Using Online Summits To Launch Your Book

James Taylor interviews Jesse Krieger and they talked about Using Online Summits To Launch a Book

In this episode, we cover:

• Using online summits to launch your book
• The simple tactic to increase your book sales
• Secrets of getting on the New York Times bestseller list

Resources:

• Recommended Book: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Recommended Tools: Printed paper and pen
• Official Website
• Bestseller Summit Online Free Pass

For More of Creative Life Podcast By James Taylor

Artificial Intelligence Generated Transcript

Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.

James Taylor
Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.

Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.

Hey, there's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Jesse Krieger. Jesse sits squarely at the intersection of publishing and promotion. Having signed to publishing deals on two different continents and navigated the world of becoming a best selling author. Twice. He has worked with 100 plus authors to achieve their dreams of writing and publishing a book by his company, lifestyle entrepreneurs press. Unlike most traditional publishing companies, lifestyle entrepreneurs press helps authors to the entire author journey from writing and creating a great book to providing expert publishing support with editing, design, layout and marketing strategy. And it's my great pleasure to introduce Jesse today. So welcome, Jesse.

Jesse Krieger
Thank you, James, what a great introduction and a great pleasure to be here.

James Taylor
So share with everyone what's happening in your world just now.

Jesse Krieger
Oh, what isn't happening, I liked it. I mean, as a publisher, I interact with usually many people on a daily basis with incredibly fascinating stories, life experiences, professional focuses, for me every day is sort of a roller coaster, or sometimes a whirlwind of amazing stories, and interactions. So on that front, you know, the publishing world remains ever interesting. And we've got 10 more books coming out this fall. And a couple big announcements in the hopper as well going into 2019. So take

James Taylor
people through through your journey, I mentioned that you know, you've you've been a successful bestselling author yourself as well take us through that part first. And then where did the this new part that we know of you for today, the publishing world come in?

Jesse Krieger
Well, here's the book that started at all lifestyle entrepreneur, live your dreams, ignite your passions and run your business from anywhere in the world. You know, for me, James, this whole publishing journey started with that book, which itself was the result of eight or nine years of entrepreneurial experience. I'm somebody who never even went down a traditional career path. Like you, I was in the music industry at a rock band, and ultimately started a record label. And that was my first business. Once I realized I didn't want to be in the music business forever. I used all the skills and relationship building that I had, and started consulting and ultimately, a number of businesses while traveling the world, three, four months a year. So somewhere along that journey, it became clear to me Hey, I should write down the, my process, I should really turn this into a book. So that's when I started writing on it. You know, I can dive into the whole author journey that I experienced. I'll leave it to say that, you know, first the book was published in Southeast Asia in 2012. I toured around Malaysia, Singapore, shook hands, kiss babies, signed books, became a best selling author without an Amazon edition. This was print in stores the whole bet, subsequently got a publishing deal in the US rewrote the book and released it in North America. And it didn't fare as well out of the gate there, which really triggered for me the thought, How do I understand book marketing? How do I really get good at the marketing and sales side? That's what led me down the road that that ultimately founded lifestyle entrepreneurs press

James Taylor
and as you were going through that initial part of your journey in becoming an author, who were the role models or did you have mentors there that you were able to turn to to ask for advice both on the craft of writing and also the marketing of your books?

Jesse Krieger
Certainly. I mean, my us publisher, Morgan, James publishing, the founder, David Hancock is somebody that I've admired. For many years, he was the publisher behind Brendon Burchard. First Book, Jeff Walker's launch, they published Russell Branson's book. So really the the big names in the online business and marketing space, as I was coming into that space, circa 2012. So, you know, as they published my book, and I got to know him personally, he's been an on again, off again, mentor throughout building a publishing company. And, and now, you know, we're, we're closer to peers, then, you know, publisher and author. So it's been an interesting journey. And evolution in that sense, as I know, play a role of mentorship and guide for many of the authors that we work in publish. So it really is a spectrum or continuity of experience. And I've been fortunate to have some great people in my corner, nice, you've kind of now moved to the other part, not just being an author, but helping other authors get their their message out into the world. Take us through that journey. Because you know, there's, most authors will never go, someone who will obviously start their own independent publisher to publish themselves, but it's a very different thing to be, you know, there as the publisher publishing other people's books on a very consistent basis. And you're publishing a lot of books. So what was that that transition, like? Sure, at first, it wasn't like a clear cut transition, my book had come out, friends of mine, that were working on books, where we were just having an informal conversation, somewhere in that process, somebody that I featured in my book, Jasper rivers, who ultimately wrote the book, the first one we published, get paid for your pad, which was all about Airbnb hosting. And it was something he was doing successfully for a number of years. So that became the trend of like, entrepreneurs with first hand experience that were getting results in a in a specific field now has expanded to people in personal development and transformation, spirituality, and even some fiction authors. But really, from get paid for your pad, you know, advised on the design, layout, publishing marketing strategy, and we hit number one travel book on Amazon. A few other categories, it was even the number two business and money book on Amazon. That was when I started to realize, wow, I am learning a thing or two about book marketing. And maybe I should really focus on publishing, because it takes a lot to write a book, like at most, I could write a book every one to one and a half, two years, publishing books. Now we have an output in the dozens of books per year. So I enjoy that creative leverage. And we've built the infrastructure to consistently, in my opinion, publish high quality books and drive respectable sales numbers for many of our authors.

