How to Influence and Sell Your Book Internationally Interview with Jill Lublin Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest mentor of the week is master publicity strategist and bestselling author Jill Lublin. Over the past 25 years, Jill has worked with ABC, NBC, CBS, and other national and international media as a highly regarded publicity expert. She's been featured in The New York Times, Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur and Ink Magazines. Jill is the author of three bestselling books, including Get Noticed, Get Referrals, Networking Magic, and Guerrilla Publicity, which is regarded as the PR Bible. With three national bestselling books, Jill is acknowledged as the go-to person for building success through influence marketing, networking, and publicity. She's also a dear friend and National Speakers Association colleague, so Jill, welcome to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor. Oh, Susan. It's always a pleasure to help you and your listeners. Thank you. Jill, you're an expert in influence marketing. I know that's a brand-new term out there. Could you talk to us about it, what it is exactly, and how authors can maximize it to develop their book marketing strategy? Influence marketing is really about publicity. It's kind of a fancier term. It's more trendy, and of course with publicity, we're always looking for new ways to say what you're doing, right? Influence marketing is really about having influence over others, and guess what publicity does? It creates focus on your business, attention to your book, and that's a beautiful thing, so influence marketing is exactly what it says, and that is to have influence over others. That's really important in the topic of getting people to pick up your book, and take a look at what you have. That's influence. Are there some specific strategies that, say, are slightly different from publicity, or are there the same strategies? What are some of those top strategies to use? I think the piece you might want to look at more is particularly around Page 1
social media influence, and also around what's going on in today's marketplace with regard to how people are connecting with others to have influence, and that's usually done through social media, through publicity, through a variety of tactics, mostly those two, that are really supporting others to pay attention to you. I would tell you it's very similar, with maybe more engagement in the social media area. When you talk about that, are there some platforms that are better than others to use? I'm a big believer and used to top three. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter I think will serve you well. If you're writing books more women-oriented, Pinterest is usually good, Instagram. All of those are excellent. Depends a little bit on your target market and what you want to reach. If you're a business author, you probably want to work more on LinkedIn and Facebook. If you're reaching women, probably more on Pinterest, so I'd say that's the things to keep in mind. Who's your target? In order to become an influencer in your marketplace, are there some specific strategies that authors should use? Absolutely, and I'm going to use some from my book, Guerrilla Publicity, but also in working with, gosh, thousands of people at this time in my publicity classes and other ways I work with people. Let me tell you some of my top hints, if I may, about what to do. That is to realize that as an author, you solve problems, right? You got to look at, what is the problem out there? Not what your book's about, and that's the shift I want authors to make, is get off what your book is, and get onto how your book is solving problems, and talk about that in the marketplace. That will be far more interesting and appealing to media, and actually get you attention. Here's a great example. A woman in my publicity course, she's an etiquette expert and a professor, who has actually written a book for college students on how to have more etiquette. We were humming along with a wonderful story about great job tactics, and wonderful ways to use etiquette to create employment for college students. Donald Trump came on the scene in politics, and his etiquette hasn't been the best, and I called her up. Regardless of politics, regardless of what you think about that, there's stories here, and what you want to do is dig for the stories. Because we reworked her pitch to be about that, about current events, what was happening, she got many wonderful guest segments talking about that. How fabulous to get in. I like to call it, use everything you've got, which would be a second tactic I would say to you, is use everything you've got. Page 2
My African American authors go on African American shows, and minority business publications, and use that. My Christian clients use that. My Jewish clients use Jewish press, and so on, and so forth. My Hispanic clients use Hispanic media, so I want you to see what you could be using that perhaps you haven't touched yet, and that could open up a whole new realm for you. I was teaching this in my publicity course, and we were going deep on it. It was wonderful, because one of the gentlemen is Pakistani, who's written a book. He never thought about going to the Pakistani media and discovered in the Los Angeles area, where we were at the time, that there were five Pakistani newsletters aimed toward that community. He's like, "Oh, my gosh." That opened up a whole new world for him, and got him five exposures in media that he never would've had. I want you to count everything. Everything matters, and everything works. My soccer mom. I love her. She wrote a book, and discovered that, oh, my gosh, the soccer team had a newsletter. What could you be using more of, for more media attention, for more attention in your communities, or where you are locally? That's really a great key, and speaking of locally, I'd like to share a tip, a third tip, and that is, be a celebrity locally. It's that think locally, act globally, and we'll get to that in a minute, but make sure that your local market knows that you've written books, that you're making announcements in the local business journal and the local daily paper. They love these stories about local girl makes good. When my third book came out, Get Noticed, Get Referrals, I went to Detroit, where I'm from originally, and did some book signings. I really just wanted to see family, but hey, what the heck. I did some book signings, too, and at the local Barnes and Noble, got to do a lot of good photo ops. Then I sent a listing into the Detroit News, and I said, basically, "Local girl makes good," has written a third book, and they ran the piece, and so did the Oakland Press. I got two pieces of press from one book signing and some local appearances in Detroit, using my family visit as a great excuse. What more could you be doing on a local level where you live, where you're from, and then I want you to think globally. I've been helping authors create foreign rights deals for a number of years now, and I'm going to tell you, and these are self-published authors, mostly nonfiction, occasional fiction. The international market is hungry for different topics, so that's a beautiful thing. I would love for you to pick up on that, and talk more about foreign rights deals, because I know that, as you say, they're hungry for information, but it's like, how does a self-published author get into those foreign markets and get those deals? Would you address that for us please? Page 3
