#402 – Wow Kevin, You Should Write A Book! Conversation with Morgan Gist MacDonald
Join us for an insightful episode where we chat with Morgan Gist MacDonald, founder of Paper Raven Books. Morgan shares her extensive knowledge of the self-publishing process, helping authors transform their ideas into published works. Whether you’re interested in writing children’s books, personal stories, or professional guides, Morgan’s expertise will guide you through every step. We also touch on our personal experiences, including my own West Texas jail story, which reinforced my entrepreneurial spirit, drawing parallels between the worlds of Amazon sellers, e-commerce, and book publishing.
Explore the ever-evolving landscape of book buying and reading habits, from the nostalgic days of Barnes & Noble to the rise of e-books and audiobooks with Amazon and Kindle. We discuss the resurgence of interest in physical books driven by platforms like TikTok and the growth of indie bookstores alongside Amazon’s dominance. Discover how publishing a book can establish authority and credibility, with real-life examples of authors landing substantial consulting gigs through strategic book publishing.
Get inspired by the significance of preserving personal stories and experiences, and learn about the comprehensive process of book creation, from content development to publication and marketing strategies. Morgan and I discuss the financial aspects of indie publishing, highlighting the costs and potential profits, as well as the long-term benefits of building a backlist. This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone looking to publish a book and achieve greater success and independence in their literary endeavors.
In episode 402 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Morgan discuss:
00:00 – Entrepreneurial Journey Through Publishing
07:18 – Entrepreneurial Journey to Book Editing Company
08:20 – The Impact of Book Publishing
14:00 – Leveraging Books for Client Acquisition
14:55 – Crafting a Purposeful Book
21:19 – Journey of Storytelling and Self-Discovery
23:15 – Curating Stories and Life Lessons
26:53 – Marketing Strategies for Successful Book Sales
32:51 – Importance of Book Marketing and Reviews
37:31 – Book Publishing Phases and Processes
40:19 – Book Publishing Costs and AI Impact
42:40 – Authors Playing the Long Game
48:36 – Publishing Process Overview and Checklist
49:36 – Kevin King’s Words Of Wisdom
Transcript
Kevin King:
Happy Independence Day. If you’re listening to this. When this release came out, this is episode 402 of the AM/PM Podcast. My guest this week is Morgan Gist MacDonald. You know Amazon started out selling books and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today is maybe you’ve got a really cool idea inside of you. You’ve always been wanting to publish a book and you’re thinking about that whether it be you as a consultant, maybe it’s your life stories, maybe it’s a children’s book, and Morgan runs a company that helps authors actually do that, helps them self-publish, helps you guide through the entire process. It’s a pretty cool episode.
Kevin King:
I met Morgan at a Driven Conference Perry Belcher’s a big mastermind. It’s like $30,000 a year. A marketing mastermind that he does super smart. She’s really good at what she does, so I think you’re going to find it fascinating, even if you don’t want to publish a book yourself. I think you’re going to find this fascinating and see the parallels between Amazon sellers and e-commerce and the book publishing world and some of the differences as well. So enjoy this episode with Morgan.
Kevin King:
Morgan Gist MacDonald, how are you doing? Welcome to the AM/PM podcast. I finally got you on here. You’re a hard cat to corral.
Morgan:
Thank you, Kevin. I’m so thrilled to be here. I’m a listener. I love the show. Honored to be here with you.
Kevin King:
Are you still in Texas or are you somewhere else now?
Morgan:
It’s hard to keep track. I admit we’re currently in Texas. Most recently before Texas, we were in Colorado and we’ve lived kind of around the world. But yeah, currently in Texas, so not too far from you.
Kevin King:
So you’re out in the Panhandle, right out where all the oil money is.
Morgan:
West Texas, Midland. Nothing but tumbleweeds and cows and oil rigs. Nothing to see out here.
Kevin King:
I went to jail just outside of Midland, a little town one time. I know that really well. There’s a little. What’s the name of that little town? It’s a little town just outside of Midland where I had, when I was in college. I got a speeding ticket in College Station, Texas. I went to A&M and I moved to Arizona briefly for like 10 months and on the way back I ended up chasing a business opportunity out there and didn’t work out. So I came back and ended up going back to Dallas on my way. I was on I-20, I think it was I-20, and in my little U-Haul just pumping along at like 60 miles an hour, but the speed limit back then was 55. Now I think it’s like 80 or something but back then it was like 55. I get pulled over and the cop runs my license. He’s like oh, you have a speeding ticket from like two years ago you never took care of.
Kevin King:
So Midlothian that’s where it was Midlothian. So it just came back to me. So I went to jail for the weekend. It was a Friday, I think it was a Friday, and it was a holiday, freaking weekend. So I went to jail in Midlothian on a Friday night. It was me and one other dude in this little cell, another guy just in there, and I couldn’t see the judge until Tuesday to post my bond or whatever. So I stayed from Friday night to Tuesday.
Kevin King:
I called my parents and I said, hey, I need to bail out because it was a thousand dollars bail, I think, or something like that. Normally it’s a $10,000. It was a small amount. I need to come up with a thousand bucks, basically. And I didn’t have a thousand bucks because I was like robbing Peter to Payul to try to get my. I was 22-23, and I called my dad and he’s like parents. My dad’s like, nope, I ain’t giving you any money. You’ve been trying to do this entrepreneur thing. You have a college degree, you come back home and you get a real job. You go work for a real company. I don’t care if you gotta go work in Brahms Ice Cream Shop for a little while. But you, you get a real business, do something for real. I was like no, thanks, dad. So I called my uncle in California and he puts it on a credit card, and so I didn’t take my dad’s offer and I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since. So yeah, that’s my West Texas little story there.
