the same pool of readers.

So there, there should, there’ll be some overlap ’cause we can’t control everything. Some, subscribers might join the misery and the thriller, but for the most part, those should be distinct signups that you’re getting on those two different giveaways. 

Ferol Vernon: Amazing. Yeah, and I think, short plug for another pod that we did about the importance of building your mailing list and some of the more mechanics.

So if you wanna hear Rick and I talk about that, definitely check the feed and look at that [00:28:00] episode. Alright, Emma, that’s subscriber surge. What else did you hear? What were the other questions that were coming down the pike? 

Emma Boyer: One thing. I got a lot, which I think is maybe because of where the conference was located.

But people wanted to know where our subscribers are, so where are our readers who are getting our daily emails? 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, this is a question we get a lot which is really interesting that people care so much about it. And I think I’ll let Ricky give a few more details. But the number one thing that I always tell people is, we only promote at least right now, books in English.

And so anywhere that speaks English, we have an audience. The US obviously is most of it. Canada, the uk, Australia, South Africa some stuff in India. But pretty much like wherever English is the primary language. ’cause the books are in English. In countries where there is no English books, like we have very small presences.

But that’s like the short version of what people of what I always tell people. ’cause they’re like, oh, are you worldwide? And it’s yes, but Right. Just places where English books are sold. [00:29:00] 

Ricci Wolman: Yeah, I let me add a little bit of detail to that, which is, yes, we are English. The vast majority of our audience is in America because the America is just the largest market for books and eBooks.

The other thing is because so many of our promo sites are deal based we actually, when we’re building these lists, which we do. Every single day, we’re adding more subscribers to the list. When we go out there and market free Boxy and Bargain Boxy and Red Feather romance, we’re actually only marketing it to a US audience because we want the user experience to be really great.

And we know that if someone is in the US, they’re gonna get the deal drops. They’re gonna get the free box on that particular day. Now that being said, even though we don’t. Actively market outside of the US for those promo sites. A lot of people from English speaking countries do find us and they follow us on social media.

So we do have readers who are in Australia, South Africa, uk, Canada. So if your book is in one of those [00:30:00] markets and you run a promo with us, you will see. A lift in one of those other countries. The last thing that I’ll note here is that Hello Books, which is a brand that’s actually run owned by James Blatch, but is a brand that we help to run and you can, buy all the promo lots through us.

They actually have a really strong. English speaking audience in the UK and Europe. So if you’re looking to really hit that market, you might wanna do a promo stack where you’re doing one of our brands, say a bargain boxy or a free boxy, and then you’re putting a hello box on top of it because that’ll help you reach more deeply into the European.

English speaking reader audience. 

Emma Boyer: Yeah. One, one quick, anecdote I’ll share about that is, is I had an author asking like how big is your UK audience? And I’m really only interested in UK readers. And I was like why? What about your book? Do you feel like only UK readers wants to read want to or would be interested in?

And she. Talked about how [00:31:00] specific it was to like the very small part of England, where she lived and how like descriptive it was about like the town and the geography and some of the kind of colloquialisms. And I was like, I would love to read that as would many. I was just about to say I love reading like British Facebook in these small towns.

Yeah, a hundred percent. I just came from the Cotswolds. I wanna ride that high. Please promote it with us. So 

Ferol Vernon: That’s great. Yeah. So regardless of where your book is set, promoting it to a wide audience tends to do well. All right. And we probably have time for one more question. What what else came your way?

Emma Boyer: Yeah, I think this is a really the last one I’ll throw at you is the, is one that I really did get a lot of, and I think it was so the question is what kind of budget do I need to run a promotion that will move the needle? And just to give you a little context here, I don’t actually think this was.

Particularly rooted in budget sensitivity, but more about [00:32:00] like planning or like trying to do due diligence as far as marketing planning and, how often, how much so yeah. What kind of budget do you think authors need? 

Ricci Wolman: Our ethos here at Written Word Media is we’re here to support ND authors as much as we possibly can.

And so for that reason, we have promos that start at, I think our cheapest promo is $25. So what I would say is that it’s like everything else in life. Like more is more, but that doesn’t mean that just because you can’t spend. Hundreds of dollars on something that you shouldn’t do it. So what I would probably reverse the question a little bit and say, what are you comfortable spending?

’cause we really want these authors to be comfortable with the amount that they’re spending and marketing. We don’t want you stretching to a place where you’re uncomfortable and then based on what you’re comfortable with, we probably have a solution for you. So if you only have a really small budget, you can just run one promo with one of our sites that’ll run you 25 to a hundred dollars.

