The BookFunnel Podcast

0:00: I also deeply think that Indies can outgun Trad anytime they want to.
0:04: The tools are now there for you, so it's going to be a matter of effort, but you can outgun them any day of the week.
0:08: Very biased take.
0:09: They're gatekeepers for marketing and driving attention and awareness.
0:12: They're gatekeepers for distribution.
0:13: They're gatekeepers on the print side and again then gatekeeping on that trusted access, buying from a bookstore sort of thing.
0:20: Now, I think that they don't necessarily serve as a gatekeeper anymore, they more serve as that like rocket fuel on a rocket ship, and there aren't any gatekeepers.
0:29: Hey folks, welcome to the Book Funnel podcast, where authors get real World advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms.
0:37: Whether you're just starting out, or you're deep into your author journey, we're here to help you build your readership, boost your book sales, and connect with your audience.
0:46: Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some.
0:53: My name is Jack.
0:54: I am our lead author sports specialist here at Book Funnel, and I am joined today by my co-host, Emma Allison.
1:02: Sup oranges and our guest for this episode of the Book Funnel podcast, the co-founder of Curios, Greg Keo.
1:11: Greg, hey everybody, thank you so much for having me.
1:14: Yeah, good to have you here.
1:15: For, I'll give you a moment here for those in the audience who don't necessarily know who you are.
1:21: Tell us a little bit about who you are, what Curios is, so we can get a picture.
1:26: Yeah, sounds good.
1:27: I am, you know, not an author myself, but I am a very active reader.
1:32: So, I've been really grateful to be in the book space, as it's wonderful to meet the people behind the work that I love, you know, so that's been a lot of fun working in the space.
1:41: But Curios in general, we're a direct sales platform.
1:44: So, our mission as a company is to make direct sales incredibly easy.
1:49: We can dive in on this podcast into depth about how difficult Not only set up of direct sales is, but it's the ongoing administrative burdens of direct sales, and book funnels an excellent resource that handles like what I would consider probably the biggest administrative burden, but there are a lot of other burdens that come post selling books, and the more success, the more burden, you know.
2:11: So we at Curios.
2:13: Our mission is to make all of that easy.
2:15: We try to obfuscate the need for any of that administrative work, so that you're left with just promoting your work, writing new work, or, you know, enjoying your life, basically.
2:27: But, we do think direct sales are the future for all entertainment, you know, not just books, and we're trying to make that future more of a reality by making it easier, you know, on everybody.
2:39: But it is a it is a trend too, like even in music.
2:42: Oh, big time, right?
2:44: Creators being able to publish their music and on different platforms.
2:48: I'm obviously not in that industry, so I don't know all the ins and outs, but yeah, when you say like it's the future, I do really, I agree with you on that one.
2:57: Yeah, and it's, that's a great point because what's interesting is like in the different entertainment verticals.
3:02: You've got Different folks leading the charge.
3:05: So in music right now, what's really interesting is the charge is being led from the highest level of performers, right?
3:11: So Taylor Swift, highest level, highest earner, she bought back all of her rights.
3:16: I mean, that was like pretty big news.
3:18: I think it was end of last year.
3:21: Almost a third of a billion dollars.
3:22: I think technically people are like, oh, she's worth a billion dollars.
3:25: So, like, imagine like a third or close to a third of your entire net worth.
3:28: She went to just regaining her IP, which is like just how important that sort of is.
3:34: There was also a big waterfall behind her, like Lizzo, Pharrell, I mean, every major artist, they're all basically taking back ownership of their IP, they're re-recording their masters.
3:45: They're kind of leading the charge from the top down there in the book space.
3:48: What's interesting is a lot of the charge is being led, you know, by the masses of indies, and indies are starting to kind of take control in that sense, which is kind of interesting to see it kind of coming from middle up sort of thing, whereas music's definitely like a top down place.
4:03: Right, like right now, Damon, as we record is at lit RPG Con.
4:10: Like, which is like basically Matt Denneman, Soundbooth Theaters, K, and Matt Denneman.
4:14: A lot of folks don't know, a lot of the fans don't know, like he was indie.
4:19: I got in an argument with somebody about this on, on social media actually about like, like, he is now trad published and like, no, he's not trad published like, well, no, he is, he was indie and now he, he even says he's trad published even though he can kind of do whatever he wants.
4:35: I think he's, isn't he a little bit hybrid though?
4:37: Does he still have his digital, I think, yeah, so, so technically he would be.
4:42: Yeah, but, but in print, at least, he's published.
4:47: And that's, that's a thing that like maybe we dreamt about, you know, 15 or so years ago, because I was, I've been around the industry for a while and like, one day, one day, Indies will be able to prove that our work is worth it and then maybe the publishers will come to us and you see some of that starting to happen.
5:08: I think Matt's a great example of that.
5:10: I'm sure there are others, yeah, I don't know, but maybe it's my bias, you know, how like your algorithms start to bias for what you're looking for, but it seems to me like that is more and more the way that publishers are going, where they're, they're picking up established work, they're picking up established authors that have a little bit more of a proven fan base, and they're picking them up mid-series, and then they're kind of taking ownership, and then, you know, the beautiful thing is, You've got a lot more power in that negotiating room, right?
5:39: So you can do something like Matt where you're like, I'm keeping digital, you guys can take care of the super hard stuff, the print, you know, you can help me put a ton of gas on that fire.
5:48: Hugh Howey was an earlier example of that where he was indie, and then Chad was approaching him, but backed with the power of his own success, he's then able to really negotiate, and he had, I think.
6:02: He negotiated for 5 year terms on publishers' rights to his work, which is kind of cool too.
6:08: And then Apple TV came out with a show literally as the 5 years was ending, so he got to go back to the market to publishers as the show was, I mean, like kind of crazy, brilliant.
6:17: Yeah, Emma, brilliant.
6:20: Emma, do you remember?
6:21: I remember Hugh Howie.
6:22: That was like a watershed moment for me.
6:25: Like I, and well, I remember talking to somebody like a friend of mine, and they had read the book.
6:32: And I like it was being an aspiring author at that time it was just it was crazy because like, here he is now granted, I haven't had nearly that much success, but I don't know about you, Emma, but that for me was like a moment like, OK, this is doable.
6:47: How many years ago was it?
6:50: Do you see, I'm up in age.
6:51: I'm up in age, so I'm, I'm like trying to remember.
6:55: I don't know.
6:56: Huh, maybe, maybe because it's outside of your genre.
6:59: I don't know if you were, you were tuned in, but when I, yeah, I'm sitting here thinking what baby was that and what book was that when that happened?
7:08: Wool, wool was the was the book, but Hugh had like would have been the, the 2010s.
7:15: But the bear shifter romance days, yeah, bro, nose deep in baby or and bear shifter like you were in a different stage of your life, I think, focused on different things, to be fair, that's, but.
7:30: What, what, but just, it's just interesting to see too, like how How that's like, and you even have folks like Sanderson kind of taking a direct approach and having a lot more say in Like how he is gonna publish his, his books, how he is going to, I still think he probably relies on publishers a little bit more than say a Dennyman or a Hugh Howie might, but, but he still taking those steps to Especially with like crowdfunding to go direct to readers, like there's so many ways to do this.
8:06: There's not just one way either.
8:08: His approach, I love, he, he, the way I view it, obviously, I'm not branding himself or his team, but It seems like he fortifies himself really well, so he's not necessarily beholden to, he, he removes the risk of the equation.
8:22: So if publishers can help him get his book out there and get it out in mass print and get it, use their awesome distribution networks, he leverages it.
8:30: But if it's not helping him, right, he doesn't have to rely on it, he's got his own systems in place, and I think that's like the magic, and it's both it's like a little bit of like, The changing times, but it's a little bit of like the technology is now there for that, right?
8:45: Like online shopping 15 years ago was a very different thing.
8:51: The comfort level of somebody entering their credit card online was extremely low, and now like Google's got it, you know what I mean?
8:58: Shopify's got it.
8:59: So it's like I, I, I'm not entering cards.
9:02: I'm my risk for that is way higher risk tolerance for shopping online.
9:06: So the, you know, anybody has the same level of access to the market, and in a lot of ways, that's where I'm like, really excited for the future, and then I think Back a while ago, publishers sort of were gatekeepers.
9:22: They were gatekeepers for marketing and driving attention and awareness, they were gatekeepers for distribution, they're gatekeepers on the print side and again then gatekeeping on that trusted access, buying from a bookstore sort of thing.
9:34: Now, I think that they don't necessarily serve as a gatekeeper anymore, they more serve as that like rocket fuel on a rocket ship, and there aren't any gatekeepers.
9:43: You know, the majority of attention is going to be built by social media, you know, if an author is popular on socials, or if you find your own kind of way, right?
9:52: Like, it might be YouTube, might be socials, it might be a newsletter, it might be other people, other people on socials talking about your work, but long story short, those, those gatekeepers aren't necessarily there right now.
10:05: So the world is open for you if you, if you're able to and want to get into that.
10:09: And I think that that's where the times are really changing, which is what I'm super excited about.
10:14: I also deeply think that Indies can outgun Chad anytime they want to, you know, the tools are now there for you, so you can, it's, you know, it's a matter, it's gonna be a matter of effort, but you can outgun them any day of the week.
10:28: Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, very biased take.
10:30: So yeah, but, but I mean, we're, they're too, there's, it's surprising to me just the level of separation there still is.
10:40: Between Trad and indie though, even though it's been It's been a minute.
10:48: I had the chance to talk to some.
10:51: Aspiring authors at like, we went to San Francisco for the San Fran San Francisco Writers Conference.
10:58: A lot of the authors and writers there are looking to talk to agents and pitch, and, and they're going the trad route and indie to them is still this like thing that why would you ever want to do that?
11:10: They're very, it's definitely its own ecosystem.
11:13: And if you listen to certain people in that, in that ecosystem.
11:17: They have a different paradigm.
11:18: It's not that they, it's not that they're like.
11:21: Necessarily, I wouldn't say that they're necessarily.
11:24: Like anti-indie, it's just they're hearing stuff from the people in that ecosystem and the same thing happens over here in indie land, right, where we're like, hey look at this guy, right?
11:37: And I don't think there's a level of even for publishers, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna name any names, but at a book funnel, like we have tools for publishers too, and we've talked to some big publishers about like how they can use these tools and Just like where they're starting at in terms of their understanding of the tools available to publishers, which are the same tools we make available to authors.
12:02: It's like they're like a few, they're still lagging a few years behind, which is honestly in 2026 to me is a little surprising.
12:09: I think so too.
12:10: I'm, I'm, I'm in it's, if you've ever worked at a giant corporation.
12:15: You'll ultimately understand why they're lagging, and it's just, it's hard to move, it's hard to make change, it's hard to get things across the line, and a lot of it's because like, you can't induce risk, so you've got to essentially operate without risk.
12:29: But I agree with you.
12:30: I also definitely agree that like I'm in that biased indie camp.
12:33: However, what's interesting Yeah, it's, it's interesting to me because I think This is again another hugely biased take, but I think that the folks who are on that debut side and they're looking for the publishing deal, they're looking to get an agent, and they're looking to then pitch to the trad world.
12:54: I think that there is a misunderstanding about What actually is going to happen.
13:01: What the publisher is actually going to do for them, you know, I'll commonly hear being like, well, no, I'm, I'm a writer, I'm just a writer, I'm not going to do anymore.
13:08: I just wanna be able to just dish the book out and then just set that and forget it.
13:13: And it's like, you definitely will be setting and forgetting it because you won't own the rights, so there's not anything you're gonna do.
13:21: There's nothing to do at that point, you know, so you will be setting and forgetting it, but they're not necessarily gonna be on a weekly basis, pushing your book out to the world.
13:30: Yeah, they will, they will work very hard to push it out and have it have a great debut and get into as many hands as possible, and if it's picked up well by the market, they'll lean into that, right?
13:40: Like, you know, that's kind of how it works.
