Posted on October 13, 2022
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Publishing is changing. No longer do you have to rely on retailers for all your sales. You can have freedom from the platforms and sell books directly to your readers. But what are the benefits to your author business of direct sales? And how can you incorporate this into your publishing business using the right technologies and strategy? Today, we chat with Matt Briel from Lulu to learn all about how Lulu is supporting authors with POD in the direct selling ecosystem with special insights from his 15 years of working in media and publishing.
Join Lulu’s Global POD Platform for selling print books direct, on retailers, and more: https://www.lulu.com/
#15 Episode Outline:
0:00 – 4:13 Introduction and Context
4:18 – 9:10 The Mindset of Selling Direct
9:10 – 13:27 The Typical Goals Authors Have When Selling Direct
13:27 – 19:45 The Problem with Reader “Training” and the Power of Retailers
19:45 – 21:45 Communicating with Your Readers about Selling Direct
21:45 – 23:02 A Sneak Peek of How Many Direct Book Sales Lulu has Powered in 2022
23:02 – 31:44 How Million-Selling Author Katie Cross Sells Direct
31:44 – 33:49 The Dark Side of Also-Boughts
33:49 – 36:19 How Morgana Best Crushes it in Direct Sales
36:19 – 39:23 The Explosion of Manga Books + Selling Comic Books
39:23 – 44:27 Collaborating with other Creators to Expand into New Product Lines
44:27 – 45:44 Using Direct Selling to Grow Your Brand and Audience
45:44 – 54:36 The Future of Selling Direct for Authors (Personalized POD Books + Special Editions)
54:36 – 57:09 Future Proofing Against the Algorithms
57:09 – 59:27 Conclusion and Outtro
#15 Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Michael Evans: What if I told you that over 500,000 print books have been sold directly by authors to readers? No platform in between. Just in the first nine months of 2022 alone and just using one print on demand platform powering it. That would seem really surprising, but it’s true.
[00:00:23] Michael Evans: Matt Briel, the vice President of marketing at Lulu, actually shared this stat with us on the podcast along with some more juicy insights about the growth of direct selling in the indie author ecosystem and specifically, Lulu’s data on how they’ve been powering that as a service that enables authors to be able to print on demand and ship their books with no intermediary directly to their readers all over the world.
[00:00:49] Michael Evans: So as you can tell, we’re talking all about selling print books direct to your audience today. This is of course, the Subscriptions for Authors podcast and. Love talking about [00:01:00] subscriptions and most of rap suits are centered just about subscriptions. However, we wanted to deviate maybe from normal programming, talk about something we think is really important, which is selling print books direct to your audience.
[00:01:11] Michael Evans: It’s something that a lot of authors tie into their subscription, maybe print book rewards, and it’s also something that authors can do, whether their eBooks aren’t kinded or wide, whether they serialize on lot pad. No matter how they have their fiction, your readers probably wanna hold your books in their hands and have them on a shelf in their home.
[00:01:31] Michael Evans: There’s still demand for that. There always will be. In fact, that demand has grown. And as authors, we can sell these books on retailers, and that’s always a good thing to do. But in addition, we can also sell these books on our site and keep the data ourselves and be able to nurture and cultivate a direct relationship with our audience.
[00:01:49] Michael Evans: And today we’re gonna talk all about how to. Why to do that and what specific technologies you can use to be able to grow a successful business selling direct [00:02:00] to your readers. And we’re not only gonna just talk about things, but we’re actually gonna share stories from two authors who collectively have sold millions of books throughout their career and share how they’re using selling direct from their technologies that are using to. The strategies that they’re employing in terms of marketing and communicating with their readers that have led them to growing really successful businesses, selling print books direct.
[00:02:22] Michael Evans: So I think this will be a really exciting episode and so excited to see this one platform has seen so much growth and has seen so much volume and direct sales from authors, and it really feels like the beginning of this wave of the creator economy.
[00:02:35] Michael Evans: And it’s something interesting for us all to be paying attention to and maybe to be participating in. And if these are questions or things that you’re considering, then this is the perfect podcast for you cuz it’s all about how you can approach direct selling and make the most from it as an author. So we’re gonna dive into it and.
[00:02:52] Michael Evans: Really lucky to be able to talk with Matt Briel, cuz he’s been in marketing and medium publishing for 15 years and is very high up at [00:03:00] Lulu. So has an inside view at what’s going on from the product development standpoint, which he kind of talks about where direct selling is going in the future. And also of course, On the ground is talking to authors all day long, so he understands us and understands what we need.
[00:03:13] Michael Evans: So that’s it for me. Me and Emilia, your co-host, will be conversing with Matt very, very soon. And but before we get into the conversation, I want to mention that if you’re not. Already a part of our Facebook group, you should join it.
[00:03:26] Michael Evans: It’s called Subscriptions for Authors. It’s linked in the description, and it’s a great place to be able to ask questions about how you can connect closer with your fans to different platforms. You want to use subscription strategies.
[00:03:36] Michael Evans: But anyways, that’s enough for me. Let’s get into this conversation. Me and Emilia really love this one, and honestly, I, as a sci-fi author, have published 12 books and never really seriously considered selling direct until like 2022. But I think after this conversation, I’m sold. So I hope to be sharing on a future podcast my updates on how that’s gone for me and [00:04:00] Emilia.
[00:04:00] Michael Evans: Her being innovative and always ahead of the curb has already diving into it. So that, that’s amazing and maybe this will encourage you to dive into it, or if you’re like Emilia, and have already started, maybe it’ll help you get a step further. So let’s do this thing.
[00:04:13] Michael Evans: Matt, so excited to be speaking with you today because selling direct specifically with print is something that so many authors can benefit from, but it feels complicated. It’s something that scares a lot of us. And I’d love for you just to dive into what does it mean to sell direct? We’re used to, let’s just say retailers, but Ingram or Amazon or some maybe common print on demand platforms that we’ve uploaded our manuscripts before.
[00:04:39] Michael Evans: So what is the differences when we’re selling direct?
[00:04:42] Matt Briel: Yeah. I think I’m gonna back up just a step if you’re okay with that. And I think that the first thing you have to do and this is probably beaten a dead horse, but you have to shift your mindset from, from just thinking I’m an author, or just thinking I’m a creator.
[00:04:57] Matt Briel: And if you really wanna sell direct, [00:05:00] successfully, And effectively you have to really transition your mindset to that of an entrepreneur, right? You really have to start thinking about it as a business. And I think that’s the first step that people get wrong. I think they, they jump into it as an author or as a creator, and they just kind of start swimming around in these really not so deep waters, but can be murky waters for sure.
[00:05:21] Matt Briel: So I think the first step really is you have to shift your mindset. It doesn’t mean you’re not an author or creator anymore. You’ll always be that. If that’s who you are, that’s who you are. But the way that you approach everything going forward, if you’re serious about it, has to be more from an entrepreneurial and, and small business owner mindset, really as an indie author or even a small publisher for that matter we work with a lot of them too, that are just getting into to the world of selling direct.
[00:05:43] Matt Briel: So I think first thing is that shifting that mindset, right? And then I think the second most important thing is really understanding what your goals are for selling direct. and then really understanding the, the tech stack you’re gonna put in place that that’s the real key to [00:06:00] all of this.
[00:06:00] Matt Briel: And I don’t think people put enough research or thought into that. And I think that’s also probably the scariest for a lot of people is they can switch that mindset in many cases. And for a lot of authors and creators, you two included, it was probably pretty easy for you guys given your background to switch to that entrepreneurial mindset and really start thinking from a business angle.
