Self-Publishing Success: Strategies from Three Dynamic Independent Authors

[00:00:01] This is the MahoganyBooks Podcast Network.

[00:00:38] I just want to say, first of all, I just want to say thank you. My name is Ramonda Young. My husband and I own MahoganyBooks. And it is an honor for me to stand before you. Even though we've been doing this for 18 years and married for 23, every time we open our doors, every time we make space for us and community,

[00:01:07] it means something to me. And when you all show up and take time out of your day, it means something to me. People say, you've been doing this for 18 years. Girl, you just fake it. No. This is serious for me. Black people need spaces to be ourselves. We need spaces to not have the code switch. We need spaces to just celebrate our stories. And so that's what MahoganyBooks means to me. It's not just some hip bookstore. It is a sacred space where 55,000 people come through our doors every year.

[00:01:36] Those two little doors at our bookstore. So to see you all here, I could be like, yeah, yeah, I did this. You know, I don't feel that energy. I don't feel it at all. Because I'm humbled that you made space for us. So thank you for being here. I cry all the time. I'm in touch. I'm in touch. I'm in touch. I'm in touch when I was crying. But I cry because it's a real thing for me. So anyway, I know y'all didn't come here for that. But I just wanted to make space to say thank you. I'm honored. And so we're going to get into this panel, because I know y'all didn't come for the Ramonda's show.

[00:02:05] This panel today was important to me, even though we got all these other people out here, all these amazing authors, 50 plus authors. The independent authors are powerful because they took a risk on themselves. They may not have had the backing of some of the big publishing houses. But they said, I have a story of meaning, of power too, and I want to write it. And so I'm excited to be here to moderate this panel of three dynamic authors. So first give it up for yourselves for being here as well. Give it up for yourselves.

[00:02:35] I feel like I'm talking on the NPR host. I'm talking like this. I feel like that. So I'm trying to stay focused. But anyway, let's get into it. Our first author, her name is Charlotte Avery. She is a speaker. Anywhere, my dear. She is a dear friend of mine actually as well.

[00:03:01] But she is a speaker, an entrepreneur who is fiercely committed to helping women go from overwhelmed to overjoyed in their roles as wives and moms. As the family strategist, she draws upon her experience as the wife of one, mother of seven. And she has seven kids too. They look fabulous. She don't look like seven kids and one pet. She gives moms the tools they need to define for themselves what it means to have it all. Give it up for Charlotte Avery. Yes.

[00:03:31] I just wanted to add, she started her career as an athletic trainer, graduated from Hampton University. Thank you. With a Bachelor of Science degree in Therapeutic Recreation and obtaining a Master's degree in Sports Medicine from the United States Sports Academy. Give it up again for Charlotte Avery. Yes. Our next author is Mr. Brian Heat. Where you at, Brian Heat?

[00:04:01] Bring in the heat, Brian. Brian Heat is a dynamic, inspirational speaker, educator, producer, director, publisher, and online best-selling author with his latest book, Release, Alaris, The Boy Who Could Fly, who transforms audiences infusing high-octane motivational and cinematic themes, making his presentations trajectory changing and unforgettable.

[00:04:25] Brian's God-given gifts to positively impact the lives of others can be experienced through his provocative keynotes, books, online content creation, and groundbreaking stage performances. Give it up for Brian Heat. And last but certainly not least is Cerise Rennie Murphy. Where you at, Cerise?

[00:04:50] Cerise Rennie Murphy is the national best-selling and award-winning author of ten, let me go back, ten novels. Can y'all clap for ten novels? Ten novels. Children's books and short stories. She is also the founder of VirtuousCon, an online science fiction and comic culture convention. That's a lot of C's. Wait.

[00:05:15] Online comic culture convention that celebrates the excellence of BIPOC creators and speculative fiction across the mediums of fiction, comics, film, and visual arts. She earned her master's degree in social work and international relations at Boston College and John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, respectively. And she has built a rewarding career in program development and fundraising in the community, environment, and international development.

[00:05:41] The last thing I want to add is in 2010, Ms. Murphy began developing and writing what would become the best-selling Order of the Sears trilogy, which was voted one of the best Kindle books of 2014 by Digital Book Today. Her work, essential themes of individuality, identity, personal power, and how these discoveries can be used to improve our community and the world. Give it up for Cerise, y'all. Ten books. Ten books. Okay.

[00:06:12] Ten books. So let's get into it. And I hope y'all brought some pen and paper because you guys have access to three dynamic authors here who have created and gone on the journey that many of you may be interested in. So I'm excited for them to share with them today. Okay. Just joking. I don't see my questions. Pause, pause, pause. Hold on.

