A Wider Market.
A Clearer Strategy.

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

That. Welcome back to the Experts Journey podcast. Today I'm talking with Dixie, and she is in another part of the world to where she normally is, which is not saying much because Dixie moves around quite a bit. So today, Dixie is in the USA, the Book Thinkers Conference, which sounds fascinating. So I thought, well, let's ask us some questions and find out more about what's going on in the authoring, in the booking area. For all our experts and authors out there, and our speakers, of course. Dixie, what is the Book Thinkers Conference?

Dixie Carlton 00:50

Good morning, Brad. Or should I say good evening for me? I'm in Boston, so I'm, I think, 17 hours behind you. And so it's Monday evening here, and I think it's Tuesday afternoon where you are right now as we're recording this. And I came to Boston for the Bookthinkers Conference. And the Book Thinkers Conference is run by a company called Bookthinkers. And it attracts people like high-level podcasters, multi-awarded best-selling, like million copy selling New York Times best-selling author list authors. And the people who are pretty much nailing it in the conference industry. And that means speakers, authors, people who make a living out of sharing their expertise.

So I came to this. I was sent a ticket and said, Dixie, you've got to come. We want you here. So off I jumped on a plane and here I am. And the conference finished yesterday. And I thought it would be really good just to have a chat about some of the things that I learned, some of the people that I've talked to, some of the ideas that were floated yesterday. And so away we go. Let's dive in.

Brad Hauck 01:58

Okay. So who was at the conference? If you were to say, based on the audience looking around, are we talking industry people? We're talking about people like ourselves who write books. What sort of people were actually there?

Dixie Carlton 02:10

So the kind of people who were here were many of them were multiple best-selling authors. People who have developed and worked with authors to develop their brand and make sure that their brand and their consistency of their messaging is very clear and well thought out. So that as they start to engage a strategy to get onto things like the New York Times best-selling books list, that everything is seamless. Everything is very well planned ahead. And I found that fascinating because one of the speakers, for example, was talking about how much strategy, how many days of thinking and planning went into getting to a stage where a book was able to be positioned to go on the New York Times bestseller list.

And there used to be some thinking around the idea of, as I heard it in the past, that if you had 35 bookstores selling your books on a specific day that you were launching, that there was lots of gaming the system that you could do, that you could have lots of people just buy a hundred copies each of your book and just, again, game the system. Those days have passed. Now it is a matter of saying, how many podcasts can you get on in the lead up to your book launch? How many people can you talk to?

How many clients do you have that you can school up and make sure that they are ready to support your launch by buying a hundred copies or 10 copies or 15 copies or 50 copies at a time, all within a condensed period of time. Now, the New York Times bestseller list is also something that doesn't necessarily only have an impact when the book first launches. It can take several weeks or months for a book to actually appear there. So the strategic work that goes into getting a book successfully launched in this kind of market is a lot more comprehensive than what I had ever imagined.

So there was some really interesting learning for me in that space. Some of the other people that we hear have been people like Evan Carmichael, for example, people who have worked with the likes of Tony Robbins and are still working with the likes of Tony Robbins. The people who are out there, yes, they're charging high fees, but they are working with the global big names that we hear about. And if we've ever thought about maybe I should go and just put $50,000 down on the table and say, here, make me a megastar, I got to talk to those kind of people who not only do that, but also the people who are on the receiving end of the big money that is put into building those massive brands.

Brad Hauck 04:53

So there's definitely a business behind having a successful book. And it seems like the more money you got to play with up front, then better you're going to go.

Dixie Carlton 05:03

Yes, very much. And that is really hard for a lot of us to deal with because of the fact that we don't all have endless, bottomless pits of money. And of course, in America, the exchange rate means that you're literally paying nearly double. So if you're thinking about, I spoke to one ghostwriter, for example, and I said to her, in Australia, New Zealand, your typical ghostwriting fee might be somewhere around $30,000 to $50,000. Australian money. If you are looking at doing the same kind of ghostwriting job in America, you're looking at easily double that and then take the exchange rate into account, and you're not getting a lot of change out of $100,000 for a good ghostwritten book.