[00:06:20] Matt Briel: But if you don’t have that tech stack in place, if you don’t have a blueprint for that tech stack, right, Understanding what that even means. And so when I say tech stack, it means what are the tools that you’re gonna use to sell direct? You’re already using tools right now to probably sell wide, right?
[00:06:40] Matt Briel: Using distribution channels like Amazon. Through Ingram, Cobo , whatever it is you’re using, you’re using some sort of tools. And hopefully most people listening, if not all of them, are using other tools to, to build email lists or do things like that. So it’s no different, but there is a specific way you should layer a text stack for selling direct.
[00:06:59] Matt Briel: So that, [00:07:00] that’s really probably one of the most important things. After you get that mindset right and you truly understand your goals for wanting to sell direct. I think the goals for selling direct are probably the same for most people. But the way that you prioritize are what you think is most important in, in your top three goals might shift from, from individual author to individual author.
[00:07:22] Matt Briel: The underlying tone, I think for everybody here, and I think is really important to understand is that the best thing about selling direct is you truly create a one-on-one connection. With your reader, with your audience, with your community. And there’s no real way to do that when you’re using third party retailer platforms like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whoever it is that you’re using.
[00:07:45] Matt Briel: And ultimately, that is going to be the way that people are successful in the future as authors, as creators is building that community and breaking those dependencies on third party platforms and retailers. So the sooner [00:08:00] that you can start experimenting with selling direct, I think the better off you’re gonna be in the long term and in the very near future, as a matter of fact.
[00:08:08] Matt Briel: So this isn’t a, By the way, this isn’t a, a story of like only selling direct and cutting out all other channels. That’s ridiculous. This is about how to jump into direct in a way that’s not as scary and daunting. So I think those first two sort of topics are, are the most important. You gotta wrap your mind around what you should be thinking about.
[00:08:27] Matt Briel: You gotta know what your goals are for selling direct, and then I think we can jump into that whole tech stack conversation, Right? Because that’s the guts of it. , how do I do it? Which is what you asked, right? .
[00:08:38] Michael Evans: But I also think you, outlining the mindset is really important because clearing up just some confusion around, , you don’t have to sell everything direct and direct as it means selling from the back of your van there.
[00:08:49] Michael Evans: There is this interesting layer of technology that you could put on top of your business, but I, But I’m curious, you said the three goals that you see most common, what are those three goals [00:09:00] explicitly that you see most authors on Lulu having when they want to
[00:09:04] Matt Briel: go use your product?
[00:09:05] Matt Briel: As it pertains to selling direct, there’s usually three goals.
[00:09:08] Matt Briel: That first one, and I touched on that, is many people coming to Lulu and using Lulu Direct, whether they’re traditional fiction authors or straight up entrepreneurs who are creating non-fiction content, typically the first goal is they’re really looking for more ways to decrease their dependency on other platforms.
[00:09:27] Matt Briel: Right? And that’s the big thing that selling direct helps you do, whether you use Lulu or somebody else to do it. Selling direct really helps you break that dependency. And I think, again, people come to us and that’s probably, I’d say the first goal that is really talked about the most is just really wanting to get a little bit more independent of some of these platforms they’re taking more of your royalties, they’re controlling kind of the way that you release your content.
[00:09:51] Matt Briel: And many of those other things that we are all very well aware of. The second big goal, I think for a lot of people and in my opinion, this should be the first big goal, but that’s [00:10:00] me, not them. But for a lot it is. and we’ll get into how some of them are doing it success successfully.
[00:10:04] Matt Briel: The second goal is usually around building a better and bigger community around who they are, their content, what they’re doing. So, and I know this is a big topic for you, shaking your head, and we probably talked about this a little bit in the past. Building that community, right? So selling direct really is the best way to build community because there are so many tools out there right now.
[00:10:25] Matt Briel: We’re, experiencing this massive surge in technology for creators, by creators to really help you build community around your content, , no matter what that content is. And so selling direct helps you do that in a much more efficient way, but also in a much more relatable one-on-one and personal way, right?
[00:10:43] Matt Briel: It takes that whole third party retailer out of the equation. So if I’m buying a book directly from you, Michael, or you Emilia, or , some of these other authors that I might follow, I feel a little more connected to that creator, right? And I feel like every dollar I just spent with that [00:11:00] creator is benefiting that creator.
[00:11:02] Matt Briel: I don’t feel like, , when I buy something off Amazon, whether it’s a book or not, You just know these days, the creator of that product or that book or whatever that might be, they’re only getting a small percentage of that money. And, , for a lot of us I should say, we don’t think about that on a day to day basis.
[00:11:18] Matt Briel: But for those of us that are in this world, or even connected to creators in some sort of way, whether they’re family, friends or just your favorite creators, we know that they’re not getting the bulk of that money. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not really keen on continuing to line the pockets of a lot of these other third party retailers if I don’t have to.
[00:11:36] Matt Briel: Right? There are some things that you’re forced to. But thankfully these days it’s getting less and less. Which does sort of dovetail into number three, which is profits and data, right?
[00:11:46] Matt Briel: So again, when you’re working with third party platforms, retailers, even if you’re selling on the lulu.com bookstore, which is not necessarily a direct channel, we’re still in an intermediary there, right? You’re still gonna get what [00:12:00] we pass through. And that’s no different than Amazon or Ingram or any of the other channels out there.
[00:12:04] Matt Briel: And, , everybody has their reasons for why that data is not passed on or sort of kept from you or what is passed on to you is small in nature. But when you sell direct, all that data is yours. It’s yours to do with as you see fit and ethical and or hopefully growth minded sort of way, right?
[00:12:23] Matt Briel: So when you can sort of retain that customer data on every single purchase, I mean, the amount of possibilities that open up for you to remarket to your audience and to know who your audience is is just limitless. It’s, it’s crazy. So recapping, I think those three main things again breaking platform dependencies and getting one step further to being totally independent.
[00:12:46] Matt Briel: The ability to connect and grow a community in a much more relatable, personal and one-on-one way. And then obviously, taking full control over your profits and your customer data. So I would say those are the three biggest [00:13:00] goals that we see most people coming to us with. And that, , we also.
[00:13:03] Matt Briel: Put out there in the world in a very public way as benefits for selling direct.
[00:13:07] Michael Evans: You have me sold this sounds wonderful, right? I want, I wanna sell direct now as an author, but we know that most authors still aren’t doing this. If we’re like, at an adoption curve of like any technology, we’re definitely still in this early adopter phase.
[00:13:22] Michael Evans: And I have playing devil’s advocate right now. I have some objections. I’m a reader, and I’m immediately thinking about, well, I trust a big retailer like Amazon, my readers do, so what does that mean for me as an author? Like, how can I build this trust and will direct sales actually end up being a bad thing?
[00:13:42] Michael Evans: I’m curious for your thoughts on that, because that’s what I consistently hear from authors. This idea that I love what you’re saying and even if I could figure out the tech, which we’re gonna go into, but even if I could, my readers love X retailer.
[00:13:55] Matt Briel: Yeah, that is again, a big sort of contention [00:14:00] point.
[00:14:00] Matt Briel: And, , we’ve actually been pushing direct for years and had tools in the marketplace for years, and every time we’re at an author event or something and we talk about it, we just get those blank stares or those looks like, how dare you? Like, there’s no way. It’s scary, it’s daunting, but it can be done actually very easily.