[00:06:56] How's everybody doing today? One more time. How's everybody doing today? Give it up for Mahogany Books, please. Give it up to Mahogany Books. As I was out here, you know, this is, this will, I'm just kind of passing time until my sister comes back. This is my third book, but my first children's book and my first time ever vending. It's been an incredible experience. I told Ramonda that the vibe of the people that have been coming through have been amazing. Clap it up for yourselves, guys. You guys are amazing.

[00:07:26] Absolutely. People are number one buying books and buying multiple books. I see people by themselves, grandmothers, children, the whole vibration, man. So Mahogany, you guys definitely represented today. Clap it up one time for Mahogany. Yeah. All right. We're just going to pivot. That's what we're going to do. So let's get into it.

[00:07:55] Let me ask this. What was the hardest part of deciding to self-publish? And how did you overcome it? What was the hardest part of your journey? And y'all can just hop in whenever. Sure. So I'll go first. First of all, thank you for having all of us here and just doing this amazing event. Oh my gosh. I'm just speechless, but thank you. Thank you. All right. So for me, it actually really wasn't a hard decision to self-publish.

[00:08:23] Like I wanted to, you know, I wanted to be like, oh, I want to work with a big name publisher or whatever. But I actually didn't want my voice to be silenced. And so I made the decision when I wrote my first book. Actually, my first book is a table book about motherhood. And I just wanted it to be how I wanted it to be. I knew what I wanted the cover to be. I knew what I wanted the words to say. I didn't want somebody to come in and be like, oh, we got to change this. You got to change that. You know, whatever.

[00:08:51] And so I wanted my voice, my personality and all that to come through my book and not be silenced. So I chose to self-publish. And in doing that, I also, it was the catalyst for me starting a business in writing books that empower women and children and things of that nature. Awesome. Thank you for sharing this. Cerise, what about you? What was the hardest part of deciding to self-publish? The hardest part is the self-doubt.

[00:09:21] And I always say because, you know, you can always have external obstacles, but only one person can stop you before you even get started. That's you. And moving past that, how I move past it is I love my character so much. And I'm a, you know, I never wanted to be a writer. I'm a reader. I've been a reader since I was like a little, little girl. I was that kid who would go to Toys R Us and I'd be like, Mommy, can I get a book? I was that girl.

[00:09:51] So the idea that I have a story that I can tell, it's like a miracle to me. It's just something that I love so deeply. And I love my character so much. And I knew that if I didn't get over my fear, the story they wanted to tell, the people they wanted to reach would never hear their story.

[00:10:14] And every time, 12, almost 13 years later, that is what pushes me past is my love of my characters and telling their story. 13 years with those characters. Different characters. Different characters. They come to me all different. I dream all my stories. So, yeah, they just come to me. What about you, Brian? It's interesting. I think you said self-doubt. I think for those who wants to be an author that's not an author yet, but you desire to be an author.

[00:10:42] The biggest thing I would piggyback is self-belief. You have to believe that the story that's placed inside of you was meant to be told for the person that was meant to read it. That was a bar. I'm not a rapper, but I got bars, right? Okay. Right? That was a bar. The story that was placed inside of you was meant to be read by the person meant to read it. Whether it goes number one or goes to your community or just your grandchild and changes their life. I look at authors as trajectory shifters.

[00:11:10] And so for me, my first book was called Beautiful Power, A Love Letter to Black Women. And the reason why I wrote it, it was at the birth of Love and Hip Hop. And I was watching TV and I would see these characters of women on TV that didn't represent the women that I knew. And it was just over this and over that and the argument. I said, I don't know any women really like that. I said, so let me say from a brother's perspective, all the things I love about black women. It wasn't advice. I wasn't giving any advice.

[00:11:38] I was just saying from a brother to a sister, sister, this is why we love you. We love you for the historical strength. We love you for how you nurture us as black men. And that was my first book. But guess what, how it happened? I wrote it because I'm a motivational speaker and I travel as that. I wrote it as a stage experience. And the stage experience was so transformative. My agent said, Brian, take the manuscript and turn it into a book. So sometimes as a self published author, your first book may be accidental.

[00:12:08] But guess what? Like I told someone in the green room, it really isn't accidental. That book needs to be told. And like you said, if it's not told, someone's not going to get those words, those messages, those characters. So self doubt, self belief, believe in you. Right. So that's interesting. All of you kind of touched on that. So what was an area where you felt like that you thought you were going to give up? What motivated you to keep going? Because it's so easy to give up. It's so easy to say, let me put this down and I'll write it 10 years from now, 12 years from now.

[00:12:37] But what made you say, I'm going to keep doing this? I think for me, the thing that kept me going is the fact that I knew that there were other people who needed what I had to say. I knew, especially as a woman writing for women, but I knew that my experiences, although they were unique to me, that they were not completely different from a lot of what other women go through.

