Anna David, Publisher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Television Personality: The tragedy I
see is people work really hard on their books and then they pay attention to it
for a week and then they move on to the next. That book is there for the rest of your life.
Film Courage: If no one reads your book, you've written a journal?
Anna: Yeah, I stole that line from my friend Richard.
Film Courage: It's a good one.
Anna: It's my same friend who said he feels so sorry for people the week of their book release.
I think that without an audience how audacious is it for you to think people are going to read your
book? I was that audacious. I just thought well it's out there obviously people are going to care.
The reality is you've got to spend time nurturing, finding your audience, making them aware of you,
making sure they care about what your topic is. Then you actually write something that people want
to read and if you are reticent to go put yourself out there again, cool. That just means your book
may be a journal. It may be a book no one reads. If you want people to read it, you better be
putting yourself out there not just once but over and over and over again telling them about it.
Film Courage: Why do you say TV appearances don't sell books?
Anna: It does not sell books because like let's say somebody on my podcast just said
this to me the other day let's say someone has an exercise book and they go on The Today Show
and they go this is how you're supposed to be doing sit-ups and pull-ups somebody watching
that is like oh cool why do they need the book the person just explained how to do it
a person has to hear about your book between 8 and 15 times before they buy it so if you're on
the Today Show that's a really big deal that's one out of 8 or 15 times as opposed to a podcast
where you are in someone's ear maybe they're lying in bed maybe they're walking they're do like you
are there with them it's a really really intimate medium people like if you're watching The Today
Show it's just sort of this like passive thing it's on podcast you made an active you had an
active desire to listen to that you are either so invested in that host that you really trust
what the host says or you were searching and you want to learn how to do something so it was such
it's the statistics on how much better authors can sell books on podcasts over books are ridiculous
how important are pre-sales in the traditional publishing World pre-sales used to be so important
because it determined what bookstores were going to order now that bookstores aren't that important
they're less important here's why it matters the way it works is let's say your book is coming
out in a month and you're telling people now every single book sale that happens between now and that
first week counts towards your first week sales so if you're trying to make the New York Times list
and you can sell 10,000 copies between your pre-order time and the launch that's great for
most people it doesn't matter at all I am a big fan of like the stealth launch where you actually
don't tell people the date until the book is out because most of our book sales happen on Amazon
for better or worse and the Amazon algorithm really favors new books it really gives a lot
of juice to new books and and the way it starts to work is if your book you want people to buy your
book that are already interested in your topic so that Amazon starts doing that what they call the
also bots so it'll say customers who bought this also bought this this this and this so
that launch week book sales matter to me a lot more than pre-sales what can an author do to
boost first week sales the best thing you can do to boost first week sales is be everywhere but
first week matters so much less than first month or first year I think a lot of people think oh my
God it has to be this great success out of the gate because that's what traditional it's for
traditional publishing your book doesn't sell that first week they're done they're moving on
when we're not dealing with that your book is there for the rest of your life and the tragedy
I see is people work really hard on their books and then they pay attention to it for a week and
then they move on to the next that book is there for the rest of your life so I say yeah try to
be everywhere all at once first week but then try to layer promotion if you have podcast interviews
see if one can come out week two another one week three if you have people supporting you by sending
out newsletter lists like and as Amazon likes that a lot what Amazon doesn't love is a whole bunch of
sales one day and then nothing drip it out that's going to be the best thing for everyone so the
drip method yes I like that don't waste time on forwards celebrity endorsements and book sales
yeah I said that yeah I see so many people obsess over I'm going to get so and so to do
my blurb and I judge them so much until I became that person there was like this one person and
I'm like I know I can get her to do the blurb and no one cares I myself have never bought a
book because somebody blurbed it ever ever ever so it's wonderful to have that sort of social
proof of well-known people endorsing you but it is not the most important thing forwards are
great if you happen to know a very famous person who happens to know you well and be associated
with your topic that's a pretty rare circumstance otherwise you shouldn't do it the nice thing about
a forward is that on Amazon they're listed as the co-author so we have a book where Magic Johnson
wrote the forward so anybody searching for a book by Magic Johnson this book is going to come up but
I see people just sort of being like Oh so-and-so like do my forward and it doesn't even make sense
and then last but not least book sales why don't book sales matter because book sales you're making
pennies on the dollar if you are strategic about it you are book sales accounting pennies when you
could be literally counting millions if you have an offer embedded into your book or you
your book shows that you are the world's leading authority on this so people want to hire you it's
just focusing on book sales is focusing on the wrong thing and when you say offer you mean a
link or a QR code that could then hire you out for something yeah yeah I mean just I think think of
your book as your calling card it is your 200 pages to go convince the world that about this
topic and it's not it's not like a crass business thing it's just you should be paid a living wage
and if you're relying on book sales you're never going to be unless you're J.K. Rowling
would it work for fiction too well no I mean it really doesn't that's kind of
it's really hard as a fiction author to have a business that supports your book I lucked
into it with party girl because it was I I was suddenly being considered an expert in
addiction and recovery but but normally a novel is not going to lend you expertise.