Morgan:
That’s like part of your hero’s journey, Kevin. If you ever do, that’s going in there.
Kevin King:
You know, I was just on a podcast, literally before we recorded this. I just did an AI podcast with Jo and she asked me about a story and I told her another story about where I went to jail again for running a bad check to the US Post Office. So for one night, she’s like Kevin, you need to write a book. I was like I do but I know just the person to. Actually, if I want to write that book that can help me really do this the right way, and that’s you, because you’re like the book lady or goddess or whatever you want to call it. You’re like, when it comes to books, you’re the one everybody should be contacting. So, speaking of that, your company is what? What’s the name?
Morgan:
Paper Raven Books is the company name and I founded it and we’ve been publishing books for nine years and a couple hundred books under our belts and lots of authors helped and we published my book. It was our first one, it was our guinea pig book back in 2015. And yeah, and we’ve just been, I mean, we’ve been talking about the power of Amazon for authors for, you know, almost a decade now before it was cool.
Kevin King:
So what was your book about? Was it a fictional book, or was it the life story of Morgan, or what was it? What was your book about?
Morgan:
For anyone who, if this is going up on YouTube at all, but start writing your book today. Oh, imagine that. Okay, I set a plan to write your nonfiction book from first draft to finish manuscript. So this was like, I was a writing coach writing coach and book editor and I worked with book editors. I had a small sort of editing team. That’s what I did before we started publishing. So like 20, kind of like out of grad school. So 2008 to 2015, I was focused on the editing part and people kept asking me like, okay, thanks for helping me write the book and edit the book, but how do I get it published? And I was like it can’t be that hard, like I’ll write a book and I’ll publish it and I’ll take notes along the way, and so that was our first book that we published in 2015.
Kevin King:
Oh, that’s awesome. So you were working. Was this like a big company, like a random house or one of those type of big companies that you were working in the editorial department? Or was this your own little gig?
Morgan:
This was my own little gig. So I went to grad school. I was getting a doctorate in sociology. I thought I was going to be a professor of sociology and got into academia, realized not for me. I’m too entrepreneurial kind of thinking way too far outside the box, great people, but not for me. And so I left after the master’s and my husband had a job in New York. I actually applied for a ton of jobs with publishing houses in New York and I thought, you know, this is a great fit. I have a Masters in Sociology, all these different presses that have you know academic arms and things like that, but didn’t get any bites really. And so I thought well. I know I want to do something with books. Like I’ll start. I know I want to do something with books like I’ll start. I’ve got some contacts from my grad school days. I’ll at least start doing some editing and put my feelers out there and just kind of started it slowly.
Morgan:
We had kids at that time. We had two little ones in New York, so nap times and bedtimes and I was doing a little bit of teaching on the side. So it was your classic like entrepreneurial side hustle and slowly over the course of a few years got enough clients under my belt and my referral network spreading out that we were editing books, you know, week in and week out, and I had enough work that I had other editors who were working with me. So I essentially created a book editing company. We were Paper Raven Editing for a few years before everyone started saying, okay, but now I want it to be a book. And I realized, okay, let’s be Paper Raven Books and let’s go full hog. You know, editing, design, publication, launching the book. And that’s when I really started to kind of appreciate how independent authors are experiencing so much more freedom and ability to grow their own platform and their own customer base these days. So it’s been quite the journey.
Kevin King:
Books are still. A lot of people dismiss it, just like they dismiss direct marketing or direct mail. You know getting something in the mail. Books are still a big business. There’s still a lot there. And how have you seen it change since it’s changed over the last 15 or 20 years, since you’ve been doing it? What have you seen evolve?
Morgan:
Yeah, I mean I think we all remember the kind of heyday of Barnes and Noble kind of early 2000s. I think a lot of us would have said, yeah, so you do on a Sunday afternoon, you go to Barnes Noble, browse the shelves and maybe you come home with a stack of books. Maybe you don’t but like it’s a fun excursion and, you know, around that same time was when the Kindle was coming out and Amazon was starting to get more popular. And you know, we even feel it, like if we think back over, I think, our own reading habits. I mean, I remember when I first got the Kindle I was like, oh, I’m never going to love reading on my Kindle as much as I love paperback books, but it’s just convenient, right, like Amazon nails convenience, and so now I read almost everything on my Kindle. I mean I have stacks of books and I’ll leaf through books every now and then and I’ll take a book with me on a plane occasionally. But it’s a lot of e-reading and audio books and we’ve seen Spotify even jump in on the audio book game and I think, you know, with the different formats the physical books and the e-books and the paperbacks.
Morgan:
Yes, we’ve seen, obviously, a huge shift into Amazon having a massive portion of the book retail. You know the market share. Some of that’s coming back, especially with just grassroots movements. I think TikTok’s been a part of this, where people are buying more paperback books and if they’re going to buy paperback books, they are going sometimes to local bookstores or indie bookstores, and those bookstores are highlighting, you know, TikTok, BookTok, kinds of you know featured books, and so there’s a bit of an interesting symbiotic relationship there. So I think we’re starting.
Morgan:
We had seen, you know, the shift from Barnes and Noble to Amazon, and then we saw a proliferation in the types of reading. eBook and audio book really came in, and now we’re seeing a proliferation in, like, the places you can buy books. Amazon’s currently the big hitter, but I think, you know, Barnes and Noble opened more bookstores in 2023 than it had in the last five years, and indie bookstores are also doing well. There’s a bookshop.org that helps sell books online. That supports indie bookstores. So I think we’re going to see a lot more competition in places that are selling books. Amazon is still the big girl in the room, though. So you can’t ignore Amazon. You’ve got to kind of start with Amazon and then branch out as an author.