[00:13:03] We just don't talk about it because we want people to see the good. We don't want people to know the dirty. And so for me, I'm a very transparent truth teller. And so like my second book, the 40 day tone of voice tone down, I wrote that book because I'm a recovering yeller. And I was going through a lot. And so I was like, you know what? I'm not the only person who's yelling and going off and being a homewrecker in their house.

[00:13:31] And so I started, I started doing a, a, um, a motivational word about it every day. And then people were like, Oh, I want to go on this journey with you. And I was like, I didn't invite you to go on this journey with me. I was just telling on myself. And then that's how the 40 day tone of voice tone down actually evolved is, is because it was something that a journey that I was taking people on with me. And I just took everything that I wrote and I put it into a book, but I'd had no idea how it was going to impact not only women, but employers,

[00:14:01] and, and men and things of that nature. And so it just, it just evolved that way. But I knew that there were other people who needed to know what I had to say. What about you, Cerise? What kept you from giving up? In addition to my characters, I'm the kind of person that the fastest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't do it.

[00:14:24] Um, I remember when I first published and I was writing a science fiction novel and literally someone said to me, there's no audience for your book because black people don't read science fiction. White people don't read white, white people don't read black authors and no one reads science fiction from a woman. Hello. Octavia Butler.

[00:14:48] I was like, well, I mean, yes, I believe I'm a special unique flower, but I'm not, I've been reading science fiction all my life and I don't think I'm that unique. And so I just, if that was the narrative, then I cannot accept that. And in fact, I don't have to accept anything that I don't want to. That's right. And every book I put out where people are like, oh, I don't know who the audience will be for that.

[00:15:17] It's so exciting to prove people wrong. Uh, for me, I think, um, for those who look at it as a business as well, not only just the impact because as a self published author, you're the machine, you're the accountant, you're the marketer, you're the writer, you're the graphic designer at some point. Right. And even though I believed in my books, it's going to be a slow crawl at first as a self publishing author. Right.

[00:15:43] You have the freedom, you have the autonomy, you're, you're in charge of everything, but you're in charge of everything. Does that make sense? And I think at any point of an author's career that starts off, you're not going to, it's not, you know, the book is amazing, but it may not fly off the shelf immediately. Does that make sense? And I give you guys a challenge and I'm not going to read it because I did the research. Go online or if you're a chat GP tier and look up all of the, all of the popular authors that started off as independent authors.

[00:16:11] You'd be surprised Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad. He started off as an independent author and I can keep going. We have these major, major, major, I think Jack Canfield, a suit for the soul. I think 140 publishers turned him down until that 141 said, yes, we're going to go to it. What I've learned is self-publishing is the platform. It's the launch pad, not the destination. Does that make sense?

[00:16:35] So we all have the desire with the right contract with the right deal that we would love to go major, but we're not going to wait for it. Right. We're going to, we're going to make ourselves valuable. So now when you get to the table, you have something called leverage. Does that make sense? Because the publisher is going to ask you, what have you been doing waiting for us? And if you say, Oh, I was waiting for you. Did you sell any books? No. Did you market? No. No. You had this. No. Well, then you're not ready for it yet. Does that make sense? So I tell authors, go get hot and you'll attract who you're looking for. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

[00:17:05] And it's funny. I think of so many authors that come to our bookstore and they're had all this time that they wanted to create this book, write this book, and they did it. And that was the passion that they were excited about. But then the other side is the business side of things. That's right.

[00:17:46] Right. You kind of, it's hard to do that because it's your baby. But you know, you're not good at everything. Right. You know that. You know, take a look in the mirror and say, you know what? I'm not the best at accounting. I'm not really a graphic designer. Do what you can and then try to find another entity. If you guys aren't using already, go to Fiverr. Fiverr, I think is, who's used Fiverr before? Anybody use Fiverr? Who's not familiar with Fiverr? Raise your hand if you're not familiar with Fiverr yet. It's a website you can go to to find any creative collaborator.

[00:18:15] They can find graphic designers, marketers, social media that can help you market and the cost is very low. We know as an entrepreneur, we don't want to have a high overhead. We want low overhead. Everybody say low overhead. Low overhead. There we go. So ultimately, surround yourself with people who do things better than you, but try to keep your overhead low. I want to piggyback off that. Teamwork does make the dream work. And you really have to know who you're, you have to be able to find your team. And sometimes it might take you a little while.

[00:18:46] Sometimes you may have written something and you're just like, well, I don't have the right illustrator just yet. Brian and I were talking about this in the green room. And for me, like my illustrator, the person who's illustrated both of my children's books, I have never physically met her. But when I talked to her over the phone and I told her when she read my manuscript and I told her what my vision, once she like drew the character out for me, I knew that she was the one.