13:42: But if it's not picked up well by the market, they're moving on to the next person, you know, and it's, it's not necessarily like they're gonna have your long term interests in mind.
13:51: They have your interests in mind, for sure, but it's not necessarily your long term interest, and then also, in my opinion, I don't think the deal is always that great on the debut side.
14:01: I think that If, if authors knew about the kind of tools that now exist for you, even, I mean, honestly, like even just straight up KDP.
14:12: You should be able to outperform that debut deal you're gonna get pretty quickly, you know, I think that you will.
14:19: And then you add direct on top of that, and like outperformance is actually a super low bar, you know, if you're selling a book for $10 and, you know, if they're giving you like a $5000 deal, that's not many books to sell, like in all, all in all, like that's not that many, you know, so.
14:32: Super biased there because I see some successes happening on our side, so I'm like, It's not terribly difficult to get out the door, you know, but I do understand kind of what they've been told.
14:44: I just don't know that it's actually as factually true as they sort of think it is, you know, they're not going to go retire to Nantucket after they signed that deal, you know, so I, I, I think publishers definitely see.
14:57: You could, you could definitely make the argument, like the, the most jaded argument is they just see you as a lottery ticket, right, and they're just buying lottery tickets and with the hope that one of them pays in like only what, 20% of traditionally published books are profitable, and that's, that's their business model and so.
15:15: I, I, I don't know.
15:16: I think it's kind of an old dog that can't be learned new, you can't be taught new tricks, you know, they're doing what they're doing, and that's just what they know.
15:24: But I, I think what you hit on there that I, that resonated with me recently too is like so much of it is outside of their control and even your control as an author, which I think is important for Indies to understand too, is like, to go back to Matt Denneman, I told, I had this realization, I told my wife this the other day.
15:40: The success of Dungeon Crawler Carl in that whole series is outside of his hands.
15:45: Yes, it is.
15:45: It is in it is in book talk and everybody talking about it on social media and like it is, it is, he created something that everybody else has adopted and now they're sharing it and like all he could do on their body and stuff, right?
16:00: And like, yeah, yeah, all he can do is write the next book.
16:04: Yes, that's exactly right.
16:05: Yeah, and you know, like work on it like.
16:08: Ensure that the book is as good as he possibly can, right?
16:10: And they are like, I love, I love that series.
16:12: When I first found Dungeon Called Karl, I was like, such a happy day.
16:16: I was like, I can't believe what I'm reading.
16:17: And this is outrageous.
16:18: And I love it.
16:19: And I mean, everybody, you know, it's a credit to his work, but they're also, there's so many books out there that are equally good, you know, so there is a bit of a magic sometimes to getting picked up.
16:28: And also, it's worth remembering, I think like, I think he's at a peak of popularity right now.
16:35: Hopefully it's not his full peak, right?
16:36: I hope he's still just going up from here, but he's certainly at a peak right now from historic, but it's like it's been a long time since Dungeon Carl Karl was first written to now at this full adoption.
16:49: So also like knowing that it's not overnight and it's not on your first book, you know, like, his book 8, I think, a parade of horribles that, so that's like, Yeah, that That 8 books To be at this peak that he's at now, you know, so there's something to that too, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting cause he's, I think, dungeon, the original dungeon crawler Carl.
17:12: Did you see the book cover, yeah, he has and authors will do this often, right, which is like the author who brought you such and such title.
17:21: Yeah, he has one of these.
17:23: I can't remember the title off the top of my head, but it's a, it's about kaiju, right?
17:26: Like, so Godzilla monsters.
17:28: And on the original Dungeon Crawler Carl, it's from the author who brought you that weird kaiju book or something like that, as if that was like people would know him more about that than they would, it's looking at it in retrospect is just.
17:43: Kind of bizarre, but it's fun because you just at the time you're doing what you can do, being like, right, I'm an author.
17:48: I've written a book before, you know, yeah, yeah, so, so, so I want to hone in on direct sales here a little bit now, to kind of return to that because I don't want that to get lost here too much is we're like.
17:59: Talk about Sanderson and and and Denniman and Emma's rolling in her eyes at me, but But like, what, what would you say is like the, the major misconception or misconceptions that authors tend to have about Direct sales when they're approaching it.
18:19: Yeah, so, this is something that I'm working on.
18:22: This is like But I consider my life's work at this moment is, I think what people think when they hear direct sales is super worth it.
18:31: Incredible benefits.
18:32: I mean, anyone who's doing direct sales well.
18:35: The benefits are obvious and clear.
18:37: You have so much more control, you have so much more foundation to your business as an author, right?
18:43: You, if you know your customer list, right?
18:45: That is foundational.
18:48: Amazon boots you, OK, your next book, wherever you're gonna release it.
18:52: Your readership can find it, you know, when you've got the email list, you can reach out to them to let them know where to go.
18:58: So that's one of those major foundational pieces.
19:01: Another foundational piece with the direct sales is you're keeping more of the sale.
19:06: And what's really interesting about that is That allows you to spend more on promotion.
19:12: Promotion is expensive.
19:14: You can kind of cut costs down by increasing your time that you put into it, but that's your ratio.
19:20: And most of the time, time and money help you get more promotion, right?
19:24: That's how you can get your work out there.
19:26: It's like the easiest way, at least, to get your work out there.
19:29: When you're capturing more from your sale, you can spend more on promotion.
19:33: You know, there's all kinds of systems, you know, Steve Piper's got the AO series, and like that's basically what it's about.
19:39: It's like, you set up these funnels to sell direct.
19:43: You're capturing all of the money, and that gives you a certain amount of money to respend, to then drop people back into that funnel and clear.
19:50: So, When people hear about direct sales, they know that the benefits are there, and like this is that's tip of the iceberg of benefits.
19:57: They know the benefits are there.
19:59: But then the what what they all also know, which I, you know, again I'm trying to correct, is they know that it's gonna be this insane mountain of hard work.
20:08: They're already looking at all of the things that they have to do right now.
20:12: As an author without having direct sales, there's the the to do list is endless.
20:16: And they're like, oh my gosh, I have to do all this work.
20:19: And if you take a direct sales course that's like, you know, Shopify based.
20:23: About, I'd say probably 15 minutes in, you're gonna start to panic, your heart will start to flutter, because you're just like, Not only was I worried about setting up the site, now I've got to worry about all this other stuff coming down the line too, and setting up the email funnels and doing all these things, it just looks like an impossible amount of work to overcome.
20:45: And so that's where I'm kind of saying like my life's work is making it so it's not like an impossible amount, you know, so like where we're at with Curios now, you can get a book if you have your book complete, right?
20:59: So you've got your cover design, you've got your epoch files, if you have an audiobook, the MP3s, the recorded files, if you've got those items, you can have that listed online on a page in under 3 minutes, right?
21:11: So you just upload, enter your title, enter a description.
21:14: Set your price, hit publish, you've got a dedicated page with your work that somebody can then go to, to get it.
21:21: You know, we're trying to reduce that barrier to going live, right?
21:24: So you don't have to design a website, you don't have to come up with a color scheme, you have to think through your packaging, your flow, it's like you just, you can just get that piece off the ground, right?
21:33: And then additionally, on that back end side, we also try to help as much as possible too, right?
21:38: So on the reporting, on customer service, on fraud prevention, On expectation setting, right?
21:45: We've got print on demand solutions.
21:47: And so it's like you, you know, if someone buys a book and they haven't gotten a shipping number, a tracking number in the 1st 7 days, they're like, what happened?
21:55: I bought on somewhere that's on Amazon, and I'm worried about it, and it's like making sure the expectations is set, like, this book is being printed, it's in production, it's gonna reach you at this date, you know, that sort of thing.
22:06: So it's, I, I think the biggest misconception is that it's too hard, and it's too much work, and it's going to blow your life up, and you're gonna spend a lot of money, and you won't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
22:18: You won't have your website set up and everything set up to where it's gonna actually work for you in the way that you want it to, you know.
22:25: But that's what we're, we're working to combat.
22:27: I mean, book funnel also, you guys are an excellent admin-free solution for the hard part, right?
22:35: How do you safely deliver a file to someone when they purchase a digital item on your website?
22:40: And then when someone has trouble getting to their Kindle or their Kobo or whatever e-reader they're using.
22:45: Like, I mean, I, it has to be like, so much of what you guys do is just like helping walk through the customers so that they're not bothering the author, and the author has that time back, cause it's a lot of time.
22:57: I mean, I can't, I don't know if you guys track it, but I would be even interested is like, how many hours, you know, a year.
23:05: Yeah, I mean you have no idea.
23:08: So we, we just hired, what I mean, Emma, would you say like 1.5 people for reader support?
23:17: I say 1.5 because one of them is split between author and reader support, and it's like every few years we've got to bring somebody else in because.
23:26: It's, it's a an insane volume.
23:29: Of, and really it is, it is a volume game, and I think that's what can bury authors really easily is if, if you do have some level of success with direct sales, it's, it's, it's just a matter of, of math that you're gonna have a certain percentage of your customers that are going to have trouble.
23:48: And when you only have a few sales that doesn't, that doesn't come up very much and so it doesn't seem like it's that big of an issue.
23:54: It's like those exploding phone batteries, right, that everybody had right at one point.
23:59: Now, I'm not gonna speak to every single model, but some of them, it was literally just such a minute percentage of those devices that were actually defective.
24:08: But because millions of them had been sold, you heard about it like it was gonna happen to everybody, right?
24:15: It's the same kind of thing when you have a high volume of sales, and we can, we can see this, you know, behind the curtain.
24:23: At Book Funnel, it's like you see the, the high performing direct sales authors, and yeah, there's the amount of support they send to us is very small compared to the amount of sales they have, but it's still enough that for you as an individual, as an author, When you also have to do like a million other things, including write and edit and all that stuff.
24:45: You're gonna get buried in it, buried in no time, yeah, and it's, it, it's one of those, it's one of those jobs that's also, it takes up, it's the most pressing job is this person paid you, they bought the book from you, so you need to address that before you finish your chapter or your whatever you're working on.
25:02: It has to be your priority, right?
25:03: So it's your first and foremost priority, and so it eats your time.
25:09: It eats your time like you wouldn't believe because it does have to have that priority.
25:13: And then you wouldn't answer, even if it's like say 2 customer support requests that come in from your direct sales, you go answer those, your brain is in a different place now.
25:21: You gotta like go reset and get back into being an author or like an admin operator, whatever part of your business you're working on at that time, you've got to reset and get back in, and it's very hard to context switch like that, which is, yeah, and that's just one of the kind of one of the The barriers that exist there with direct sales, but again, It's a good problem to have, you know, so for sure, yeah, for sure.
25:45: You, you want that problem, you know, so, yeah, yeah, it's, and it's not something that it's, it's, I think it, it probably creeps up on people.
25:54: It does, yeah, in that situation when it, when it does hit you is you're, it's not something that you're, you're not gonna, you're likely not gonna be prepared for it.
26:01: Yeah, and most, most of the like, high performing direct selling authors, they will have administrative staff, you know, so usually 2+.
26:11: The first hire is usually the husband, so like, I was at a table at Mink and it was like, I was, I was talking to them because my wife is a fabulous writer, and she was like, I was like, she, she really wants to write a novel, and then they were like, Well, the second that she writes that, guess what's gonna happen?
26:27: You're gonna go work for her.
26:29: And then she was like, this is my husband.
26:30: He works for me and everyone on the table was like, this is my husband who works for me.
26:33: And so it's like, it's usually your spouse first hire.
26:36: And then it'll be administrators behind that.
26:39: So admin support behind that.
26:41: And it's basically on the customer support side, and it's on the operations fulfillment side, you know, there's, there's lots to do, right?
26:48: So the good news is it becomes quite affordable when you're keeping.
26:51: The majority of your funds.
26:53: So, you can't afford it, which is nice.
26:56: And oftentimes it's fast, right?
26:57: Like the husband hire for some of these romance authors, the husband hires like 2 months in, they're hiring their husband, which is I love to see that, you know, yeah, no, the, I mean, that's how B funnel got started.