James Taylor
And something we both share in common is I love these online summits and the power of online summits and being able to communicate, you know, a huge amount of information gives huge value to attendees in a very short period of time. So I know my my kind of journey and all the mistakes and everything. But I'm interested, like your journey into also creating online summits and specifically for authors. What why an online summit may be a possible thing that an author might want to look at actually creating creating their own online summit.

Jesse Krieger
Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of what you're doing. And if people are just finding out about me, I've definitely put in put in some work on the summit front. Over the years, I actually did my very first summit in 2014 lifestyle entrepreneur summit. So I ran a summit to launch my book in the US. And all I really meant was interviewing, you know, in that case, eight or nine other people that I also considered being lifestyle entrepreneurs, right. So it's a great book marketing strategy, just as it is a great audience development strategy, just as it is ultimately a sales opportunity. You know, in recent years, in 2016, I hosted the book business and brand building summit, triple B. And that was 10 days of live broadcasts. I almost killed myself alive

James Taylor
now. Now that's that is a serious challenge live broadcasting,

Jesse Krieger
it was it was not optimal. I'll say that but it created for some fun experiences. By day 10. I was ready to throw in the towel

James Taylor
II bow before you just now for having done that. That's a marathon type of job.

Jesse Krieger
I only did that once. and learned from that in 2017. Last year, I ran best seller summit online, which was five days pre recorded with live moderated panels. That format seemed to work better, at least for me not wanting to collapse. But ultimately the effect was was just as good, right. So you know, summits are a way to build thousands of people into your audience to really learn from the top players in the field. I mean, it's the best case if you can get them on board to promote your summit as well. But even an interview People, I had the opportunity to interview people with multi million dollar businesses, some people into the eight figures. And they're basically telling me and everybody, a lot of valuable strategies that they use to become successful. So it's a great learning opportunity if you're considering hosting one. And I think you can also speak to, you know, a lot of the benefits of summits, let's say in the author space. If you if you have a book, getting on summit is a great way to get the word out. And a great way to build your audience in the process. So I'm a big fan. And that's why I always say yes, when I'm invited to other exciting summits like yours, it's great having you on this as well.

James Taylor
And as they're thinking about using as a tool for launching your book is an optimal time then to be running your summit. If you're so your book is coming out on November 1, and that is the launch date of your book. When would is it best to run a summit? Like right when the books coming out? Or a few weeks, a few months before or actually wait until after the the your book has come out? In order to give a second push?

Jesse Krieger
Great question. I'll actually answer each of them. Because I think it's that important. You know, if you do a summit leading up to your book launch, then I would plan to run this summit, so that it ends about three to four weeks before the book launch. Reason being you're going to spend a lot of time planning, preparing, executing at summit, depending on the size and scope, it's a big undertaking regardless. But both you and your audience is going to want a little break after that before they're ready for something else, like substantial. So if you've got a break of three or four weeks, and then the actual book launch, that's, in my opinion, the right timeframe to build an audience, get them excited and trained up, and then also engage them to support the launch. So that's scenario one, if you were to do a summit to coincide with the release, this is what I did. There's a lot of leeway there. So in the summit week, you know, I set the Kindle price for my book at a discount. I don't think I did this for mine. But I would recommend doing this for years that either you know the ticket to entry is to buy a copy of the book. Or if somebody just buys a copy of the book, or buys two copies and gives a gift to somebody, that's how they would access additional training, or get like the full recordings from the summit. So basically, if you do a summit, while your books coming out, tie your book directly in to any offer the primary offer, really, that that should be the focal point in that case. And then if you were to do a summit after your book is out, awesome, right, you've got the rest of your life as a published author, to bring people together to host summits and events, you can always use this summit as a relaunch or re promotion for your book. I've certainly did that, you know, with mine and for other books we published, whereas like people would opt in for the summit. And then they've got a, you know, a week or so of pre summit training. In that time, I'm introducing myself, I'm giving them a, you know, sample chapter from my book, I'm saying, hey, check out some of the other authors we've published. Now in the summit actually starts. There's also a familiarity with what you know, in my case, when I'm doing an artwork, you can apply that to your own summit anytime after your book is out by being a curator in your space. And that's a valuable position to be in.