[00:19:15] And so for her, she's always been my go to illustrator. I have a go to PR person. I have a go to person for almost everything because I can't do this by myself because I am one of those people who I just want to write. That's all I want to do. I don't even want to do social media stuff. But then I have like my friends, some of my best friends who are in the audience are like, Charlotte, you need to post more. Charlotte, you need to do this. And I was like, I don't want to do that. But I have to do it. I have to do it. And so and I just want to say this, too.

[00:19:45] For people who are like camera shy and you're just like, well, I don't want to post. Listen, just get used to posting yourself. Get used to posting your story, your your some of your foolishness or whatever. But get used to seeing yourself on camera because one day you're not your one day you're going to be on a panel. One day you're going to be on TV. One day you're going to be doing these things and you need to be able to have the preparation. So start at the ground level in doing it. But your team matters. Your illustrator matters.

[00:20:13] Your your editor matters. All those people matter. So find your people. What about you, Cerise? Ten books. How do you balance that? Start where you are with what you have. Now I have a team of people that help me. But when I started, everything costs money. You know, you got to pay. I mean, you have to pay for your book cover. Yes, you do. Unless you are a professional graphic designer.

[00:20:42] It will cost you if you do not. Or you have one in your family member that you can harass to do it for you. You have to pay for an editor. You have to pay for an editor. Because once you've read a book three or four times, you cannot, you're reading what you thought you wrote. And what you thought you wrote was good. That's right. That's not what's on the page, however. And so you need a good editor.

[00:21:09] You need an at first, I could only afford one. Now I have a team of three editors. Two, you know, I have a developmental editor. I have a copy editor. I have a line editor. Four. And I have a proofreader. Now that is thousands of dollars by the time I get finished. And you may not be there. You do need one though. You do.

[00:21:35] Even if it's your, you know, anal cousin who you know is going to ride you on every comma. You know that you do. I mean that's, you have to start where you are and then grow. Because when I started I didn't have a team. I couldn't afford a team. Yeah, so that's what I would say. Out of all of your experience so far, what would you do differently? Is there anything on this publishing journey that you would do differently? Oh my gosh. I would not.

[00:22:03] So you know, when I published my first book back in 2009 or whatever, publishing was different. Being a self published author was different. And so you know, you had to like buy like a lot of books and just storing them. I still have books in my basement from the first book that I ever wrote. And I'm like, gosh are these things going to ever get out? But I would have not bought so many books. Because even though people that girl, I'm going to buy your book. I'm going to buy your book, Brian. And I'm like, they're not. Right.

[00:22:33] They're not. Because actually the people who really, the people who your books really are going to resonate with are not even, half of them are not even the people that you know. So I would not have bought so many books. Like I thank God for on demand publishing now. Because now I'm not carrying a lot of storage and things like that and spending so much money just like looking at storage. So I would have never bought, like don't buy a thousand books. Just don't do that. Okay. Don't. What did I say? Don't buy a thousand books. Say it.

[00:23:02] Don't buy a thousand books. Okay. Because they're going to be like the more books you buy, the less it's going to cost. And guess what? They're going to be sitting right there in your basement. I think the big piece for me would be marketing. Oh, that too. You, this is the thing. Once you create it, you need to put it in front of as many people as possible. And I know so many authors and I know I used to manage hip hop artists and I'm an entrepreneur and beyond that.

[00:23:29] So many folks create the idea and then kind of just like sit and wait for everyone to come find you. You have to go out and vend. You have to go out and market you. And again, if that's not you, find the outgoing person in your circle who loves to do that. So that would be my big piece. If I was to start all over again, I would take beautiful power my first book and push it 10 X harder. A hundred. You know, I got folks still asking me, Brian, you still got those beautiful power books. That was great. And I kind of kicked myself because I probably could have pushed it harder.

[00:23:59] Does that make sense? Also piggybacking off my system, be prepared. Being an independent author does require financial investment. Yes. Why would you create a product and not want to put any money into it? Can you say that again, Reverend Dr. Why? Same with mahogany. I remember you guys have been around for how long? 18 years. Clap it up for 18 years, guys. 18 years. But I remember going to their first store. I kind of just moved here in 1999, 1998. I remember coming to the store. I said, this is amazing.

[00:24:29] Full circle moment. Look what's happening outside. Think about what her husband and herself have placed into financially to making this dream come true. You want, who wants an investor? Anybody wants an investor? Yes. You do. Most of you with the right terms, with the right terms. But guess what? If you're not willing to invest in yourself, why would they invest in you? Okay. So from direct answer was for me, marketing was my big thing. I wish I would have done a little bit more. I'm doing it now with my recent release of Loras, but my first two books, I wish I would

[00:24:58] have pushed them a hundred times more. And so that's good that you mentioned, I'm thinking of all the steps that you, each of you are talking about and you mentioned fiber. So what kind of other publishing tools that either of you have been using so far that you felt like really helped propel your career? Is there a tool, is there a platform that you felt like this has helped you with your journey so far? I think the first one that I'd mention is Lightning Source, which is now IngramSpark. Yes. I concur.