27:09: I mean, Damon founded Book Funnel and then very quickly he hired his wife, brought his, I, I don't even know if there was an official hiring process, but I'm not gonna speak for them.
27:20: Yeah, it's just like, hey, do this for me, please.
27:22: It's like, yes, like we're, we're in, so I totally understand, and we hear that story all the time from authors.
27:29: It's, it's very common.
27:31: And, or, you know, also stories of like, what, you know, one spouse is able to even pursue that career in the first place if the other spouse can, you know, cover all the bills and everything.
27:44: So it's kind of a natural progression, I think for a lot of, a lot of folks in, in that situation.
27:49: So definitely not unheard of.
27:51: So yeah, look for, look for those, those folks who can help you for sure in, in that situation.
27:57: But we see, I think for, for some.
28:02: Because I know that there's, it's very easy to, to even look at some of those who've like taken off quickly, whether it's with direct sales or whatever the case may be.
28:11: I'm also kind of interested in like the authors who are able to, like, even just maintain that steady grind over time, and maybe you don't have like some, you know, hockey stick like success right away.
28:27: But you're able to build that career kind of like on your own terms, you know what I mean?
28:32: And so you're deciding how you're selling your books.
28:36: Like one example of this for myself is like my reader magnets, for example, we're all about reader magnets here at Bookone, right, because you can grow your email list and all that stuff.
28:46: Oftentimes, you know, reader magnets are, are pointing to a book that's in Amazon and KU or something like that, and you have a, a lack of flexibility.
28:55: When you're direct, you have all the flexibility in the world, and you can sell, you can package your books how you want, sell them how you want, and for this isn't necessarily like a a KU directly related thing, but I when I do in-person events, which is another form of direct sales.
29:12: I actually sell my reader magnets in physical books like they're and I sell them for like $16.
29:19: I don't sell them for like $5 right?
29:21: Like I make money on these things and they're some of my most popular books.
29:25: And I think that's like, some authors are gonna probably hear that be like you, you did a, you did what with a what like how people buy, people want it, yes, and just the paradigm of direct sales like that to me is an example of like, you can, you can do what you want in this business.
29:44: And honestly, as long as you're able to, there's, you have to present it in a certain way, but you can make those little steps along the way.
29:52: So even if you don't have like a breakout success, you know, you can slowly kind of build your way up and build that castle one brick at a time.
30:01: You know, absolutely, yeah, I agree with that very much, and I think an easy way to even understand how that functionally works as an author is When you first set up your direct sales channel, like, it's gonna be really slow, you know, you've gotta then work on building the funnels, you gotta route people in, you've got to kind of change the way you approach your business.
30:22: Like, when you're gonna be offering your book, you want to try and route them to your direct stuff first, right?
30:28: So if it's a lead magnet, like route them to that lead magnet, be like, hey, here's the best place to like learn more about me as an author, and you have to just kind of change the way that you're speaking about your work, you know, and routing folks to your work.
30:39: What ends up happening though is, so you have one book direct, you're gonna have just a smattering of sales, you know, it's gonna be however slow it is compared to your promotional efforts, right?
30:49: But then when that next book kind of comes out and the next one on top of that, each one of those has their little smattering, right?
30:54: And then a reader from the first round.
30:57: That can compound and you can then reach all of them directly and say like, hey, new book's out, special deal for you guys since you supported me directly before, get it here, right?
31:06: And that's how that compounds and grows into something that actually ends up being sustainable.
31:11: And it is, it is fun.
31:13: Like it's a good point that you made.
31:14: It is super fun to talk about the super successful folks, you know, people like Brandon and Hugh are just like, kings of the world because of what they, you know, they did the hard work too, but they're in, they're in a great spot now.
31:26: But, It is a nice moment when your volume just happens to go from single digits to double digits, right?
31:33: Or double to triple, where you're like, oh, you look at a month and you're like, that was a pretty high performing month, and you look at was it, is it a promotional effort or single thing, and it's like, no, it's like you now have a catalog, and that catalog can compound and your readership can cross different books, and that all starts to add up, you know, and that, that's a special thing that you can get, and it's like, Those businesses, they're not as sexy as upfront, right?
31:58: You put a book in KU, it feels sexy.
32:00: It's like page reads come in, algorithm is working for you a little bit, and you're like, cool, right?
32:06: But Having that slow growth start to compound isn't sexy in the beginning, but it's really nice when it's there, like in the full-fledged portion of it, you have just such a foundational business, and that's kind of what direct sales really offers at its core, is you're setting up foundational businesses, ones that like you can rely on, you know, you're not at risk of losing your readership, you're not as much at risk of cancellation or something like that, which doesn't really affect authors as badly as it does like comedians, you know, but.
32:37: There's some hilarious stories about that.
32:40: Yeah, but, you know, you're setting yourself up foundationally.
32:43: So as the world changes, which like for authors, I mean, it's been like an outrageous amount of change in the last 20 years, just the whole industry has changed probably like 5 or 6 times, and it's probably changing again like as we speak right now.
32:56: So it, it helps you weather those storms when you're in that foundational territory, you know, and it doesn't have to be, again, it doesn't have to be this massive foundation, it's just that You have a readership, your readership grows, you don't lose it.
33:09: When you have those email addresses, they, it's additive.
33:11: Each new email adds to your existing base.
33:14: You don't really lose it at the same rate that you would in other places.
33:17: So that additive process does work.
33:21: It does take time though, you know, of course, right?
33:23: So yeah.
33:25: Pulpit, that's my pulpit time.
33:26: I'll, I'll get back on the pulpit for other topics too, believe me.
33:32: So I'm going to have to be a Scrooge, a bit of a Scrooge here.
33:38: Cause y'all, y'all men folks is making direct sales sound so fluffy and cute and all of that, and I say that as somebody who's currently in the ammo course.
33:49: It's grueling and highly technical.
33:51: I have Shopify, 5 pen names, 100 books.
33:55: To me, direct sales is the new hybrid.
33:58: It's what you do after you have established the foundation of your author platform and career, and this is why craft.
34:06: I do recommend beginning authors start out with one or two books direct to use as lead magnets, that sort of thing, but trying to whole hog, monetize an entire catalog or entire career.
34:17: Right in the gate, especially since we don't have those kind of gatekeepers anymore, other than like your own ad spend your capital.
34:24: I'm not sure if that's a good idea, because do you really want to be focusing on trying to monetize an entire career when you don't got your craft down?
34:31: It's like those 1st 2 or 3 years of reader feedback are, are crucial, man.
34:36: So, and, and let me tell you, running traffic, running traffic, and maybe, Greg, you could tell us maybe if Curios does anything to help with this, but running traffic to a store or platform is brutal, brutal.
34:50: So I would suggest, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, that authors who do want to go direct rather than diving into something like Shopify or an independent platform, you do use something that's kind of like curios, kind of like a midway, will that, where that platform will take on a lot of the mechanic for you.
35:10: Yes.
35:11: Yes, but can you tell me a little bit more about some of those pain points Kyrgios takes over?
35:17: I definitely, yeah, if you don't mind, I actually wanna kind of go back to a little bit of kind of what you were saying too.
35:23: I, I agree somewhat.
35:27: I don't think you're limited with direct sales to being only at establishment and then pulling out some of your established work and driving direct.
35:36: I don't think that you have to do it that way.
35:40: Everything depends on, you know, you as an author, I think too.
35:43: It's important to remember that like there's not a route.
35:47: What genre you're writing in, what kind of book it is, who you are, what what you enjoy doing, if you enjoy promotion, yeah, direct out the gate, you're gonna crush, you know.
35:58: But if you don't enjoy promotion, you don't want to touch any of that, it's like, yes, definitely.
36:03: So you kind of need to understand a little bit where you are as a person, and then also understanding.
36:08: Your audience for your genre and your type of work, you know, there are certain genres that are more predisposed to being open to new platforms, right, where they're like, oh, they're tech savvy, they're OK with a little bit of risk being like, I'm, I'm, I'll get the book, I'm OK with it, you know.
36:22: Versus there's some folks who are just like, have to buy on Amazon, cause that's where they bought before, and they don't want to trust something new or go to a new website or something like that, you know.
36:31: So there's a little bit of that.
36:32: I think also, I think it depends, yeah, I think it depends on one thing about direct is you're in control, so, You can throttle books on and you can throttle books off.
36:45: So if you want to go exclusive and get some KU readership and go out there, yeah, you can.
36:50: You just pull your books down and then you can go grab and like I was talking with Naomi Rawlings, she's she, she just did this, right?
36:57: She just went into KU full fledged for a little bit with her ebooks.
37:01: So she was like, all right, I'll take them off my direct stores.
37:03: I got a lot of sales on direct.
37:05: Take them off, I'm gonna go see if I can pick up some KU readers, and she went into KU for a while, and then she's pulling back out of KU and she's gonna go back to direct for things.
37:12: So she's like, you get to throttle on and off, so I think that controls nice.
37:17: The other thing about direct is you don't, exclusivity requirements are just on yourself.
37:21: So it's the same thing with the KU part, but it's like if you're looking wide.
37:26: In the beginning, of course, get your real estate out there, put everything out, you know, I think that if you are going to do promotional efforts though, I still am an advocate, even if you're in the early stages of promoting to your own thing, because of that cost, and then also from the data side.
37:42: If you can know with like your metappixels, and if you're capturing emails, if you know who things worked on, you can then use that, send that back into meta.
37:51: Build lookalike audiences.
37:52: It takes a lot of emails to build lookalike, but it's one of those things where I think if you're doing the work and you're spending the money for that promotion, You gotta capture, like you gotta know who it worked on, otherwise, It's all loss.
38:07: It's not necessarily loss.
38:08: You're hopefully building like your popularity score or like a brand, someone can remember your name, but it's hard cause there's a lot of books and a lot of authors, so building a brand is really tough, and that's where I'm still like the biggest advocate of like collecting.
38:24: So even if you're just like dipping your toe into meta ads, and it's not really working out, but you grabbed 5 emails, like, all right.
38:32: You got something you can stand on, you know, but Caveat the whole thing with it does depend on where you are as an author, it depends on where you are as a person, how much time you have, if you have any capital for promotion, if you have any desire.
38:47: To promote.
38:48: It, it's a weird thing.
38:50: Self-promoting is like kind of uncomfortable.
38:53: You know, like, you know, so there's that you had a second part of your question though is going through mechanically how Curios helps.
39:02: I don't know if you guys want to touch on anything I mentioned there before we switch into that, but I mean, I was just gonna say on the craft thing, I think like that's a I think there's kind of like a, a bit of a, how comfortable are you with it, cause I think some people are gonna be like, it's their first book they've ever written, and they're totally comfortable diving in and putting it out there for the world to see whether that's putting it on a platform like KDP or even doing something like going wide and including direct and some of that.
39:29: Like some people just want to do that whole thing.
39:32: And I think there's some people who are gonna never show that book to the world, and they're gonna hide it.
39:36: I think, I think the beauty of just Indie publishing in general, is that you have the option to write that first book, have it be, have it be atrocious.
39:49: And still make money on it however you want while you then can, and I, I think as well if you do that, you just need to focus on writing the next book.
39:59: You just need to keep writing to improve your craft.
40:02: I don't hold it against anybody.
40:06: Personally, whose craft is not there yet, who's still like making an effort to like actually sell some books.
40:13: I'm, I'm totally 100% behind him, so, To, to maybe to be the, the antidote to your Scrooge McDuck, Emma, but Man, if I spend 30 books a day on a Facebook ad, I'd need that ROI.
40:29: I need to squeeze as much juice out of that.
40:31: And if my book is terrible, because any author will tell you this, you can spend as much time marketing, going direct as you want, but if your book is terrible.
40:40: Yeah.
40:41: Crickets write the next book and I think that's the thing is like if you're there, like put yourself out there for sure, find some ways to promote yourself that don't cost you $30 a day in in Facebook ad spend, right?
