Beyond the Book Podcast: How This Author Makes $2.4 Million/Year with Story Letters

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This author makes $2.4 million a year selling letters in the mail. But it's not sending letters. They're story letters.
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Each letter contains a story, a chapter, where over time, over the course of typically a year, you receive dozens of these letters that unfold, and you get to experience an entire story.
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They often contain collectibles, beautiful design, custom illustrations, and it's really a full experience that makes the mailbox fun again.
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Story letters are an interesting but emerging category of literature that in aggregate authors are making tens of millions of dollars a year.
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And this one author, David Vergots, the creator of ScareMail, makes millions of dollars in profit a year after his ads, after printing the letters, and after paying a team to fulfill it all for him.
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I wanna share with you a little bit about David today. And in fact, in a future episode of Beyond the Books, I'm gonna be touring his warehouse and interviewing David in person live.
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So make sure you subscribe or follow this podcast so you can see me do that in person. I'm actually literally leaving in a week from when I'm recording this to go be with him in person, so I can't wait.
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Today's episode is a little different. David's gonna share a little bit about his business, but we also brought in a group of authors that I'm really close with.
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They have this awesome Discord called The Bugos, and in there we hosted a live session where David and me coached them through going beyond the book together and how they could build their own brands.
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So in the beginning, you're gonna learn a bit about David's brand, a bit about how he scaled ScareMail, and then we're gonna learn from a ton of amazing authors and really help them go beyond the book together.
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We cover everything from succeeding with Reddit ads, how to build a successful merch store, what and how you should give away things to free for readers, and a ton more. Let's get into this.
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David, I first just wanna say I am so freaking proud of you 'cause you're one of my favorite people, and you've accomplished so much in the last year.
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But talk to me about what even inspired you to do ScareMail, 'cause it's not the thing your average author just stumbles into. I'm always happy to jump into stuff like this, especially with you.
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So the story of ScareMail is actually a, a relatively simple one, and that was I was looking for opportunities to reach readers beyond what everybody else was already doing.
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I found that my situation was probably very similar to a lot of authors who are f- who feel like they're doing the right things, right? They've, they've got covers that are on point. They've got editing that's on point.
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They're running the ads the way the courses say to do it. They've got the images they're generating. They're sending out...
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They're, they're getting reviews, and they're doing all the right things, and still there's no love from the algorithm.
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And that led me to start looking at what other industries were doing well and how I could tap into that and benefit from that because we as authors, we're a little bit in this special field.
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Things in our industry don't necessarily work in other industries and vice versa.
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And so I took a note out of the music industry, and one of the things that I noticed with the music industry was Taylor Swift's tickets to her concert were nearly four to five hundred dollars for the best seating.
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But you could go on Spotify or YouTube or whatever and listen to her stuff for free. Or you could go buy her albums and her merch for $10 and $15 and that sort of thing. And I said, "I'm already selling these audiobooks.
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I'm already selling these books. I'm already selling this merchandise. How do I sell the ticket?"
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And so I said, "How do I turn something that I've written and I've created into an experience that has that premium dollar attachment to it?"
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Because the one thing I know about sell, sales is sell the most expensive thing you can.
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And in this case, it was, hey, I'm standing out there, and I'm like, "When's the last time I had [chuckles] anything good come to me in the mail?"
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And so I, I was staring at my mailbox, and I said, "All I get is bills and random stuff." It's just stuff that I didn't ask for, and I didn't like that feeling. And I said, "Well, maybe there's something here.
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I wonder if there's a way that I could take what I'm good at, which is writing, and create an experience that also brings somebody joy and fixes this issue they have with the mailbox that they get to look at every single day."
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And so ScareMail was born out of that. It was not... It is not a story. It is not a novel chopped up into 24 letters. It is a story that can only be told through letters. And so
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what we found was the community was in love with it. Readers were in love with it. They love this new style of, of storytelling. They love the thrill of being able to go out to the mail just like we used to do.
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We get 20 bucks from Grandma on our birthday, right? Or we... A long time ago, the pen pals were a big thing, and they're making a rise, and that's actually part of our service too.
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We said, "Hey, we embrace the mail and every part of it, especially the joyous parts," even though I write scary stuff. So we capitalize on that joy of going to the mailbox for the reader.
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Yeah, that was it from inception, just the whole idea behind it. Incredible. Wow. Yeah. I
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also know how fast this ended up taking off for you 'cause I remember you basically texting me maybe back in May or so like, "Hey, dude, I'm, like, excited about this. Check it out." And you sent me the landing page.
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I was like, "Oh, this is great." And then you'd send me, like, a text like two months later basically saying, like, you had made an unbelievably life-changing amount of money. So what happened in those two months?
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How did you take something from this incredible idea to being, like, a truly amazing business? Sure. I didn't go into it accepting all the risk and just hit launch.
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I made a determination that if this was good, I could pre-sell this, and if it wasn't good, I could sell... I could give that money back in the amount that, that the, my readers had already purchased from me.
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So I had a list. I had a sizable list of which to test this to. And so I sent out just a basic landing page, was not even optimized, and I said, "Here's this story."
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I had some decent copy, sent it out to my list and sold like 250 copies. That was more than I sold in e-books in, on a normal launch. Normally, I have a trickle-down, uh, effect to e-books.
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And, and this was at $107 and a very basic price point, and I said, "I'll figure the rest out later." That was enough. That's all I needed. And yeah, after that, we launched. We pre-sold for two months straight.
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I started ordering, had to figure out how very quickly to order material and how to learn the mail system and, and how to quit my job. That was another thing was how I was gonna quit. I made my entire...
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I decided to quit my job when I made my entire year's salary in a week. You say we scaled to seven figures. We didn't just scale to seven figures.
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We scaled to $2.4 million in annual revenue in six monthsThat was the direction on this, and I know everybody's gonna say, "I n- I wanna do ScareMail now.
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I wanna do the sci-fi version," and everything like that, and I keep saying, and I'll say this again and again, "Don't do ScareMail. It is difficult. Take ScareMail as an idea and make it better. Sell the experience.
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Sell the more expensive thing you can." So yeah, so it was interesting. It was... I had to learn a lot more industries outside of just sending mail. It was more than that. But yeah, it's been an adventure.
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Let's talk about that adventure because I know you've been in this for a while. When I view your experiment that you ran that ended up being a massive success with ScareMail,
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how many experiments or how many times did you try this before? Like, how long have you been at this? Yeah.
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So I've tried and failed a lot, but I can say faithfully that I didn't go into something without putting 100% of effort into it.
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Those failures were opportunities to, to learn in that I, I would not have gotten the n- the n- the necessary knowledge out of had I not put a whole effort into it.
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You and I talked, what, a year ago, almost two at this point, about what I was doing with my subscription. I have a subscription outside of ScareMail for my super fans, and how I made that tactile and how I made them...
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how I made it unique. My readers can actually vote on my stories each month, and depending on their tier, they get to oust other readers on their votes.
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That was something that hadn't been done before, but it had to be tested and tried.
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And had I not taken that risk, now it's a sizable portion of my income right now because as people come into ScareMail, they're also offered the opportunity to go into this subscription as well to become super fans.
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I- I- if, if you are going to do something, you should go at it with 100% effort.
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And I wrote a paper back when I was in my, my graduate school, and it was about how Spotify's motto they have written on the side of their, the conference room is "Fail quickly," and I love it because it says, "I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put as much effort into this to get the answers I need to move on if it doesn't work."
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That way you're not dwelling on the same old thing, 'cause i- if, if I were dwelling on the same old thing as I had been for the last four or five years in publishing, I would still be where I was at in publishing.
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I was making moves, going direct, but I was still only making 20, 30, 40, 50,000 a year direct.