That's interesting. And pause for thought, because not everyone wants to write a book that they literally hand everything over to someone else to spend a lot of money on, and they pretty much take away all of the self-involvement for that sort of project. But it's a very sophisticated industry here.

Brad Hauck 06:09

It's a big money gain when you look at it that way. But it also says something about the industry in a lot of ways. We tend to look at the industry from a self-publishing almost angle. And to see the other side is kind of how do you compete with that? I suppose it could be disheartening for many people sitting there listening to that. Obviously, the people in the room are in the industry, they understand that's the way it works. But for people sitting at home, that could be quite disheartening. So what positives did you get out of that that you maybe bring to us?

Dixie Carlton 06:39

One of the big things that I had a conversation specifically with Evan Carmichael about. Now, Evan Carmichael has been involved in helping many great names become much bigger great names that we all recognize. And I'm just trying, sorry, I'm a little jet-legged still. I'm trying to remember some of them off the top of my head. I will come back to that question. But I spoke to her and I said, look, does it matter where you are, if you are based in Australia, for example, but you want to get into the American market, is it something that you need to seriously contemplate being here to break in?

Because we've all heard stories about, and we know authors who have moved from Australia to America to break in as speakers up here. And many traditional publishers will say, we're not going to look at your book if you are not based in America, if you want to hit this market. That's the traditional publishing networks. But he was saying, which I thought was a really good way of looking at it, why not look at what makes you unique outside of America that you bring to this market? Why not start a campaign to develop better thinking about why the Australians might be a much better mix for or a necessary person series of lineups to have on your stages for a conference.

So, an example, if you are someone who's dealing with, let's say, climate change or pollution or making the world a greener, better, healthier place, or even the well-being market outside of Australia from America, the perception is that Australians are exotic, cleaner living, that they have all of the answers to making sure that the country is clean and tidy and all of those sort of things, there are some real strengths that an Australian presenter and author and podcast guest would bring to this market. So why not play to the strengths? And I thought that was really good advice.

So what he was saying was if we work to our strengths and spin the need for, of course, you have to have this fresh level of thinking, these new ideas, these Australians and New Zealanders are coming here and therefore they have to be on your list because one, they sound exotic and interesting. The accents are very cool, and my accent has been hugely appreciated for the last few days. But we also bring a different perspective than what they have from all of the speakers that are already here. So one of the things that I'll be doing when I come back next week is building on the idea of what is it that you as a speaker uniquely brings to this market.

And that brings me into the other big thing that I got out of this conference. Podcasting is mega. Everybody wants to be a guest on a podcast. Podcasts are the new black, basically. But if you want to be successful or be perceived as a successful author and speaker here, yes, you need to have a book. But self-publishing at a high quality level is outstripping what you can do with a lot of the traditional publishers, which we've been already talking about for a long time. But podcasting seems to be the key to getting yourself well established as an author here.

And one of the things that, of course, came up was bookstores are not really working hard for nonfiction authors. And that includes in America. It's very hard to push books out to the stores. But it is a lot easier to get your books selling via the demand for what you do from the stage or from your podcasting and your blogging.

Brad Hauck 10:30

That reflects what I've seen in industry for a few years now, where people are getting authorship deals, but they're getting them because they already own an audience. In other words, it makes it easier for the publishing company, well, the big publishing companies, I should say, to basically leverage your audience. So they're not doing any of the work. They are doing the editing and those sorts of things, maybe, but in the end, you're actually selling the book still. So there's not necessarily any gain to go with a big brand, other than they can get you into places that maybe you couldn't get into yourself, like bookstores or airport stores and things like that.

Dixie Carlton 11:06

One of the things that came up in a couple of conversations I had yesterday was that if you want to be successful, you have to have a fantastic social media cam ability or work with people that can do that. You also have to have a very strong brand. And while we might think about paying, let's say $15,000 to $25,000, you I'll rephrase that, we might think that paying an average of $15,000 to $25 or $30,000 Australian for a full VIP service publishing opportunity for nonfiction self-publishing. One of the things that came out in conversation yesterday with a couple of people was the fact that if you are going to spend, let's say, in Australia or down under, an average of $15,000 to $30,000 for a high quality service to get your book published, produced, marketed, that's all well and good.