40:54: Like that's the part of it where I think definitely like slow down, maybe prepare yourself or find some more organic ways like look to social media or something like that if that's your thing instead like I wouldn't.
41:09: You know, I, I have an author who I've kind of been mentoring.
41:12: He's, I've known him since he was like 6 years old, long story, but he, he told me, now he's in college, and he's like, I wanted to write a book.
41:20: I'm like, OK, well, let me coach you a little bit on how to do it, and he's He's written a short story, he's, he's also working on a novel, and he's, you know, gonna put, I'm, I'm giving him just very like, Like, hey, here's the thing, right?
41:34: You, I think you, I totally think you should put this out there in the world cause that's what I would tell my younger self.
41:39: Put it out there, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
41:42: But like, don't get, don't get so tied up with it that you like have to make it work.
41:48: If it, if you don't get an indicator from like just putting it out there, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's terrible, it just means that you you should, you just need to keep your creative juices flowing and move on to the next thing.
42:00: And then you'll find something where like you get those indicators from readers like, you start to see them respond to it, and then that's your indicator that maybe maybe put some money behind this thing and, and you like you build that like a little bit at a time, I think.
42:14: And yeah, that's that's definitely a good point, Emma.
42:16: I did not, I didn't cover that part, but on the craft side.
42:20: You know, direct sale does require, it doesn't require you, the fortunate thing is nobody reads your book before they buy it, but Your best, your best thing on as an author is that word of mouth.
42:31: Like, word of mouth travels like fire, right?
42:33: When you have a really good book.
42:36: That just, like, I immediately tell my family, right?
42:40: And that's, I have 2 brothers, 2 sisters.
42:42: It's just like you get 4 more purchases right away, if I like it, you know, so it's like that sort of thing, that word of mouth is the most powerful.
42:49: So, I agree that if the craft isn't necessarily there, working on the craft is, I think, priority number 1, and the best way to figure that out is there's a lot of, like, you know, free distribution.
43:02: Getting into people's hands first, focusing on that as opposed to the sales.
43:06: If you have an indication the craft is good or good enough, which good enough is certainly the right way to approach some of this because you could be editing for the rest of your life, I think our own personal standards are very high, you know what I mean, for our own work, but it's Yeah, at good or good enough, definitely getting it out there is best, you know, I think getting out there is best anyway.
43:27: I mean, this is coming from an engineer and a tech founder is like.
43:32: You put things out there, you get the worst feedback, and instead of being emotional about it, instead of being like, oh they hate it, you know, you're just like, great, they told me the literal answer.
43:44: The answer was, They didn't like that, they like this instead.
43:48: Great, I now have the answer.
43:49: I didn't have the answer before.
43:50: I was building blind, and now when you have the answer, you then can change it, you know, so that's like literally a brief history of Curios is we put something out there, it was horrible, and then it got better, you know, like every day we just improve some things every single day to make it better and better.
44:06: And authors are fortunately very blunt with their feedback with us, and I always solicited as much as possible, but they're wonderfully blunt, and they're wonderfully detailed, so they let me know like exactly what was not meeting their expectation, and then we fix it.
44:21: And it's like, oh, it's great.
44:22: And in a book, you can't necessarily do the same thing, you're not necessarily gonna rewrite a book, but you can take that feedback in, and as long as you're, as long as it affects you emotionally too much, which can be really hard with art, it's super hard with art.
44:35: But as long as you can look at it as objectively as you possibly can, and try to think of it in that answer oriented way of like, They're looking for this.
44:43: I didn't give that to him.
44:44: How can I give that to him in a future book?
44:46: You know, how can I hold the tension longer or like super cool scene that I cut so short?
44:51: What if I like held up, you know, stuff like that.
44:53: So, you know, not there.
44:54: And now that, now that I could take my screwch hat off because I was being responsible.
45:00: Direct sales, I actually think in combination with your newsletters is one of the best ways to test.
45:07: Yeah.
45:07: The potential market response of a book, sell direct to your own newsletter for a couple of weeks before you release it out into Amazon or Wide or wherever you're going to do it.
45:17: Get that feedback, especially if you're growing your audience, you're developing your craft, because then it acts as kind of like a, a smaller test audience, a, a lab to percolate in, because those are your super fans.
45:27: So they'll be most honest about the things they love and most honest about the things they hate.
45:32: Mhm.
45:33: So especially if you don't want to dive right into direct sales right away, big time, yeah, this is definitely a way you could do it pre-sell through your newsletter.
45:42: Send them to Curios.
45:43: Send them to, I don't, I still don't recommend Shopify if you're just starting out.
45:47: Like, me, me neither.
45:49: Don't, don't, don't do that to yourself, bro.
45:52: Just also the cost, like, you're gonna be burning dollars, and it's better to spend those dollars in a lot of other ways, like a lot, you know, if you've got the money to spend.
46:02: Even if you have the money to spend, spend it in another way, I think, you know, it's a huge bias of mine, but it's a great platform, it's very powerful, but it's best at power, at that full power scale, it's best.
46:14: I don't think it's best, like, if you have one book or one series, I think it's a little too much of a tool and too expensive and then has a lot of setup required for it, you know, so.
46:26: Do you see any reader churn on Curios?
46:29: Do you have that data?
46:30: Like our readers coming from an author and then they're browsing and purchasing from other authors.
46:36: So not too much.
46:38: So that's kind of, it's a, it's a good topic of what we have going on at Curios.
46:43: So Curios first and foremost, we built Curios as a direct platform.
46:48: So, you upload your stuff in our backend system, you set up your tool, you get it live, you have your dedicated page for your book, dedicated page for you as an author, you know, and you can drive traffic there.
46:59: So it's like, Your parents, whoever is gonna be your first reader, your parents, your spouse, your sibling, whatever it is, your best friend.
47:07: You can send them that way, you know, we have tons of data.
47:10: So, primarily speaking, majority of transactions on Curios are routed in from the author or somebody on behalf of the author, right?
47:19: A newsletter swap, an influencer who is then driving traffic that way.
47:24: So, the marketplace is something we built as a secondary feature.
47:27: The secondary feature of the marketplace is like, you're gonna drive traffic, as our readership grows, we then can cross pollinate cross route, we try to be super respectful about it.
47:37: So say that you bring someone to book one of your series, we're not gonna be like, hey, they read this book one, let's send them a book two that's a different author.
47:45: It's or 3 rows of also bots on your product page.
47:48: Definitely, definitely not.
47:50: So it's basically like if they're in one of your series, we don't touch them.
47:55: The best route, what we do is we'll be like, hey, next up, book two, you know, we don't touch them, but if they've gone through a series and there's been a time period on it, it's kind of like, hey, maybe we can re-engage them with similar content.
48:08: So we're doing a lot of work trying to map that content together of being like, OK, if one person read this book, finished it, another person read that same book and finished it, and each of them read and finished another book, OK, we can swap those, you know.
48:22: But again, it's in a tasteful way, so we're trying to add much more of that.
48:26: That's our biggest kind of expansion vector is how do we get the marketplace to be more of a cross-pollinating place, because the cool thing about our marketplace is, If you land someone and they do theoretically leave your direct page and go find someone else and purchase it, well, they went and supported another author 100%, and hopefully that comes back to you at some point in the future, you know, and the reality is that doesn't really happen very much.
48:49: routing out of your individual page is very hard.
48:52: It'd be more if somebody finishes something, they go browsing.
48:55: You know, we're trying to set up our marketplace as a place where the consumer has a lot of comfort knowing that, well, my money is going to go to the person who made this, and then they're gonna make more cool stuff as a result, and hopefully our content will be better and better in the future, and not as much of like, in the movies are the worst.
49:13: Where it's like sequel, remake, you know, that's all you get, and it's like hopefully we can kind of get more diversity of content and more unique stuff as a result, when you start supporting the people who make things, you know.
49:27: If only somebody had a tool where a bunch of authors could, you know, cross promote their books and send them to a platform together, I think somebody should do before it wasn't a great author program built into this one awesome tool.
49:39: It does a ton of other things for you.
49:41: Yeah, I think you've stumbled on something.
49:43: Maybe we should call it like, maybe like funnel books.
49:49: No, I should be branded orange.
49:51: Yeah, yes, yes, but I think that's, that's.
49:55: It's interesting because like those what you said about when readers get routed in they're from that author or however the author's getting them there that's where they're they wind up making their purchase and that's that's an interesting like because you, you probably can't say the same thing about Amazon and I know this for a fact as somebody who has run meta ads but also used what Amazon's own tracking.
50:23: Yeah, Specifically, a, you're not supposed to do this, so this might get me in trouble, but, but the, the, I'm, I'm, I'm blanking right now, but the, all this will get cut out affiliate ID, yes, the affiliate link, yes, as somebody hit now, and I've used it in other ways, not just for that.
50:42: OK, yeah, so technically, yes, you're not supposed to run ads directly to an Amazon affiliate link.
50:47: You can send it to a landing page and then there can be an affiliate link there, and that's not a problem, but it's the direct sending.
50:53: But having used those affiliate links, by the way, to filter that traffic, you don't want to send them.
51:00: Direct to Amazon.
51:02: Bingo.
51:03: Yeah, that's a, that's an ammo of course lesson right there coming out live because that's very true.
51:08: you need to kind of like land them, explain, get them to be really hooked, you know, Amazon's not gonna.
51:16: When you use an affiliate link.
51:18: You see what they buy instead.
51:22: You see the books that they buy instead of yours and toaster, yeah, exactly.
51:27: Well, I did have somebody buy a PlayStation 5 once, which I was not upset about at all.
51:33: Yeah, it's a bit of a pity like that was a that was a good chunk of change, but, but it's still like I'm not competing with a PlayStation 5.
51:41: I know that.
51:43: But you get to see like, OK, it can give you an idea of like, OK, were my ads targeted correctly, or again, did they just show up and like they were a buyer, they just didn't buy my book, and so, right, well, Amazon doesn't necessarily, it's hard to speak on their behalf, but they don't necessarily care about you individually, you know, their goal is like the consumer they want the consumer to spend.
52:06: So if the consumer one landed spends, they're happy.
52:09: Whether it's on you or not, that's not their problem, you know, they've offloaded all that risk onto you.
52:15: So that's their, I'm speaking on behalf of them.
52:18: I don't know for a fact, but I can sort of suss out from all their actions that that's probably their end goal is they want that consumer to spend.
52:25: And so if they got the consumer to spend, they're so happy, you know, and that's why they show everything, right?
52:30: They show also bots the several rows.
52:32: They do show me the toilet paper that they know that I'm probably out of because I ordered it, you know, a month ago.
52:38: So, like, they, they know, they know how to serve me things that I'm likely to purchase, and that can distract from your objective of You know, getting your work in front of the right people, which is pretty tough.
52:51: So, right.
52:52: I don't know, it just seems so scattered to me, and I, I fully admit I'm not the smartest cookie, but it's like, if somebody lands on my product page, Amazon, they're halfway to the sale.
53:02: Why don't you close that sale first before you start sending them like other stuff.
53:07: Like I never did get that.
53:09: It's hard for me to criticize because it's like they're obviously moving so much product, like an unbelievable amount of product every single minute of every single day.
53:16: So they've optimized things some some way, but to me I'm like, it's not a high converting sales page, you know, from what you would learn, you know, in a course about like direct sales, it's like, that is by definition very non-high converting, you know, high conversion is like you give them kind of one option, and it's like, here's Do the thing.
53:35: You're here.
53:35: You did it.
53:35: You got here, do it, you know, or you give them like that last minute like kick, like quick discount if you buy in the next 20 minutes or something like that, just like get them across the line, but they don't necessarily do that, you know.
53:45: I, I think it's because Amazon is just so ubiquitous.
53:48: Like if you imagine like if, if you got sent to another platform and they try to pitch you like toilet paper like you said, like you'd be like, why?
53:55: Like what are you doing?
53:56: But we've just come to accept it with Amazon because we're so used to ordering.
54:02: This, that or the other from them.