If [00:33:00] you have a larger budget, then we would recommend that you start doing things like promo stacking where you run. On multiple sites within both our family and outside of the written word, media family. ’cause that is gonna give you a bigger bang for your buck. One of the upsides maybe to the dollar being weaker right now for our European.

Is that actually your pounds and euros go further than they, they did. All of our pricing is in dollars. And for you, effectively our prices have all dropped over the past month just because of the exchange rate. That’s just an aside. But I think you gotta figure out what you’re comfortable with and then we will have something within your price range in order.

To help you move the needle, and all of our promos will move the needle, but the more you promote, the more sites you’re on, the larger the audience, the higher that needle is going to move. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, I think the one thing I would add for that is, is sometimes when I talk to authors that they’re so conservative, right?

They’re so worried about budget, and I understand that a lot of times this is [00:34:00] something that’s a dream that, they’re trying to do the day job and take a little bit of extra cash or to try to, so I totally understand that, but I do think, experimentation is key, right?

Understanding. Hey, if I spend 50 bucks, what happens if I spend a hundred bucks? What happens if I spend $300? What happens? And. What can sometimes happen for authors that are just trying to keep the promotion in their comfort zone is that they never break out. They never and it doesn’t work for everybody.

So I, I really wanna add that caveat that like, just spending more is not always the solution, but if you’ve never bought like a three or $400 promo stack with us, it is worth trying because you get a lot of promotion at once and if that works for you and your books and your readers and all that kind of stuff.

It’s not something you have to do again, our stuff is not recurring, I have talked to a lot of authors who spend a ton on promotion because it works and it worked for them at a low spend too. But it worked twice as well at a higher spend. And I think that’s the one thing that, that, obviously we don’t want people being uncomfortable and spending your last a hundred dollars on a promo go buy groceries.

But I think please don’t 

Ricci Wolman: do that. Yeah, [00:35:00] no. 

Ferol Vernon: But within reason, scaling up your marketing budget or your promotional budget, or however you think about it, can give you a lot of information about. About how big your author career can get. And if you always stay low it doesn’t mean you won’t have that chance, but it does make it a little harder to figure out.

And so I think that’s the, experiment with the different levels of spend. And if spending a hundred bucks, gives you a bigger bang for the buck than spending 300, then do that. I think that’s the advice I tend to give people. 

Ricci Wolman: Yeah. I think the last thing I’d say on this is we’re here to support you.

Yeah. So if you’re really lost, if you’re really like, I dunno where to start, like that was. Not helpful answer from either of you, just right into the inbox. And we do have a, a team of people who’d be happy to help you and say, Hey, given your goals and give your budget, this is what we would recommend that you do.

And we always we’re here to support and help authors. So if you do spend. A little more and you don’t see the results and you right in generally we’ll work through you to try and like layer on another promo or something of that nature to get you where you need to go. But experimentation, as Ferrell [00:36:00] said is really important.

But you do have to pair that with staying within your comf comfort zone to some degree. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, exactly. Like everybody’s got a budget and how you allocate it at the end of the day is your decision as an author. And, we’re just giving you advice please make decisions for yourselves.

Ricci Wolman: The other thing I’d say is also thinking about the time versus money trade off, right? So this is something that. Is inherently against our human nature. We tend to value like our cash more than we value our time, which is somewhat nonsensical because time is like a completely limited resource.

Whereas, you can always go out and, earn more money. And so when you’re all looking at what you’re thinking about doing when it comes to promotion if you say, okay. I’m only gonna spend the $50, but then I’m gonna spend two days doing organic marketing or walking the streets or something.

You might wanna be like how much is those One or two days? Worth for me if I could be writing another book instead. And should I not just put another a hundred bucks in and 450 bucks get the same that I would [00:37:00] versus spending all of my time trying to get a result that’s maybe not as guaranteed.

Layering that third element on which is, the time versus money is something else to take into account. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah. And we’re gonna do another pod about sort of personal productivity tips where we’ll dive deeper into just what Ricky said because, we’re both huge believers in, in.

Figuring out how to exchange time and money efficiently to, to get what you want outta life. So we’ll definitely do a PO on that. But I think that’s all the time we’ve got for today. Emma, thank you for your insight, your travel and all your takeaways from SPS. It was great. It was great talking to you.

Emma Boyer: Yeah. Thanks for having, we welcome. Come with you next year. Please do. 

Ferol Vernon: Let’s do it. Record from London next year. Ooh. Ooh, I like 

Emma Boyer: that On location. On location. Okay. 

Ferol Vernon: Amazing. Thank you so much for Ricky and Emma. I’m Ferrell. Thank you so much for listening today. This has been the written Word Media Podcast, and we’ll see you next time.

Ricci Wolman: See [00:38:00] ya.