Absolutely. Actually, Susan, you'll be delighted. I got inspired to do this from one of our NSA colleagues, who said... He had a published book on Simon and Schuster, and they just weren't selling any foreign rights. He just kind of took it upon himself. Guess what? I did the same thing. I have three books, and hardly they've been translated into international rights, and I just got a little frustrated with my publishers, and decided to go do it myself, and now I'm doing it for others. That is helping them find foreign rights deals, and I'm going to tell you something. I go to the London Book Fair, and I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair. These are two of the biggest international book fairs, and I do not necessarily recommend walking this alone as a single author. I have good, great contacts. I'm known in the industry. Get a team member. I'm not the only one. There are others who do this, but I think it's really a key to do it with others who already know how to do it, because the truth is, the global marketplace is a good one. If you want to do it fast, and just get your book translated, there are wonderful resources. In fact, feel free to email me. I have a great resource who can translate your book fast in certain languages. I have a language, Persian client, and she wants her book translated into Farsi, so she can send it abroad to her family. In the meanwhile, she hired me to go help her work in Frankfurt Book Fair, and, it's an and, we have her book being translated into Farsi fast because one thing I want to say about foreign rights deals. I'll just tell you, is that they take a long time, like a snail's pace. It's not quite like the American, or Canadian, or North American market, so that's just something to keep in mind, that it just operates differently and slowly. Patience is king, and working it is queen. You have to do both. I know that having gone to the book expo in New York at the Javits Center, that they always have representatives from different countries looking for those deals, so is that the case in Frankfurt, or in any of the other book fairs? Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, it's really the places to make a foreign rights deals. At Book Expo, it's more North American book deals and US book deals. That's really the focus, so what I always recommend is yes, we work it at the London and the Frankfurt book fairs, and there are two different times, and two different parts of the seasons. Because frankly, that's where the international book publishers are, and that's where I can sit down with them, look them in the eye, and do what I like to call hug hug kiss kiss meetings. Are there specific books that these people are looking for? Are they more Page 4
business related? Are they fiction, children's books? What are they usually looking for? I would tell you they're looking for all kinds of things, and what matters is what they're looking for at the moment. I've noticed that business books and nonfiction do very well, spiritual, transformation, self help do very well. Yet, I represented two novels last year that we got great deals for, so I think it really varies, but I would tell you what I notice the best response to tends to be business/self help/transformation spirituality. Those categories tend to do very well. Then you organize for the book to be translated, or how does that work? What happens is I represent the book to South Korea, Japan, China, and the list goes on and on. Every country that I can, of course, and basically pitch that to the publishers who are there, and then I get a, "Yes, we're interested," or, "Well, not quite up our alley." At that point, the PDF is sent to them, and the process of consideration begins. That's really the key, is you got to just get in front of them, and I've got that key, because I'm already in front of them, and that makes a big difference. They trust me. I'm a professional in the marketplace, so that's really helpful. What about any thoughts of work being stolen? I know that there have been some horror stories about going into certain countries, and them saying that they're interested, and then stealing your information. What about that? It's happened. There have been some countries a couple years ago, that actually had a big problem with that. I'd rather roll the dice, and know that we're putting it out there. The people I'm dealing with are foreign rights agencies. These are international players who are trustworthy and responsible, and do things happen at time? Yes, they have happened, and more so I think in the past. I haven't seen that as much in the past two years, but a few years ago, it was probably worse. It seems to be getting better now. I think it's key to be getting your book into international global markets, and having the impact that frankly you deserve. Once it's in a foreign language, let's say Korean, or Chinese, what happens in the country itself? Is there some kind of PR that takes place? What kind of publicity goes along with that deal, if any? That's all negotiated, frankly, and I'm just thrilled for the client to get a book deal, god willing, an advance, sometimes small, sometimes a little bit larger. They translate it and distribute it, so you get to forever have the Page 5