[00:14:17] Matt Briel: And, and to answer your question, , how do you deal with this idea or this concept that, , I’m afraid to try and draw my, we readers away from Amazon or wherever it is that they choose to purchase your books. But what we have to remember is as readers, as fans, followers, we’ve been trained to do certain behaviors in a certain.
[00:14:36] Matt Briel: And as creators and authors and entrepreneurs, we’ve been trained to do things a certain way. And then the beauty of that is, or depends on how you look at it. We then train our readers and fans and followers to do things the exact same way. So it’s just this real ugly cycle that we’ve found ourselves in these days whereby we feel like that really is the only way to do it, is to [00:15:00] continue pointing our readers, fans, and followers to Amazon to buy our books in, in the early days, I think that was to a degree, a necessary evil.
[00:15:10] Matt Briel: And even today, I think for a lot of people, like you just pointed out some people don’t love Amazon for sure. In fact every year the number of people who do not love Amazon grows larger and larger. And that backed by a lot of data points. But nonetheless, right, I think most people, especially in the US, have developed a sense of security, as you said, and purchasing things off Amazon because.
[00:15:33] Matt Briel: Fallen victim to this belief that, well, if it’s got 3000 reviews and it’s a 4.5 out of five, it must be legit, it must be good. And that was the case probably early on in Amazon’s history. But over the last three to five years, they’ve made a lot of changes whereby they’ve relaxed a lot of standards and practices as well.
[00:15:52] Matt Briel: So no longer are the days here where you look at a review number like that and you can trust that it’s a hundred percent accurate. There are more [00:16:00] bots and other things on Amazon specifically related to leaving reviews and things than there ever have been. So that’s when you start having that conversation that helps authors and even readers start to sort of grapple with the idea that maybe Amazon is not the end all, be all as it relates to accurate reviews and potentially purchasing.
[00:16:20] Matt Briel: But then you start talking about the mechanics, the logistics, and the financials of doing business. Either on or with Amazon. And so again, when you start talking to your audience and train is, , not the greatest word to use, but really sort of, talking to them about the behavior associated with purchasing on Amazon, i e specific to you as a creator.
[00:16:41] Matt Briel: I think that’s where you really start to figure out the difference, by the way, or see the difference between followers and fans. I’m not gonna get into Kevin Kelly here, but, but Michael, if you went out to your community, wherever that exists right now and whatever channels it is that you facilitate community, and you said, Listen, everybody, I want to talk to you very [00:17:00] candidly right now.
[00:17:00] Matt Briel: I’m gonna be very vulnerable and I’m gonna tell you that I would like to stop selling my books on Amazon and here’s why. Boom, boom, boom. Right? You give ’em some reasons. I’d be willing to bet, and you may agree or not agree, and this is where someone that fear comes in. We have this conversation, this exact one all the time with authors, but I’d be willing to bet that a very large number of your fans slash followers slash readers.
[00:17:21] Matt Briel: would go wherever you pointed them to buy that book. And if they knew that you were actually retaining 100% of the profits now and that Amazon wasn’t taking a large share of them, that the books would still be printed and fulfilled in the best quality possible and shipped right to their door. And then it would make your life easier cuz you weren’t having to do it.
[00:17:41] Matt Briel: And that as a result they were better supporting you as a creator and an author. I don’t think you’re gonna get much pushback to be honest with you. So there are definitely little pockets of fear associated with leaving Amazon and or just slowly starting that migration and training of your followers and [00:18:00] fans to start buying from another place.
[00:18:02] Matt Briel: But it is no different than any other process. And it just takes a little bit of effort here and there and, and again, I think these days, One of the best things about this concept of community is the, the, the idea that people are showing up as authentic. And when you show up and you authentically say, I as a creator really want to start working directly with you as my community, I wanna start selling you my products directly.
[00:18:28] Matt Briel: And here’s why. And I’d love to continue fostering more communications and conversations with all of you. I think you’re gonna be surprised at the reception you get. It’s not that scary. And then again, at some point here we’ll talk about it, but then it’s just a matter of logistics. How do I actually stop?
[00:18:45] Matt Briel: Selling or slowly start shifting the amount of buyers for my products. Away from Amazon and over to whatever platform it is you choose to sell.
[00:18:55] Michael Evans: I actually want to dive into those logistics right now because as what [00:19:00] you’re just saying, I, two thoughts are really sparked my mind. One is about wait, so that requires me to have a real relationship with my fans in order to even have this communication.
[00:19:10] Michael Evans: Right. And then we could get into this conversation about mailing list about people who maybe it’s like the ation of authors. We all know those to creators who blow up and don’t really have a real fan base. We don’t like to think that like some of us as authors kind of are the same way writing page read waves and don’t actually have that relationship.
[00:19:27] Michael Evans: And of course selling direct helps to build that relationship, but there has to be something there to help take that leap. I don’t wanna dive fully into that now cause that’s a whole community building conversation that we love to talk about in this podcast and we’ve had lots of great episodes about that.
[00:19:40] Michael Evans: We haven’t really doven into the tech yet, which is why you’re here, the logistics of it. And I’d love to ask you that question. I am now ready to take that leap. I’m ready to press send on that email that tells my readers, Hey Amazon, my books used to be there, but I’m selling my print books here that you can buy directly from me.
[00:19:57] Michael Evans: I get all the profits I’m, I’m on board with. How
[00:19:59] Matt Briel: do I do that? [00:20:00] Yeah, absolutely. Again, one last thing there. Don’t press send on that email or that post or that communication. Maybe start out with, listen, everybody I’m really thinking about and want to start trying to slowly shift my products and my focus.
[00:20:15] Matt Briel: I mean, you can do an overnight switch and , that’s totally up to you. And certainly people have done it and, and done it successfully. And certainly people have done it and not done it as successfully. I think again, ultimately the secret here is to be open, candid, and honest.
[00:20:30] Matt Briel: And, and again, anybody that reads your work consistently is gonna feel some sort of way about you as a creator and an author. And I think in most cases they’re not gonna go, Well, this guy’s out of his damn mind, I’m not doing that. They’re gonna say, Okay, next book that drops, I’m gonna buy it wherever he wants me to buy it.
[00:20:46] Matt Briel: As a consumer, it doesn’t make a lot of difference to me. Right. If you tell me that your book is coming out, And you’re gonna sell it on your site, and it’s gonna be 24 99, or I can buy it on Amazon for 24 99. Or I can buy it [00:21:00] on, , whatever bookshop.org or name the place. Like, , if I’m given those options,, the process is the same for me.
[00:21:07] Matt Briel: I’m putting my credit card information in, I’m putting my shipping address in, and I’m expecting to receive a book in the mail from you, right? So if you tell me that this one option is better for you, okay, it’s no extra work for me as a consumer, right? It’s no sweat off my back. And in fact, it gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling because now I’m supporting you better as a creator.
[00:21:28] Matt Briel: And now I feel like I’m invested in your growth as an artist, as a, as an author, as a creator, right? We all love that. I mean, that’s why we buy art. That’s why we buy books. That’s why we do those things.
[00:21:39] Matt Briel: So, All right. Enough about that. I’m gonna give you one quick metric. This is inside Lulu data. This is not something we typically share very often.