James Taylor
Those are great ideas. And as you're saying, I'm also going to thinking that an even another way of using this kind of summit book kind of combination is if you put that book out and you you're putting all your work into the initial book launch, maybe, let's say, a year after the book has come out and you want to give another push to the book, you could almost do you could focus on let's say, if your book was all about leadership, you could focus on leadership in health care, and you could do a summit on health care providers. And using the book the same book you'd written those came out a year ago as that thing which gives another and then maybe the year after that you focus on a completely different industry, for example, or you could do by language, you could say, okay, I've the books that in English, we're going to be bringing out in a choose a language, French, for example. Okay, we're going to look at lots of thought leaders on this topic in France, and then we're going to be able to use that so I love that the flexibility of someone I know you, you and I have kind of spoken about this before and they're just incredibly flexible. And I think in the online marketing world, they've been obviously going for quite a while but in some of these areas outside of the online marketing world they they feel very fresh and very new.

Jesse Krieger
Absolutely. I mean, look, even in online marketing world, the summit is still not the most widely popularized thing, although I think they've become more and more prominent in recent years. But you go outside of the field like our friend Naveed who helps host a lot of summits. They did one on heart like playing the harp. And you tell me how many people in the harp industry are like online marketing ninjas, right? Yeah. There's actually opportunity if you're an author on a topic that's not online business online marketing related. That's totally cool. I don't want you to be watching this and thinking, Oh, but I'm wrote a book about farming. Great. You could actually be the cornerstone for thought leadership in that aspect of farming, by virtue of doing a book and hosting a summit. So it's a great one to punch in that sense.

James Taylor
And one of the summits I did, which was on I did two summits, one was completely unrelated to what I normally do, which is guitar, and are you both into, into music we didn't, I wasn't even I'm not even a guitarist. I was the kind of host of it because we were running events which relate to the guitar. But then the other one we did was was for event professionals, if you didn't get that one, we're gonna rock. You're gonna have to get you the VIP pasta for that one. Yeah, I didn't. The other one we did was for event professionals. And, and that was for conference organizers, people that I work with a lot. And in that space, that there was no online summits. So it got a lot of attention very, very quickly, because no one was doing it in that same. So there's huge, huge opportunity. We're not

Jesse Krieger
until well, a question for you as much as value for the audience. Right is I know you do more in the corporate space than then certainly I do. But my understanding from our authors in my exposure to corporate spaces, they'll routinely have budgets allocated to training and workforce morale, improvement, whatever it's called. Right and doing a summit can almost be the equivalent of a plug and play corporate training. So, you know, I think there's there's flexibility to take your book into corporate perhaps through hosting a summit on a specific area, that businesses are already got budgets allocated for and are looking for information and training on

James Taylor
Yeah, I think I used to sit with like financial people that are right or do things right to financial FinTech, there's a lot of sponsorship is able to come in there as well. So you did this, the best seller summit online, that huge online summit as well. And I'm also interested to know if you interviewed all these great authors, publishers, bookmarkers, what was the the two or three things that you personally took away as an author that you said, I am going to implement this, I want to do this, this is genius, this is going to this is going to really change things for myself, and even the authors that you work with?

Jesse Krieger
Well, I'll share one of the single best strategies I've picked up from interviewing a bunch of bestselling authors, and by working with many myself, is plugging in. So say whatever it is that you're using to build your audience, giving away sample chapters, giving away a free resource, even opting in for a summit, whatever it is, on the front end, on the thank you page, having a video where you say, hey, thanks so much for accessing whatever it was, you just did. And you know, I'm the author of In my case, I'm the author of lifestyle entrepreneur, and then talk about your book for 3045 seconds, maybe a minute, and then offer people to buy the book, send you a receipt, and access some additional training. So just follow this thought process for a second, you see something online, Hey, get the first three chapters to lifestyle entrepreneur for free. Okay, great, you're going to learn this, this and this, you opt in the very next thing you see is a video saying, hey, check your inbox in just a moment for the first three chapters where I'm going to teach you this, this and this. And by the way, if you just want to go all in and buy a copy of the book, here's a link below on Amazon, send me the copy of your order. And I'll give you access to the six part audio training, called become a lifestyle entrepreneur where I really talk through all the key ideas in the book. Now I'm just paraphrasing that, but this little sequence right here will sell you a lot of books. Yeah. And that full price. Because if and so here's the takeaway, doing value added promotion instead of price, discounted promotions, is the way to make money as an author, you know, doing a price discounted promotion is the way to move units for a launch, and get your book up the charts, like reliably and consistently if you move a lot of sales. But the real game I think is played in bringing people into your audience and sphere of influence enough such that they're willing to buy a low ticket item, your book, which in turn, they then get access to something else that brings them way deeper in. And then ultimately the end of that conversation is having your higher end offerings.