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It, it was not the kind of money where I was looking at now, and I had not seen the machine work the way it does now when things go right. So fail quickly. That's my message today. Incredible. I love it. And
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we're about to open the helpline up, but before we get there, I just wanna ask you one last thing, which is the world of mailing stuff in the- Yes... physical mail.
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I'm sure folks are gonna have some things they want help with there, but just off the rip, what are some three tips or lessons y- you've learned mailing probably over, over 100,000 letters at this point, over that?
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What have you learned in that process that we can all benefit from? Yeah. The first thing is your mail lady, the person or the mailman, the average person who delivers your mail,
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um, these per- these people are subject matter experts on addressing and on how the system is built to deliver your mail. So a lot of people complain about the United States Postal Service. They are my best friend.
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I know everything there is to know about the mail system, and I'm glad I do because there are ways in which we can get packages, especially c- because nobody plans for, "Oh, I'll...
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How do I send packages safely and securely and, um, make sure the address is right? How do I do any of this?"
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When I'm successful, they always think, "I'll just figure out the onesies and twosies," and they might get an ad, a package that's lost in the mail, and they might help that reader.
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But what happens when you get 10,000 orders in? How do you get that effectively to the mail system, into the system? 'Cause it's not as easy as just dropping it off at the mail, at the post office, right?
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There's more to it. So I would say that if, if you get an opportunity, sit down with your average mailman when he comes to drop off your mail and just ask him five minutes.
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Say, "Hey, what's the right way to address something? Could you help me with that? How do I read this? Do I... Does the apartment number have to go in line two, d- or can it go in line one?"
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A lot of people don't realize that, right? And it's actually easier for the machines to read. And what do these barcodes mean? There's a lot to the mailing system.
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There's a lot of opportunity as well to learn about your customers and your readers using the tools that the post office has designed.
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The US is the largest market, so most people will focus on that, and it has the postal system ingrained into it.
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So if you are not utilizing the tools that come with USPS and operating within that system to learn more about your customers, then you're missing out. You're really missing out.
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So talk to your local postmaster, understand how to write addresses, and it's more than just going to Pirate Ship and clicking print on the label. There is so much more.
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And now we're gonna shift to opening up the conversation to Shannon, Willow, and some other awesome authors who were part of this group. On the YouTube version, you can actually see their faces.
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If you're listening to the podcast, you'll just hear their voices. If you hear a new voice, I'll try to introduce them, and then they'll speak. Now, when it comes to David, I know you wanna hear more about ScareMail.
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The good news is you're gonna hear a lot more about ScareMail in the rest of this episode. We don't just stop talking about ScareMail.
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But likewise, I'm headed to Austin to see the ScareMail HQ in person, and that episode's gonna be coming out in the next few weeks here. So do subscribe to this podcast on YouTube. Follow the RSS feed.
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You can subscribe to Author Sidekick down below. It's where I write weekly newsletters that help authors grow their business, and you'll get notified when the episode comes out there.
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And I'd love if you share this with author friends.
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We're doing something really, really unique, and below in the description, as a reward for going down there and finding the links to subscribe and join Author Sidekick, you'll also find links to other successful story letter businesses.
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There's others in different genres and different readerships that have grown, and I wanna show you all that things like this are possible, and it's not just David who could go beyond the book, but you can too.
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And right now, in just a few seconds, we're gonna help other authors go beyond the book as well.
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But one last call-out, one last call-out is that me and David have a really exciting and fun project coming up together where me and him are gonna go beyond the book together to help all of you.
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I'm not gonna share what that is yet, but I'm just letting you know something's coming. It's gonna be coming out in March, and you'll hear more about it in the next episode I actually do with David.It should be fun.
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In the meantime, let's hear from Shannon. She's an awesome author, also runs the AuthorTube Writing Conference, which if you don't know about, it's a free conference on YouTube every year that takes place for authors.
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So Shannon joined us, and she has some questions that we're gonna help her with. David, if you were doing this right now as a new author, how would you approach it differently? You're talking about ScareMail?
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I'd probably make it easier on myself. So there's two different methods I look at when it comes to s- to selling to your readers. Are you trying to sell them a, a new product, or are you trying to sell them on yourself?
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And so if you can give them something and offer them something that is uniquely, you have the opportunity to turn them over time into a super fan, right? Tha- those are the ones that, who will buy anything they put up.
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I have a list of fans right now that I know in my shop that have paid more than $500 for the things that I have. They've bought $500 worth of merchandise.
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Those are super fans, and I could put up anything right now for sale, and they would buy it no matter what the price was. And part of that comes from offering them things that are uniquely me.
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So it makes sense for ScareMail, right, because I didn't like the post office, or I didn't like the, the mailbox and what it was giving me. But I did like the idea that, hey, horror can still bring joy, right?
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So I talk to my readers all the time, say, "Hey, horror's a genre of hope." And they're like, "Wait, what?" And I say, "Yes, it is absolutely the genre of hope because without hope, there is, there is no great terror."
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So yeah. I, I, I would say that it, I, I would look at something that was long-term, that was multiple touches to your readers who you are constantly fulfilling a promise to them even if it's small, right?
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And if you say, "Hey, every Saturday I will jump on a call, and whoever shows up, I will talk to you for 30 minutes about everything I know about my favorite books," and see who shows up.
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But it only takes a couple at a time to really start building a platform of people who are obsessed with you, and that's what ScareMail does for me is because I'm able to touch, to reach out to these folks two, three, four times a month if you consider my weekly emails, and then you consider ScareMail, which is twice a month, and then everything else.
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Shannon, I'm curious for you. I know that you're not exactly a brand spanking new author. So how are you thinking through this? Do you get inspired by any ideas? And let us all know what genres are you writing.
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Like, how are you thinking this, through this for your readers? 'Cause horror readers are probably different than your readers. Can pretty much guarantee that. Um, yeah.
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I write, uh, epic fantasy romance, and I'm just always on the lookout for new ideas to be honest because I haven't found anything that's really working. I, I think I have two super fans [laughs]. So but that's about it.
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Right now I'm still just trying to find my audience to be honest. So wait. How, what have you tried to do to grow your audience? What have you tried so far?
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I'm, I'm most successful with my Kickstarter, but it's still not, like, the best. I'm not making big bucks, but I am making the most money through Kickstarter. I don't know.
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I, I have an idea of what I want to do, but I, I have switched genres in the last two years. I was writing fantasy, and now I'm fantasy romance. I only have two books published so far in fantasy romance.
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What I have in mind, I need to get a few more things in my world, and I've know what I'm doing. I've got the way ahead.
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But basically, it's just an online game with NPCs, and then they can create their own character and, 'cause I have just a town where people can choose a character there, and then I can write some of the novellas on some of these characters that they choose in this town.
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But that's future stuff because right now I need to get more in my world, so. Casually just drops you have a game with NPCs. Like, oh yeah. [laughs] Just tried a few things. That's amazing.
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[laughs] So you're building out more of your world now. Yeah. You switched from romance fantasy. Was it something that you were... Sorry, fantasy to fantasy romance.
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Was it the passion switch or something you saw with the market? I know it's been a hot market for a few years there. Yeah. What sparked that transition?
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My first fantasy series was an Irish mythology, which I didn't realize is not to market.
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There's no, no category called Irish mythology on Amazon or m- most places, and I realized I was reading a bunch of fantasy romance at the time.
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So I was trying to think of, uh, what can I do next for my next series now that I understood, oh, that's what it means to write to market. I don't write to market exactly, but I need to write something that's gonna sell.
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And yeah, so just got into it 'cause I was already reading it. Totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, David, like, when you were sitting back, 'cause I know this wasn't super long ago for you.
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Before you had I'll call it, like, your first big win, 'cause it's just your first with ScareMail, but definitely a big win. How did you think about approaching the next opportunity?