54:04: Like I'll have packages showing up at my front door that my wife has ordered like, what is this one, right?
54:11: Yeah, where you're like, what did I order?
54:13: Yeah, yeah.
54:14: Oh cool, and yeah.
54:17: And, and it is, you know, so it's, it's just so they've definitely created that there's, there's an effect they've had on all industries, but in, in particular, this one, which is that you have to You have to stand out in the right way for it to work on Amazon, and I think there are authors who have tried Amazon, tried running meta ads, because nobody does Amazon ads, and, and it didn't work, and they're like, OK, I guess I just can't sell my book.
54:49: Nobody wants it, but they haven't done this direct method, which is, you have so much more control over, and you have control over that experience when they, when they get there.
55:01: like, you know, like Emma said, before they even, you know, warming them up once they land on your, your page before they make the purchase, which is something that Amazon is not gonna do.
55:12: They've optimized Amazon for themselves, big, big time.
55:16: Yes, that's exactly right, right.
55:18: And so you have to play that game of, of, and which.
55:23: The game doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna be a failure outside of that's super leveled, like, so there's the game, and then also like within certain genres, Amazon has data where they're like, this is what should sell, and if you're not, if you don't meet that exact combination of genre trope, etc.
55:39: to like fit their bubble of what they think people really want, they're not really gonna show it very well, you know, and so that's a common thing too, if you're writing something that's a little bit out of the norm.
55:49: That it doesn't really debut well at first, and that's where direct debuts well cause it's not that I don't, I think readers are looking for something new and exciting.
55:59: You know, Dannion Carlo Carl, great example, was like, totally different, straight up.
56:03: I've never read anything like it, you know, I know that RPG is a whole category now, but like that was my first foray into it and I was like, wow, you know, but in the Amazon world, when something like that comes out, they don't, they don't love that kind of new risky stuff.
56:18: You know, they want you to just be like, oh, this person finished a space opera, throw them another space opera, you know, and it's like, and that does work.
56:24: Like, I mean, look, the amount of fantasy books that I've read that are literally the hero's journey.
56:29: I'll do it again.
56:29: I'll do it every day of my life, and I like it every single time.
56:32: I don't really mind, but it's one of those things where like, I think that they know that, and you have to kind of fit their mold.
56:37: So if your book is not about to make Amazon a bunch of money, they're not about to show it.
56:42: Which is why AMS ads suck, unless your book is already doing well.
56:49: It's a crime.
56:50: I think it's a crime to then pay the company who's going to take a huge percentage of your sale.
56:55: It's like I'm paying you to take a, it's like that's why you're taking a huge percent of my sale is that you're supposed to do that legwork, and now I've got to pay you to then take a a fantastic cut.
57:06: It, it hurts.
57:07: That's like the most punishing when, when you're breaking even, but you're moving product, you're just like.
57:14: Right, you know, the only authors I've heard that have had that have had success with AMS ads are nonfiction authors.
57:21: Or fiction authors that have such a huge backlist that that they like they are there it's this shotgun method and that's the only case where I've I've heard that it actually has an impact and is worth it, at least anecdotally of course but But, but, you know, and Facebook is, is one thing.
57:45: There's, there's other options out there too.
57:47: There's a lot of authors I know that are dipping into like Reddit, Reddit ads.
57:51: From what I've heard, it's harder to get them to be as profitable, but they do, they do work.
57:56: And so there's, there's other platforms out there for, for advertising too, that if you're at that stage again, right, where you're ready to start doing some advertising.
58:08: Some, some paid ads, you, you have options.
58:11: While my ADHD brain is focusing.
58:14: Don't think that going direct will cannibalize your Amazon sales.
58:18: I'm going to put on my Amo student hat.
58:21: I do listen to the teacher.
58:24: So what they teach in Amo is that He says, he sees a direct correlation between, your direct sales and your Amazon sales.
58:33: So if you're on the fence about something like that, especially if you're doing something more experimental like the Reddit ads, and you don't know if I would do Reddit ads for direct ROI.
58:40: I, I don't know, Jack, that'd be more of an exposure platform long term game.
58:45: I don't, I think you'd have to dabble with that some more, but like, yeah.
58:50: Chris Fox was the first author I heard who used them, and he to, to great success.
58:56: so science fiction, you're thinking you're dialing in like, like in a way that you can't necessarily do on Facebook.
59:03: Even Facebook doesn't necessarily give you that like you can dial in on the specific subreddit, like, you know, the Battlestar Galactica subreddit, right, which would be, which would be my people, right?
59:15: For example, so.
59:18: I think it, it, it's a more precise tool in that respect, but it's gonna depend from one author.
59:25: Yeah, genre, very genre dependent, I would say too, yeah, genre, I would imagine, yeah, and you might be surprised what subreddits.
59:33: would yield the best results.
59:35: And so I think there's probably some misconcept, like authors go in with an idea of like, OK, this is what, this is what it's gonna be like, but you gotta understand.
59:44: Just because somebody reads your genre doesn't mean that they are on Reddit in your in that subreddit, right?
59:51: Like they're, they're gonna be in multiple different places so it's more of a, it's more of a pool of people who you could access.
59:58: It's not necessarily, it might not be your pool, but there is a pool there, yeah, for sure.
1:00:03: We have a, we have an interesting tool that we're developing right now, and we're kind of like starting the beta process of it, but it's.
1:00:11: We'll see how it goes.
1:00:12: It's a, it's, it's just affiliate program, but it's like, it's a permissionless affiliate program for people to sell your book, so.
1:00:20: When you get a, basically on curios, you get 100%.
1:00:23: You now can offer up a percentage to an affiliate, and you can make it juicy, you know.
1:00:30: So the way that it's working now is we're like being like, hey, offer between 5 and 50% of your booksale and then essentially that opens the doors for other author newsletter swap where it's like You're swapping and it's performance based, so you're not gonna have to be like, well, look, I've got a 5000 person newsletter, you got a 200, I can't do a swap with you, but it's like, I'll hit my 5000 readers with something and then I get 30% of each sale juicy, you know, so it kind of opens the doors to sharing.
1:00:59: The original goal with it is that, the hardest, I think the ultimate hardest part of direct sales that we definitely have not solved, I don't think anybody's really solved is the promotional marketing work, right?
1:01:10: It's like what you're learning in ammo is a very strong system, you know, but it is still.
1:01:16: It's exhausting and it's cost heavy.
1:01:18: It's very exhausting.
1:01:19: I mean, it involves micro refinement on a regular basis.
1:01:23: You're kind of constantly refining the micro of your landing page, your ad copy, your creative, mostly the landing page really, I think.
1:01:31: But where I'm going with it is the hardest work you have ahead of you, I think the hardest work you have ahead of you, whether you're direct or trat or indirect like KDP is promotion.
1:01:41: You just gotta be promoting.
1:01:43: And so we're trying to Trying to make a way for people who like to promote, to have a lot of success with it, you know, so it's like if you get to be, if you get to fill the shoes of Amazon and you're taking 30% per ebook.
1:01:56: And you're a very good book talker or influencer.
1:01:59: Well, now you can make some serious cash and the author can also win too.
1:02:05: So we're, we're, we're, I thought of influencers when you first said that, when you first mentioned that influencers was the first thing that came to mind because I don't know, authors, I, I don't, I still don't believe that most authors are actually best at selling books.
1:02:20: No authors know how to sell books.
1:02:21: Yeah, and, and like I said or to go back to, to what I said earlier, like Dungeon Crawler Carl is out, out of Matt Denneman's hands now.
1:02:30: It's in the hands of the book talkers, right?
1:02:33: It is them talking about it and spreading the word and imagine if they were sharing an affiliate link, as they're doing it for, for Matt, maybe that would be a net negative just with the sheer volume.
1:02:44: Like it's, it's like, but for the average author.
1:02:48: I think that would sweeten the pot for some of those influencers, which means that you as the author approaching them, you have, you have a little bit more to negotiate with.
1:02:59: Like you can get 50 50% cut on everything that sells.
1:03:03: Here's a link, right.
1:03:04: Yeah, and I think that's a big deal.
1:03:05: We have 22 levers on it.
1:03:07: One is you, as the author, can set a discount for when someone uses that link to help the influencer too.
1:03:12: So you can be like, 10% discount applied when someone uses the link and that influencer grabs 30%, and it'd be 30%.
1:03:19: The way you have a structured now, it's 30% of the net.
1:03:21: So the 10% is reduced and then 30% of the remaining goes to the influencer, and then you would keep 70% on that.
1:03:28: So it's kind of like.
1:03:30: Hopefully making those conversations easier is what we're looking for and it's, it's new, so we're in the, what I was mentioning earlier of you put it out, we're gonna get so much feedback in the next like 4 or 5 months and then that will then turn into something hopefully quite nice, but we're in the early stages of the feedback now and the first round was like wow, we shouldn't have even pushed that one out, but all right, you know, so that's how it goes, yeah, that's how it goes sometimes.
1:03:56: I, I really agree with what you said though, Jack, because it's like I think.
1:04:00: There's a rare author.
1:04:01: There are a few rare authors who are very good at selling books and promoting themselves and being in that limelight.
1:04:06: It's not the norm.
1:04:08: I also don't necessarily think it should be required.
1:04:12: I think that it's like truly different parts of the brain, and like what makes a good author is not what makes a good influential figure.
1:04:21: And I just think that like having that separation is not, it means the books are good, you know, I don't know.
1:04:26: I mean it's not to say that influencers aren't gonna write good books, but it's just like, The ability for someone to dive in at a certain level is just different.
1:04:34: I don't know.
1:04:34: So letting do what they do best, you know, right.
1:04:39: One of the best ways I think that I know from personal experience and having witnessed this to, to learn how to sell books as an author is to sell them to readers in person.
1:04:50: Yeah, because there's, there's nothing in between.
1:04:53: It's like you and the reader face to face and you have to pitch the book to them.
1:04:56: Yes, and you learn, so I, I did a couple of weeks back, a small local Comic-Con here in Iowa, Davenport, shout out to Planet Funk Con.
1:05:07: For anybody who might stumble upon this, right?
1:05:10: And it, it's a, you know, the one thing I know I worry about sometimes is the asking price, like, yeah, my prices right, or, and I had, I, I come to the event with new pricing, and I was a little nervous, like, OK, is this gonna go, or am I gonna tell people the price, and they're just gonna be like, OK, no, and they're gonna walk away.
1:05:28: But one person did, and they weren't very interested in the first place.
1:05:32: Nobody else questioned it.
1:05:34: The price is irrelevant.
1:05:36: It's like, do you, in, in person, it's like, do you tell them the things that they're actually looking for, like, oh yeah, that's the thing.
1:05:44: That's the thing I'm looking for, that's what I want.
1:05:46: Are you mentioning the right tropes?
1:05:48: Are you giving them the right comparables?
1:05:50: Like, for me, it's like, this was inspired by this, and this is like what inspired me to write the book and Some people want to dig deeper and ask you more questions, but most of the time they want to get a surface level idea for it, and be like, OK, I'm in, what's the price?
1:06:07: And as long as the price sounds reasonable, and it doesn't sound like way too high, they're like, OK, let's go.
1:06:12: And I, I think that gives you a lot of perspective then when it comes to advertising your digital books or through your direct store.
1:06:22: Because what matters is not the price tag that you show them, it's everything leading up to that.
1:06:28: And you're, you can't be deceptive there though, because if you're like a, you know, if you're a snake oil salesman, you could say that, oh yeah, this book will change your life, and that's not what it is.
1:06:37: You have to be genuine and honest about what the book is about, but You kind of get a feel for like what they react to and, and what triggers the like, OK, yeah, we're good.
1:06:47: You said the thing I wanted to hear.
1:06:49: Different audiences react to because that's one of the things I learned at Dragon Steel with my romantic high fantasy is I would get men coming up, then I would get women, and I learned very quickly to shift the pitch.
1:07:03: And I wasn't lying, but you focus on different things, different segments, and then see what happens.
1:07:10: So big time and a book has lots of things happen in a book.