[00:21:48] Matt Briel: We are privately held companies, so we’re not required to publicly post numbers and things. We do share them sometimes with industry piece, but not very often. But just to help sort of wrap your mind around just how many people are [00:22:00] doing this right now and successfully doing it this year alone, year to date, and just through selling direct, we have fulfilled over 500,000 print books globally, year to date.
[00:22:11] Matt Briel: Wow. That’s a very large number for independent self-published authors selling direct. Right. That does not include anything that goes through Lulu dot com’s bookstore that we funnel through Amazon or Ingram because we have direct paths to Amazon and Ingram too. That does not include any global debt.
[00:22:29] Matt Briel: Only includes people who are using Lulu Direct over 500,000. Units year to date, that’s a lot of books filled fulfilled. And lastly that is up 20% over last year for that second period. Yep. So, I mean, that gives you an idea of the success rates that we’re seeing and that these authors and creators are seeing.
[00:22:47] Matt Briel: If you can wrap your mind around those first few things we talked about and now understand what we’re about to jump into, you can be part of that 500,000 books that have been fulfilled already and more, right?
[00:22:57] Michael Evans: Let’s get into it. The tech side of things cause proper
[00:22:59] Matt Briel: tech stack,[00:23:00] Emilia looks really happy about this one, so I’m glad we’re moving on to this.
[00:23:03] Matt Briel: So we talked about getting that proper tech stack in place is key, right? And so really what a tech stack means is these are the tools as we said, that you’re gonna use to facilitate selling direct. And I’m gonna give you some examples here. Because I think that’s always a better way that I learn better when I have examples or when I can hear people talking about their experiences.
[00:23:21] Matt Briel: And I’m not just listening to somebody up there droning on about best practices or standard operating procedures. That doesn’t sit well with me. So, I’m gonna start off by talking about one of our favorites here at Lulu. You may have heard of her, you may have not, but she, she puts out a lot of great work.
[00:23:35] Matt Briel: She is a six to seven figure author. She’ll tell you this herself publicly. She’s been on a lot of interviews. Her name is Katie Cross. And she is probably one of the most publicly successful authors selling direct right now. And she speaks a lot about it. She had a wonderful interview with Joan a, recently where she talked about it.
[00:23:51] Matt Briel: But we’re gonna go through her tech stack real quick. So these are again, real world examples of how you might put together a strategy and a tech stack for selling. . Katie [00:24:00] Cross chose Shopify to use as her base platform, her e-commerce and website platform. And a lot of people are doing this right now.
[00:24:06] Matt Briel: And the reason for that is cuz it’s super easy to use Shopify to build your website and incorporate e-commerce, the ability to sell products. I mean, it’s so easy. My 12 year old son built his own Shopify website in store, literally in less than an hour. And he’s not, , some pheno when it comes to design or websites at all.
[00:24:23] Matt Briel: It’s just that easy, right? And you can get into the, the, the base sort of plan for, it’s like $29 a month and they, they handle it all, everything you’re hosting, all of that. So it’s, it’s very easy to get into having your own website, an eCommerce store, using Shopify. There are others, and we can talk about those.
[00:24:41] Matt Briel: But for now, we’re just gonna talk about what Katie Cross is using. So that’s our base, right? You start with a foundation, your site, your eCommerce platform, whatever that’s gonna be. If you’re going the WordPress route which a lot of people do, and that’s fine. You’re also gonna need to think about who’s hosting it.
[00:24:55] Matt Briel: And there are ways that you can, , find hosts, things like that. It’s a little bit of an extra cost, but it’s not much.[00:25:00] And then there are also plugins you can use on your WordPress site. We work with W Commerce, which is a plugin for WordPress that would give you the ability to sell on your WordPress site.
[00:25:09] Matt Briel: So whether you go Shopify or WordPress or something else, there are tools out there you gotta have that base foundation, right? So she’s got Shopify already has integrations with Facebook and Instagram for social selling, so she’s already covered there, right? That plugs directly in. She’s able to work directly through that.
[00:25:25] Matt Briel: But then what she does is she layers on top of her Shopify platform through the use of apps or plugins, again, through Shopify. She uses Lulu for print fulfillment. So we have a plugin that works with Shopify, or are sent out for immediate fulfillment. The minute they’re ordered. She also layers on top of that for digital and audio book fulfillment.
[00:25:43] Matt Briel: She uses Book Funnel, So that’s another tool you can layer on top of your Shopify site Book funnel will handle all of the digital and audio book versions. And I’ve heard really great things about Book Funnel and, and Katie Cross raves about them as well. So that gets you covered for print, digital and audio book.
[00:25:58] Matt Briel: Again, this is her [00:26:00] stack. So and then she uses a tool called Active Campaign for email, right? So there’s a lot of email providers out there, Active Campaign Convert Kit, MailChimp, I mean, you name it. There’s, there’s a ton of them right now. But she uses Active Campaign, which also layers in with, with Shopify.
[00:26:15] Matt Briel: So she’s got this, this tech stack built. And the, the, the reason she does that, the reason why you wanna do that is it automates everything or 99% of what you’re doing. Because when you’re talking about selling direct and fulfilling direct. You really wanna be able to automate as much of that as possible.
[00:26:32] Matt Briel: You wanna be able to spend your time as a creator, creating more products, creating more books, whatever it is that you’re doing. Right? If you’re a serial fiction writer, you need to be spending pretty much every minute of your day that you can writing. And Katie Cross puts out, if I’m not mistaken, around at least one book per month, sometimes more.
[00:26:49] Matt Briel: So Wow. That that doesn’t, Yeah. Wow. That doesn’t leave her a lot of time to be managing, selling direct or fulfilling orders herself or, , worrying about some of the other things that come along [00:27:00] with when you don’t have toll and automated control over that process. So that’s her tech stack.
[00:27:05] Matt Briel: And that allows her, again, to be able to fulfill all of her orders right from her website. And she doesn’t have to lift a finger once you have this, this stuff plugged in. And by the way, you could build this exact tech stack in less than a few hours. You could literally have this same setup that she is running and a few hours.
[00:27:23] Matt Briel: Right. You might need a little bit of help from somebody. That’s okay. But for the most part, if you’re pretty savvy with a laptop and an internet connection, you can pretty much set this thing up in a few hours. And that’s the beauty of the technology that we’re seeing right now. So using that stack, she’s able to, , drive traffic to her site.
[00:27:38] Matt Briel: They’re able to buy whatever they wanna buy. Those orders are automatically fulfilled and ship all around the world. By the way, we have printers all over the globe. So if she has a fan in France that wants to buy some of her books printed, from us or digitally, it doesn’t matter, right? But we have a print facility in France, so her user is not paying for shipping from the US to Paris or [00:28:00] wherever they are.
[00:28:00] Matt Briel: So you literally can plug this in and just go back to doing what you’re doing. And it’s literally like that old adage of making money in your sleep, right? Anytime you can automate a business process. And, make money in your sleep. You are winning a hundred percent and you’re preparing yourself for long term success.
[00:28:17] Matt Briel: So that’s her stack. She’s also another great example of community building, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes. But , this, this stack that she uses, a lot of the tools that she uses using Active Campaign to build her email list out from that customer data that she’s capturing because she’s handling all of the transactions through Shopify customer data then gets passed into Active campaign.
[00:28:39] Matt Briel: So she’s able to set up all kinds of really cool newsletters out to her fans and followers, right? So every time a new book drops or something like a parallel product, she wants to introduce a notebook or a calendar or a poster. She has all of that at her fingertips. If you’re only selling on Amazon, you don’t have that at.