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'Cause I know you, you dove into subscriptions and direct sales. You dove into all these new things, and some of them worked, some of them didn't, some of them certainly-- One of them crushed it.
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But how did you approach new things? 'Cause I think that might be part of what you're thinking about, Shannon. Is this worth something I should dive into? Is this a new thing I can tackle?
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So how did you approach tackling new things and decide, is this worth it? Yeah, absolutely. It's a real easy decision factor for me about how I'm gonna approach something new.
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It says, am I gonna stand out or stand amongst? One o- one or the other. Releasing another book, the last book sells the next one, right? That's standing amongst.
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Kickstarter is standing out because it says, "Hey look, this is unique. It's special, and here's all the things I'm going to do for you that you wouldn't get otherwise, and I need your help to do it."
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That's why people like Kickstarter. It's not because you're, it's a direct sales platform just like any other, but it's the messaging behind the Kickstarter.
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"Hey look, here's all the things we can go on this quest together to, to create." So everybody-- Here's another example. When I was looking at merchandising opportunities, I noticed that authors are giving out bookmarks.
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They're giving out a lot of bookmarks, and I'm a reader, and I have a ton of bookmarks, and I hardly use them.
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And bookmarks are, like, 25 cents, 35 cents apiece, and so when you order 100 of them and they don't really do anything for you, it's hard for me to justify the price.
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So what I said was, "I'm not gonna just do regular bookmarks. How about I do something that people are not gonna throw away?" So I turned my bookmarks into solid steel bookmarks.
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So they're $1.25 apiece to have produced, but they're solid steel. My brand's all over them. They're a collector's item now amongst my people. It-- So that was my opportunity.
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I said, okay, I could stand among or stand out.
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And so in this case, my solid steel bookmarks, I said the only way to get these are in my specialty book boxesAnd so now I've got this really cool thing that's unique, that's special, that's branded, that you can only get from one location.
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Starting to sound a little bit like a Kickstarter, right? "Hey, this special edition book is only coming to life through this Kickstarter." We've all heard this before. We've all experienced that before.
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Except now it's ingrained in my own products. I don't need another platform to do it. So I always make the decision. I said, "Is this kind of along the current path, the thing that I'm already doing?
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Or is it an experiment into something that hadn't been done before?" And if it works, double down. That's it. If it works... You say you have two super fans. How did you get those two super fans, Shannon?
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Building my audience newsletter list, and then just putting out calls for people to be readers, join my street team, that kind of stuff. Okay, so do more of that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. I'm doing as much as I can.
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[chuckles] Yeah. So what I'm saying, what I'm saying is th-that thing worked for you. So I...
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For a long time, I ran Facebook ads to build my reader list on just my newsletter, and it got to a point that I could actually build my newsletter at a profit because of how I was sending them emails and asking them to go to do additional things.
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So I would sell them things, uh, in the process of them becoming readers, not just buying the newsletter subscribers off of Facebook. And so when I realized that was working, I put more and more money into it until...
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And so it could scale. And it only took a handful to know that, hey, I can buy subscribers for thirty something cents a piece.
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And then when they s- when I say, "Let me try and sell them a book or two right on the back end," couple of, couple emails in after I've introduced myself, "Can I sell them a book?" And I'm like, "Oh, look at that.
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Every hundred subscribers, I could sell one or two books." I'm like, "Now we're profitable. We're-- This is a great place to be. I'd r- I like being here." And so that's when I doubled down.
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So whatever you did to build up those super fans, double down on it, even if it's in the onesies and twosies, 'cause that's what it takes.
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My street team is over thirty readers long, thir-thirty readers right now, and that came from asking over and over again, "Who wants to be a super fan?" Just like you did. And now I can weaponize those people.
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I can say, "Hey, I need you to do this thing for me."
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When my Facebook went down yesterday, I asked them to share my, my page, and those thirty people went out, and they went above and beyond to share my sales page for ScareMail, and the sales rolled in.
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I made the exact same money yesterday without any ads as I did with ads. If y'all aren't on David's mailing list, by the way, I'll make sure to link to ScareMail.
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Really worth joining 'cause I'm on it, and I feel like I regularly get just these really kind messages from David where he's just really building community in his own authentic way, um, which is really special.
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During the live call, an author messaged in the chat a question. Their name is Devin. So I'm gonna dive into Devin's questions for me and David now. And Devin
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says, "I was thinking of starting a monthly small book box, but I don't know where to begin, let alone the budget that is required. I was also thinking of opening a swag shop, but I like the monthly sub idea better."
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What are our thoughts here, David? Yeah. So I, I love the idea of subscriptions, right? Of some sort of monthly reoccurring where my job is to fulfill that thing, um, especially when it's giving readers what they want.
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Um, I'm a big fan of the book box. I'm, I'm a big fan of the idea behind it. Um, th-the part where I struggle too is, is like with you, where I said, "Where, where, where do I get the stuff for it, right?
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And what would readers want?" And, and I guess the real question is: Do you know if they'd buy it first, right?
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Are you-- Do you have a fan base that you said, "Hey, I could launch this to you right now," and it's so cool, and you're standing behind it, and your heart's in it. Could you sell it right now? Or is this an experiment?
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And if it's an experiment, that's fine because that's an opportunity for you to say, "Okay, who-- what do you want? What do you get from your book boxes, and how could I give you something different?"
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Because they could go find a book box anywhere else, right? So why would you-- what would you do for your fans? Are, are they, are they, are they numbered? Are they signed?
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Do they have an exclusive, uh, book inside that you can't get anywhere else? Is it early access, but it's only coming through the mail? Is it, "Hey, I'm gonna drop in any free ebook that you want in there as well"?
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That's something that I started doing, was in my book boxes, you not only get two books of my choice, but also you get a free ebook and a free audiobook. Now, a little hot tip about that.
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If you are going to give away a free ebook or audiobook, you can change your settings, especially if you're using a tool like Book Funnel, to require them to sign up for your email list.
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So if they already have those books, which is a trick you can do, is to give them books they already have in ebook and audiobook form so that they will likely give it to somebody else and say, "Hey, here's a free ebook.
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Here's a free audiobook," and now you're snatching up readers because it's a requirement to get that free book. So that's just something that I do with my book boxes.
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As far as sourcing material, if you were to go to the mall today, and you were go to purchase anything that's in that mall, it is no different than purchasing it from Alibaba, from Temu, and from Amazon.
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It's all the same. You could source things that were made in America, sure. But if you were to get a book box, the things that were inside that box are likely things that you could buy from those locations.
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And I purchase a lot of material from Temu, but I also make sure that the material that I purchase is very on brand.
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I'm not gonna buy things that would feel like the average junk that you would get i-in, in, in, in the bottom of what I, I like to say, like, the, the bottom of a stocking, right?
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All the stuff, all the cool stuff's kind of up top, and what you get in the bottom that you dig around for.
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L-look for opportunities, especially when you got things like ebooks and audiobooks that you can repurpose into other things. Look at as an opportunity to increase the value of that box, right?
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So in my book boxes, I say you get a solid steel bookmark. You get two books of my choosing. You get some swag that you can't get anywhere else. You getAn audiobook and an ebook also of my choice.
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And, and on top of that, there's opportunities to win additional things if you buy a book box during a certain period. Yeah, the swag shop is great if you've got really cool branded swag.
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Like right now we're getting to a point with my business where I can actually just sell my brand a little bit because people find it interesting.
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I would not look at a swag shop as something that would invest a whole lot of in- of time in, especially because it takes up a lot of space, and you don't know if it's gonna sell.
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If it's something that's just kinda something that you wanna do for your super fans, then do that for your super fans.
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But as far as a means for additional streams of income, a lot of authors kinda struggle, especially at the beginning, with getting merchandise af- uh, affordably, and then finding the audience who's willing, who's ready to buy that merchandise right now.