In this country, that kind of figure will get you only so far. It is fairly standard to think about paying twice that. And then of course the exchange rate, to also have your entire branding portfolio looked at. Everything that goes into the post-publishing, the post-marketing and development of the book. How do you get someone that is going to do the PR to get you onto the podcasts, to get you having the social media presence that is necessary? And so when someone goes into creating a book right from the beginning, they're already thinking in terms of this is a big investment and I want to get my return on my investment, but this is not going to be something that I'm going to just pull out of petty cash to fund.

So there is a shift, I think, happening here where people are starting to recognize the value of the publishing agents, the support people, the whole tribe of people that are involved in the process from the very beginning all the way through to making sure that the marketing ecosystem is well geared.

Brad Hauck 13:17

Yeah. Return on investment's a big thing. I know because I'm in advertising. And people say I'm going to put $1,000 into ads and I expect to make $2,000 back. They do expect to have 100% return minimum. It doesn't always work that way, of course. But it's something that I think that we often don't play a game that large, but then we're not always coming from the same base as far as cash flow or size of business compared to, say, the American market. I've heard it many times where people have said to me, where I'm based, if I'd gone to Sydney, my business, I'd be able to charge $10,000 what I charge $1,000 for.

Or if I went to America, because there's 300 million people, much easier to expand because there's so many more opportunities. And there's certainly something to think about, the budgets involved in making it all work. But having a team behind you, yeah. I've often thought about that. It'd be very nice just to walk in and say, okay, I'm the talent. Tell me what you need me to do, and I'll do it. And then I do the stage stuff and I do in front of camera, and everybody else runs around and does stuff like celebrities do. But of course, realistically, it's not that easy.

And it costs big dollars. So you need to be getting that return on investment. And I think that's where a lot of people come unstuck. They start comparing things, and it becomes difficult because you do hit a wall, you hit a point where you're like, I can't find anybody to do all that.

Dixie Carlton 14:40

I think if you go into it as people up here do, thinking that I may have to spend four days just working through the strategic plan. And that is not an unusual thing to do here. Four days with highly advanced specialists to work through a strategic plan that is going to see an investment of $30,000 or $40,000 turn into a $300 or $400,000 invest return on your investment. Everything is playing a bigger game. It's like supersizing me in the marketing industry in ways that is beyond our comprehension because it just feels like it's so big.

But again, if you're wanting to then start from an Australian point of view, getting more involved in the market up here, then you have to start thinking about differentiation, bringing something more interesting to the game, stepping forward with your best foot, and making sure that you play up to your strengths. And then making sure that you're willing to back yourself. And the numbers that people talk about, when you do the things that you need to do, that they are doing so very well, then you can expect a good return. I had one guy that was talking yesterday who I thought was absolutely brilliant, and he was talking about a simple system which many of us are familiar with you start with a small webinar, then you build that into a small group coaching program.

Then you build that into the next bit, which might be the program, and then you build that into something else. And that through a series of four steps, so they have a four-step process. Through those four steps, you might start with everyone spending seven dollars. So you promote yourself for seven dollars and you're very quickly selling hundreds of five thousand dollar programs. And his process, as he mapped out and explained to us yesterday, just made sense. It just seemed to be why would you not do it that way? If that is part of your overall strategy to make sure that your book is part of what your marketing ecosystem is all about, that you have the book, the content, the presentation, the keynote, the program, the workshops, all of those things all stacked up.

It's essentially content stacking. And that is a system that's been around for a long time, but it has certainly reached new levels of refinement.

Brad Hauck 17:21

No, yeah. That system obviously has been around a long time. The webinar progression system, it's not new. Plenty of people have talked about it. But I suppose the key thing nowadays is actually audience stacking. That's that's the hardest part, is actually creating audiences. And obviously, paid traffic is becoming a really major part of that because when you buy traffic, control the traffic to an ad, which then gives you the opportunity to get them on the webinar. Whereas traditionally we always went for organic traffic, whether it be through social media and all that. But I don't know if you'd notice in your feed lately, but if you certainly look at Facebook, almost every second or third uh post is actually a sponsored ad now.