[00:28:57] Matt Briel: you can’t go out to the last 200 people that [00:29:00] bought your book and talk to them. If you’ve not been capturing that data in any other way, which most people aren’t. If you put your book on a third party retailer and then you sit back and let them do the selling for you, not only are you making less, but you’re not getting any of that customer data.
[00:29:13] Matt Briel: So you can’t do these really cool things and set yourself up for a sustainable future. So she’s able to do that, which helps build that community. And she has an amazing community and she involves them in a lot of really cool ways. Some of her super fans get to participate in her books and ways that I think only solidify those bonds and create those super fans.
[00:29:35] Matt Briel: And then that word of mouth goes on to more super fans. But, there are some of her fan fans that get to participate in, in some of the editing of her books and, and ideation and things like that, which is really cool. Right. Yeah. So we talk about community. We’re not just talking about a group of people that follow you on Twitter, we’re talking about people that actively engage with you, that every time you do put out something, they’re waiting for it on Beed breath.
[00:29:58] Matt Briel: Like the, [00:30:00] that’s what community is. What I mean? And it’s, it’s, it’s two way, It can’t just be, , Katie crosses at the top of this hill and then she’s talking down at the bottom of the hilter community. There, there is a sense of community both ways, right? Whereby they are providing an active feedback loop that she’s very, very adamant about.
[00:30:18] Matt Briel: She does a great job of listening to her readers and her fans and her community which only makes her a better creator, a better author, and a better entrepreneur. And the numbers don’t lie. ? And, and, and I know you’re attending, and I know a lot of people listening to this probably are, if you meet her at 20 books, Vegas, if you listen to her talk, she will talk very openly about some of these things.
[00:30:38] Matt Briel: It’s a great thing to sit down and hear and, and to participate in. So, That’s Katie Crosses tech stack. It’s easy to replicate that tech stack. And again, I promise you, if you just jump in and really start trying to create one of these tech stacks or add on to yours, if you’ve got something going already, but you’re still not quite there, it’s not that hard.
[00:30:56] Matt Briel: I promise you, if you’re running Shopify or something like that, [00:31:00] there are apps that can do almost all of this for you.
[00:31:03] Emilia Rose: I actually have been doing a lot of research on her before I launched my Shopify store, and I basically replicated her text stack and it’s, I haven’t added Lulu direct.
[00:31:14] Emilia Rose: Yeah, I’m need some time. But it’s so cool. Like, I’ll, I’ll get like notifications when people buy my eBooks and I’m just like, Oh, I don’t have to fulfill that, which just happens automatically, like my work is done. It’s already set up, so it’s very easy when you’re saying what Matt saying.
[00:31:32] Emilia Rose: Definitely true. It’s really, really easy to just get the setup and it just all automated
[00:31:36] Matt Briel: after that. Yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:31:39] Michael Evans: It’s huge. I mean, I love how you were describing the emails as well cuz like that’s just one data point that you get, but it’s such a crucial one that retailers don’t give us.
[00:31:47] Michael Evans: And I know a lot of us in the author c be like salivate over like the also bought emails, get your book and those also bought emails and your life will change and for sure like there’s a discovery mechanism there that can be powerful. But if you think about it, [00:32:00] what Amazon’s really doing is taking the data that they have on what books customers are reading.
[00:32:04] Michael Evans: Instead of enabling you as the author who are maybe having their books bought from being able to leverage that data and build your business. They’re just creating this intensely competitive environment in which you have these de personalized emails that target these maybe more books they’d like to read.
[00:32:21] Michael Evans: And they’re not always, like, if they bought a book from you, those also bought emails probably aren’t your books in there? So you’re basically. Doing Amazon’s dirty work to help them sell more books, but it’s not helping you always sell more books, although there’s a whole ecosystem to benefit from.
[00:32:36] Michael Evans: Yeah. I mean, like obviously as a reader, like I’m don’t ever open up. My Amazon also bought emails like ever , they go straight to the trash. They’re in my spam folder, really? But if I get an email from an author that’s like talking to me about anything that I enjoy, I’m gonna wanna engage with that. So.
[00:32:53] Michael Evans: That’s right. I think that’s such a powerful point and I’m really glad you brought that up.
[00:32:57] Matt Briel: There are so many, I [00:33:00] think reasons and you can ask why all you want, but there’s just so many more reasons these days to really take control of this yourself and you.
[00:33:09] Matt Briel: There’s so much data right now, and we have it as well, even within our platform that shows that 2020 was a catalyst for a lot of creators and authors. Sure. And we saw such a huge spike in people really taking control of their content, not only in the creation and dissemination of it, but the way that it’s sold.
[00:33:27] Matt Briel: And if it’s even sold, , we have a lot of authors too. They’ll create a specific book to be given away at conferences or things like that as a lead generation tool to get people onto their platforms and into their communities and so that they can get them into that cycle of purchasing afterwards.
[00:33:43] Matt Briel: But yeah.
[00:33:44] Matt Briel: Another great example of selling direct and probably should have started with this one and we’re lucky to have her using Lulu is Morgan Best. She’s been doing it since, if I’m not mistaken, the late nineties, like when it was all manual, like, , WordPress [00:34:00] site, but you had to plug in somebody to take payments, right?
[00:34:03] Matt Briel: To process credit cards. And then, , fulfillment was basically manual in a lot of ways. But, she’s gotta be one of the pioneers of it and probably one of the queens of direct sales and automations. But you can also catch some of her interviews that are out there right now and probably hear speaking at certain conferences.
[00:34:19] Matt Briel: But she’s also full of a ton of great information, especially when it comes to the automations and the things that you can do with the different plugins and ways that you can automate buyer behaviors. Like , if somebody comes on your site, let’s say, and, and puts two books in the cart and then, and then leaves, right?
[00:34:35] Matt Briel: So card band and , you can build out these automations using your email tools. That would then email them, , six hours later, like, , was it something we said with a little like, Hey, come back and get these two books that in your cart and we’ll give you 5% off. Or we’ll throw in a third book for free dealer’s choice.
[00:34:51] Matt Briel: Or, , you can set up all these automations based on trigger points, things that happen on your site, which is not something like you were alluding to earlier. [00:35:00] You don’t have any control over that on Amazon or any of the other third party retailers for that matter. So you control all of that, like every behavior that happens on your site and your store.
[00:35:09] Matt Briel: You have all that data and you can watch those patterns and those trends and, and those, people also bought this types of emails and it doesn’t even have to be an email, right? There’s a plugin you can get on Shopify that’ll make that happen in your cart. So if they put book one of a series that you’ve written into their cart and they’re getting ready to check out, there’s a plugin that will say, Hey, wait a second.
[00:35:30] Matt Briel: I know you’re gonna love this one. You’re gonna burn through this so fast. You might wanna go ahead and grab these other two. Here they are, , things like that. Like you don’t have any control over that when you’re dealing with third party retailers. So again, it’s all about control, right? It’s putting control back in your hands.
[00:35:45] Matt Briel: You created this content, not Amazon, not Barnes and Noble, not anybody else. You did. You should have total say so over what happens with this content. But on top of that, the longevity of that process. Oh,
[00:35:58] Michael Evans: so good. I have so [00:36:00] many thoughts and I’m just thinking, Wow. Okay. So there’s so many different ways that, again, we can utilize this, but I’m also hearing you talk about 2020 being like this pivotal year in increasing adoption of selling direct.