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No, Devon, uh, the... I think you're really on something with a swag shop. How I would encourage people to think about it is
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we oftentimes see concert merch or, like, merch for YouTubers, and I think David's already highlighted this point, which is it's gonna... That type of stuff's good for your super fans.
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But I think the best merch is not merch, it's fashion, it's clothing, it's culture. And
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this is where you, you start thinking exactly how David has with Scaremail, and you start thinking about yourself less as, "I have my story that I'm very precious about," 'cause you wanna be very precious about your story, but more so about how can I, again, tap into culture and a broader psychological need that people have?
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And let's be candid and open with ourselves.
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The people who have a psychological need to feel really deeply invested in your stories to the point that they wanna make it a part of their identity and wear your characters on their body, there's probably a few of them, but it's probably a smaller market for, like, all of us, literally all of us, including David.
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Um, and you actually will make more money and do more good for the world 'cause you'll serve people's needs more by instead thinking back to that question, what sense of belonging, what culture are you tapping into?
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And I'll give you an example of one that is really weird, but it, it's funny. So there's this YouTuber called Danny Duncan. If anyone has, like, maybe teenage boys, you maybe have seen them watching him.
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But he's, like, a prank YouTuber, and he's got a couple million followers. Like a... And, and don't get me wrong, that's a huge audience. But his T-shirts, I'm going to guarantee you, you have seen.
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Or if you haven't noticed it, you've definitely passed one on the street wearing it, and it's called Virginia Rocks, um, which is just funny. It's weird. But here's the point.
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Danny Duncan did not put Danny Duncan's face and then Danny Duncan on a T-shirt. Instead, his merch actually is a clothing brand called Virginia Rocks, and he's literally made tens of millions of dollars from it.
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It sold north of nine figures in terms of the net number of money that's come through that. Insane. Like, you wouldn't even expect it, but it went viral. It tapped into something.
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Again, let's be clear here, probably a different audience than yours. But thinking about the culture of teenage boys or 20-something frat guys, there was a sort of... Let's be candid.
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The people who were wearing it, it was a joking, like, ironic thing to wear. That was generally it. It was not like...
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Look, you could come up with the same brand and tap into a Christian culture that is very passionate about that as well. That just was what he tapped into. So if I'm thinking around, like, books, right?
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I write more sci-fi dystopian books.
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I'd be thinking about starting a dystopian, maybe ironic end-of-the-world brand that is targeted to probably a little bit more, like, Gen Z, lower millennials, but thinking about making the swag itself a separate business because David's letter business, you could think of it as something for super fans, right?
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But it would've been the hugest mistake and worst thing in the world if you stopped at just the 250 sales you got and said, "My super fans really like this." That's an extra 25K in revenue. That's a win for anyone.
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Instead, he turned 25K into 2.5 million by using that mindset of, "How can I bring something that, yes, my super fans like, and make it broader?"
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Yeah, on the topic of messaging, just real quick, Michael, and we're talking about T-shirts and swag and that sort of thing, you're exactly right.
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The messaging behind it is what makes it important for folks and why they understand it, right?
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Romance readers want to feel heard for reading romance, and they wanna feel heard w- by other romance readers who also understand why they read romance and understand what's going on.
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Willow Winters capitalizes this and says, "Hey look, we're gonna talk about sex and it's totally fine," right? "And we're gonna, we're gonna read about these things and it's totally fine."
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And she gathers people into her fold like that.
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My messaging behind Scaremail and a lar- uh, behind my larger brand is that it is okay to be a horror reader, and I will bring you horror things when you wouldn't normally find them because we're all under...
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We don't wanna talk about it. So my shirt that I'm wearing right now, you can't see it, but the back actually has my logo and stuff on it. But the front says, "I survived the Master of Malice."
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And so it's just a little tongue in cheek saying, "Hey, I survived reading this horror novel. I survived reading Scaremail," right? And it, it doesn't mean anything other than say, "Hey look, I'm one of you."
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And so that, that term, I Survived the Master of Malice, has become something that we can now slap on our logo, on, on our material and sell.
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So yeah, messaging is absolutely important, and I, I think Michael hit some really good points with it. Yeah, what are your thoughts on converting that swag shop?
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'Cause Devon writes that they wanna convert it, their swag shop, into a monthly subscription. So what are your thoughts on that? What makes a swag shop good as a monthly subscription?
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Yeah, so I think you need to niche down, right? If it's gonna be swag like y- you talked about book sleeves.
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I'm like, hey, every month it, it should be simple and niched down to where say, "Hey, we're gonna send you a really cool book sleeve every month." So now your books don't ever have to...
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You don't ever have to worry about these new books that you're getting from Barnes & Noble are gonna get all scratched up, right? I, I would...
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If, if you just say, "Hey, we're the everything place for this thing," unless that thing is, "Hey, bobbleheads. You're... You can only get this bobblehead from here, and it is...
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W- that's all we specialize in is in bobbleheads," I think you're gonna struggle, right?
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Because there's a lot of places you can go to find, hey, it's really easy to pop onto Amazon, say, "I need gift items for horror fans." It's very easy to find those types of solutions.
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But if you say, "Hey, there's only one place to go and find these knick-knacks or these things that solve an, uh, solve a problem like tho- like those..."
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I keep talking about those sleeves because I think that's a really cool idea. But this is the only place to get these really fancy, super cool sleeves, and we're gonna make it easy on you.
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We're gonna send you a sleeve a month, and all you have to do is sign up, and it's a new surprise every single month, and here's the price, it's great, and you don't even have to be afraid of what we're sending you.
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So yeah, I would say niche downFocus on solving a problem, right? A paperweight is more interesting to me than, than a bobblehead because a bobblehead is cool and it's collectible, but a paperweight does something.
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So I would look for solving some issues because that'll help you easily start to market these things. Not- the nonfiction guys are great at this The next voice you hear will be Dax.
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They move from the chat to actually talking with me and David My big thing was, do you remember... I'm not sure how old you are. I got Highlights in the mail once a month. It's a, it was a kid subscription magazine.
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Something along the lines of a mini booklet with the next few chapters of the book or letters from the author with a sticker every month. Something easily that can go in the mailbox. And not like a book box- Sure...
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but something smaller is what I was trying to come up with Yeah. So I've got a buddy who sends out sticker packs every month.
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They, they're, he does the art for them, and they're part of his bookshop, and if you subscribe to his service, then each month he sends you a sticker pack. It's just a little bit of coolness that he designed. I don't...
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I think if he were to scale it up, he'd find a lot of success with it just in stickers because there are a lot of people who say, "Hey, look, I'm gonna produce for you thousands of stickers on..." And they're on Etsy.
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That's a different story. We're talking like, "Hey, I'm gonna send you, like, 10 of the smuttiest sticker packs or stickers that you will find on this planet, and each month they're different."
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That's a little bit different. Or, "Hey, I'm gonna send you, uh, 10 of the most, uh, horrific of your favorite horror characters that you can now add to your water jug or whatever, and in stickers every single month."
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So I, I think there's a lot of opportunity there for sure because you're conveying a lot of value and a lot of care for your readers without a lot of cost associated.
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It would not take you a lot to produce this type of thing, even though there's an associated value saying, look, it's still... The same thing with the metal bookmark. Hey, it's a metal bookmark.
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It's still a bookmark, but it's made out of metal, and so it holds a lot more value and it holds a lot more weight even if it was just a bookmark. So yeah, I think you have some great ideas
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So now we have another question from Shannon who is asking how we can actually build trust with our readers by sharing free content with them So David was talking about you send out the free ebook and the, the free audiobook.
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I'm like, I got one audiobook, so I don't wanna give it out free yet.
