The past 20 years or so has seen the world of publishing get completely disrupted, torn apart, and changed forever. Retail books stores have become an endangered species, eBooks have usurped much of the printed book publishing business and to add insult to injury, leisure reading in the United States has continued to decline.

That may seem like doom and gloom for authors. But in fact, it opened up an avenue of publishing and control that had heretofore been absent. For decades large publishing houses controlled the world of books. Like Gods from on high, they determined winners and losers, with no regard for what the market actually might want.

Into this fray came the market for self-published books through the creation of cost-efficient methods of print-on-demand and perhaps most importantly, a distribution mechanism, Amazon, that leveled the playing field.

A new concept was created, the independent author. And along came a wave of resources that makes it easier for authors to publish and distribute their work. And they had the power of social media to market them.

In this episode titled “Empowering Authorpreneurs“ I speak with Kathy Meis, the founder and CEO of Bublish, about the resources that authors can leverage to write, publish, distribute, and market their writings.

Topics Covered in This Episode:

• How the world of publishing has changed. 

• What are the resources that a writer who wants to succeed can leverage today

• What is an Authorpreneur?

• What did the world of publishing lose (if anything) from the disruption in the book publishing and distribution world?

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  The Leverage Question – what three or so things would you recommend that an author do to make their writing journey a success?

Resources/Links 

• History of self-publishing https://www.pw.org/content/notable_moments_in_selfpublishing_history_a_timelineBest practices for making short video professional testimonials
• Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing – https://self-publishingschool.com/publishing-book-traditional-vs-self-publishing/
• 5 things to sell your indie book – https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279385
• 55 Essential resources for indie authors https://www.amarketingexpert.com/50-resources-indie-authors/
• Leisure reading stats – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/29/leisure-reading-in-the-u-s-is-at-an-all-time-low
• Book Publishing https://www.bkconnection.com/the-10-awful-truths-about-book-publishing

Final Thoughts/The Leverage Insight        

One thing that kept coming up in my conversation with Kathy Meis in this episode is the essential lesson of the 4 P’s of Hyperleverage. Understand who the people are that you are writing for, what their interests are, where do they look for new books. Plan ahead of time and during the writing process for what the book will include and how you will market it. Work smartly using the best writing tools for peak writing and marketing performance. And finally use the latest progress in technology and intellectual property protection to safeguard your work.

The key leverage insight for this episode is that if the goal is to leverage your efforts in being an independent author, you will eventually have to do all of these items. Best to be proactive and systematic about it. Do Your Homework – That’s the essence of HyperLeverage and the Leverage Insight for this episode.

About My Guest – Kathy Meis, CEO of Bublish

Kathy Meis is a disrupter. On a mission to champion the independent author movement. As a media and publishing veteran, having worked for years at Forbes and as an independent editor she learned from the inside on what needed to be changed in the world of publishing. This led her to found Bublish, the world’s first complete, cloud-based publishing platform with integrated marketing, branding, and discoverability features. Bublish is dedicated to helping authors bring high quality books to market. And as a global distributor of all three formats—print, digital, and audiobooks— Bublish can get your book in front of readers around the world. 

Bublish

Kathy Meis – LinkedIn