James Taylor
Yeah. I love that. I mean, something as simple as a thank you page, just putting that video putting that little call to action with your email address and the link to the Amazon. I mean, how long would that take? I mean, like no time for someone you could you could take your iPhone together and the time we're doing this interview Exactly. So really simple. Some things don't have to be complex. But just a really simple way of shifting books.

Jesse Krieger
It's strategy, right. And again, I just narrate through if you're browsing on the Internet at large as billions of people are, you see an offer for something for free, you take it. And then you see a personal message and an offer for something low price. That's a continuation of what you already said you want for free. it logically lines up a sale, I think where a lot of authors struggle, and there's plenty of authors that don't even sell, you know, 250 copies of their book is just asking for the sale and going directly for the book sale without contextualizing it. In an experience, somebody's looking for information, they're looking for a problem they want to solve, entertaining read on a topic that they're interested in. That's where people discover books, and you as an author, and and the positioning piece of what comes next is, is the real determining factor for success, in my view.

James Taylor
So so that's a really simple thing. But actually, is it also a bigger piece as well? What else? What else did you learn as you were speaking to all these best selling authors, it could be on the craft or the marketing side of things.

Jesse Krieger
Well, the other thing, the opposite side of that spectrum is the New York Times bestselling authors. And we looked into and evaluated, you know, becoming a New York Times bestselling author pretty deeply, because a lot of people are interested in it. And what I buy my takeaway, which was kind of surprising was that like, 30 40% of the nonfiction books are sort of a manufactured process that results in New York Times placement. I don't know if that's if those stats are accurate. But when you see things like free plus shipping, and all of a sudden, Everywhere you look, this person's trying to give you their book for free. That's the front end of a New York Times bestseller campaign, because you need thousands and thousands of individual sales. That's why you only pay shipping and handling. And then those sales get logged as a sale towards new york times when the book release actually happens. So unpacking the whole New York Times bestseller process was enlightening. And I can go more into that if you want. But seeing how that all works.

James Taylor
Yeah, I mean, that that reminds me of like people like cam, like Brendon Burchard, is he uses that type of thing a lot. But watch his way out the free plus postage and packaging. So in a way that is set up. It also means that there are, as you say, their individual sales. It's not like he's got a big chunk of books, which he's having to get out, which are not getting scanned and everything which he wouldn't get credit for in New York Times.

Jesse Krieger
Well, importantly, let's use Brendon Burchard, for an example like with, I think, Millionaire Messenger, and he's done it with high performance habits into high performance Academy. He's got a $2,000 training program. That's the real offer. Yes. So that's something else very important. When you say, Oh, I want to become a New York Times bestselling author. Yeah, it only makes sense. If you've got like a million dollar offer on the back end. Yeah, because it's gonna take a couple hundred thousand dollars at the top end of the spectrum, to drive the sales, the marketing and everything else to put those numbers down. And that's why, you know, it really works for people that are consistently putting books on the New York Times, is, you know, they've got a seven figure or larger business that's behind it. So you'll have like, for example, that free plus puts in packaging, then you'll have maybe $197, like a lower price or mid mid tier price type of online course, perhaps. And then he has his higher to that, as you say, a $2,000. So he can be really pumping, you know, money into his advertising. And I really can promote it and bring in affiliate partners, because there's lots of margin there is noise in the book. Yeah. Well, I think the takeaway in terms of like, what what I learned from interviewing a lot of people that have done New York Times bestseller launches is the takeaway is not to think of the book in the vacuum, right? their book launch, and even a coordinated push to hit New York Times bestseller is still one part in a bigger campaign that's leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in sales. And in that context, it makes sense.

James Taylor
Yeah, it's almost it's almost like when you go now become a music industry, whether the single The track is is almost it's not even there's not quite the giveaway, but it's, it's getting you into the brand getting in you into the thing, but all the money is made on the back end, and the merchandising and ticket sales and you know, things like that as well. You're bringing people up. So you kind of went through all these amazing, amazing interviews and we're gonna be talking about a link to that just at the end of this. But before we start to finish up, I would love to know you personally as an author, what tools do you find very useful to yourself as an author, in kind of creating, you're creating the books that you write now and also marketing the books you write.