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[laughs] So I'm like, is this, like, after you have so much published or are you, like, making specific things, like specific magnets just to give away for these different things that you're doing?
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No, I, I think it has to be strategic, right? Uh, if you're making money off of your audiobook, I would be hesitant to give it away, right?
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But if you're sitting on a lot of books and they're not really moving for you, then you should send them out to go do things for you, right?
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Just having a book up for free without a lot of goals as- attached to it, a lot of readers, they go for the free...
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Uh, a lot of people go for the free, free BookBubs and stuff like that without a whole lot of intention behind it.
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They just put it up for free, and then as soon as they add a price point to it after the BookBub deal, their ranking crashes just like it did before. There wasn't a whole lot of intent.
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But if you start putting calls to action throughout the book saying, "Hey, look, I, I would... This is the first time I'm gonna be able to reach you, you know, in a long time.
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Thank you for downloading my book, but please go here for more. If you love what you're reading, go here for more." Throw calls to action in there.
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Make that book do work for you, but only if it's not during, doing work currently. So I give... I have 23 novels out, and I, I frequently give away the first in series across a couple of series.
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But it doesn't have to be that. It could be if you've got... I like this, uh, a fire and ice analogy, right? So if you have a book that's all fire, right?
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And you've got one that's ice, give away the ice and see if it gives some help to the fire, right? If, especially if they're related or if you have opportunities, like I said, to drop in calls for action.
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Readers are always looking for the next thing, right? And that next thing could be you or it could be another book in a competing, in a, in another author's.
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You should take every opportunity to make sure that next thing they can go to is you, especially when it comes down to the front of the book, the back of the book, and where you want them to go and what you want them to do.
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So th- the answer is it doesn't take 23 novels. It could take two. It just depends on what your goals are with that book and what you can do to make it work for you I've got a question. This is just, just put out there.
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I've been thinking about this for a while, especially being on the fantasy side. I love fantasy and the world building.
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What do you guys think about if you put like hyperlink words in your e-books where people can go find out more about your worlds? Yes.
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I thought about doing this, but I don't know if this would be like too much [laughs] Yeah. So I love it. M- Michael, I don't know if you wanna jump in on this, but I love it.
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One of my first horror books actually had that. It had links to Book Funnel where you could listen to certain sections of the book that were immersive.
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So like I had a recording of a cell phone message that was left by one of my characters right before she died. You would have to go into the book or download the Book Funnel link. There was no transcript.
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I had images that you had to click the link in order to go find the images which were posted on my website. That was my first horror book. I did that five years ago before I even knew what I was doing.
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So yes, I'm all for it, especially because nobody else is doing it, right? And it doesn't cost you anything to test it.
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So I would, I would throw that kind of stuff out there, especially if you can have a good way to measure the traffic. So when they get to your site, what do you want them to do? What do you want them to do?
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Do you want them to just view it? Because then it's just a selling point.
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Hey, here's the only fantasy interactive book on the planet with clickable links for you to learn more about this world that I've created, which is bigger than anyone else's world because you can go to this wiki page or you can go to this website.
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That's a selling point.
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But if you send them to a place after the click and you're like, "Hey, you go to this page and it's a hitting landing page, and you get to learn about this dragon, but also here's the upsell," right?
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Then you're actually asking them to do something once they get there. Yeah, I'm all for it
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I'll also share something a little bit futuristic on this point that maybe a few people have already heard me yap about throughout times, but I'm just gonna keep putting this out into the universe so that one day some company or brand hits me up or hits another author up and this actually happens, 'cause I'd be very happy.
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But yes, I think hyperlinked inside books can be really interesting, and especially if it's like enhancing the experience in some sort of way, uh, but isn't part of the main plot obviously. Now, one thing that I am super
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interested in and I think would work really well is product placement inside of books through text, which is like really weird butLet's say like a character is like drinking something. If I'm a company,
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I would love to be able to pay an author to have that character be drinking my drink. So to say, let's say it's Coca-Cola or maybe it's something more niche. I just had Muscle Milk recently.
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I guess I like protein shakes, whatever.
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Either way, having characters drink stuff like the brands or put on things, "Oh, I'm wearing this makeup," feels weird, but Hollywood makes billions of dollars a year from product placement, and every big streaming show on Netflix or Prime probably has product placement and is probably making anywhere from like 10-ish percent to maybe as high in some cases as 15% of their revenue through product placement.
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So it's quite a really interesting and big revenue stream for, again, a lot of these already established forms of IP and video. So I'd love to see it in books.
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I'd love to see product placement in a tasteful way in books because I think it could introduce readers to some cool brands and get authors paid some money because we're one of the only forms of media that doesn't really have advertising as a component of our revenue, and I think we could do ads in a, in a tasteful way.
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So maybe people will hate me for suggesting that, but I think I, I like it. Yeah, we're already doing that with Scaremail. We opened it up. I've got a retailer deal. I can't really talk on it right now.
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We're still in negotiation, but 10,000 units across 1,000 stores in the US for a major retailer with a, a, a bullseye, a, a red bullseye. Okay, there we go. We negotiated the deal where we will leave the boxes un- un...
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excuse me, unclosed so that they have the opportunity to slip in their own material into the boxes that we're selling them.
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That is, we are trying to get them to offer 10% to 20% additional for that opportunity, or we send the boxes closed and they can just stick it on the shelf.
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So yes, product placement is absolutely a possibility, especially when you can say, "Hey, look, I can guarantee that somebody's gonna open up this box. I can guarantee that somebody's gonna open up these letters.
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I can guarantee somebody's gonna open up these books to the tunes of, I don't know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 readers per month." That is a huge selling point because those are eyes, right?
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You-- it-- product placement isn't necessarily about how many sales you get. It's about eyes, right? Because from there comes your conversions.
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So if you can promise a certain amount of eyes through your sales, there's a lot of opportunities. But yeah, great points, Michael.
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Yeah, no, it's interesting, and we have Willow writing in that it could be a good idea to do that with a group of authors, and I, I agree. You would definitely need to do that.
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To make it interesting for a brand, you would need to do it across a group of authors for sure just because budgets, they're gonna wanna spend a decent amount on it. I think it's one of those things that'll take time.
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It's gonna take one or two or maybe even three brands trying it out and then proving that there's like some sort of ROI, but it's interesting. It's interesting times. Can I ask one that's actually for part of our group?
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I'm Willow, and I write paranormal romance. Hi, Willow.
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One of our members in our group has a future project that's going to have a magic puzzle, and there's been some talk amongst the members that a magic puzzle, the puzzle is going to be in a competitive puzzling environment in her book, but the idea of pieces or the whole puzzle, that it could travel to other worlds or times or even genres because it's such an object.
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And I'm curious about something like that, where it's an object, but it could move from writer to writer as a Easter egg and what might be a physical way of playing with that maybe. I don't know.
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I'm getting-- I think I'm getting this series right, but I'm getting "39 Clues" vibes. I think it was called "39 Clues." Does anyone... Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe it wasn't that. There was a series that was done.
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It was like an antholo- This was through Trad, by the way.
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They were taking like famous like mystery and thriller authors and having them write like one book in this series that together solved a big real-life mystery, and the winner who solved the real-life mystery got $100,000.
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So different than what you're saying, but I'm thinking about the puzzle pieces tying together. This was a literal collective mystery among authors. Yes, "39 Clues." Okay, great. Here's... Great, Michelle.
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I'm so happy to hear it. Michelle writes in that "39 Clues" is a book her students read, which is really awesome. So yes, it's something I really think is interesting. I think something that we sometimes
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under-index on in the author community is creating like really powerful collaborations. I think we all know that it's really helpful to have someone shout out our book or to do a swap.
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But if we think about it from a reader's first perspective, it could just feel like a random email unless there's like some real meaning behind it.