Kevin King:
When it comes to a lot of people, especially people that want to speak or they want to become an authority figure. One of the biggest things is people say, well you need to write a book. You need to write a book about whatever you’re an expert on, whether it’s AI or marketing or losing weights or whatever it is. You need to write a book because that gives you authority, even if you only print 500 of them. The fact that you can say you’re an author and you have a book can go a long ways. Do you see that to be true? Just the fact that you’ve published a physical book and you can hold it in your hand gives you almost like instant credibility, no matter how good the book is or not.
Morgan:
I’m going to say no because I think it was true, more true back in the day when we didn’t have all these reader reviews. So back in the day you could publish a book, you could get someone to print it for you, you could take it to your speaking engagement and no one would have. They’d be like, oh look, it’s a book, like they’re legit. Now you’re speaking on stage. I remember doing this. I mean I do this all the time with people who are speaking on stage and they show on the screen their book or they hold up their book.
Morgan:
I’m on Amazon. I’m looking at how many reviews that book has. If that book has two reviews, you’re going to start getting the wrinkled brow, like really, and so I think that it’s not enough just to publish a book. We all kind of know that that’s possible for pretty much anyone these days, and so I think that you have to have the social proof come around it, and that’s reader reviews, that’s endorsements, you know, or praise blurbs in your industry. I even think sometimes there’s room for, like a book award, depending on, you know, your topic or your genre or what you’re writing in. We need a little bit more social proof on the books these days.
Kevin King:
I agree with what you said. I think it’s a misnomer that people are like I just need to get a book and then I’m official, I’ve made it. But if they get a New York Times Bestseller or they get 10,000 five-star reviews on Amazon, then you think that actually does add a feather to the cap. That would help them as a public speaker or getting paid engagements or raising the rates or getting more business as a consultant or whatever.
Morgan:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, there’s a few things that can happen and I can provide a couple of scenarios, you know, like one in the publishing of the book, even before you have all the reviews and all the accolades and that sort of thing publishing the book in itself helps you to reach out to your previous clients. You can, you know, ask them to be a part of the book launch team and so you can re-engage people that you might have known in your life. That can result in new revenue right then and there I mean, I think, you know, think one of our authors, Tom Emerson. He launched his book and within the first 30 days of his book launch he had $350,000 in consulting gigs booked for the year, not because of the number of reviews on his book but because of the reach outs he was doing because of the book. The book gives you a really great narrative for reaching out to folks. So that’s one and I don’t want to be dismissive of that that can really help you get sort of. You know, if you want to get some clients re-engaged right off the bat, I mean inviting them to be part of your book launch and honoring them in some way in the book launch can be really, really helpful after that. So, after you publish the book, does it help you to get new clients?
Morgan:
I think so. I mean I’ve been invited to be on podcasts and stages that they have no clue who I am really. They just see that I’ve published this book and they look on Amazon. I’ve got 2000 reviews, which is not even that many compared to the fiction authors who get, like you know, they’re the New York Times bestselling authors, the big authors that get tens of thousands of reviews these days. But it’s enough, right to sort of say, okay, this person kind of knows what she’s talking about. You know, and some of our other authors, like Stephen AJ I know that he got on a bunch of stages Julie Hamilton, so it’s taking the book and doing something productive with it. Right, it’s going to conferences and speaking agents and saying here I wrote this book, here are the topics I speak on, here’s the audience I speak best to, right, so the book is still something that you need to put some work behind. You know if that makes sense.
Kevin King:
So if I want to write a book, how do you advise people to decide what to write? Maybe I got some ideas like, oh, I want to write a children’s book for my kids so that I can read it to them or I want to. I got lots of interesting stories of my life. I want to write a biography, or no, I want to write about marketing, because I’m pretty good at marketing. I want to do how to sell on Amazon. I’ve got a course. Why don’t I just take the course and turn it into a book? What should I do? I’m coming to you, Morgan. You’re the book girl. You’re the book goddess. What do I do? I want a book. I just want to be cool. I want to have a book and say I’m an author. What do I do? What would you tell me?
Morgan:
You’re hitting right at the very first question. It’s like what’s the point of the book? You know, like we really have to get centered on that we have this interesting thing that we do in our culture, where if someone starts telling an interesting story, we’ll say man, you should write a book. I don’t know why that’s what we say.
Kevin King:
It is. It is.
Morgan:
It is what we say, or the other situation.
Kevin King:
People love stories and that’s how you sell. You sell through stories. If you think about the best speakers out there, they don’t get up on stage and start going into the tactics, into the hacks, into the whatever. They tell a story. You look at Funnel Hacking Live. You look at any big event where the best speakers always have a story. If the whole talk is not a story, they lead with a story to draw you in. So I think that’s part of the reason. Psychologically, we always say that it’s interesting that you do that.
Morgan:
A story with a point, I would say. So for instance your story of jail and Midlothian ended up with a point about, kind of you came to a fork in the road with your father about, like, whether you’re going to pursue this entrepreneurial thing or not, and you found another way. Right, you found jungle, so, like that, that actually did play into your overall as I sort of cheekily said hero’s journey. On the other hand, I do want to go ahead and just say this out loud while I have a microphone in front of me. Some of us, we talk for 40 minutes without taking a breath and everyone who’s listening to us has no idea what to say, and so the polite thing then becomes wow, you should write a book. No one knows what to say to the 40 minutes of, like you know, unending storytelling that you just gave them, and they don’t have a good response. And so that is the response. And so I would say, if you find yourself like, just gut, check.