[00:25:25] The reason for that is because it's solving two problems at once. Number one, they do print on demand. Explain to them what print on demand, some people may not know. That's a book. I know what it is. Thank you. So print on demand is, I need a book. You're not, well there's, I think offset printing where you can, you can order a thousand copies from a traditional printer. They're going to print a thousand copies, charge you, and then they will ship it to you

[00:25:51] and it will be in your house until you make a plan for how you're going to sell them. Print on, and you can make a plan to sell them. I know that's right. That's right. We can talk about that. And then print on demand is someone buys your book from Amazon. That order goes to a printer who then prints the books on demand and ships it to your customer. You don't ever have to worry about it.

[00:26:21] Made to order. That's exactly right. So IngramSpark, or I've been around long enough when IngramSpark did not exist and that was called Lightning Source. That's right. That's right. Not only will they print your book on demand, but they, you can opt into their distribution. Mm-hmm. So you can buy my book at anybody that has an online retailer. That's right. Even if I'm not in the store. That's right.

[00:26:47] Because of the distribution that something like IngramSpark allows. And I know there are other platforms that can do that, but back then the one I used was, so IngramSpark or Lightning Source was a big help for me in terms of solving the problem of distribution. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which is getting your books in the hands of the people who are looking for them. Right.

[00:27:13] And I just wanted to add to that with Ingram, so a lot of times people come to our bookstore and say, hey, I want to have my book on your shelf. And I say, okay, you have to, we have a whole process just to fill out the application. But we also recommend people go through Ingram. We don't get any money, any kickback from Ingram. But what I've learned, I worked at Barnes & Noble for many years. I worked at another, it was a, let me see if there's any Karibu people in here, anybody familiar with Karibu books? Mm-hmm. Okay, I see one.

[00:27:39] Karibu books at one time was the world's largest book, black book bookstore chain. And I ran, helped run six of their stores as a district manager. But Ingram allows your book to be in independent bookstores. It allows it to be in libraries. It allows it to be in Barnes & Noble going through Ingram. Like I said, we don't get, get anything from it. But I want, if you wrote, if you took the time to write a book, why not have it be accessible by all these different platforms, all these different outlets? So Ingram is the one that we use when people fill out the application we ask. Is it at Ingram?

[00:28:09] The other thing I want to add too, as a bookstore owner, a lot of people want to walk in the store and say, hey, take my book. And the beginning, I took everybody's book. Then I looked behind me and had thousands, felt like thousands of books that we were just taking. But Ingram allows us to place an order each week for all of the books. Versus you coming in, you coming in, you coming in, giving me an, I mean it was just crazy. It was no way to do it. So Ingram allows us to place an order for everybody's book when we decide to carry it. And it's easy from an operational standpoint.

[00:28:36] If you visit other bookstores, they often will tell you the same thing. It depends on how big they are. Some will take it, some will not. It's just a lot to juggle operationally. So it allows us to get your book in as many places as possible. But then as a bookstore owner, it allows us to be able to facilitate it easily. So Ingram is a tremendous way to get it in all those spaces at one time. Because it is the world's largest wholesale distributor. They're distributing everywhere, honey. Everywhere. So it's a great place to start if you have a book that you want to get out into the world. Yes.

[00:29:06] I wanted to say this. So I learned about Ingram because of Ramunda. Because Ramunda has been on this journey with me as an author for a little while. But that's how I actually learned about everything that you just said. Because you gave me a crash course about that. Because I was like, oh, I want to sell this book. I want to sell this book. But the question was, can anybody go to any bookstore and find your book? Well, now anybody can go to a bookstore. And even though my book might not be physically in there, they can go ahead and order it for them.

[00:29:36] And it's like, oh, I can order that and send it to you. Absolutely. So I really love that. But the other thing I wanted to say is KDP has been really good for me. KDP is through Amazon. And one thing that I like about KDP is you can also put keywords in there.

[00:29:55] So like if I'm writing a children's book, like my book Afro-Izzy, you know, I'm putting words in there like black boy joy or black hair or, you know, just you can find these keywords. But even before putting the keywords in there, you can just go on Amazon, not Amazon, on Google, Google University, and just search what are keywords for particular types of books and then put them in on KDP.

[00:30:21] And then when people are searching for your book, then it can go in so many different categories. It can go under motivation. It can go under so many different things. So KDP has also been a really good resource for me. Mine would be mentors. Mentors. I'm a big believer in mentors. We know David Miller. I'm actually sharing a table with him today because, again, even though I'm a three-time author, this is my first time vending the particular book I have today. David is an OG triple, right?

