Film Courage: Of the books that you've written Anna how
many had traditional publishers and how many were self-published?
Anna David, Publisher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Television Personality:
Six were traditionally published and then I've done two between two and five I never know what
to count as a book when I can put I I put out a journal two weeks ago like does that count but
I did six traditionally published and the rest I published myself is it worth it to self-publish a
thousand percent it is you need experts you need help everybody Malcolm Gladwell has an editor
you need an editor you need a book designer you need help doing the launch or maybe you're just
really good at research and you can figure out I have met people who have done Exquisite launches
without having any experience but most people are going to need help how realistic is it for most
writers to land a traditional publishing deal it's really really hard to get a traditional publishing
deal now when I first got in it was very different now the statistic that I hear is two out of every
10,000 book proposals submitted to big five publisher cell those are agent represented
if publishers are not interested alas in talent and unique ideas and amazing stories and it's not
because they're terrible people they're interested in what's going to sell which is why the people
with all the following the people with the big newsletter list the celebrities that's who gets
deals now it's really not for that diamond in the rough great idea should it be a pageant
of honor to have rejection letters the whole oh I'm going to paper my wall my bathroom with all
my rejection letters and that just shows like I'm gonna keep going is that really a badge of honor
I'm not a fan of gatekeepers my life got so good when I stopped putting myself out there
to say like hey am I good enough I take rejection really hard if other people don't and they want
to keep going I mean that being said the people I know who are successful are just the ones who
got up over and over and over again success as a writer success is any sort of creative I
actually don't think it's about talent it's about tenacity it's about being willing to being able
to take getting knocked down and getting back up again but I'd much rather live in a world without
gatekeepers where I can just make it happen what should a new author expect from their publisher
very little I think that we all go into a traditional publishing deal thinking that
our publisher is really behind us and I always liken it to your filmmaker and your writing and
directing and scarring producing and and a studio gives you all this money and you go and you make
your movie and they're like yes this is so awesome this is going so great and then it's the release
day and no one from the studio calls you back and you're like but I don't understand you gave
me money we were in this together and then it's just like that's what it's like when you publish
a book you think because they've been with you the whole time you think they're in it with you and I
again if you're Glennon Doyle you're J.K. Rowling I'm sure they are with the rest of us you just are
sort of like jumping off the diving board alone so you better we all heard that going in and thought
it would be different but even I've interviewed Robert Greene like the one of the most successful
writers of all time he's like your publisher does nothing for you given a choice would you rather
self-publish or have a publishing deal I would rather publish myself over a publishing deal
any day because I have published I have had books come out where I hated the cover I hated the title
I hated sections of it and I was basically giving away all my power for absolutely nothing in return
that being said I mean like I haven't had a big publisher come along and say here's a
million dollars to write whatever book you want it hasn't happened I haven't been put to the test but
I'm pretty I feel pretty safe saying I will never traditionally publish again
okay so that being said what are the disadvantages of self-publishing
the disadvantage of self-publishing is if you don't have people around you who know what
they're doing you're basically going to put out a lesser product it's not going to be written well
it's not going to be edited well it's not going to have a great cover it's not going to have all
the things but if you want to hire people to do professionals to do all of that stuff it's going
to look the same as a traditionally published book the other thing is these Publishers have
so many different divisions nobody knows like in live in is a division of Harper Collins like no
if you make up a name of a publishing company nobody knows that that's a big one or yours
okay so suppose me Karen wants to write a book okay I'm going to start my own LLC as a publishing
company is that correct yeah you actually I'm not a lawyer but sure I don't know that you actually
need an LLC you can just make up a name you go to a website called My Identifiers.com which is
Bowker they they give out all the ISBN numbers so you basically go I think it's a hundred dollars
you buy an ISBN and you fill in the name of the publisher and that's what's going to go out a lot
of people screw that up and it'll say like Create Space or KDP or independently published you can
make up you can make name it after cat and make that your publishing company and that's what's
going to come up okay so yeah again check with your attorney but we don't know LLC or not but you
can go and get yours you said it's an ISBN yeah okay [a.k.a] International Standard Book Number
and then you can just fill in a name that you make up make sure that someone else doesn't already
have that name do they run a check don't even know I don't know okay and then there you go you're
you're now a publisher yeah and now you need your book yeah so is that the first step I think ISBN
comes down the line the first step is have your elevator pitch and I actually do have you can go
to Bookelevatorpitch dot com and I'll give you this template it's my book is for blank so that
they can blank and that is your step fill that out print it put it on your wall put it everywhere
remember like your book is not about you it's about them you're a reader so never forget that
why is it important for an author to realize no one cares about their book it's important because
as the author you have to make your book fit into what's going on in the world it's not news to
anyone when a book comes out so if you're trying to get on mainstream media which while it doesn't
sell books is really awesome promotion and social proof and all of those things instead of going hey
news show my book is out think how does this fit into the news when I had my book Make Your Mess
Your Memoir come out July of 2020 Global pandemic, a book on writing is not news to anybody but I so
it was up to me to say how do I make this news so I looked up statistics about depression are at an
all-time high the numbers are terrible then I looked up does writing help with depression
found numerous studies that said it I wrote a press release and I said this is the this is
the news the depression statistics are terrible writing helps with depression this author Anna
David is available to speak about it and I got that too Good Morning America and from that I
got a four minute segment on Good Morning America there was nothing in my book about writing helps
heal depression but it didn't matter that's what I talked on the show about and the whole time it
said like New York Times best-selling author of Make Your Mess Your Memoir so it was imperative
upon you as the author to figure out where your book fits into the news and not think that your
book is news in itself and then reach out to the appropriate outfit yeah pitching yourself yeah
I can talk a little bit about how to do that yeah that'd be great so in order to get media attention
definitely start with how is my book newsworthy try to find studies try to find statistics try
to find Bookers if you put in Good Morning America booker a bunch of people's LinkedIns are going to
come up their information is readily accessible there are websites like Muck Rack Cision and
Hunter IO you can find them on LinkedIn there are ways to find out people's email addresses the
other thing you can do is subscribe to HARO which is short for Help A Reporter Out and they send out
three emails a day and it's everybody from like your mom's blog to the New York Times they are
looking for sources and they'll say I'm looking for sources to speak about depression about
addiction about movies about writing whatever it is they send out three emails a day look through
the emails and when something comes up that is relevant for your topic you are an expert
if you're writing a book on a topic you're an expert so reach out to that journalist with the
pitch on why you should be in that story those are the two best ways to get media attention.