- If you've seen the promises that you can be
a best-selling award-winning author
if you work with X, Y, or Zed company,
then you must stick around.
Plus, I've got a bit of a confession.
(rock music)
Hey, I'm Julie Broad, award-winning author
and founder of Book Launchers,
a fabulous company that will help you
write, publish, and sell a non-fiction book
to boost your business or grow your brand.
Sounds cool to say you're an award-winning author.
And in my case, it's kind of true.
I'll explain why it's kind of true in a minute.
First, I wanna celebrate.
I wanna celebrate you for being here.
Every Friday, a new video comes out
and when it does, if you comment on the day it comes out,
you could be entered to win one of these
fabulous no boring books mugs.
Yep, for real.
I wanna thank the people who support Book Launchers
and I don't know, these are cool.
#noboringbooks
so all you have to do is put a comment
on any video when it comes out on Fridays.
So make sure you've subscribed to the channel
and turn on those notifications
so you get a reminder.
And then when we go live, twice a month,
we're gonna draw for these fabulous mugs.
Now, back to the award-winning author.
Let me say that any company guaranteeing you
best-seller status or that you'll become
an award-winning author if you work with them,
is running some sort of a gimmick, period.
There are no guarantees.
Nobody knows what will ultimately be a big seller.
And you certainly can't guarantee an award will be won.
Seriously, think about it
from the perspective of movies.
There are things that are more likely
to do well at the box office
and that's why we have a million movies
about Spiderman.
I don't care if you put Spiderman against James Bond
at this point, I am not going
to another freakin' Spiderman movie.
But that's a topic for another day.
Somebody's going to these movies
or they'd stop making the darn things.
Even when it's likely a movie will do well,
there still are no guarantees.
And nobody can say they'll win an Oscar or an Emmy.
It's impossible to know.
There are always surprises.
The same thing happens in books.
So how can a publishing course or a company
guarantee you will become an award-winning author?
Simple, they give you the award.
And the award for the blondest person in the room
goes to this guy, because he paid us for it.
Someone I was in a mastermind group
with a few years ago paid 20000 dollars
to become an award-winning author.
I'm not sure of everything included in this package
but I do know, the big selling features were her,
were that a famous person was her co-author,
and she flew to a city where they had this
swanky red carpet event
and was presented with an award.
They had professional photographers take pictures
and she posted them everywhere.
She got an Oscar-like looking award
and boom.
She's now an award-winning author.
True story.
Authors everywhere are hungry for exposure,
validation and credibility,
so the author award business is huge.
Not realizing this, I entered my books into a lot of awards.
My first book, More Than Cashflow,
won an international book award.
My second, The New Brand You,
won the Beverly Hills Book Award
for Best Sales book at a couple other accolades.
These awards aren't as hokey as paying someone
to give you an award,
but it is a for profit business,
which is a little bit sketchy.
You pay to enter.
Which I get, because there's processing fees.
But many don't give an actual monetary prize
for winning.
So what does the money really go towards?
Well, you might think it goes towards judging,
but as I researched them, I found out
very few actually disclose who the judges are.
Does anybody even read these books?
In some cases, it's highly likely nobody does.
Almost none will tell you how many books
were in your category.
So you could be a winner in a category of one.
And many of them have dozens and dozens and dozens
of categories, because they want to encourage everyone
to enter.
Some sell merchandise if you win.
So you wanna present to the world that you won?
Buy this sticker, buy this plaque.
Non-prize prizes, press releases, media announcement,
database and website listings were all prizes.
And some offer little more
than the supposed honor of winning the award.
Which is truthfully all I got
for being the Beverly Hills winner
of the Best Sales book.
Knowing this, will I be submitting my next book
to award companies?
Only if it's an award that honors authors
and the community and is doing it
for the good of the community.
With a list of the judges they disclose
who even may comment and give you feedback
on the book directly.
But mostly I'm gonna focus on finding actual humans
to read my book and share the word about my book.
And I'll save my entry fees for thank you gifts
for those who go over and above
to support me in my ventures.
So tell me,
have you entered any book author awards?
What do you think?
And if you like this tip,
smash that like button.
You make my day when you do that.
And make sure you subscribe to the channel
and turn those notifications on,
so we can hang out here again soon.
Thanks for watching.