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I think a lot of times we lean on discount deals to bring meaning to swaps. "Hey, go read this book now because it's free, and not only this book, but 10 other books because they're all free."
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And I think that's a fine way to do collaborations. But remember, you're only getting creative in one way, with discounts to try and bring people in.
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I love that you're getting creative in another dimension, which is less about offering a discount. Nothing wrong with that, and you could still layer that on top of it.
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But how do we get creative from the actual reader experience lens?
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How do we make it so that the act of us collaborating actually means something where it, it, it's usef- it enhances the reader experience, the fact we're working together?
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I-- A lot of people know that I, I've recently had a quite interesting stint working with, uh, MrBeast in the YouTube world, and top creators are really passionate about collaborating with each other.
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It's a very positive sum environment. Authors are very similar, but I think YouTubers have it a little bit easier because they could just throw each other in the video and say, "We're filming this together." And
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you, you don't have to-- You c- you need to get creative about it, and it's surprising how creative they get. But it, it's something that has been done a lot.
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We understand what collaborations look like.In the video creator world. I think reimagining what those collaborations could look like is really interesting.
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And I'll give a few examples of things that are interesting in addition to puzzle pieces.
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The idea of paying or potentially not even paying, but just having an author who's skilled with audiobooks narrate your audiobooks as a sort of collaboration where they're the voice of the story, or not even the whole audiobook because that's crazy, but a specific character or a specific moment.
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With s- tools like Descript, it's pretty easy to make someone who's not in a studio sound like they're in a studio. And again, if you're doing an audiobook, are they able to do that?
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Is there a way in which we're able to have-- You can collab an entire book with an author, right? And co-write a book. That's a huge project.
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Are there lower lift ways where authors are able to write sections of your story?
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Not necessarily the whole thing, but oh, like this page or like this character was like written or at least the background inspired by someone.
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These types of collaborations seem weird and unconventional, but what I've seen be really interesting is if you're able to have five or 10 collaborations that are like really impactful, it can make a crazy big difference with the right people.
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So if you're all like having these characters where like this c- au-author owns the IP of this character, but it makes an appearance in 10 different books in the subgenre, that's wildly interesting.
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I now wanna read that collaboration because I like your character, and I know that they make, you know, a cameo, for lack of better words, in it. And this is what happens in television.
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Think about how many movies you have characters in other movies show up in or actors, right? I like the puzzle piece idea a lot, and
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I wanna encourage everyone to think even more on that front around how to break boundaries with that. Willow writes further that, "What if the puzzle pieces inserted themselves with the story in the final edit?
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Each letter could be written by the startled and worried, possibly with a photograph of a bizarre puzzle piece that arrived in their shoe or garden, or like an arching little mystery that the authors have to solve."
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Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So each writer could include this, "I found this. This is how it changed my story. What are we gonna do? What's happening?" It could be like a mini mystery that's threaded across.
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Might be fun. I love it. Yeah, no, I think it could be really good. I would just make sure that it's simple to understand as well at the surface for both readers and authors.
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Simplicity is like everything, so don't make it super complex. Make it have an analogy that you've seen before so that it's like, oh, this is like a cameo, like something like that, where it's super easy to get.
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But I think it could be really good and help you all build like a shared world, right?
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Because there are some stories that take over culture, but more likely than not, you're-- you might not have the next Hunger Games, but you can work together to impact culture in a way that's meaningful, 'cause that's what it really is all about at the end of the day.
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We're all trying to change and shape culture. Now, I wanna cover two things that I know will be really beneficial. We already have questions about Reddit ads versus Facebook ads.
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First off, let's just start with many authors know that Facebook ads are pretty much good for every genre. Is Reddit ads similar?
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Can Reddit ads work for, quote-unquote, "any author," or do you think there are certain genres that perform better on Reddit ads?
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Yeah, so I, I, I think certain genres, especially those who are, I would say, on the fringes, would find more of a place at home at Reddit. Just if, if you go to Reddit, go to any Reddit, it's its own culture itself.
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So if the thing that you're offering doesn't fit within the culture, you'll know very quickly because that ad is not gonna perform as well, and the response you're gonna get towards that ad is not gonna perform as well.
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Horror is very counterculture. Same thing with very spicy romance, very counterculture.
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You're seeing a lot of the romance genres like the ones that are taboo or ones that not really-- that, that are struggling to find a home, th-they have ravenous fan bases.
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So when they do find a home, it, it strikes hard. That's the same thing with Reddit, is that there's a culture within Reddit that if you fit within there, you will be uplifted.
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But if you don't fit within there, you're gonna struggle to find a home. So I don't wanna say that it will not work for every genre.
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I just have to say, um, w-what do you have to offer and what is your intent from Reddit?
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If your intent is to just say, "Hey, look, I'm gonna bring you something new and cool," that's a whole lot easier for people on Reddit, I think, based on the culture, to accept and acknowledge versus, "Hey, look, I've got something that is everywhere else, except I'm gonna throw an ad at you for it right when you're in the middle of reading an article that was something interesting to you."
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So the other thing about Reddit is that it offers a lot of opportunities for niching down into very specific groups.
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So I would go into those groups and see what people are already posting and see what is being lifted up.
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I w- I would go beyond the book groups too, because there are book groups, and our first instinct is to jump into the book groups. So I don't advertise ScareMail to book groups.
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I advertise it mostly to specialized gift groups, so people who don't really know what to buy somebody for a gift.
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I also advertise it to a lot of arts and crafts groups because I know that people will take this paper ephemera and turn it into something different.
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So look at what you have to offer, look at what the groups are doing, and then see if you can find the one that you would fit in the best with, and then just start running some tests. And for those who
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may be less familiar with Reddit, how Reddit describes itself, and I think it's the best way to think about Reddit, is a community of communities. So Reddit's based around a subreddit culture where subreddits function
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as like different niche groups. And as David's saying, think long and hard and do research about which subreddits could be good and could have potential customers for your stories.
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Not every community has a super vibrant community on Reddit. Reddit's not the community for every community in existence. But thinking outside the box, David, that's amazing.
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I-- That would have not been my first thought. My first thought would've been to go to like Creepypasta groups and things of that nature.
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But I thinkBut really good thinking on that for your offering in specific I've given up on ads, to be honest. But I, I haven't tried Facebook ads. I don't have the time to learn them right now.
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So I've just done Amazon, but I've been studying Amazon ads for a couple years. I can't get the hang of it. It's maybe I'm just not a good writer at this point, so [laughs] that's, that, that's what I've kind of come to.
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That is not... Not a good writer is, like, loaded language that's I don't think helpful for you, which I totally get where you're coming from, 'cause I've also been there. Like, I,
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like, four years ago, was in that position where I had published 12 books and dumped a lot of money into ads and didn't see a return, in particular because my read-through rate was too low. But
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just because something has a low read-through rate doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad book.
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We'll get more into that, but I wanna ask you more specifically, was it your read-through rate, or were they just not converting?
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And what I mean by that is were you getting readers to buy book one and just not move on to future books, or were you not able to get many readers to buy book one?
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As long as I was running other paid book promotions, I was getting the read-through rate. But it's just getting that book one in front of readers, which all together I was making, like, $5 a month.
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That was what I was making af- all the money I was putting out, what I was making, because Irish mythology just didn't really sell, and I'm having a hard time figuring out the fantasy romance because it's epic fantasy fa- romance, and there's not really a lot of epic fantasy book promotions out there.
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There's PNR, but this doesn't fit. I've tried it. I'm not getting readers for it. I'm just at this point, I'm... And, and I've d- I'm doing ads on both the first books of both of those different series. Interesting.
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What do you do when... So if we back up a second, you have good read-through rate. So if you're having a good read-through rate once readers get in, I definitely don't think that means you have bad books.