Even though it might look like a normal post, it's sponsored. When you look at it closely, you'll see it's not the original person's name, it's their name, second brand, basically. And that's really common to drive traffic. One of the things that probably comes over my head is what did you see there that was about the future? What is changing? What's there that's an opportunity for us to jump on really before it starts here?

Dixie Carlton 18:27

Oh, that's such a great question. There are things being launched that address the readership or how we read books. And I've been at the forefront of working with one of the companies that is developing this new thing, and I got to have some extra time with them yesterday, where instead of just having a Kindle uh or a digital download of a book, you can now get it in multiple languages within the one platform. Audio as well as uh readable text within the one platform with multiple voices, AI created at a level that is beyond basic expectations, and that then you can also engage with the book.

So that is coming. That is going to change the way people expect to read. People are still reading shorter books, attention spans are diminishing. Using lead magnets really cleverly is becoming a much bigger thing. And we've talked about lead magnets being something that puts people into the mindset of reading content rather than looking at a brochure. Uh we talked about that a while ago. Those sort of things matter more. AI was discussed at length yesterday. And a lot of people are very concerned about AI, but one of the big things that came out was in terms of AI and protecting your IP, if as an author or a content presenter, you understand that everything is about IP and protecting your IP is so critical.

Because essentially, according to this one particular presenter, everyone is going to be out there stealing your stuff. And if you don't protect it, and I've been saying this for a while, we did a book with Kate Wilson this year about making sure you understand copyright, trademarking, IP protection. And so we've been doing quite a lot of work in that area and making sure that authors that I work with understand the basics of IP protection. Well, that is going on in a much bigger way here. Everybody is saying you've got to have an investment in your IP.

You've got to make sure that you have strategically managed your brand, developed your brand, developed your content, not overused AI, but be aware that everything could end up being harvested. One of the guys was talking about how he had gone to a conference. And everything that was spoken in his presence was automatically recorded. And he said, I just go home and I record everything, I download everything, and then I've got everything I need that I can go back and get a summary of, and I just put it straight into my chat GPT. And it was like, okay, that is a very big thing for us all to be aware of.

That if we all start turning up at conferences where every conversation ends up being therefore used in a chat GBT format, well, when do you start to feel that you are making a difference in having the kind of content and information that people will pay to hear you say?

Brad Hauck 21:47

Yeah, because it comes really hard. I actually was thinking about this a couple of days ago, what you're talking about there. And that is that we're talking about AI sludge and a few things like that. But the content that's been produced, it's really easy to put your points in and then get it to write from your points. Okay. It's time saving and all that. But what I noticed was some of the stuff I was creating, I wasn't even really reading it. I was scanning it. So I wasn't really taking much notice of what was in there.

Whereas when you obviously you write word by word, you really know what's in there. And I realized that this was going on in thousands of businesses where people are going in and they're in a hurry. They want to get something out. And I totally understand this because it's part of what I do in business. But the content really is 90% AI, 10% them. And we're creating stuff that we're not reading and no one else is to attract people to stuff. Like it's this weird circular thing with AI talking to AI. And in fact, there was an article that came out that talked about AI art is actually getting dumber.

So the AI is learning from other AI's art. And so the art is getting worse. So there was a study on it. And it was like, yes, that's what's happening.

Dixie Carlton 23:04

So one of the other things that I got out of it was the best tips from influencers who spend all their time on social media doing the big mil multi-million posts and things like that. So a couple of best tips. Using your Instagram reels and really getting savvy about using Instagram and LinkedIn for nonfiction, LinkedIn is really powerful. And Facebook was given a bit of a bums rush by most of them. There was a panel of four of them. And one of the things that I thought was a really good idea was to just read snippets of your book and create reels out of that, but on a consistent regular basis.

So grab a copy of your book, read a paragraph, and then just keep it simple and just post that. TikTok books or TikTok for books. Book talk. And I apologize, I am still a little tired from the jet lag. So book talk is also something that you can do that with. Just read a piece of your content. The other thing that I didn't know you could do was you can go onto Amazon, get the Kindle, find out, find on your Kindle what are the highlights that most people are making on their Kindle when they're reading your book.