[00:30:49] He's probably written 13 or 14 children's books. So I tell people remain coachable. Find someone who's doing something or has done something in that space. And that's a big resource is finding a mentor because they'll stop you from making costly mistakes because they already made them. Does that make sense? Yes. And that would be my best advice is find some mentorship. Absolutely. I want to go back to the Ingram piece real quick, and then we'll open it up for questions. Just a couple of tips. If you have a book, I wish I had an example. Some people have books that's very, very thin.

[00:31:18] So thin that you don't have writing on the spine. Right. Libraries will not take that book. Right. If you put a book on the shelf, we have to see what's on it, right? That's right. We can't just have one little book that is nondescript. Right. So think about it. Do I need to add more pages? Right. How do I get fonts? How do I get something on the side of the spine so libraries can get it? Right. Some bookstores may take it, some may not. But think about that. Do you need to add more content in it? Also, on the back of your book, make sure there's an ISBN number on the back. That's right. That's right.

[00:31:47] I forgot the standard, I forgot the ISBN numbers. But you can go and purchase one, two, or ten, whatever it is. Sometimes I say purchase ten. You may have a coloring book, a workbook, a journal. Get all ten ISBNs from that one book. If you have one book, I also think of it as a spoke. If I have a book, I'm going to speak. That's part of my book. I'm going to go out and talk about that book. That's right. I'm going to go and have a journal about that book. That's right. I may go and do a kiddie version about the same book, same content.

[00:32:15] I may do affirmation cards about the same book. So think of your book. How do you monetize that one item? Some people think they have to have 20 different books, and that's fine. But how do you monetize that one book? Think outside of the box about it. Is it a coloring book? We sell coloring books. Take the imagery that you have in the books and how do you turn it into something else? Turn your words into something else that can be colorable. So think about that as you write the book and the ISBN numbers that are on the back.

[00:32:40] Most stores that I can think of do not accept a book if there's no barcode or ISBN on the back. That's right. That's how we scan it. That's how we put it into our inventory. I could slap a $9.99 sticker, but for me as a bookstore owner, I need to be able to scan it and say, oh, I have 10 books. So think about that. Again, some people walk in the store and say, take my book. You're a black bookstore. You need to take my book. And I'm saying, sis, you don't have all the steps on the back. Not for me, but for you as well. I want your book to be on all the places. Go ahead, Sarisa. Come on, preach. I mean, we're about to pass a cash app offering from Norway for preaching.

[00:33:10] That is so critical. I want to say because you can, if you publish your book through Amazon, they will give you a free ISBN. So for folks who are thinking, you know, listen, I can't because the package of 10 ISBNs and now it's significant. It's significant. It's not five bucks. I'll just say that. The challenge with that is that Amazon is a direct competitor with Mahogany Books. Correct.

[00:33:35] And many bookstores will not carry a book with the Amazon given ISBN. Facts. So you need to be thinking about, and why would they do that? I mean, it's, it's, I just, I want you to be thinking about where you're positioning yourself. Not just for the one book, but for someone who wants a career. If you're just doing the one book, do what you gotta do.

[00:34:02] But if you're thinking about a career, think about that. Because if you are trying to do a signing at any bookstore and asking them to accept the ISBN of the competitor that is shutting down bookstores. Right. Yes. It costs you nothing upfront, but it's going to cost you a lot later. Yeah. And there is no, I don't think there's any bigger benefit for being an independent author than ownership. Yes, absolutely.

[00:34:32] Ownership of your stuff. Yes. Because ownership of your intellectual property can be turned into a million different spokes. It can be turned into a movie deal. It can be turned into a whole bunch of things. But only if you own it. Yeah. That was a bore. Y'all should have clapped for that one. That was a bore. Yes. That's good. Piggybacking on that real quick. On Ramunda's initial comment, how can you reimagine your book in different formats?

[00:35:02] A lot of folks stopped past the table and bought my new release, A Lars of Boyk and the Fly. We're in pre-production now to turn it into an animated film. Right? But before I even got into my first demo, I've already copywritten the script. So now I own that. So if I ever want to sit across from Netflix, I want to own all of my IP. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yes. I'm going to use the book and the animated short as proof of concept and everything's copywritten.

[00:35:29] So they can't buy it and say, we're going to buy that from you and run with it and make billions while you make $2. Right? They now have to negotiate with me differently because I diversified how the book was seen and I own the variations. Does that make sense? So it's not hard to get a copyright, but it's super important for that ownership piece because you can't leverage opportunities if you don't own what you've created. So I wanted to say this. One thing that you said that was really critical is that, so I've written seven books.

[00:35:59] Three of those books are in a series. I wrote a book about potty training. It's called Riding the Potty Train. Okay? I love that. It's called Riding the Potty Train. It's like the cutest potty training book ever. So if you guys are potty training somebody or know somebody who is, you're going to want this whole series. Let me tell you why. It's a children's book. It's a coloring book. And it's a parent guide for how to potty train your children in 30 days or less. So it helped me to reach the kids and the parents. Right.