Morgan:
When I’m at a dinner party, is it often that I’m talking for 40 minutes and no one else is getting in a word in edgewise, and the response I get is you should write a book. I’m going to tell you, you should not write that book. That is different. And you know, maybe what you would do in that case is start to curate.
Morgan:
Okay, if I am a storyteller, I’m a good storyteller. What are the stories that actually have mattered in my life’s journey? You know, if I think about my hero’s journey, which particular stories have mattered the most? And then can I spend some time kind of crafting those stories. And again, we want to land on a point or a purpose to the book. And so I would pull us back, Kevin, and I would say, okay, you know, when you see yourself selling this book, you know, and maybe it’s whether it’s e-commerce or in person, doesn’t really matter, but like, let’s say, the book is really well received, everyone loves it. They’re like Kevin, I read your book, it’s so great. What do you hope it makes possible for you? Like, would you this first book? You can write many books but, you know, the first one that you would really feel like I want to. I want to write this book. Would it be speaking? Would it be clients? This book would it be speaking? Would it be clients? Would it be kids’ bedtimes? What do you really think?
Kevin King:
For me, it would be inspiration for other people. That’s where I find the best. I’m already on a lot of stages, I’m already out there, so I don’t need it to open doors or to do that. It would not be so much about the money because I know sitting down and writing a true book takes time. It’s a lot of effort into writing a good book.
Kevin King:
I write my newsletter twice a week. It takes me three or four hours to write each newsletter. I personally write it. It’s not AI or something else, but to sit down and write a book, chapter by chapter, and to pace it out, I’m sure you have a structure in what you teach and way to brainstorm it in a way to craft it. But that’s work. It’s real work, whether you’re doing it yourself or you have a ghostwriter doing it and you’re just, you know, telling them stories and they have to craft it and you review it but for me, it’s the inspirations.
Kevin King:
Where I get a benefit, is where if I’ve taught something to somebody, like through the freedom ticket course on how to sell on Amazon and four years later. Later, they come to me and I’m standing in line at lunch at a show an Amazon show and someone’s like hey, Kevin, I just saw you there. I just want to introduce myself. I’m Danny. I took your course four years ago and now I’m doing $50 million a year on Amazon. That’s a validation that I’m like I didn’t do that, you did that. I gave you the foundation and the knowledge of how to do that, and that makes me feel good. Sometimes it might make me feel like an imposter because I haven’t done $50 million in one year on Amazon. I’ve done a lot of money. And then the other thing I do is it’s inspirational, like now, what I do when I talk I added this just this year is I used to.
Kevin King:
I’m known for hacks. That’s what people like in the Amazon space. I’m known for like the little quick, little two minute, three minute hitters and I like talking about more in depth, about marketing or psychology or different things. But every time I do those, people just love it. So I’m like, okay, give the people what they love. But I started to add something this year about personal stories. I always get people coming up to me going man, the tactics were freaking amazing. I couldn’t write notes fast enough but your opening was awesome. I really thanks for doing that. Nobody talks about that, nobody shares that.
Kevin King:
So that’s what I would be doing in a book format is going into more detail or something along those lines, so that people walk away with it because people are successful in life. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and sometimes and everybody’s got their issues. Everybody’s got the relationship problems, their health problems or family issues or whatever, and most people just shove that under the rug and don’t talk about it. As entrepreneurs, you need to know that you’re not alone. You’re in this little world doing your stuff but there’s other people going through crap too, and so if that, if just one person walks away from that, going holy cow, that’s that just helped me a lot. I did my job. So that’s what I would be looking to do in a book format.
Kevin King:
So it’s not for me, it’s not about the credibility or the money, and it’s putting the stories down, and one of the best things that my dad did and I wish more people would do that I’ve been telling my buddy Norm. Norm has all these stories. I was telling him you should do what my father did. My father was in his 80s, so about three or four years ago. I get this email.
Kevin King:
I’ve since printed out this email but it’s about 20 pages of short stories, so probably three stories per page. Two or three stories per page. There’s a couple paragraphs on each one but it’s like how I met your mother. It’s a story about how he went to a movie theater and, you know, someone got up to go to the bathroom and he took their seat and you know whatever. And it’s, you know, how he had to shoot his first dog and I had to put it under and he had to be the guy that pulled the trigger.
Kevin King:
His story is about Vietnam, when he pulled over a boat after they had killed people and found a picture of the guy’s family in a whole series of stories that were preserved and so that some of me I’d heard, but he wrote them down and so he can pass that on to me. It’s not important for a lot of people but for me it’s important. So the fact that he did that and I’ve gone back and I’ve read those two or three times since then. That’s the kind of stuff that I think a book could help. You’re just getting those stories down. Sorry, that’s the kind of stuff that I think a book could help. You’re just getting those stories down. Sorry, that’s enough of me talking. I just talked for 40 minutes.
Morgan:
Well, yeah, you should write a book.
Kevin King:
There you go. I was waiting for it. I was like come on now, Morgan. Play along.
Morgan:
Well, you hit on a few things that I want to underscore and highlight for us. So one, what your dad did, I think is actually a really great exercise for many writers is just thinking about what are the important stories in my life and maybe you write a paragraph about them or maybe it’s just kind of bullet point notes, just kind of reminding yourself. Ultimately, for a book, you’re probably going to select and curate something like 15 stories. So the way that you think about a story before a speech is perfect, right. It probably takes you three to five minutes to tell that story. That’s probably getting pretty close to, like you know, at least the beginning meat of a chapter. You might, you know, expand on it a little bit when it’s in written form or something like that.