[00:36:14] Michael Evans: And I’m curious what trends you’ve witnessed in Lulu, what maybe specific genres are doing really well. And also kind of a question that I have in tandem with that is comic books. I know that you can print those and sell those. I know tons of authors looking to get into comic books, and I’m curious what you’ve seen happening on Lulu in relation
[00:36:33] Matt Briel: to that.
[00:36:33] Matt Briel: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And you’re right. I’ll start from, from the back. You mentioned comic books as a, as a product type. There’s a surge, obviously in that type of content. It’s primarily being fueled by Monga, though Monga and anime. So traditional comic books, not so much, right?
[00:36:51] Matt Briel: I mean, you can absolutely create ’em and sell them directly on Lulu and other platforms, and I think in general, comics have experienced some growth over the [00:37:00] last few years. There’s data to support that for sure. But most of that is coming from the monga and anime world. That is huge right now, especially in the us.
[00:37:08] Matt Briel: I mean, even I have 12 year old twins. They love that stuff and it’s just, they can’t get enough of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s print or digital, although my kids, I’ve trained them to, to do print. I won’t very often, but they constantly want to go to the bookstore or get online and find. So it definitely has experienced a surge in popularity.
[00:37:27] Matt Briel: And that has driven a lot of people to the internet to create that content. So, , a lot of those kids and adults who are reading manga and anime and even just, , straight up regular comic books and graphic novels, they are experiencing this surge and creativity around them. They’re seeing all of this happen.
[00:37:44] Matt Briel: It’s not happening in a bubble just with us, right? The average readers, and people in general are seeing this, by the way. And so they’re also trying their hand at it, and some of them are actually really good at it. So we’ve definitely seen a surge in comic books, graphic novels, and a man mon on [00:38:00] our site, to the point where we even went ahead and built out specific products that fit those categories so that you could do a traditional sized Mongo book that is printed and read.
[00:38:11] Matt Briel: , back to front and the way that those books are set up, which, , was a little bit of a process for us to work through, but in the end we got it. And then printing on the insides of the covers, right. Traditionally that’s always been a complicated thing for print on demand. So a lot of print on demand providers like ourselves and Amazon and Ingram Spark it, we’ve shi away from printing on the insides of covers, but as most people are aware, when you’re talking about a magazine, comic book, graphic novel, those genres of content, that’s a big thing.
[00:38:39] Matt Briel: There’s always something on the inside of covers. So we had to quickly figure that out to accommodate them as well. And we did. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I, and I think the cool thing about that for those genres, I should say, is the, the potential for serialization, right? I don’t write fiction or serial fiction, but I would imagine based on just what I see and who I [00:39:00] talk to, that there comes a point where you are.
[00:39:02] Matt Briel: Shit, what do I write next? And because, , based on the size of whatever it is you’re writing, whether it’s 200 pages, 400 pages, that may come sooner or later, but with, with comic books and graphic novels and manga and anime, like, , the serialization possibilities there are so much broader, I think for the most part.
[00:39:18] Matt Briel: And I think that’s also what people are really starting to enjoy with it. We’ve seen some crossover where some of our authors that we know were writing serial fantasy or things like that have started working on nma, Monga and graphic novels. They’ve paired up with Heather graphic artists and designers, right.
[00:39:35] Matt Briel: Illustrators, people that can help them turn their work now into more graphic types of content, which is the other cool thing too about, , and I don’t wanna go off on a tangent cuz I know you and I definitely will Michael, but there’s this whole thing that people are talking about right now called the Creator Economy.
[00:39:49] Matt Briel: And this is where, , creators. Authors, entrepreneurs are really sort of flourishing, but more importantly, they’re connecting with each other. And so [00:40:00] when you can connect with another creator who previously probably didn’t do a lot of work in the space of graphic novels, but as an amazing illustrator, maybe them, maybe you don’t, Maybe you met ’em at an event or maybe you met them on online in some community.
[00:40:13] Matt Briel: But when you can pair up with them, when you can team up with them and then create this wonderful graphic novel self-publish it, then sell it direct where you’re splitting the profits and not having to share them with some other third party retailer, that really hits home for a lot of people and allows them to be able to make a real business out of what they’re doing.
[00:40:29] Matt Briel: And so I think one of the genres that probably struggled heavily and, and still does to a degree, but it’s getting better with making a living as a creator, were those who were focusing on comics and manga and anime and graphic novels. I think that’s historically been a harder genre to make a living at, , so you’re absolutely right that those genres, those types of products are definitely seen as surge in popularity as well as unit sales and things like that, at least for us.
[00:40:55] Matt Briel: And from what I see out there in industry trends, , when you look at numbers and print data [00:41:00] that comes back from Publishers Weekly and some of the others , while print as a whole I think is slightly down right now, there are certain genres and types of content that are still experiencing a little bit of a growth curve.
[00:41:11] Matt Briel: So that’s really cool to see. I really
[00:41:13] Emilia Rose: I really like that cuz I’m actually in the middle of working on a graphic novel with a artist and it, the experience is really, it’s really amazing. Just to be able to connect with other, other, like artists basically and create a product that’s not just mine.
[00:41:30] Emilia Rose: It’s also his. Yeah. And it’s been a, yeah, it’s been a really unique experience and I’m really glad that like Manga and Anion graphic novels are becoming more popular and more mainstream because it gives so many opportunities to just artists who, like authors. I feel like sometimes it’s hard to monetize certain content.
[00:41:53] Emilia Rose: But this helps all of us
[00:41:56] Michael Evans: yeah. When a new medium like that rises It’s really cool. And I think, [00:42:00] not to get off on the creator economy tangent, but to just say that there’s, at times it can feel like an overwhelming world of opportunity out there. And it is true that like doing all of it yourself is impossible as certain point using tools to help automate things like print fulfillment, like charging your customers, those are like necessary.
[00:42:21] Michael Evans: Those are necessary. But there’s also a lot of things that are somewhat difficult to automate. There’s also this kind of broader conversation, and we just published a podcast about this, but artificial intelligence that’s beginning to automate creative work to a certain extent, to a certain extent. And it’s a really interesting world we’re moving into.
[00:42:40] Michael Evans: Kind of to talk about that world and where this future is going. I’m curious for you, Matt, especially cuz you have an inside look at Lulu and, and knowing how technology companies are working, you’re always having some sort of innovations happening. You’re always looking towards the future. And with that kind of foresight, I’m curious what you see [00:43:00] happening in the selling direct ecosystem, in the tech stack for authors in this world of being an author creator.
[00:43:06] Matt Briel: You definitely hit that one on the head. So our company was founded by a tech guy. It wasn’t founded by an author. Some may know this, some may not. Our company was founded by a gentleman named Bob. Bob Young was the original co-founder of a company called Red Hat, which is a massive Linux based company in the world of software and tech.
[00:43:25] Matt Briel: And just recently was resold to IBM for billions and billions of dollars. But he founded Lulu when he took Red Hat to a successful ipo back in the day, the largest of its kind at the time. He wanted to write a book about his story. he couldn’t get a publisher to pick it up. And, and quite frankly, he was like, How’s this possible?
[00:43:45] Matt Briel: I just led one of the most successful and largest IPOs in tech history and nobody wants to publish my story. He said, Well, what, right now I’m a multimillionaire. I got nothing to do, so I’m going to start my own publishing company so that people don’t have to deal with this. And that’s what he [00:44:00] did.
