Hey hey! Today we’ve gotCHANDLER BOLT of SelfPublishing.com in the studio to discuss the economics of self-publishing a book!
We talk about: - How much money people make self publishing books. - Difference between self publishing and normal publishing. - AI in book publishing, how it’s changing (and not changing). - The different forms of monetizing a book: Royalties vs backend. - We go through examples of 10 books and their results. - How Chandler’s company did $70,000,000 of revenue so far.
Or if you don't have time to watch, here's a full visual form re-cap!
(0:00) Chandler’s sold $70,000,000 worth of book guidance, and published over 7,000 books.
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(0:35) Every book gets at least ONE hilarious 1-star review! It happens to all books.
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(1:13) 7,000 confirmed books published, 2 to 4 per day. HOLY COW.
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(2:20) Neville’s concept of “The Short-ification of Content” applies to books as well. Neville copied Kamal Raviant’s small book for his first book.
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(3:13) Chandler remembers a *controversial* quote from Copywriting Course that really makes you remember!
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(4:02) You can write long, but not long-winded.
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(4:15) Publishers want longer books so they can sell them for more.
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(5:05) What is the hardest part of writing a book for people? Two big humps: First is getting started, second is rough draft.
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(7:11) Isn’t a book….just a long blog post?
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(7:30) Self publishing is awesome because you can just keep updating your book anytime. It’s a living thing versus publisher-published is a static book.
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(9:15) Me and Noah Kagan were gonna write a book, but it was a horrible experience and the book stunk. Tucker Max’s advice convinced us to not do it.
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(10:30) Publishers do almost nothing.
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(11:25) Publishing industry, movie industry, and music industry are similar: The artists now have other avenues to release their stuff….it’s not just big publishers.
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(12:50) Noah Kagan did a publisher-published book solely to get a NYTimes Best Seller, but he has a lot of resources and a huge audience already. Most people wouldn’t have access to that.
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(14:20) What are the reasons people publish a book? 1) Legacy. 2) Passion. 3) Business Growth.
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(15:26) I read WAY more fiction from books now, because my news on AI or something rapidly changing is all from X or social media or newsletters. .
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(16:15) 90% of top 100 books on Amazon are fiction. Fiction is either no-seller, or big banger.
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(17:32) Read Write Own by Chris Dixon was a great example of a timeless business book on a rapidly changing subject. He focused on the fundamentals instead of trends.
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(18:30: A book is strategy, a course is tactics.
(19:24) Audiobooks are great because people “read” books by listening quite a bit now. Authors should have physical, digital, and audio ideally.
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(23:05) How much money do people make from writing books?
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(23:39) A business book will make almost no money from royalties, but hundreds of thousands in sales from the authority of the book in the form of larger projects or consulting. Chandlers book has brought in $7,000,000 in the last 12 months for the company, but maybe about $2,000 in royalties. The business that comes from the book is more important.
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(24:50) If you sell 10,000 copies you’re in the 1% of top book sellers.
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(26:00) My book has been the MOST passive form of income ever over the last 10 years.
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(26:42) “Passive income is a myth. But the most passive type of income is a book.”
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(28:10) The economics of a fiction book is read-through for a series. How many people read book 1, 60% will go to book 2, and 60% of that will go to book 3 etc….
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(29:15) There’s only 3 ways to grow a business: Get more customers. Increase average order value. Increase lifetime customer value.
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(29:50) Subscribe or like this video…these videos cost a lot to make!
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(30:57) SelfPublishing -vs- SelfPublishingSchool name change debate. CopywritingCourse vs KopywritingKourse.
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(34:07) The best book names are simple and clear.
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(35:05) The Slippery Slope in book titles. Titles come from talking to people.
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(37:55) I was gonna call my first book “The Ten Commandments of Copywriting” but everyone hated it when I split tested in my newsletter.
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(38:50) Chandler has ~65 employees: Editors, publishers, book designers, sales people etc.
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(40:10) Book Guides literally get people to keep working when they wanna quit.
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(42:15) AI and book writing. “It’s changed the game, but in some ways not changed it at all. It makes it easier to create crap. But it can also completely level up your book with outlines and titles and editing.”
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(44:05) You can get AI to write 10 small books, but then you gotta go market all this stuff, and if it’s not a great book that’s hard.
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(44:28) “What are you seeing on the copywriting side using AI?”
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(47:20) Part of writing is organizing your own thoughts, and I like that part of it.