Morgan:
But you know, if you sit down and brainstorm what are all the stories in my life that have kind of helped me become who I am today, and write those out, it can be a list, you can do post-it notes on the wall it really doesn’t matter and then also start to think about the life lessons or the business lessons that you would want to pass on to people. They can be separate from the stories but you might have just a separate list going on. Here’s all the life lessons or the business lessons, or the James Clear Four Burners Theory, that maybe it’s not even mine, but I can credit it. You know and say and then talk about how it’s affected my thinking and what are those lessons or principles that you really want to communicate. And you can, almost, you know, if you put the lists together. You know you curate the stories, curate the principles, what really matters here you can almost start to mix and match them, like the old, like school exercises we had to like draw a line from one to the other and one to the other. And so that’s, I think, an easier way to come about.
Morgan:
A structure from this kind of bottom up, like what are the stories, what are the life lessons, which ones really rise to the top, is like these must be in the book, and then you can start to see how they you know, one story might match really well with a lesson. Okay, that’s starting to become a chapter and you can start to sort of see there’s it might be chronological, might not be chronological, but you’ll start to feel it as it’s coming together what, how those stories and lessons are going to line up together and ultimately, you know, when people ask me like Morgan, should I be the one to write this book or should I get a ghostwriter, you know, a lot of times I will suggest to people try writing the first draft. I mean, just like you said, you learn so much about yourself when you write the first draft of your stories and of your chapters and you can bring in, you know, a book coach to support you or an editor to like make it a hundred times better later.
Morgan:
But you doing the very first draft helps you to see your own stories and lessons and takeaways so much more clear. And at the end of the day, you’re going to have to get to a point where, at the beginning of the book, you are one person. At the end of the day, you’re going to have to get to a point where at the beginning of the book you are one person. At the end of the book, you are a different person. You might be the only person who can like draw that narrative arc of like I started here.
Morgan:
I went through these moments in time and I learned these lessons and I became who I am today. I’m not finished, you know, but this is who I am today and these are, this is you know, but this is who I am today and this is you know how I’ve changed. That’s the, the bigger narrative arc that is going to help us, as the reader, feel like, wow, I’ve been through so much with Kevin, like I’ve, you know, I’ve been through this journey with him. We need you to be one thing at the beginning of the book and we need you to have transformed in some way by the end of the book and you will be able to draw that imaginary narrative arc a lot better. If you write the first draft, you’ll see. You know it’s almost like was that Steve Jobs quote you’d connect the dots, looking backward. This is your time to look backward and can connect the dots.
Kevin King:
It’s interesting you say that because I just did a presentation at Helium 10 last year called the Ten Commandments and the presentation. What I have every time I see a quote, whether it’s I’m reading something, reading a book, I hear someone say it on TV. I’ve taken them from America’s Got Talent. That girl that died of cancer on America’s Got Talent she said some really cool quote and when she said it I hit pause and backed it up and I type it into my phone, into the notes app, and I have just three files. I just paste it in there. Three files are just quotes about anything. It could be about money, losing weight, about marketing, about just the four burners theory or whatever. And so last year I sat down. I needed to do a presentation for Helium 10 at a live event. I was like I don’t want to just do the same old hacks and the same old stuff. I want something. I want to have some fun, do something different. So I actually went through all that, organized it into Ten Commandments and I took okay, here’s all the ones about health, here’s all the ones about marketing, here’s all the ones about family, here’s all the ones about whatever. And so these became. I was like these are Kevin’s 10 Commandments of life and business and then I showed each of those. I’d go into here’s the health and here’s four or five quotes, and then I would try to tie. I didn’t have time to flush it out, but in a book I could, where I would like. Okay, on this one phrase. Here’s the story, that goes for it, and here’s the transformation, or here’s what happened. So that, actually, there’s my idea for another book. Right, I just need to be an author, right?
Kevin King:
I was a kid that in, I think, it was second grade or third grade I actually wrote books in second or third grade. I would take the eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper, the copy paper, fold them in half and, like five or six sheets, staple them. You know, put, get my big stapler, staple in the middle, and then I would go in there and I would write little books and I draw a little drawing. I’m a sucky artist but I draw little drawings. It’d be like about a peewee football team or be about a girl sitting, a guy sitting behind a girl in class and throwing spit balls in her hair or whatever. I hadn’t seen them in years and my mom just a couple of years ago was cleaning out the attic when they moved and brought them to me and I’m like holy shit, the teacher used to put them up on the window seal for people to read. They’re pretty bad, but for a second grader they’re actually pretty good.
Kevin King:
So when people want to write a book, some people are looking at it from the money side of things. So most books I read some statistic that if you sell 5,000 copies of a book you’re considered that’s amazing. So I think a lot of people go into it with the wrong expectations. So when you’re writing a book, it’s really not so much about the money, it’s about other things, right? What would you advise people on how to set the proper expectations when it comes to writing a book?