Jesse Krieger
This one might sound counterintuitive, but From a publishing standpoint, I prioritize spending time with printed out paper and a pen, outdoors. And hear me out. Because this isn't, this is actually an amazing productivity hack. You know, I do a lot of business online, I've built an online name for myself and everything with the stuff that we've discussed with summits and promotions and things when it comes to content. carving out space away from technology away from distraction is where the best ideas surface. So that's what I do, I print out manuscripts, I've got piles of them, I go out and I edit them in the garden. And then I filter those ideas and those things back into the conversation and the publishing process.

James Taylor
So you get that mixture of the tech side of you, and then the very analog side. So so that's great. And I think, Jay papasan, who we had on here as well, the one thing with Gary Keller, they have quite a similar type of process as well. And, you know, one of my favorite books, yes,

Jesse Krieger
it is a wonderful one. Again, tell them I said,

James Taylor
it's a fantastic book. And you know, they go through and they have binders for each chapter. And then they go through and they spend their time doing it doing article that way. What about actually talking about books, if you were to recommend one book, this is a hard one for an author. One book, not one of your own books, it could be on the craft of writing or the marketing launching of getting your books out into the world. What would that book be?

Jesse Krieger
Great question. I will go on a limb and say read Atlas Shrugged, or at least start. That's it's a fiction book. But entrepreneurs are the heroes. It's a fiction book, but it's the most biting social political commentary you may ever read. And I say read that book, no matter what kind of book you're writing, because one, anything else will seem easier. Eine Rand spent 12 years writing Atlas Shrugged, and it's 1200 pages. It's also the single best book I've ever read. And then you can say, you don't need to measure up to that. It can be so much easier in comparison. And that should actually feel like a relief, instead of sitting, looking at a blank page and being like, Alright, where do I start this bad? Boy, fantastic. Grace is your case.

James Taylor
And if you were to start again, tomorrow, I know actually, one of the things that you do, as I mentioned as a publishing company, is you help those people who are that they're just getting started on that journey. They may be very successful as entrepreneurs and building their businesses. But this this board of publishing is an interesting one. There's lots of the pitfalls as well. So I want you to put yourself in the mind of that person who just happened to start from scratch they have no Platform No one knows who the offsetting that in the publishing world. But the the have some skills about writing, what advice would you give to that person in terms of being able to start in the world of getting that first book out there?

Jesse Krieger
Great question. I mean, if I would say this baseline, if you're thinking about writing a book, then you're meant to do it. And then I'd say nobody ever regrets writing a book, they only wish they started sooner. And I would continue on by saying, you know, what I've built a and what we've built at lifestyle entrepreneurs press is for the author, it's for me five years ago, it's for you today. It's to provide a full supported experience through editing, design, marketing, strategy, distribution, the whole nine yards to have an experienced team just handle it so that you can focus on being on summits like this getting your message out there and engaging with people around the actual material that you've worked with. So you know, there's really nothing to it but to do it there's a lot of resources out there not least of which are this you know, this interview and this summit that James put together, information is free action only cost you time. So make it happen. And I appreciate you

James Taylor
know, actually as you're saying as you're talking about free and giving great news now people have been going through this summit they've been learning from it, but in the time that I was available, I could only interview a certain group of people and and I think it's just it's what is great about doing these songs when you hear all these different voices, you hear a different perspective, a different perspective. And you can see that author is like me that's the kind of author I want to become you know, so I think it's actually very useful hearing those different voices and you've put together an amazing event, the best seller summit and you've kindly agreed we're gonna have a link here below that people can go on and get a get their free pass for that and go through that summit as well. So maybe explain to people because awesome is a slightly different as well will tell tell people about a summit?

Jesse Krieger
Yes, yes, I came I came bearing gifts. So you know if you've been learning a lot from this interview, if you've been enjoying this discussion and you want more of this format, I myself ran best seller summit online and We'll link that up below. It's set up as what's called evergreen. So whenever you go there you can go through the five days, right interviewed 25 plus bestselling authors, seven and eight figure online entrepreneurs, New York Times bestselling authors. So continue your your author learning experience at bestseller summit online and, and thank you, James, for having me on.

James Taylor
Fantastic. It's been fantastic speaking today, I'm so glad we finally got a chance to speak and we're gonna have some other links. People want to learn about lifestyle entrepreneur press, we're going to have that here, as well. Jesse, thank you so much. I wish you all the best with your writing, but also with the publishing all the wonderful authors that are going to be coming out and sharing their message in the world.

Jesse Krieger
Thanks very much.

James Taylor
If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.

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