[00:36:28] And the method has been tried and true, not only on my seven kids but other people. Right. But also, that was three, it was an idea that I had. It was one idea, but I monetized it in three different ways. Love it. So if you do that, like if you're writing a self-help book, consider writing a journal to go along with it. That's right. Because my book, The 40 Day Tone of Voice Tone Down, it is one book, but within those pages is, you know, they're journaling pages.

[00:36:56] But if I went back to do it all again and I still might do this, I may just write a whole completely separate journal to go along with that. So there are so many different ways to monetize. And not just even in books. You can monetize your idea in a t-shirt or whatever. There's so many things that you can do. So just think outside the box. Absolutely. Give it up for our panelists today. Clap it up, clap it up. So I'd love to open up the floor to a few questions.

[00:37:25] If you don't mind coming, I'm trying to repeat it, but you can come on. You close. Yeah. Thank you so much. I learned a lot. That was a lot of good gems. Two questions. Amazon, ISBN, ISBNs are identifiable? I thought it was just like a barcode. You just go to the store and you scan it and that's it. That's okay. No, no.

[00:37:54] So when people come into our store and we scan it, it's not available at Ingram. That specific barcode that came from Amazon is not available at Ingram, as we talked about Ingram earlier. So I'm like, ah. And when I look it up in the system, Ingram has thousands, I mean tens of thousands of books. That book may not be in that database. So that's for us is what it is. So when people submit that application, that's what we're looking at. Is that book able for us to be ordered? And that's not. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. And then you mentioned you have four editors.

[00:38:23] Can you share the definition of a development editor as well as a line editor? Absolutely. Thank you for slowing me down so I can, yeah, because I'm just talking. And that's because I've been doing this for so long. So developmental editor, I mean, there are technical terms and you can look them up, but I'm going to just tell you how I think about it. The developmental editor is there to tell you if you actually have a story. Is the whole, does the story hold together? And if it doesn't, where are your gaps?

[00:38:54] Your line editor, your copy editor is looking at, does this sentence say what you think it says? You know, not just, you know, noun verb agreeing, but like, if you said in chapter two that the day was rainy, and it's still the same day in chapter five, but it's sunny, you have a problem, Houston. You know what I mean? And the developmental editor is looking, so think about the development, the editing process goes from big to small.

[00:39:23] So is your idea holding together? Do your characters make sense? Do we even care about these people? Yes? Okay, you go back, you cry because when you get your edits back, tears, y'all, just straight tears. I mean, and that's normal. But the good, somebody asked me this and I want to make sure I say it. I say, well, what if you do if the editor wants to change your story? You get a different editor. That's right. And editor, quickly.

[00:39:50] The right editor for you is trying to help you tell the story you want to tell in the best way possible. That's good. That's good. So that is a key thing. So anyway, so that editor, when they tell you, no, you didn't quite get there, you read it, go ahead and cry, take a couple days and then get in there and make your story the best it can be.

[00:40:11] And then when you've got your story holes together, then your line and your copy editors are really telling you how you need to craft this story better. Yes, you said this, but I really feel like we need more detail here. Or I really, you're inconsistent in this or that or this character or that character. That's what your copy and your line editors are going to help you do. Like, is it on the page? Your proof editor is the one that's going to make sure your comments are in the right place.

[00:40:39] And you don't, and your grammar, and you don't spell a character's name four different ways in the same book. That part. And I'm not speaking from experience, of course. That part. That part. So anyway, did that help? Yes. Okay. Can I piggyback real quick? And this is the other part. So, Lord, once you've gone through this process, all the editors that she talked about, don't get caught being paralyzed by perfection. Yes. Oh my God. The editor saw it.

[00:41:08] You're good now. Green. That editor saw it green. Once you get those green lights, sometimes we get stuck and you want to rework it and rework it and rework it. I've reworked script where I had to go back to edit again because I've changed so much of the manuscript. I can't say that I got the green light still because I've changed too much. Be very, very careful. Work it until you feel in your soul. Pray over it. I'm a spiritual man. I'm going to pray over it. I got everyone to read it. My mom, my mom has a doctorate in education.

[00:41:36] It's definitely not in English, but I said, Mom, you got a doctorate. Go ahead and read this script one more time. But once I get on my green lights, be prepared to release it to the world. Does that make sense? And again, you may come around and there's a period that should have been here. Okay. You missed that period. Okay. You'll get on the next pass. You'll get on the next one. But you have to allow yourself to be successful. You have to allow yourself to let your baby live. Everybody came past my table, looked at the book. I said, oh, that's my baby. And they're like, was that your son on the cover?