1:07:14: You know, so it's like, focus on the romance element of one in one person, and then you can focus on like, you know, the action sequence.
1:07:22: Yeah, it's just like, yeah, and that happened in the book.
1:07:24: Yeah, yeah.
1:07:26: And your and your booth is kind of like an ad.
1:07:28: In a way, you're designing it like an ad, and when people walk by, you know, I, I walked by other authors' booths and, and so forth, and you see.
1:07:39: You see the good, the bad, and the ugly, and no, like, I don't never gonna name names or shame any author for that.
1:07:46: Like, you got to learn how to make it attractive, but it has to, like, it has to scream book, right?
1:07:53: It has to be like book, like not, not just like in all caps, and it's not enough for them because they're gonna be in that case, just walking by.
1:08:03: And if they don't notice like, OK, this is an author selling their books, they're gonna get confused, not know what it is, and they're gonna be gone.
1:08:10: The same kind of experience happens when they see your ad, and they're like, oh, this is interesting, and like, what is this?
1:08:16: And they click on it, and they're like, they were expecting one thing and then they get there and it's something else.
1:08:22: Or you just didn't communicate like, oh, I thought this was a mobile game.
1:08:25: OK, never mind, and they move on, or, or, or what have you, or the, the ones that get me now are the opposite of that.
1:08:32: There's some I've seen where it's like, oh, this looks like an almost like an author is doing it.
1:08:36: Like, let me click on this, and it's a mobile game.
1:08:40: Yeah, OK, man, that would have been a great book, right?
1:08:42: So same sort of thing, I think that's, that's a place.
1:08:47: To Especially if you do it locally, local events could be cheap.
1:08:53: You can cut your teeth on a lot of that stuff for a pretty low price tag, you know, in many cases, don't do the big cons, don't spend even 100 bucks on a table, find something really local, you can, it's like 2040 bucks, something like that, and just put your books on the table and you talk to people.
1:09:08: The, the thing that's important to note is like, on an ad, and even on a landing page, you do your best to understand what happened.
1:09:16: You can like keep map a landing page, you track your clicks, you're looking at your metrics.
1:09:21: But you're losing like 99% of the reaction.
1:09:25: But when you're speaking with someone, you can watch the body language change.
1:09:29: You can watch when they lose focus, when they pay attention, when they get excited, like what caused the actual moment of conversion, and when you're at a booth like that, you get to iterate like hundreds of times in such a rapid succession that like you'll naturally sort of improve and find the right path to it, and it's like, For us, our first author nation, that was our first author-based conference we went to, and I remember just getting that and I was like, whoa, this because platform you could talk about a million different things that we do, but it's like some of the things were important to mention and some are totally not important.
1:10:06: I just wanna know like.
1:10:08: Database architecture, they don't care, you know, it's like, so it's like stuff like that, but you get, you get those reps in, and that lets you know, OK, well, like, here's my meat and potatoes, you know, and then you can use that into your ad space where you have less feedback.
1:10:22: There's so much less feedback on the ad.
1:10:23: You try your best, but there's a lot less feedback there, you know, so you know.
1:10:28: Yeah, no, for sure.
1:10:29: And then you go to a different conference altogether and you start, you try to use the same things, the same talking points.
1:10:36: I've experienced this with book funnel, with indie authors like we know our, we know the, the stuff they wanna hear, and we've been doing more events where trad authors are there like that San Francisco Writers conference, and it's a totally different shift.
1:10:50: It's like you tell them, oh, you can use it to build a mailing list, and they're like, Why would I want to do that?
1:10:56: You're like, it sounds like retarded Nantucket.
1:10:58: Is that, that doesn't help me retard in Nantucket?
1:10:59: Yeah, no, it's, it's a totally different thing.
1:11:01: Well, it's a sad sometimes the conversation is sad.
1:11:03: You're like, Well, if we, I hope the best for your pitch, but if it doesn't work, we are literally here and you're gonna love what happens after.
1:11:12: But it's like very hard.
1:11:13: That's a, it's a sad, you know.
1:11:15: That's how I always try to word it in those is I'm just like I really do hope for the best for them.
1:11:19: Like I want them to succeed, you know, at all times it's like, and I wanna be clear, yeah, I want to be clear that I'm, I'm not taking a shot at trad authors or trad aspiring authors.
1:11:29: I'm just suggesting that building a mailing list is.
1:11:31: a really useful thing for you, even in your trad career.
1:11:35: So exactly like having a like even a lead magnet for your trad published book, great idea, right?
1:11:40: Like get a little novella on it and you know, leave them at a cliffhanger that drops them right into the next book.
1:11:46: Like great idea.
1:11:47: You know that will work for you a lot longer than the trad marketing arm will work for you, you know, like, drive sales through, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, to, to come, to come back from something that Emma mentioned of just, you know, like how does Curios work to reduce that amount of admin and reduce the amount of friction required to then get your direct sales up and going.
1:12:09: I can kind of briefly sort of cover it tip to tail.
1:12:13: So we talked about how you've got the ability to get a book live on your dedicated page, you get your dedicated author page, dedicated series page, things like that.
1:12:20: So, your moment to going live from having a file on your computer to being live is super fast.
1:12:27: So you can be up and running, I'd say call it 10 minutes worst case if it's your first time on the platform.
1:12:32: In 10 minutes, you got a literal live page you can send people to.
1:12:38: That page is hosted on Curios.com, you know, it's got your branding after that in the URL.
1:12:43: You also get what's called a direct checkout link, so that's something you can use, like, especially in the Amo world, where you're gonna be funneling people through ads to a landing page.
1:12:54: You can have your buy button be that direct checkout link, and that link then just goes straight to a stripe page that Curios runs, so we become the merchant of record for that, but it just takes them to the checkout, so you've sold them on the landing page, they want to buy that bundle of books, boom, they hit the button, Curios-based checkout page, they then can check out there, that establishes us as the merchant of record.
1:13:18: It establishes us for all customer support that then becomes oriented about transaction or refund, whatever it is.
1:13:25: That puts us first in line for that.
1:13:27: It also puts us on the hook for fraud, and you know, everything kind of down the line from there.
1:13:32: So that's a really nice tool for the ammo folks.
1:13:36: We see a huge percentage of our daily sales are Amo authors.
1:13:41: Like I know they went through that program because they're running their ad budget.
1:13:44: They have a set budget every day.
1:13:46: I also see like when the sales stop, I can kind of estimate like how many, how much they run, and then they, they almost all of them are using those direct checkout links.
1:13:53: So you don't necessarily have to go to a dedicated curios page, you could then just use us as the merchant of record to then handle that difficult stuff after.
1:14:02: But a lot of other tools that we do to help, right?
1:14:05: So, we, garner the customer email address, of course, we handle delivery, book funnel is an option and it's used widely on our platform, you know, if you're in, if you're in indie and you've been selling direct or Putting your books out there, your readership loves Book Funnel, and so having that adds a lot of trust, helps with a lot of conversion.
1:14:24: So basically when they see that book funnel as an option on the sales page, it's like boom, I know I'm good, you know, so that helps a lot there.
1:14:30: We handle the customer support, especially surrounding surrounding transaction, anything like that.
1:14:35: We also Add tracking for you, so you can have separate links have separate trackability.
1:14:43: So it all can end up on the same direct checkout link, or it can end on the same detail page, but you can track your clicks.
1:14:50: So you can use one link for your newsletter, you can use another link for your Facebook ads, you can use a third link for another method of promotion, and then you can just start to see, OK.
1:15:00: Of the people who hit the page, literally, I can see that this was, you know, the predominant amount came from Facebook ad or whatever it is, newsletter, and then you know, OK, good, good to know this, I can start doubling down here, you know, putting a little more effort into one versus another, so that helps a lot.
1:15:18: We, if they end up like listening to the audiobook in our app or reading in our app, we output analytics on it, so you'll know completion rates, you'll know start, you know, you don't know the exact person, but you'll know in aggregate, if you have 300 reads on our platform, you'll know, OK, out of 300 how many people started, you know how many people ended, which is kind of nice to have.
1:15:37: We've got sales analytics, of course, too, so what your conversion rates are, you can put your metappixel in, so you can start to track and do conversion-based ads that way, which is really nice.
1:15:46: So long story short, we try to make it so.
1:15:50: You'll upload the book, and then you'll have your system in place, and then you can just go work on building funnels and promoting, or work on writing more books, you know, sort of thing.
1:16:01: So we're trying to make everything down the line basically very, very easy for you, so that you're up and running right away, and then on a cost standpoint, we charge monthly, it ranges from $0 to $50 a month.
1:16:16: Right now, I was just discussing this with somebody yesterday.
1:16:19: We're in what I call like the golden era of our business, where Anybody who is making money on our platform, they are paying us, so we're not having to force people into the paid plan, but we're probably gonna have to end that at some point.
1:16:34: I know that ultimately it gets abused.
1:16:37: But it's one of those things where the free tool is pretty powerful.
1:16:42: And so, you know, my advice to others is like, use it, like, Just do it, you know, like, go make a ton of money direct and then pay us monthly for the tool after, you know, sort of thing.
1:16:55: What's the term for the payouts.
1:16:58: It's it's weekly, so payouts are weekly.
1:17:00: They happen on Friday, yeah, so it's fabulous, especially if you're running ads and you need, you need that capital back right away.
1:17:08: On the higher tier plans, you can request immediate, so you can basically be like request the payout as the money comes in.
1:17:14: There is, on your first probably 5 sales, I would expect like a 3 to 5 waiting day period to make sure transactions clear and stuff from a fraud standpoint, we're like, you know, on your 1st 5 we're gonna be a little slow, but expect weekly, weekly payouts, and then it's automatic to your bank, so, you know, you can just route them that way.
1:17:35: Yeah, there's lots more, I'm trying to think of what else we cover and help with.
1:17:40: I mentioned the, oh, print, so this is something interesting too.
1:17:44: You don't have to be direct with everything, as we've talked about a lot.
1:17:48: You can be direct with just some stuff, right?
1:17:50: So, awesome place to start.
1:17:53: Lead magnet, use book funnel, get a link, just catch those emails, like that is like a really awesome first foray into building some foundational business.
1:18:03: But you can also do things, break them up by format, right?
1:18:06: So you can be locked in KU, have your e-books in there, totally fine, maybe pull your audiobooks out, try going direct with one audio or several audiobooks, you know, and see how that goes.
1:18:17: In the audiobook world especially, Audible's rates are horrible.
1:18:22: So it's like, you can't set your own pricing, and you're losing a huge percentage of the sale, so it's kind of like, unless you're talking massive volume, which I hope, hope everybody sees, so they don't have to worry about it, but unless you're trying that, it's like, it's best just catch all that money, you know, like, Get 100% of that.
1:18:41: But print's another awesome place too, so, you can sell print on curios as well.
1:18:46: We've got two options now, which are self-fulfillment or print on demand via book vault.
1:18:50: So, you can kind of switch between the two depending on what you're offering, what works for you.
1:18:55: If you're doing like a bundle box, book, plushies, stuff like that, candle, whatever it is.
1:19:01: Just self-fulfill that cause you'll probably be assembling it.
1:19:04: We've got other solutions coming for that too.
1:19:05: We're gonna be working with the lenders, they've got awesome micro fulfillment, print fulfill stuff.
1:19:11: We're gonna be working with Lulu for print on demand as well.
1:19:14: We're working with, David Vergotz.
1:19:16: He's got an awesome 3PL which stands for like third-party logistics.
1:19:21: Basically it means Instead of sending, say you're gonna order Amazon author copies, grab 50 books, inventory them at your house, and then you're selling online and you're shipping from your house.
1:19:30: Instead of doing that, you just say Amazon author copies, deliver them to David's warehouse, and then David on a per order basis, an order comes in on Curios, we send the order to David, David picks, packs it, sends it to the customer.