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I think you have good books. I think that you just need to find your readers or position your book in a way in which it brings in the right readers. And it, to be frank with you, it's probably a combination of both. Now,
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David, do you have any thoughts on how to think about repositioning a book if it's not selling? What questions would you be asking yourself? Yeah, absolutely. So I was in the same boat as you, Shannon.
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Five years ago, I thought I was a dark fantasy author. I am not a dark fantasy author. I'm a horror author, but I was positioning myself in dark fantasy because I thought it was a bigger genre. You say Irish mythology.
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That sounds, to me, it... I'm not an Irish mythology reader. I wouldn't know what that is, but I do absolutely know what fantasy is.
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And so I, I would say is there an opportunity to repackage the book and say, this is, instead of trying to reach... I, I know you wanna niche down, so that's, the riches are in the niches.
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But, uh, I, I, I know you wanna say, "I wanna target this specific group of readers," but if the possibility of those readers being too small of a genre, but it does sell through to the people who do read it, who, who enjoy it, I would say go a little bit broader with it.
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I would say reach out to, say, I would start looking at fantasy in general. Can we hit all the tropes in fantasy, but it's got a little bit of an Irish twang on it, right?
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It has a little bit of, of that Greek mythology which uplifts the fantasy, so now you don't just have a fantasy book, but now you have a fantasy book that's based on Greek my- on, on Irish mythology, and people are finding that new and interesting, right?
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Other than these worlds that were already created or things like that, now you're bringing in solutions to a problem they didn't know they had. They know they want a cool fantasy book, right?
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Which mythology and fantasy are very closely related terms. So I would say look at expanding a little bit. Start looking into fantasy and see if you can find a, a footing there.
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I, I think I'm gonna-- I've put that series aside because I am writing fantasy romance now, and because I was just-- I was spending so much time on doing promotions all the time and making $5 a month, and I owe $4,000 on the series still, and I thought, "I'm gonna be 80 years old before I pay this off, so I need to do something different."
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[laughs] But I d- what Michael was saying about finding that right audience, even for the fantasy romance, I'm having issues with that.
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I think the biggest thing I want you to walk away with, Shannon, is that your mindset of immediately going to, "I'm not a good writer," I know that's in you. That might even be, like, where your mind goes a lot.
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I totally get that, 'cause I think we all feel that at moments, and that insecurity runs so deep for us as artists. But that's just not true, and that insecurity is not going to help you. It's something different.
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What you're looking for right now is story/market fit.
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You can have a good story that hasn't found its fit in the market, and that might mean that you wanna go on and write another story or that you have to pivot and reposition your existing story.
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Either way, it does not mean you're a bad writer. And when you come from a place like that, it's you're playing defensive. But I think- I'm not a bad writer. I'm just not that good of a writer. No, but that's not...
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No, no, I get it. But no, you are a great writer. You just are a writer who hasn't found your positioning yet. And I think that it doesn't matter how great a story is.
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If it has- doesn't find its place in the market, it can still be that you understand all the mechanics of great writing and great storytelling. But man, that first section's so important. Think about this.
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All the different social media apps or music or podcasts are started, and you listen to them, and you go, "I think this is good. This is a good podcast."
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You wouldn't then say that podcaster isn't great if they only have 50 listens, or that musician isn't great if they're just playing at the local bar and haven't made it to the concert arena yet.
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They just haven't gotten that big of an audience yet, but that still doesn't mean they aren't great.
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I think that's really important to internalize that, because this is not you being bad and stumbling and bumbling along.
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This is just you going through that natural process of finding story/market fit, and it is probably the hardest thing to doBut when you find it, you'll probably have something like David did, which is he didn't even create the product yet.
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Notice that he didn't even create the product, didn't even exist,
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and 250 people, you know, collectively spent $25,000 on it, which I don't think you'd ever had that much people throwing that much money down on something that hadn't been created before, ever.
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He can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm right- No... then that just shows how powerful positioning is. And yes, he's a great product man. He knows how to write crazy awesome stories, but that didn't really matter.
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He made all of that before he even picked up the pen, which maybe would be my point to you. If you're struggling with positioning,
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your problem is that you only get a shot to mar- nail that positioning every time you write a book, and you don't write...
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Even if you write books really fast, you don't write them that fast to get that many shots on goal. So that's where I'd start doing some radical things.
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I would take a cover, take a description, put it up on either a direct site like Shopify or put them on a retailer like Amazon, and put them up for pre-order. Say, "That puppy ain't out yet."
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You can always refund people, right? If you don't release it, and start seeing if it sells. Start marketing. You don't even need to use paid ads first. You can go to different Reddit communities.
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You can go to different Facebook groups.
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I did this after I badly got burnt writing a six-book series that I threw, like maybe collectively between ads and the, and the books in the series, $8,000 down the drain, and I wrongly thought my first series was YA dystopian, and it sold well enough to at least pay back where I was like, "Oh, I know what I'm doing," right?
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Like I'll just write this series I'm passionate about. And it was like cyberpunk, which there was a market for, but I just totally didn't nail it. Whatever that was, I completely flopped. It was...
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I could not sell book one to save my life. So then after that I was like, "This is never happening again,"
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and I did a pre-order for a book in a post-apocalyptic series, cover, description, just ran some $5 Facebook ads, and I think, in 30 days spending $150 in ads and pre-orders...
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Uh, sorry, $150 in ads for the pre-order, I had 150 or 100 sales, right? And that didn't count KU reads.
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And I was like, okay, if I made my money back on pre-orders, not counting like KU yet, and not counting book two, book three, book four, book five, yeah, I'll write this book and write the series.
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So I would start to think more radical like that if that's where you're struggling in the process. So I think, uh, we have time to handle one more thing here, which is what do you do when you're in a saturated market?
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I actually have problems with the word saturated, 'cause I, I don't fully buy into that as a reality, but David, how do you view targeting as in a saturated market?
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Because pro- contrary to popular belief, there's actually a lot of letter-based story services. Mm. Quite a few.
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If you look up online, David's very innovative, but there's a lot of people doing this type of thing, not ScareMail. ScareMail is one of a kind, but maybe talk about how you think about breaking into saturated markets.
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Yeah.
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I'm not the only one who's done this, but I'm the only one who's done it from an author's perspective, and I can bring that to what these other companies cannot do or have not done, is that I have a, a long history of story writing behind me to help support the thing that I'm creating.
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So telling a better story than the people who are there is always the first goal. Then the second goal is looking at what my audience already has and does not have.
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I noticed that horror readers don't have a lot of stuff out there for them, and so it was a really big opportunity for me to say, "Hey, look, here's something else that, that you as a horror reader..."
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Along with powerful messaging which says, "Hey, I understand what it's like to be a horror reader and not be able to find the things that you want, and having spooky cousins who are hard to shop for, and that sort of thing, a- and enjoy going to the spooky movies and everybody else didn't."
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I looked at it and I said, "This is a, it's not necessarily a saturated market as it is a market in which people are doing the same things," which is fine because it's exactly like Michael said,
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I don't necessarily believe in a saturated market. What I believe is in, is if you are delivering the thing that market is looking for,
382
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they're a whole lot likely to band behind it, especially if it's been done right and hasn't been, and hasn't been done specifically for them. So it... Stand out or stand amongst, you have a choice.
383
00:59:27.212 --> 00:59:32.952
In this case, ScareMail was very much stand out because it was not offered to horror readers before.
384
00:59:32.992 --> 00:59:44.951
There were six other services that I know are run by authors that have popped up in the last month since ScareMail went basically public with how things were going, and they are standing amongst, and you're finding that they're struggling to find traction.
385
00:59:45.581 --> 00:59:51.742
They're trying to replicate what was already done versus offering something new to a market through a different medium, through a medium that's already been done.