[00:44:00] Matt Briel: When we talk about the future of publishing, but more importantly as it relates to selling direct.
[00:44:05] Matt Briel: , there’s a lot of great things that are happening right now, but I think there’s a lot to come. Some of the things that we didn’t touch on yet that are happening right now that I think are really important that selling direct affords you as an opportunity is the ability to introduce sort of parallel products to yours.
[00:44:22] Matt Briel: So a lot of fiction writers, are writing, , serialized fiction, and they have these elaborate characters and plot lines and worlds that they’ve created. And, , a lot of the ones that are working with us right now are starting to find even more success in creating parallel products. So calendars and journals and notebooks and comic books, right?
[00:44:43] Matt Briel: To go along with these characters. And these stories, these primary stories, they’re all easy to create. You introduce ’em right into your ecosystem of products. The next newsletter you send out, you’re like, Hey, , it’s getting close to Christmas. We got these new calendars that go along with whatever series you’re writing.
[00:44:58] Matt Briel: So having those [00:45:00] abilities afforded to you selling direct you don’t necessarily have those on other platforms or with third party retailers. And most importantly though, you don’t necessarily have the ability to speak directly to your communities about those products. And that’s where some of the beauty comes in about using direct selling techniques and, and tools to grow your audience.
[00:45:21] Matt Briel: So there is a component that we didn’t really touch on very heavily, which is not only creating a community and connecting with them, but you still wanna grow it and you still wanna grow your brand and you still want to grow your product base. Right? So I think that’s a really important one to touch on before we move into some of the more future based stuff.
[00:45:39] Matt Briel: Outside of that, when we talk about, , the future of publishing, especially related to, to Lulu direct, some of the things that we are focusing on. That I can talk about. We’ve got some new tools that we’re gonna be releasing to make your lives easier as it relates to selling direct.
[00:45:54] Matt Briel: So a lot of the feedback we get is that, okay, well you offer the tools to sell direct, [00:46:00] but Lulu doesn’t really offer the tools to create a book. I have to come to Lulu with my interior file ready. And a cover file, right? Our current cover tool’s not that great. So you really should bring your own cover with you create it in something else and then upload it.
[00:46:13] Matt Briel: If you come to us with your two PDFs, your interior file and your cover file, the rest is a breeze. But some people are saying, Well, I’m not at that point yet. A lot of people were saying that. So we are about to introduce a new cover tool that we’re extremely happy about. This makes the process much easier for you to design a really good book cover which is really important.
[00:46:31] Matt Briel: And you guys all know that. I love when I talk to people who are not in the publishing world or even big. Book nerds like myself, and they use that stupid cliche, like, you can’t judge a book by its cover. And inside I’m just cring and laughing because we all know yes, you can and you absolutely do.
[00:46:47] Matt Briel: And everybody else, everyone does. Yeah. That being said, we know that’s an integral part of designing and creating a successful book. So that’s coming out. We’re actually working on a text editing tool where you can actually create the body of your [00:47:00] interior, file your text on Lulu, or copy and paste whatever you’re using and drop it right in or , bring your file over and, and format it properly.
[00:47:07] Matt Briel: Formatting I think is a little tough for people sometimes, right? If you just start typing out a book and let’s say word, right, And then you get to the end and you’re like, Awesome, I’m done. And then you, you come somewhere like Lulu or Ingram Park or wherever, it’s not as simple as just clicking the upload button.
[00:47:22] Matt Briel: There’s formatting that needs to be in place. And so we’re trying to make those things easier. Adding trim sizes five by eight is a big trim size that’s gotten a lot of popularity lately. And so we’re adding that into our mix that should be available soon onto the future stuff. When you talk about selling direct, one of the things we didn’t really talk about are, other forms of selling direct, like using something like Kickstarter, for example, right?
[00:47:45] Matt Briel: This concept of doing a Kickstarter or crowdfunding , to raise funds to create a nice book and deliver that to your fans and followers and backers. And there are other platforms, obviously besides Kickstarter. That’s also a form of selling direct though, right? You’re, you’re directly [00:48:00] taking money in from people who are saying, I wanna support this project, this project sounds awesome, Take my money, but in exchange, I want the book.
[00:48:08] Matt Briel: Right? And we’ve seen a lot of people, and this goes back to, , comics and things like that. One of the most. Or actually I think to date in history, the most successful art book of all time on Kickstarter is a Lulu author an artist. His name is Lorenzo Eton. And he’s done several at this point.
[00:48:23] Matt Briel: And basically how that works is he takes in all of those payments, in those orders, and at the end of his Kickstarter, what he has is this big CSV file, right? This big spreadsheet of all these people. But now it’s like, okay, what do I do with this? , I, I’m putting my book together and I have this spreadsheet of all these people that donated, that backed my, my Kickstarter.
[00:48:44] Matt Briel: He came to us in the beginning and we said, Well, just give us the spreadsheet. We’ll upload it manually into our system, and then we’ll ship all, , get your project files upload, and we’ll ship ’em all out. That actually worked really well, so we’ve done it for ’em a number of times, and then since then for other authors, and so [00:49:00] it became very clear to us very quickly, this is a tool that people could really make good use of for pre-orders and things like.
[00:49:06] Matt Briel: So that will be dropping very soon. As a Lulu user or author whether you’re selling direct or not, you’ll also have the ability to just touch up a button, upload a spreadsheet of orders from wherever you took them. It doesn’t matter. You could have been at a trade show and had people, , doing pre-orders right there and took that spreadsheet and then it into your Lulu account.
[00:49:25] Matt Briel: And we just, every line item, we fulfill it and ship it out to the address that’s there. Right? So I think that’s something that a lot of people have been excited for us to finally get done and delivered. So that’s coming. But my favorites and the things that I’ve been focusing on right now are really getting into the world of personalization of your printed books using really cool foil stamping and all kinds of other fancy fun printing types of techniques.
[00:49:49] Matt Briel: So we’re doing a lot of experimentation with that and having a lot of fun with that, which is really hard to do by the way in a print on demand environment. So for people listening that don’t. Fully understand print on demand. It’s very [00:50:00] complicated to run a print on demand book. And, and personalize it in some of those ways that you might see other books that were done on an offset printer.
[00:50:07] Matt Briel: But being able to, to take technology and, and continually make improvements on on that stuff when it comes to personalization, I think is gonna be really cool for indie authors going forward. Especially selling direct cause. It’ll allow you to be able to sell like limited edition copies of, of a particular book, right?
[00:50:24] Matt Briel: You could have two price points. One is 1599 for the standard paperback, but the other might be 50 for, , I don’t know, a leather bound version with foil stamping on the sides and really cooler, innate, , scroll work or something depending on what it is you write. But having those options and those abilities I think is gonna be really cool.
[00:50:40] Matt Briel: A lot of people have been asking for it. And then lastly, the best one is we’ve really started diving into the world of. Web three. And for those that aren’t familiar with Web three it’s all things associated with the blockchain. And that means the ability to take and process cryptocurrency for payments.
[00:50:58] Matt Briel: That means [00:51:00] the ability to bundle NFTs with your books and create projects whereby you as a creator might do a limited run of a book as an nft. Somebody comes to Lulu with that FT in their digital wallet. We automatically read that. They have that NFT that, , means they get this copy of this book that maybe it is that leather bound foil stamped, , super duper high quality,
[00:51:20] Matt Briel: and we immediately fulfill it and ship it out, the ability to, to start playing in that world of social tokens or creator coins. However , of those many listening probably won’t know about them, but there is technology now that is out there. It’s only one or two platforms right now, but it will be spreading.