1:19:43: So you get to be Anyone who's done self-fulfillment out of your house, when you go on vacation and you forget to turn it off, you panic cause you're like, oh gosh, I'm not gonna be home for 7 days, and that orders, the orders are coming in and I didn't turn it off, you know, and I've got to get this book.
1:19:59: I gotta have a friend come by and pack.
1:20:00: It's like horrible, you know.
1:20:03: So that can help.
1:20:04: The 3PL I love to recommend for people who are selling like 50 books or more a month.
1:20:10: Basically offload that, you know, let a professional team, they just send them out so much faster.
1:20:16: The books ship same day, so you get to be a lot more competitive from an expectation standpoint, you know, with people who shop on Amazon and things like that, right?
1:20:25: So the foray into print is pretty strong too, and print is a beast.
1:20:29: So, curios is the merchant of record, we then are the ones responsible for tax.
1:20:34: So that's where in the print world, tax is real bad.
1:20:37: In the digital world, it's not fun either.
1:20:39: You gotta make sure you're like accounting for VAT and things like that, but it's the print world that's everything's taxed.
1:20:45: So that lets us, we're the ones who collect, file, do the taxes for your book.
1:20:51: Takes away a lot of admin, and if you're using a print on demand solution or a 3PL you get to be hands-free, you know, you're just, You're out, right?
1:20:59: So you're, our goal in print, we're not there yet, but our goal in print is to have allow you to have the same kind of backseat as you would being Tradpub, but you get to keep all of your, your funds, you aggregate email addresses, you know, but you're still the same power of distribution and delivery and things like that.
1:21:20: So that's kind of our end goal is that like, OK, can we give you that same level of convenience that Trad provides without, you know, Losing out on the email address or losing out on a percentage.
1:21:32: And in my opinion, the email address is a big loss.
1:21:34: You know, and, and like not even Trad knows the email address of who buys it, right?
1:21:39: So it's like they're distributing distributors and that's going out from there, so they don't even know, they can't, they could never tell you your readership, you know, so you get, our goal is to have you collect those things, but then still be able to know, offer to offer print, you know, because print.
1:21:55: On a revenue standpoint, print brings in a lot of revenue, you know.
1:22:00: $15 book versus a $5 ebook.
1:22:02: It's, it's a big difference in revenue.
1:22:04: So when you can kind of keep more of that $15 it's nice, you know what I mean?
1:22:08: So.
1:22:10: I just talked for a lot though.
1:22:11: Can I go back to y'all for a little bit on that?
1:22:13: Yeah, no, I, I think print is something that, that it's something that I think gets slept on, especially by authors who have been in the space for a while, because if you were around when the Kindle came out.
1:22:25: And you were around during that, like the e-book revolution is like, oh, e-books are the future.
1:22:30: And you're all in on that and really focused on e-book publishing.
1:22:33: And then, and I know myself too, like when I first published some of the, some of my books, even in like 2019, primarily focused on ebooks.
1:22:43: And then people be like, well, where's, where's the paperback?
1:22:46: Like, I want the physical book.
1:22:47: And it's obviously, you know, book funnel, we built our business around digital distribution.
1:22:53: So it's not like we don't think that that's a worthwhile endeavor, but you can't ignore print.
1:22:58: You, you, if you are, you are, you are literally cutting yourself off at the knees.
1:23:03: Yeah, and it's, I think now like numbers, they vary, but it's like, you know, maybe call it like 60% print, 40% digital.
1:23:10: I don't know if that is what you guys see as authors or not, but depends on it depends on genre, of course, sure, we had, we talked to Kevin J.
1:23:18: Anderson.
1:23:19: About this on the podcast the last time he was here and he's a big skeptic of that number that those type of numbers tend to come from more trad like of course most sales are print and trad published print, of course you need us and his argument was like, well, are they Are they counting all the sales on Amazon?
1:23:40: Is Amazon giving them all their numbers?
1:23:43: Are they getting the couple million books that are being sold and delivered through B funnel every single month?
1:23:50: Like, no, they're not capturing all that data.
1:23:54: Cut, you're breaking up, Jack.
1:23:56: I'm not sure if you're actually here still.
1:23:58: Yeah, it seems like he's the one who's out.
1:24:00: He's like, Amazon was logged in, they were like, stop this conversation now.
1:24:06: I worry about that every once in a while.
1:24:08: I know, yeah, it's like I do love them delivering toilet paper to my house, so it's like, I don't wanna upset them too badly, you know, by talking smack about them, but also like, You brought it on yourself, you know, just be a little kinder to indies and life will be good for you.
1:24:25: Well, I mean, so many indies, especially in the last year, have been totally priced out of Kindle Unlimited.
1:24:32: I know I, I pulled my entire, 2 years ago, I pulled my entire catalog because it was getting so ridiculous.
1:24:37: It got to the point where it was like, Amazon literally got So bad with the Kindle Unlimited that it was a no brainer for me to pull it and go direct.
1:24:45: Like, at this point, I don't have anything left to lose.
1:24:48: Yeah, exactly.
1:24:48: Yeah, you're not looking at a loss of income.
1:24:51: Yeah, that makes sense.
1:24:52: I have no idea what they're thinking about.
1:24:54: Like, I, I think, I don't know, I've got my own opinions, but I think that they're a huge organization now.
1:25:01: And so while they started in books, it's now just stepchild scenario.
1:25:05: They don't, yeah, it's like they've got AWS and That brings in so much revenue for them that they're just like, It's not as big of a hate that with a passion, like my job is not to make money for you.
1:25:20: I know, yeah, I know, I do too.
1:25:23: Oh, you said AWS.
1:25:24: My mind immediately went to AMS ads.
1:25:27: No, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, I hate that too.
1:25:29: I just think it's a, I think it's a total conflict of interest.
1:25:31: It's like.
1:25:32: Well, if you have your own ad program, there's a complete conflict of interest on, you know, what you're supposed to do at this, at this organization, so I think that's where it's like, yeah, AWS, the, the, the Amazon Web Services, it's just bringing in so many billions like that it just eclipses the marketplace completely now, which is really funny.
1:25:51: So then their focus is not as much on that marketplace side.
1:25:54: Obviously Books, e-books, audiobooks still bring a decent amount of revenue through Amazon, so they have employees and staff working on it, but I think at a corporate level they're like, I think also in any corporation that's publicly traded, and this is why like Book Funnel is an amazing company, is that you're founder led, you know, so you get to focus on what you care about, and you don't have to have a shareholder and then a board, and then like basically you're just shedding all this responsibility down the line cause it's like, Well, the authors are gonna suffer, but like, we have to serve the shareholders.
1:26:26: Like the CEO is like, well, we're just doing what the shareholder wants, and the shareholders like, I don't know, I just bought stock.
1:26:30: I don't have wants, you know, so it's like nobody's ending up being responsible, but they end up needing to report better numbers and better things like that, and that, that bothers me.
1:26:39: You know, so, founder-led businesses, you get to be, you get to have, you know, the things you care about.
1:26:46: So it's like, And it's just like being in India, you can be so much more responsive, even though, yeah.
1:26:53: It it still takes time for the engineering and the coders and all of that to respond to requests and author needs.
1:27:00: It's, it's still a lot faster than moving like a huge Yeah, well, yeah, if you, if you make a request to Amazon to prove something, they're like, I don't even know that someone sees that, you know what I mean?
1:27:11: Yeah, you do it to book funnel, and I'm sure with Curios, we see those, we see those, we discuss them, and It it they don't go into a black hole.
1:27:21: Like we keep track of them and we know what our, we know what authors want.
1:27:24: We're all authors ourselves too, but exactly.
1:27:26: And that's what helps a lot with y'all that like literally you have finger on the pulse from your own knowledge of things, which is nice.
1:27:34: Who were you consulting with because I was listening to all of the features.
1:27:37: I'm like, he says he's not an author, but he thinks like an author.
1:27:42: Oh, it's just, I mean, it's so many different authors all the time and it's.
1:27:47: I think there's quite a few authors that when they give us feedback, I think they see my reception to it, like how encouraging I am of it, that I think that they're more willing to keep giving it, which is nice.
1:27:59: And then also sometimes they'll give feedback and then we'll implement, and then they'll see that, and then it'll be like, oh, cool, like they're listening, which is nice.
1:28:07: But we have a lot of authors to thank, honestly, so.
1:28:11: The first person who connected me with Damon was Rebecca Hefner, so she reached out independently.
1:28:16: I forget how she found us, but she was like, Hey, I see what you're doing, and I want you to know I love direct sales for audiobooks, especially.
1:28:23: We started out just in audiobooks, right?
1:28:25: So she's like, for audiobooks, especially, like, I need to tell you everything.
1:28:28: And I was like, I'm listening, you know, and then she was the one who was like, you also have to talk to Damon at Book Funnel.
1:28:34: And then when I talked to him, I got sad because I was like, If I knew that Book Funnel existed, I would not have built any of these book delivery features at all, like 0, cause it's like book funnel, you guys do that so well, that it's just like we don't, we don't need to do that at all.
1:28:50: We could just like have book Funnel take that person a portion on, but it was one of those funny things where in the beginning it was like, well, I wish I knew, you know, so just kind of funny, but yeah, lots of authors to thank for it, I think.
1:29:02: So, and hopefully you as well, right?
1:29:05: Come on, bring some books, let me know what you think, you know.
1:29:07: I've actually, I'm actually on Curios.
1:29:11: Yes, I've been there for a while.
1:29:14: OK, and the setup process, I can confirm, took about 5 minutes, and I don't send traffic there because my focus has been on getting my Shopify up.
1:29:25: But as you were talking about the features, I was like, hmm, but I see, I see downloads every once in a while, pretty regular.
1:29:33: I will see, and that's why I asked you about Reader churn, because I'm like, I still get those curious emails like, you've got to download.
1:29:39: I'm like, Who's downloading my book?
1:29:41: Like I always there.
1:29:43: Yeah.
1:29:44: Yeah, that's what, and that's our, that's our work in progress, is our work in progress is like, OK, we got that email.
1:29:50: Can we, can we get them to make a purchase of one of your items?
1:29:53: You know, like how do we then move that along ourselves?
1:29:57: Cause like we'll know, we'll know if they opened it, and so if they opened it, Be like, hey, did you like this?
1:30:02: Get this book.
1:30:03: And then, and then we've got like another thing we're working on is like upsell tools based on that.
1:30:08: So you could be like, all right, if somebody reads my lead magnet, throw them this at a 25% discount at completion or at a certain amount, like, or like if they send a Kindle or send a book funnel, be like, all right, set an amount of days after that, and then hit them with a discount, limited time discount, you know.
1:30:28: So we're just, we're working on, OK, can we Can we like do that?
1:30:32: It's, it's, but that's a big journey, you know.
1:30:35: And those are a lot of the features that make Shopify so valuable.
1:30:38: So if you come along as a competitor and do that for the author, I mean, that's huge.
1:30:44: Big time, yeah.
1:30:45: And Shopify.
1:30:47: Again, it's an awesome tool, so you can do anything you want on it, but then you also have the misery, yeah, if you love misery, and then you have the effect of like, If I shop on your Shopify page and I go to Jack's Shopify page, they're different.
1:31:02: It's different in structure, it's different in how the whole thing works.
1:31:06: And when I get to Shoppay, OK, cool, I know how that works.
1:31:09: It's like I did Shoppay on both sides, super high converting, it's pretty awesome.
1:31:13: So it's like that part is a comforting part, but being on different sites can be difficult, and Amazon has that advantage of like, well, I've bought here before.
1:31:21: I know how it works.
1:31:22: I know how to buy, and so we're trying to hopefully have that be an effect on Curios too, where it's like, Well, this is a curio sales page.
1:31:29: It looks just like another Curios sales page, so I'm not distracted by something else.
1:31:34: It just goes more towards conversion, but again, that's kind of like, it's all that.
1:31:39: Ultra-long journey that we're on trying to Just, yeah, long story short, we're trying to make KDP not be the first solution.