Morgan:
And I think for any of these statistics, it’s good to bear in mind that it’s the whole swath of the publishing industry. A lot of new statistics came to light when the CEO of Penguin Random House was up on the. They had the big trial or the big case because they were trying to merge Penguin Random House and Simon Schuster and had the CEOs up in the stand and answering questions. And you know he even said they asked like what does it take to have a successful book? You know, these days in the publishing industry? And he said you know our company is called Penguin Random House, random house because it’s random, people don’t know. That’s why the company was originally named Random House. And so there’s been a reason for the publishing industry to acquire a lot of intellectual property, publish it, distribute it and see what sells. That’s been the model. So, statistically speaking, most of those books are not going to sell, like no fault of the author, no fault of anyone really like it’s not that it’s not a good book, it’s just statistically speaking, that’s how the industry was built. We are going to publish 100 titles a year knowing full well that only one or two of them is going to sell? And when I actually did work at an academic publishing house in college Lynn Reiner Publishers in Boulder, Colorado and you know our goal was to see if we could sign an author who was already a professor at a university or could get the books onto like a syllabus and sell 2,500 copies. That was like that would be amazing if we can find an author who will write a book and we’re fairly confident they can sell 2,500 copies because of the connections that they already have. So to put that into perspective, the publishing industry is not trying to sell everyone’s books equally. They’re trying to select and find a few authors who can sell a lot of books and then it’s not that much of a headache for them to go ahead and print books and if something sells, great right. So when we see these statistics like, you know, most published books don’t sell 250 copies in their lifetime is another statistic. Again, take that with a grain of salt of like that’s kind of how the publishing industry was built. What we’re seeing now is authors actually taking their own book sales into their own hands, which they really have not done before, all the way up until, I would say, like the like 2020s. Really.
Morgan:
I mean it’s been for most of the book world, authors have wanted the publishing industry to sell their books for them, and now we’re seeing a complete reversal. Authors are saying I would like my intellectual property back, thanks, and I will go and sell my book. And so I’ve seen the authors who, proactively, are marketing their own product. Right, Kevin, like, we know this, like this you take a product out to market and you market it and it will sell better because you are marketing it. You know, it’s just what we would expect. So now, we are seeing independent authors outselling a lot of traditionally published authors, simply because independent authors are all learning these marketing principles, they’re applying them to their books, they’re finding their readers, they’re selling better books and more books. And so I think we’re going to see those statistics start to change because of how authors are changing. They’re saying I’m not, you know, just going to let my intellectual property be bought up by a big publishing house and I’m one of a hundred books and they’re throwing spaghetti against the wall. No, I’m going to keep my intellectual property and I’m going to find every dadgum way I can find to sell this book, you know. And so for that reason, I think the independent authors have a different trajectory. It means well.
Morgan:
Then it begs the question of like, okay, well, how do I make sure that I’m selling, how to make sure I’m selling books? I think our very, you know, the conversation we just had about the intention of the book and what I want the book to do really matters. A lot of people don’t have that conversation with anyone, so when they put the book out, they don’t know who their reader is.
Morgan:
Like based on the conversation you and I just had, Kevin, we can probably start to put together like an avatar, right, who might buy this book. That’s kind of, I mean, classic marketing stuff. But like it really is step one. It’s not for everyone, it’s for a segment of the market, which segment of the market? And then you know many of the things that will help to sell a book are going to be your title and your subtitle and your cover design and your description and your reviews.
Morgan:
And so when I talk to authors about like, okay, what’s the most important thing I can do to help make sure my book is selling well, like immediately after launch. It’s reviews? I’m going to come right back to social proof and I’m going to say it really is reviews and many authors are worried about asking someone to be on their book launch team and leave a review during launch.
Morgan:
But getting those social proof, getting those reviews really early on, that helps all of your other marketing efforts. Because if you’re on a stage or on a podcast or write a guest article or on someone’s TikTok or whatever the form of marketing is, people are going to go right back to that Amazon sales page. If they see two one-star reviews, they’re not going to buy the book. But if they see 58 five-star reviews, it’s not that many reviews. Most of us could probably get 58 reviews they’re a heck of a lot more likely to buy that book. And traditionally published books are not even, you know, traditional publishers don’t even really help their authors do this. But I think independent authors are seeing the value of those reviews and that’s going to make a huge difference in how many books they end up selling.
Kevin King:
So when I’m launching my book, should I just do it? I don’t have a big budget. I’m self-publishing. You know I don’t have a lot of money to print cotton a book, you know, depending on how nice it is, we’re not talking a lot of money here. A hard cover book, you know, unless you’re doing some fancy gold stamping or something on it, should be a what? Dollar fifty two bucks in small quantities max?
Morgan:
Yeah, like I would say paperback and this, like this book, cost me about two bucks to print, yeah
Kevin King:
In short, run, yeah. So you know, if you do mass run, like in print in Korea, like I do, my calendars I have. I’m in the calendar business and we print in Korea because it’s even with shipping and everything, it’s way cheaper than printing here and we’re printing, you know, 10-20,000, a small print run books. It’s not. You are paying more per unit but it’s not as bad as what a lot of people think, unless you start getting really fancy. I used to do hardcover books like coffee table books. Now those start getting up in the five to $10 range or even more, depending on what you’re doing for a nice hardcover book. We used to publish those with photos in one of my companies, and so it’s not as much this direct publishing and stuff. You can do what? 50 books, 25 books, 100 books and you can send those out and do a soft launch and send those out to people that are going to give you the reviews so that when you actually do start doing all the social media and all the big plugs, already 23 of your friends have already got the book and left a review and then you actually go out and you do the big push, like you said, because I agree with you.
Kevin King:
So when someone comes to you to write the book, what do you guys do? So I’m like, okay, I’m just using myself as an example. I want to write a book, but I don’t have time to mess with all this stuff. I’m a decent writer. I can definitely write the first draft. Okay, let’s take that off the equation. I’ll write the first draft. And then I’m like Morgan, help me out here. What are you going to do? What’s your next steps at Paper Raven and what would you do for me.
Morgan:
Yeah, so we think of the book in four different phases. We meet people where they are, because not everyone starts at the very beginning with us. But phase one is content development. So we actually do have like senior book coaches who we have a process, right. We talk you through the intention of the book and, like we just kind of started the process basically on this podcast, you know, and talking through those stories, and so you know, when you’re working with a book coach they are talking you through the process, but you’re the one who’s doing the writing.