[00:42:05] I said, no, the book is my baby. But you got to let that baby go. You got to let that baby explore the world. And if you want to make tweaks, you'll make it every other time you write a book. You'll get better and better. Does that make sense? So go through the process, but then release it into the world. Can I say something that Walter Mosley said? Yes, and there will be one more question and then we'll close it. I'm so sorry. So Walter Mosley said, you're going to read your book, you're going to edit it, you're going to do your best. And you're going to fix all the things you know are wrong until you reach the point where you know something is wrong, but you don't know how to fix it. And then you publish it.

[00:42:35] That part. That's the part. Right. That's true. That's true. Right. Wow. I mean, so it happens to, you know, you gotta have a little faith. Have faith. That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm looking at the time. So I'm going to close this out. Two things. One, when you go to publish your book, make sure that your terms are returnable. And why do I say that? As a bookstore owner, I'm not going to carry a book that I cannot return. I'm not.

[00:43:04] Your book may sit on my shelf two, three, four, five years. I can't do it. I got to make space for another book. It's not that your book is bad. It just may not have moved in our store. It just may not have moved, but it has to have returnable terms. I'm going to send it back every year. We get to send back a certain amount of books. Actually, we do it quarterly. But look at that. If people say, oh, whoever you decide to get it published with, ask, is my book returnable? If it's not, I can't think of a bookstore who would accept it. Some may, but think about it. Make sure it has returnable terms.

[00:43:33] Also, the discount. The industry standard is 60-40. That's right. What that means is if your book is $10, 60% is going to go to you. The other 40 is going to go to my store so I can market and sell it at $19.99, whatever the price is, right? 60-40. 60% goes to you. 40% goes to the bookstore. Some authors get terms that are 20%, I think, twice before I order that book. I got to feed staff. I got to keep the lights on. I got to have a sign. So all those things go into that discount.

[00:44:03] It is the industry standard 60-40. So think about that as you go and try to, you know, look at the publishing places that you are thinking about working with. Keep that in mind. Returnable discount is important. And the last thing I'll say is that I just urge you to go for it. That's right. Go for it. Oh, wait. Let me go back. Printing. Printing. So IngramSpark does printing, but I have a personal favorite. It's a black-owned publisher who's been printing for, wow, 40 years.

[00:44:32] It's called Black Classic Press. They are here. They print. My book was printed through them. Mine, too. There we go. There we go. They print your books. And I'm always thinking if there's something that I'm doing, is there a black person doing it? And if there's a black person doing it, if it's the same amount, I want to give it to the black person. And even I believe Black Classic Press is even cheaper, right? Less. So think about that. Oh, who's that? Is Black Classic Press in here? Anybody? I didn't see you.

[00:44:59] Black Classic Press is owned by Paul Coates and Ms. Roz back there. They're out here. Actually, Ta-Nehisi Coates' dad is the owner of Black Classic Press. So keep that in mind. They're in Baltimore, so they are local. But if you're going to get your book printed up, think about Black Classic Press. They can publish your book and have it printed so you can distribute it in a lot of places. So think about that. If you're going to do all that work, how can somebody from our community benefit from all that work? Ramona, can I piggyback? No, Brian. Look at me. No, I'm just messing.

[00:45:27] The book that I just put out, we often say if we go with the black, it's going to be less than. The quality that I'm getting from Black Classic Press, specifically for a children's book, is probably 10x better than Amazon. And Damani told me that. That's who I was working with Damani. Damani said, Brian, when you get it, fill the page. I've been telling my customers, fill the pages. See how these illustrations pop off. That's a black company that did that. We have to stop thinking that white ice is colder. We have to stop thinking that when we produce something, it's okay to cut corners.

[00:45:57] I want to give my people the best experience possible by spending money with people who can create the best experience possible. Black Classic Press. I endorse it. Absolutely. I have one more question, sir. IngramSpark is not black. It is not. They're just the world's largest wholesale distributor. That's right. So you can get your book printed by Black Classic Press. You can have it distributed by Ingram. So there's a way to kind of do both of them together. That's right.

[00:46:26] That's what I do. That's right. Ingram. Ingram. Ingram. And there's other distributors. Like I said, I don't get a dime from Ingram in that way at all. But that's the one that I know all those different bookstores and libraries order from all the time. So I want as many of our books to get into those hands as possible. So that's why we recommend Ingram. But do your homework. You may find something else that's better and that's more feasible for you. Right? So anyway, I want to say thank you. I know so many more questions, right? But I want to say thank you for making space.

[00:46:55] This is our last panel of the day. I'm excited to see all of you. But thank you for coming to our second Black Books Matter Festival. I appreciate y'all. Take care. Clap it up, you guys. Clap it up.

[00:47:23] Black Classic Press is right outside this door.

[00:47:26] This is Derek Young.

[00:48:47] And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast now. Thank you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And all-