1:31:48: We want your default solution to go to be direct, and it's like it works just as well as something else, but you have a host of advantages, and it puts you in a position of power for what I hope comes next, which would be like, An approach from a traditional publisher being like, yeah, hey, like, we love your work and we're offering you this deal, and you could be like, well, I know, I make this much on that work annually, that deal, you know what I mean?
1:32:11: Give you some semblance of power at those negotiating tables.
1:32:15: And also like, I want more authors to be authors and not be, you know, have a full-time day job and then work on their stuff at night.
1:32:23: It's like, I'm a selfish reader, I wanna read more books, you know, it's like, when authors are producing things at a certain cadence, it's like, hey, it'd be nice if that cadence was increased a little bit because, you know, you don't have to do as much other stuff.
1:32:35: It'd be cool, so, and it's, it's a true pain point because setting up The Shopify and doing the AO course and getting all of that rolling and I have a full-time job and I'm still supposed to be writing.
1:32:47: It's like all of these things cannot exist simultaneously, so it's the man keeping you down, the big orange man.
1:32:55: Keeping you down, complaining about your job on the podcast.
1:32:59: It's part of your job.
1:33:00: man is funding my Shopify.
1:33:05: I know, yeah.
1:33:07: Yeah, that's pretty funny.
1:33:09: I mean, and, and here at Book Funnel too, like, our book funnel is very supportive of what the work we do as authors too, so.
1:33:17: We have like the best case scenario I think if you are gonna have a full-time job and be an author, which I think is a real option for some folks, right, and it's probably the way they would rather do it for security and that sort of thing, yes, but that, yeah, but it doesn't mean you like you could have the full-time job and then still like if you make the rest of that process easier, it's easier for you to like set money aside, save money for like retirement or whatever like.
1:33:43: Like you have, there's lots of things you can do.
1:33:45: It doesn't have to be the whole enchilada, you know what I mean?
1:33:48: That's exactly right, yeah, like, that's the outcome I want for everybody is like to be in a position where they're like.
1:33:54: Just have extra funds because your books were successful and you were the recipient of that success, you know, when you're the recipient of that, it's the the the the hard thing here is that like, I don't think, maybe not any, but almost.
1:34:08: All authors and they're not setting out to become fabulously wealthy from being an author.
1:34:13: They have art, they have a story, they want to make that story, get out into the world, right?
1:34:18: So their initial motivation is not money, you know.
1:34:21: I just think that most authors end up having a problem when they do have a lot of sales.
1:34:27: All the sales came in, but then they're like, well, where was the funds from those?
1:34:30: Like what, what, what happened from that?
1:34:32: You know, when you're not garnering those funds, then, then that is a little bit annoying and problematic.
1:34:36: Your first objective is met, which is that like people read your book, they like your book, your books got popular like that.
1:34:42: I think it's probably the ultimate goal that everybody is looking for.
1:34:47: But after that, it is really nice if the success can be yours, or even not like, Not out of greed, but also out of like, OK, well, like that worked.
1:34:56: I now have funds to then do it again or do it differently or promote or get a new audiences like, you know, those funds can be useful, long story short, so, you know, I know, I know authors aren't greed-based.
1:35:08: I think anybody, if you were getting into this for the money, you'd be, it's the worst decision you could make, you know.
1:35:15: there are some of them, but yeah, we, that's a, that's a topic for another day, Emma, you know who I'm talking about.
1:35:21: It's like I wish you the best, you know, like, but most authors are not at all, right?
1:35:26: I mean, if, if you were in it for the money.
1:35:29: You would be doing very, you'd be approaching this in very different ways.
1:35:33: OK, we, we appreciate you guys.
1:35:35: I think y'all are like literally book funnel best in class as someone who like we do, we do some delivery of books ourselves and it's like you guys have, yeah, it is truly the best service, I think, and also you're pricing the same thing too.
1:35:49: It's like if you're an author and you're moving volume, like the best money you could spend, you know, like alleviate the hardest part, you know.
1:35:58: Right, which is what Book Funnel set out to do in the, in the beginning, and that's what it was built for, and it was like Damon specifically, that was the philosophy, and, and we, we recently did have to raise our pricing, but that's because it had literally been a decade of our original pricing and obviously things have changed in, in the world, and so you, you have to adapt to, to those types of changes, but And like, no, no as an author that that that it is a real cost, right?
1:36:28: so it's not like the pricing is like it's not arbitrary raw profit, yeah, it's like there's a real cost and what you're doing is you are paying and it's again not a lot of money, you're paying money to avoid having to do that work yourself.
1:36:42: And just the freedom of that, it should open enough doors to be way worth it, you know what I mean?
1:36:48: So, right, well, like I mean if, if you're at all like, OK, I'm looking at book funnel, why do I want to give this massive corporation like 250 bucks a year?
1:36:59: OK, well, we're not massive.
1:37:02: There's like At last count, there's maybe just over a dozen of us.
1:37:07: Most of those people are literally there to help your readers and to help you when you have trouble.
1:37:13: You email us and you get humans that reply to you, right?
1:37:17: Like, like that sort of thing.
1:37:20: You can, you could be in one single room with every member of the book Funnel team.
1:37:27: Right, come to Author nation and you'll meet a good chunk of us, most of us, because that's where most of us will be.
1:37:35: Not all of us, not all of the team usually has to be there, but Like you can actually meet the people behind the whole thing, and no, those prices aren't arbitrary.
1:37:45: There's costs associated with, with this whole thing that, that this whole enterprise that are very real.
1:37:51: And there's something really important to mention with it too, and that's like, as an author, when somebody buys your book, your ideal case is that they're delighted, right?
1:38:00: They're delighted from reading it, they're delighted by the story, they're delighted about what you created.
1:38:05: The, the experience of receiving the book or accessing the book, if that experience is trouble.
1:38:12: They will not be delighted, even if the book is awesome.
1:38:15: They'll have a little bit of like anger towards you or negative sentiment and like, what y'all seem is very good at is diffusing that sentiment.
1:38:23: They leave cozy, happy, right?
1:38:25: Excited, back to being excited about reading this book.
1:38:28: And that really helps a lot on that fan conversion side.
1:38:32: Reader to fan, who then will tell their siblings about your book, like, It's something you want to be hyper cognizant about is the word of mouth effect is like really what you're ultimately looking for.
1:38:45: You want everyone to be talking about your book.
1:38:47: So a huge part of that process is the experience, you know, so like like.
1:38:53: Neglecting any of that is going to have a cost.
1:38:56: It's going to have a cost of you as an author is gonna have a cost of you as your book, their experience with the book, all of that.
1:39:01: So, just reader conferences, we get readers coming up to us, be like, hey, book funnel, and we didn't realize till we started going to more reader facing conferences that we have like reader fans, fans, right?
1:39:14: Yeah, right.
1:39:16: You're used to seeing the mat, the mad folks.
1:39:18: I was talking with Damon about that at a, Superstars is he was like, well, we like to bring different folks to the conferences so they can actually get the positive feedback too instead of like always like be on the forefront of like a negative experience, you know, because you guys have that readers love y'all.
1:39:34: They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, when you're fielding support requests, I know we're talking a little behind the curtain here, but I'm sure you know, you get, you get the negative ones, that the folks that they're gonna have a bad day no matter what.
1:39:46: It's just, it is what it is.
1:39:48: The funny thing is, in author support, when one of those really nasty ones comes through.
1:39:53: I have, I have a confession to make.
1:39:55: Those are my favorites.
1:39:57: Those get sent to me.
1:39:59: I take great pleasure in answering those and not even I'm, and I'm, I'm not even being in like a, I'm not snarky, I'm not dismissive like I like diffusing that bomb like that for me personally and so the people in support that we built around the team are all kind of like that to some degree is like we like to be the one to solve the problem.
1:40:21: And for some of us, it's, you know, in my case, like, yeah, if it's the worst case scenario, put me on it.
1:40:27: That sounds interesting.
1:40:29: That's the email I want to reply to.
1:40:31: We all have our, our own strengths here.
1:40:33: But yeah, when you're, when you're in, even in person too, I like those really awkward conversations.
1:40:39: The first time I came to Author Nation with Damon, it was just Damon and Julie, his wife and I, it was just the three of us.
1:40:46: And we had an author who came up and said, Well, I, I don't like author swaps the way you built it.
1:40:51: It doesn't do what I want.
1:40:53: It doesn't do this, this and this.
1:40:54: And I'm like, OK, tell me, like, show me.
1:40:56: Yeah, exactly.
1:40:57: And it was, and it was, it was a little disarming, and I wasn't trying to like put him on the spot.
1:41:01: It was like, oh, like I'm here to solve the problem, and that changed the way that he was approaching it, which is like.
1:41:07: Oh, OK, you're listening to me instead of just like brushing me off.
1:41:11: Like you actually want to hear what I have to say.
1:41:14: And, you know, how that relates to authors exactly.
1:41:19: You do you, I don't know how many, I don't know how many technical issues you're having to deal with as an author.
1:41:25: And when I've sold books to readers, No, I, I, you, you don't bump into the same things.
1:41:31: And when you do, you just send them to, to book funnel to fix it on our heads.
1:41:36: Well, that, that's the beauty of physical is like when that book lands in the reader's hand.
1:41:42: Your job's done.
1:41:44: They got the book.
1:41:45: They paid for a book.
1:41:46: They got the book.
1:41:47: Job is done.
1:41:48: On digital.
1:41:49: The tough part is the job's not done, and that's another place where like book Funnels excels is that like.
1:41:54: They need to access that book and it might be 3 years that they end up reading it.
1:41:57: It's on the to be read list.
1:41:58: 3 years later, they want to read it, you know.
1:42:00: So if you're doing it all yourself and you don't want to offer download, like it's a tricky, tricky beast.
1:42:07: So yeah, oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
1:42:10: Well, Greg, thank you again for joining us for the podcast here.
1:42:16: I want to give you the chance.
1:42:17: Anything else you want to, to shout out here or where should people go to find out more about Curios before we go?
1:42:24: Thank you so much.
1:42:25: Thanks for having me and happy, happy to give some shameless plugs.
1:42:29: So, yeah, as an author, if you want to learn more about Curios, the best place is studio.
1:42:34: Curios.com.
1:42:35: You can also find that from Curios.com, so you'll find your way to the studio as well there.
1:42:40: We've got a lot of resources, we've got kind of good intro explainers on what to do.
1:42:45: On top of that, if it wasn't clear from the podcast, we love hearing from you.
1:42:50: So, if you come across something or if you want something or if you see something working a certain way, you want it to be different, like, our team is here, we're, we're listening, we're paying attention, we want to change the space forever.
1:43:03: We want to change the whole industry to be default direct.
1:43:07: I think it's crazy in 2026 that For me to buy a book from the person who wrote it online, a digital book especially, from a person who wrote it online.
1:43:17: It being as hard as it is, is crazy.
1:43:20: It should be the easiest and first solution that exists, and that's what we're trying to create.
1:43:25: So if I hear about a book from somebody, I know I can go get it from that person who wrote it, and that's the future we're trying to create.
1:43:31: So anything that we don't have on the road to that future, we're building, but we also want to hear on better ways to make that happen, so.
1:43:38: Happy to hear from you all.
1:43:40: Yeah.
1:43:40: All right.
1:43:41: Well, thank you, Greg.
1:43:42: And thank you, of course, to Emma, my co-host for joining me on this episode of the podcast.
1:43:50: And of course, thank you to you, our viewers.
1:43:53: If you're watching here on YouTube, make sure you're subscribed to the channel and that you like this video.
1:43:59: Also, So leave a comment on your#1 or 2 or 3 takeaways.
1:44:03: I'm sure there's plenty of takeaways you can get from this episode of the podcast.
1:44:07: And if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else, please follow us there and leave a review.
1:44:13: It really does help.
1:44:14: From all of us here at Book Funnel, I want to thank you for watching and listening.
1:44:17: And we will see you all in the next one.
1:44:20: Thank you for watching.
1:44:22: Check out these other videos from Book Funnel.
1:44:24: And don't forget to subscribe to the channel.