386
00:59:52.372 --> 01:00:07.612
There were a lot of good ideas in this talk lately about things that could be done differently through a book, adding links, puzzle pieces, things to make it interactive, things to bring people into the fold and say, "Hey, look, this is a fantasy book, but here's also what's going on with it."
387
01:00:07.672 --> 01:00:14.531
That to me is powerful messaging 'cause it says, I'm not only getting what I asked for, I'm not only getting the fantasy book, but I'm getting something else on top.
388
01:00:15.152 --> 01:00:27.132
So yeah, it's a saturated market, but there's more to it. You're feeding that market additional things that they might want. I could not agree more, and here's, um, here's my quote for that,
389
01:00:28.432 --> 01:00:36.152
and I do not remember where I got this from, and I may have come up with it myself, but whenever I come up with a good quote I, I'm like hesitant 'cause I'm like, "That couldn't have been me."
390
01:00:36.772 --> 01:00:48.712
So I give credit to something on the internet I saw that sparked this, but here's what it is. It's if you copy someone else's playbook, you will always be second place, and when you're in a competitive market
391
01:00:49.732 --> 01:00:56.792
looking at a bunch of playbooks that have already been run, if you copy those existing playbooks, you will be second place for sure.
392
01:00:56.812 --> 01:01:01.512
But when you're in a competitive market, it's a really good sign that there's something there that people want.
393
01:01:02.012 --> 01:01:11.132
So just don't copy someone's playbook, and instead write your own, and that's easier said than done, but I think there's three ingredients to it. The first is really simple.
394
01:01:11.752 --> 01:01:19.252
It's who are you writing for and getting crystal clear about that. Now, sometimes when you put that lens on something, it's still hypercompetitive.
395
01:01:19.742 --> 01:01:23.392
So you know, David was saying something hasn't been done for that type of people before, right?
396
01:01:23.492 --> 01:01:30.860
And sometimes you can do that, but sometimes it's there's a lot of billionaire romances and there's a lot of readers for those, and that audience exists, and-I'm not gonna be the first one to do that. That's okay.
397
01:01:31.160 --> 01:01:39.640
You've still got it more narrow than all books in the world, so, like, congrats on that, and I mean that. The second, though, is when you're thinking about your packaging
398
01:01:40.540 --> 01:01:50.000
and thinking about the content you're creating, what tilt are you able to put on it that no one else has done? Don't market yourself like all the other authors. Instead, look at how musicians market their albums.
399
01:01:50.320 --> 01:01:52.940
Look at how, like, your favorite YouTuber creates their content.
400
01:01:52.980 --> 01:02:03.020
Look at how TikTokers not on BookTok make videos, and steal, like, an artist from them because I guarantee you no one's taking that strategy plus what you're doing.
401
01:02:03.080 --> 01:02:16.340
But then I think the third thing is where you choose to focus and spend your time. Too often we do too much of everything, but David said it first, go 100% in on what you're doing, and I highly doubt that someone...
402
01:02:16.640 --> 01:02:24.560
Like, true strategy is just betting almost irrationally on something, like very long term on doing one or very few things right.
403
01:02:24.580 --> 01:02:34.740
So if you're choosing to create something for a specific type of people, creating it with a specific s- tilt or spin on it, and then doing it in a specific place. I'm not saying it will always work.
404
01:02:34.960 --> 01:02:43.640
You might have to tweak a lot of different things and switch up what you're doing, but I think those are the three ingredients towards breaking free in a saturated market. But with all that said,
405
01:02:44.860 --> 01:02:56.620
I wanna give a huge thank you to David, and I wanna give another incredibly big thanks to everyone who either stepped into the writer's seat or wrote into the chat. This is a lot of fun.
406
01:02:56.720 --> 01:03:08.040
And David, before you go, can you share with all the listeners here where we can find you and learn more about your stuff in the writing world? Yeah, it's real simple, just davidvergews.com.
407
01:03:08.290 --> 01:03:17.500
My mailing list is open to readers and authors alike. If you need help and you think I can answer a question for you specifically, I'm not opposed to an email. Just give me some time to get back to it.
408
01:03:17.640 --> 01:03:26.040
I did not get to where I am by myself. I had a lot of help, and the only thing that help asked of me was to one day return the favor. So if I can help you, I will.
409
01:03:26.160 --> 01:03:32.100
If you, if, if I can't help you, I will let you know, and I will do everything I can to point you the right direction. I love authors with the bottom of my heart.
410
01:03:32.200 --> 01:03:40.260
Seriously, I, I love this community, and so if I can be there for somebody, I will. So thank y'all for having me, and I appreciate your time. We appreciate you, David.
411
01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:52.820
And that's it for this episode of Beyond the Book Podcast. Next time will probably be a solo episode from me talking about one really crucial growth hack for authors. So I hope you stay tuned for that.
412
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It'll be an in-depth episode, and then I have some amazing interviews coming up, including a tour of the Scaremail HQ. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
413
01:04:01.280 --> 01:04:21.120
Now, if you wanna actually join the fun live and have me help you go beyond the book in your own business to grow your readership, to expand to new media formats, and to create new products that can grow your revenue and grow your audience, then you'll probably love the Beyond the Book Accelerator.
414
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I'm coming out with it targeting June. It's a huge roadmap that we have planned between now and then in terms of different modules to finish,
415
01:04:30.100 --> 01:04:40.700
over 100-plus sessions, and planning out some great live sessions for us all to go through the Beyond the Book process together. So if you're all interested in joining that, you know, check the waitlist out below.
416
01:04:40.950 --> 01:04:46.160
And in addition, I host monthly live workshops for Author Sidekick Plus members.
417
01:04:46.580 --> 01:05:02.340
So down below, when you subscribe to Author Sidekick, you could join for free and get weekly emails from me, or you can also join the Plus version, which I'd be very grateful for your support, and you'll also receive other extra bonuses from me in addition to the monthly workshop.
418
01:05:02.440 --> 01:05:11.660
So you can check that all out down below. Thank you all so much for listening. The support on this podcast has been absolutely nuts, well beyond what I expected.
419
01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:23.860
We're already at, like, 250 views on average an episode, and we've just gotten started. I don't know if this is a fluke or if y'all are gonna stick around, so I hope that y'all wanna keep listening to more episodes.
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01:05:24.040 --> 01:05:35.080
So really let me know what you like. Send me an email at hello@authorsidekick.com if there's something you wanna see, if there's someone you wanna see. I wanna cover this. I'm learning a lot.
421
01:05:35.120 --> 01:05:41.160
This is a whole brave new world of going beyond the book, and we're gonna do it together. We're gonna rewrite the rules of publishing.
422
01:05:41.180 --> 01:05:52.290
We're gonna help a lot of authors, and hopefully you, make more money and live the life of their dreams, and we're gonna help millions of readers be able to have these incredible experiences because you're gonna be putting them first.
423
01:05:52.760 --> 01:06:00.860
So we'll talk more soon. Thank you so much for listening. Again, blown away by the support. For those who don't know my story, I had a lot of crazy things happen last year.
424
01:06:00.900 --> 01:06:10.040
I have been in the publishing industry for a long time, almost a decade now, and it's been really cool to be able to come back and see all your support. So just thank you.
425
01:06:10.120 --> 01:06:18.540
If you share this podcast with author friends, just know it means so much to me. That's how this show grows, and the more this show grows, the better I can do for all of you.
426
01:06:19.040 --> 01:06:27.120
I'm looking to bring on some editors and really up not only the production quality, but also the research and everything here.
427
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So as this grows, I get to continue making it better, and hopefully that means you all continue to be succeeding more and more go- in going beyond the book. With all that said, thank you again. I've blabbered on enough.
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Y'all rock, and as always, don't forget, together we are boundless.