wonderful bragging rights, and this is great publicity, to say, "My book's been translated into Italian, Chinese, Korean, et cetera." That's really powerful, to hold up book covers in foreign languages. It just makes you look far more widely distributed, and more leveraged as an expert. Then you can run webinars, you can go to the countries and do seminars if you'd like, but it just opens a whole new world of opportunity and revenue, and I think that is a very good thing. It's so exciting when you do see your own book in a different language, even if you can't read it. I've had some in Korean, and Chinese, and it's in Polish. I can't read them, but it's so exciting to know that the book has been translated into those languages. Exactly. Yes. Mistakes that authors make. You've dealt with authors for many, many years. You know a lot of mistakes that authors make, both in publicity and maybe in the foreign rights arena. What are some of the major ones? First problem is not doing any publicity, or even worse, starting it too late. Here's what I want you to think of. I want you to think of your publicity plan in three, six, and nine month increments, so thinking ahead. I have a new book coming out called The Profit of Kindness. The book will be out January 2017. We are starting our publicity right now. That's really a key, is that most people wait too long and too late to start their publicity. That's a big mistake. You don't do it when the book comes out. You do it before, and you lay the groundwork, and lay foundations, and start writing articles about the topic. That's the kind of things that make a big difference, so that's a big mistake. The other mistake that authors make is they focus too much on, "Oh, I got a book. I got a book. I'm so excited. Here's my book," but they are not looking at ways to get it bigger, wider, deeper, to talk about other aspects that might lead into the book. Here's just a great example. When my book Get Noticed, Get Referrals came out, it was on McGraw-Hill, and they did their publicity in June. I started my publicity way before that, but that was when we were having another major election that was really quite interesting. Barack Obama was just coming in, so I started putting together a how to get noticed... I'm not a political expert, but I ended up on all kinds of radio shows talking about how to get noticed, and somehow I had to do a lot of, frankly, research. I was on tons of radio shows from June to November, talking about how to get noticed in politics, and what to do, and how were the candidates, and Page 6
how were their wives. Were they good for them? Were they bad for them? I was on these six minute, seven minute radio shows. Let me tell you, and share with you, Susan, and your listeners. Anyone could sound smart for six to seven minutes. Don't worry about it, and I'm laughing a little bit, and I want you to laugh, too, because at night, I would be quickly looking on Google, and seeing what the polls were saying about who, and there I was on radio shows, good radio shows, big radio shows, averaging three a week, talking about how to get noticed. Here was the real interesting part. They would say, "And now we welcome Jill Lublin. She is the author of a new book called Get Noticed, Get Referrals," right? Then they'd launch it to that, and they'd give my website. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Here's my thought to all of you. You control your message, and so when I went them on, and making good comments, of course I'm referring back to the book. It doesn't matter that really it's a book about how to get referrals in business, but how to get noticed in politics was really the talk of the day. That's what's key. Tune into what's the talk of the day, and how you can fit into that, regardless of exactly what your book's about. Get a little creative, more imaginative, and get more wild how you approach, and think about, getting your name out there, getting the name of your book out there. The other mistake authors make is that the don't mention... Here's what the authors do. They go, "In my book... " Okay. I don't know what your book's called. Please don't just say, "In my book." To the other end of that, to the other extreme of that, don't say, "On page of 85 of Guerrilla Publicity, here is what you'll learn." We don't care about that, but you weave in it. You can say, "In Guerrilla Publicity, I share three powerful guerrilla publicity tactics for how to get your name out there." Weave it in. I think that's really a key, is that authors always... I hear them do this all the time. "In my book," but they don't say the name of the book, because you're so close to it. It's been your baby, but please know that we don't know all about your content, the name of the book. We don't know the focus, so make sure to remind that. In an average interview, you should actually mention the name of your book at least three times. I think that's a key. That's one of the duh moments, hit the side of your head. "In my book," but as you say, nobody's got a clue what your book is. Oh, dear. How can our listeners get more of your wisdom, Jill? How can they get ahold of you? Thank you. A couple different ways. Number one, feel free to call our office, and let me tell you how I can work with you, and support you with what you've got going on. My phone number's 415-883-5455, and Susan, I Page 7
don't know if you can put that in the show notes, but that would be wonderful. Would love to. Yes, and then also feel free to go on... I've got a wonderful free gift for you, and we've created an audio that helps you with seven key points to powerful publicity, so very practical, very tactical. You can check that out at publicitycrashcourse.com/freegift. Publicitycrashcourse.com/freegift. Also I do teach a publicity course, and it's a great way to get your word out there. Practical, roll up our sleeves. You actually leave with four documents done, so that's pretty darn exciting for your book, no matter where you're at in the process, and I invite you to ask me about that, and we'll make sure you have a great discount, because you're listening, and you're one of Susan's clients, so I appreciate that. That's very generous. Thank you, and we'll make sure that we'll put that all in the information that goes along with the podcast interview. Thank you, Jill. A golden nugget, if you were to leave the listeners. I know you've given us great golden nuggets already, but just one more. What would it be? If I had a platform, and I could stand on it, here's what I'd say. This is my soapbox, okay? My soapbox is, you've got to start your publicity early, and continue it. I am still doing publicity on Guerrilla Publicity. The book came out eight years ago. To me, it's always a new book. It's always a new moment. Look for new opportunities, new ways that you can keep getting your word out there, because even though your book comes out at a certain time, it lives on forever in you, and with you. I want to remind you most of all that your message matters. Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you, and thank you all for taking time out of your day to listen to this interview, and I sincerely hope that it sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Here's wishing you much book marketing success. Page 8