Morgan:
You know, as it is, everyone’s first draft is messy, right. So we’re not judging the writing. We’re just kind of encouraging you to keep putting down the stories and the quotes and the lessons learned and just helping you to get to something like usually somewhere in the 30,000 to 60,000 word kind of range for a first draft. And so we’re helping to make sure there’s a structure that’s coming out in the book and reviewing writing every week and having coaching calls and just kind of being there to support while that first draft is coming out. That’s phase one content development. Phase two you already have a first draft, so now you’re in editing and editing happens usually in three different phases. I should use a different word than phase, because we already have phases three different passes.
Morgan:
So there’s a developmental editing pass, very structural are the chapters in the right order, sections and paragraphs, you know? Does anything need to be trimmed or removed or moved around? And then copy editing is like fine-tuning the language, wordsmithing, style, repetition, word choice. And then the third pass is proofreading, making sure everything’s all you know, correct spelling, grammar, typos, that sort of thing. So phase one was content development. Phase two is comprehensive editing. Phase three is the actual publication.
Morgan:
This is where it gets more fun. Usually, cover design, interior design, formatting, anything that you want to do special inside the book, any charts or illustrations or graphs or anything like that. You start to actually visually build the book and then create all the files that will be sent to the printers. Now, these files, yes, they can be sent to Amazon, KDP, they can be sent to IngramSpark for other bookstores your Barnes and Noble, your independent bookstores, your libraries or IngramSpark. They can be sent to Korea, you know, and do a print run from Korea, you know, but you’re creating those files that will be either uploaded or emailed to the printer. And in this phase is where we’re also doing the Amazon optimization the keywords, the categories and making sure that everything’s ready to be optimized for Amazon.
Morgan:
The fourth phase is launching the book. So this is actually getting our book launch team together, uploading everything to Amazon. We want to make sure that as soon as you upload that eBook to Amazon, that you have a promotion planned and ready to roll out and that you’re hitting number ones in categories to help engage that algorithm. We’re usually going out for bigger. You know, for some folks they want that bigger push the podcast interviews, the book awards, the endorsements, that kind of stuff. So you know, we essentially end up creating a scope that’s a good fit for the author and the book that they’re working on right now. But if you know, if they’re starting from ground zero and they want all the way to, you know, big push for podcasts and awards and endorsements, it’s going to be kind of all four of those faces.
Kevin King:
So it’s very similar to what we do on the product side. It’s product development building a listing. Product development, sampling, refining it, testing, building a listing and then launching it. It’s basically the same thing, but in your case a lot of people they don’t have the experience. Me, as a product seller, I have all this experience. I know how Amazon works, so I’m at a major advantage over the average author who’s like oh, I didn’t even know you could do this. I thought I had to have Random House to get my book. What does that process cost somebody like what you just walked through? Do you do like a? You take a percentage of the sales, or do you have a flat fee or hourly rate? Or how do you guys? How does that work? What am I looking at?
Morgan:
We do upfront package prices so we kind of talk with the author about what they really need. If they need, you know, all four phases kind of all the way through. It could be up to $40,000 and it takes about a year. And some people they come to us with a manuscript or maybe they don’t want such a big launch, something like that. So we kind of custom fit to them and it often ends up being somewhere in the like 20,000-25,000 range to get the book done from, you know, word document kind of messy first draft all the way through, finished published book that has reviews and is rock and rolling on Amazon.
Kevin King:
You said earlier that you’ve done about 200 books or somewhere along. What’s been your best? One that just took off like you didn’t even know it was going to take off. Maybe you had a hunch but it just took off and became like New York Times bestseller or whatever. Have you had any like that?
Morgan:
Well, there’s no possible way for any of our books to hit New York Times Bestseller because they are closed gate institutions.
Kevin King:
Oh, that’s right, that’s right.
Morgan:
Indie authors really can’t make New York Times in that way. They’ve been able to make USA Today and Wall Street Journal because of the way those bestsellers lists are put together. But certainly, I mean we’ve had. I was just trying to pull up some of the recent ones. We’ve had some of them get about 3,000. Recently actually, we found some really good promotion sites to help us find new readers for these books, which is kind of the sticky point for new authors who don’t have an audience is like where to find? Where do I find readers? So we’ve been finding some good groups of readers who are willing to try books when they’re new and been able to get somewhere in the ballpark of two thousand to three thousand downloads or sales of a book in about a week, which has been pretty phenomenal for brand new authors and so for our authors. Our first major hurdle is let’s help you get 100 reviews. How do we get 100 reviews on the book? Well, you know, first you need the number of people who’ve read the book who are even able to leave a review. So what you’re really talking about is how do we get you know 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 people kind of to read and know the book exists, and then that should be enough volume of people to come back and leave a review. But yeah, we, I mean, we’ve had authors who can?
Morgan:
Most of our authors are playing the long game so they’re continuing to sell kind of year over year. I know, Tracy like I don’t want to go nonfiction fiction, but like Tracy Borgmeier, has written a chapter book, middle grade chapter book, five book series, you know, and she sold something like 20,000 copies of her books over years. You know, not all at once. Lori Scott has written a memoir about being a transgender Christian. Actually, she’s in Texas and so she talks about being conservative and how that’s a difficult issue, you know, and she sold another 15 or 20,000 copies of her book. So you know, ours probably sit in that range, my own books in there. 15-20,000 copies is probably about where we are, which is not like breakout bestseller, but it’s a lot of books to sell, you know.