[00:51:37] Matt Briel: And I also understand this is a scary topic for a lot of people. Like all things, it’s not scary when you start doing your research. Creator coins, social tokens, those things are gonna be amazing for authors and creators, especially as it pertains to building your community. So we’re doing a lot of fun experimentation with that stuff and you should probably see a lot of those things starting to drop early to mid next year, and really giving [00:52:00] those who are selling direct, the ability to sort of differentiate your work from others that might be in the same genre or even run along the same lines of fantasy worlds or romance.
[00:52:10] Matt Briel: But when you have that ability to personalize to the 10th degree and or incorporate things like NFTs in a way that’s way more meaningful than just some overpriced jpeg, by the way, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about NFTs as a utility. NFTs that come with attached benefits, lifelong benefits, which by the way, for an author, mean every time that book is resold or that nft, you’re getting royalties every single time you can build in that you want five, 10, 15% every time that thing is resold and it automatically goes to you.
[00:52:42] Matt Briel: No author gets that right now, ever . So I think those are some of the things that we’re talking about for future. But all of those I think are gonna really sort of superpower this idea and this concept of selling direct.
[00:52:55] Michael Evans: Yeah, selling direct and building your fandom, Right? Cause like [00:53:00] all of these tools ultimately help you to have your reader feel like they know you better and have a better experience with your stories.
[00:53:08] Michael Evans: And on the web three point, I just wanna say, I think it’s something that. Is not nearly as mainstream as selling direct itself and being able to use Shopify and Lulu. That that Tech Stack’s much more established. And the Web three tech stack is very much emerging. And I’m happy that a company like Lulu that’s grounded in the author space is exploring that.
[00:53:27] Michael Evans: Because I think it’s important, a lot of the companies that are building the web three space don’t necessarily have us as authors in mind. And I think it’s important to have us in mind when building any sort of future. So I’m excited to hear that. One way to think about it is like how to create like the most epic digital reward programs or loyalty programs or like a ticket into a digital amusement park.
[00:53:49] Michael Evans: And that sounds like really like overblown, like what, That doesn’t make any sense, but I think 10 or 15 years from now we’re gonna look back and be like, Yeah, that, that is what it is. And there’s companies, [00:54:00] Starbucks is a recent example. Huge company that’s now moving over their own membership and loyalty program to the blockchain web three.
[00:54:08] Michael Evans: And they’re doing this because they actually view it as a cheaper alternative to web two, because they get to own more of that data. That underlying infrastructure is more portable. And making your readers and that connection to your readers more portable ultimately gives you more freedom. So I think there’s so many important themes wrapped up into this technological trend that I’m excited to see authors experiment with.
[00:54:29] Michael Evans: So yeah. Thank you for sharing.
[00:54:31] Matt Briel: You’re absolutely right about that. And I do think that a hundred percent agree with you when you talk about the tech stacks that exist or the technology that exists for selling direct right now and is continuing to evolve. It’s definitely a lot more fleshed out, proven and ground.
[00:54:44] Matt Briel: Then what’s coming with web three but web three is coming , tho those things that you just touched on. When you see a corporation like Starbucks doing those things, when you see some of these other companies doing those things, it’s coming. It’s not a matter of if, if when , and as [00:55:00] creators, as authors, as people who have probably the most to gain from a lot of this technology, the sooner we can start learning about it and getting comfortable with it and using it to a degree where it’s, , teaching us and, and it’s not, , impacting us in a negative way, the better off we’re gonna be in the long run.
[00:55:16] Matt Briel: Because you’re right, I don’t even know if it’ll be 10 to 15 years from now, maybe eight to 10. I think many of us will already be looking back and going, Yep, I’m glad I did that. I’m glad I future proof myself. Right. Because that’s a big part of this is future proofing your, your business, your brand, your writing.
[00:55:33] Matt Briel: These platforms crumble all the time. Their algorithms change all the time. They change their terms of service all the time. And if you think it can’t happen with Amazon or any of the others, Barnes and Noble Best Buy, it doesn’t matter. , they, they all have to change to a certain degree at some point in time.
[00:55:48] Matt Briel: I mean, even right now, so many people are hurting because of the latest algorithm changes on Instagram. They didn’t do a good job of getting those fans and followers over to a platform that they had more control of. And when that algorithm [00:56:00] changed and they woke up the next morning and they made a post that only got three likes and nobody clicked the link to buy when previously they would get hundreds of likes and at least a couple of sales, that’s a pretty stark indicator how the next couple of months of your life are gonna go until you can migrate people, if you can migrate them.
[00:56:16] Matt Briel: So future proofing yourself and your business and your brand. Part of that is understanding some of these emerging and new technologies and doing your best to wrap your mind around them and how they might be able to help you. And impacts you in a positive way and not focus so much on what the negatives might be right now since it is evolving.
[00:56:34] Michael Evans: Yeah, it’s always keeping a mind out for the possibilities and knowing that we live in a future that we can construct together. So if there’s certain things about technology that seem scary to us, well hopefully we can work together to take back more control as creative people. So I think this was wonderful. Thank you so much, Matt, for being here. As always, you can check out the. To check out Lulu’s services if selling direct is something [00:57:00] that you are ready to jump into.
[00:57:01] Michael Evans: Thank you everyone for watching and thank you Matt for
[00:57:03] Matt Briel: being here.
[00:57:04] Matt Briel: Thanks a lot.
[00:57:04] Michael Evans: I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Matt Briel from Lulu. It was honestly really cool to be able to hear his insights on just the overall industry, specifically kind of diving into the nuts and bolts of how to make this work, and then also where this could be going and how we can maybe all think about.
[00:57:21] Michael Evans: Putting this in our longer term business strategy of how we can build awesome communities and relationships with our readers, centered around our stories. So yeah, I’m feeling really excited after this and I hope you all are too. If you’d like to listen to more podcasts like this. Please share it with a friend who you think would enjoy. Also, when you let us know by sharing on social media or just sharing with your friends what episodes you’re enjoying, it helps us produce more episodes just like that.
[00:57:51] Michael Evans: So that’s really helpful for us. And it only takes a few seconds to just send a text or a quick email and be like, Check this podcast out, and it literally means [00:58:00] the world to us. It’s why we do this is to be able to build an awesome cuny, really a movement of storytellers who are looking to build close relationships with their readers.
[00:58:09] Michael Evans: And instead of having technology rule us be partnered with technology and partner with our readers and building a better future for fiction. We’re only doing this together and we’re so excited and privileged to be here talking to you. So if you’re also at this point in the podcast, You probably enjoyed it and I should probably mention that if you’re interested in other things that me, Emilia working on, We’ve been developing a platform called Ream and it’s an all in one platform for authors to run their subscription business.
[00:58:36] Michael Evans: It’s taken a lot of the problems that Emilia’s had using subscription platforms the last three years and making six figures a year doing. and trying to really solve them in a simple, easy use interface that is really fun for both readers and authors. So if you’re interested, you should definitely sign up at our launch link below,
[00:58:54] Michael Evans: So yeah, that’s it for me. I hope y’all enjoyed this podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
[00:58:58] Michael Evans: We’ll be back again next [00:59:00] week with another awesome episode about subscriptions. But in the meantime, I hope y’all have an amazing rest of your day. And don’t forget storytellers Rule the World.