Morgan:
And if you’re really playing the long game, you’re not just selling books. You’re going for the speaking, you’re going for the clients, and I mean, obviously the story that I tell people. I’m like, what has a book done for me? It’s the back of this book I’ve built the seven-figure business. So I think, it’s the book that helps attract the right type of readers that could then become your clients. But you do have to have that intention in mind, as well, because it’s not just about selling books. At the end of the day, you’re either building a business or you’re building a backlist as a novelist and you’re going to sell a lot of books, not just one book.
Kevin King:
So if you sell 20,000 on a book, what’s a standard price, like $19.95 or something like that?
Morgan:
Yeah, so eBooks are usually around 7.99 to 9.99.
Kevin King:
And you get 70 of that eBook paperback you get 70, so Amazon takes 30.
Morgan:
Yep, paperback books these days are around, yeah, 1999, when you’re doing print on demand, the print cost is higher and Amazon takes a cut. So you probably get closer to $8 on a $20 book because of the print on demand and Amazon’s cut. And then bookstores, actually, if you sell through brick and mortar bookstores, they want a 55% wholesale on the retail. So they want to buy the book. If it sells for 20, they want to buy the book. If it sells for 20, they want to buy it for, you know, nine.
Kevin King:
So they want 55% off. Okay, so they want a discount? Okay, so they’re giving you nine. This, let’s say it costs you two bucks so you’re in it. You get seven dollars. Yeah, I tell so on a good selling book that sells 20,000, if it costs me 20 grand to with your services to put it together, yeah, I should clear at the end of the day. I should clear six figures at the end of the day. You know, and profit over time. If it’s a decent, reasonable seller and there’s no guarantees of that, it could take off and do way better. But the big, you just said it, the big thing is off the back of it. What’s the purpose? And you built a seven-figure business off the back of that, and so it’s definitely more than paid for itself.
Kevin King:
What about AI? Right now, there’s a big push Amazon’s had to clamp down on this, because everybody sells stories about people writing travel books and just having AI write a travel book about Paris and then just publishing. Like there’s people on YouTube saying you can make a shitload of money just by. You can knock out 50 books a day and just have AI write one on Paris and AI do this, or do children’s books? Just come up with a story, give it the basics and it’ll do it, and the majority will make all the pictures and you can publish like crazy. What are your thoughts around all of that?
Morgan:
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a bit of a fad at the moment and I think AI is going to be really useful for authors and for anyone who does any creative work. I think AI is going to help us to be more creative, but I think we’re in this weird little phase where everyone’s kind of overusing AI in a lot of ways and ultimately, I think it’s going to result in readers finding their favorite authors, like their favorite personality brands, and saying I like your books, I know you and I know that you write your books and I like your books. You know, as I think it’s actually going to encourage readers to find out. Wait, who are the authors of these books? Where are they on Instagram or TikTok or have I heard them on a podcast before and like want to know more about the author, because you just can’t necessarily trust whatever is there on Amazon and I think reviews ultimately will also sort of take out a lot of these. Right, because you have a travel book on Paris and you got people who read it and then they’re like these cafes don’t exist. They’re all going to come back and leave once they’re reviews, right.
Morgan:
So as long as the review system works, which I mean, we could talk about that, but that’s a rabbit hole. Theoretically, if the review system were a free market system, it should all work out.
Kevin King:
I agree with you on the example there of the creativity because I use for my newsletter. I write it all, but sometimes I’ll use AI for creativity, so I think it’s valuable in that way, but people that are depending on it to do all the writing is a mistake, at least at this point. Maybe in the future it’s going to get better, but I think it’s a mistake right now.
Morgan:
Yeah, I agree, I think it’s great for research the way that you used it, where I’ve written something but could AI add something to it, you know, and run it through artistic stuff. I think it’s interesting to, you know, play with some different visuals, get some different look and feel to, you know, compare different ways that you might put something together visually. I think, at the end of the day, we want the human to be the creator of the artwork, even if the human is using AI.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, I’m just looking at the time. Holy cow, we’ve already been talking this long. This is like back, like the Driven Conference when we’re having cigars.
Morgan:
I know I just ate some cigars and whiskey out of the balcony.
Kevin King:
That was awesome. So, yeah, cool Morgan, this has been great. If people want to learn more, maybe someone’s like man I want to publish my own book. How would they find out about you guys and start the process or learn more?
Morgan:
Yeah, sure. So paperravenbooks.com is where everything lives and some people you know they ask me can you just like give me an overview of what the publishing process like looks like, like, what should I expect? What do you like? A checklist or something? So I did actually put together a checklist in case people want it. You can go to paperavenbookscom/ready. R-E-A-D-Y like ready and I’ve got a checklist over there for you and an overview of what the publishing process might look like for you.
Kevin King:
Well, Morgan, thanks for coming on. This has been fun. We’ll have to do it again sometime and tell more stories. Perfect, all right.
Morgan:
Thank you, Kevin, it’s been an honor.
Kevin King:
So, after talking to Morgan, I think I’m going to have to go out there and publish a book. I think I’m going to have to get with her and actually put some of my stories down, you know, because everybody keeps telling me you should write a book. That’s good stuff. Thanks, Morgan, for coming on. Hopefully that gave some of you some inspiration and some ideas.
Kevin King:
We’ll be back again next week with another awesome episode. It’s a pretty cool story actually, so you don’t want to miss it. Two sons and a father and their Amazon business and how it all started and what they’re doing. Pretty cool stuff. Before I leave you today, I’ve got some words of wisdom for you. You know, the things you do for yourself die with you, but the things that you do for others and the world live forever. The things that you do for yourself die with you, but the things you do for yourself die with you, but the things you do for others and for the world live forever. Have a great week. See you soon.
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The post #402 – Wow Kevin, You Should Write A Book! Conversation with Morgan Gist MacDonald appeared first on AM/PM Podcast.