Use those as snippets of great content to post up into your A content or to put onto memes and uh also talk about. Those sort of things was a really good set of ideas for how to maximize doing your social media. And one thing that did come up was everyone was saying, yes, it's great to have all of the really beautiful, created, polished look, etc. But that's be authentic. Yeah, be authentic. It's coming back full circle. Everybody's now saying, Yeah, by all means be authentic.

Brad Hauck 24:50

But yeah, be raw but be clear.

Dixie Carlton 24:52

Be raw but be clear, yes. And there is a changing thing where you can look at anthrop anthropic?

Brad Hauck 25:02

Anthropic, yep.

Dixie Carlton 25:03

Anthropic. And actually find out more about what's going on with your own IP and who's taking it, how many times you're listed, how many times you can you look up how often you're being mentioned. And there was a demonstration of that done, which was quite mind-blowing. So again, that comes down to the whole making sure that you're really focused on your own IP. And knowledge minus action equals zero results. So if you're going to do something, focus on it, make sure that it's actually what you are going to commit to and consistently develop that. So whether it's using AI or how you use AI, whether it's doing your social media differently, making sure you're protecting your IP, doing your strategic planning, making sure that you've covered all of the bases that you really want to make sure that you are well known for.

Get in and do it properly. Educate that was probably the biggest thing. Educating ourselves as being experts in the business of being in the book business. Which by the way, that's going to be the title of my next book. The business of being in the book business. This is the sort of thing that we all need to do is educate ourselves about how this business works. Because traditional publishers don't tell us anymore, they don't do all of the work for us that we would love to have done to make us more successful. We have to take control of that ourselves.

Brad Hauck 26:33

Okay. Wow, that's a lot. So did you pick up any tips for breaking into the US market then for us?

Dixie Carlton 26:41

Going back to what I said before, if you can focus on what is your unique point of difference. As an Australian, you are used to being out there doing business a certain way. Now, maybe your way is actually better than what is a standard operating system up here. So you may have some unique viewpoints that are in fact quite valid to put forward to this market. So you have to think about what they might be. So I looked at things like, for example, as a New Zealander, we're known for things like how we lead with heart.

We are centered on good relationships and things like that. Those kind of things are what people from Australia and New Zealand are well known for, or perceived to be well known for from up here. So if you're a speaker on leadership and you come from Australia or New Zealand and you want to break into this market, then you need to be saying to the podcast people that you want to pitch to, I am bringing a new way of looking at leadership from an Australian point of view. And this is why you need to have me on your show or on your stage.

And we possibly need to get out of our own way and thinking negatively about how hard it is to get up here. You know, like I said, they love our accents. They love the fact that we bring a new exotic sometimes perspective to the business that they think that they maybe need to be doing better or differently. So we all need to be thinking about how we can step into that.

Brad Hauck 28:17

Yeah, that makes sense. You're always looking for your uniqueness. And part of that's where we're from. We do have a different way of dealing with things that is entirely different to the rest of the world, as we well know. Yeah. We shake our heads at politics and all sorts of things from around the world. But yeah, definitely worth thinking about in our approach. You've got me thinking, that's for sure.

Dixie Carlton 28:37

Well, one of the things that I came up with was the fact that because we are both island nations in Australia and New Zealand, and this would apply equally for many other countries around the world, as an island nation, you end up being a little more innovative with how to fix problems when the shipping lines or the supply chain is interrupted. So you have to be quite innovative. And you also have to be quite smart about not just doing one thing really well, but maybe doing four or five things really well that are connected. So it's not about being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

You may have a level of mastery across four or five different areas of your business that someone up in America might only have one or two expert areas.

Brad Hauck 29:25

And because an interesting one. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that in the real world. It's something I noticed many years ago being involved with people from all around the world. And for example, my first trade was an electronics technician with Telstra. I went to the States and a friend of the family, their brother was the same by trade. And yet what we covered over here was four years of training and hands-on work. I could fix a whole telephone exchange. So there's thousands of different pieces of equipment. All he could do was terminate wires. Highly specialized. And I've heard numerous stories from my friends who certainly live in America where they went to do one thing and they thought, no, that's someone else's job.

You can't do that, even though they've been trained in it. They just didn't do it that way there because they're so highly specialized, so many jobs for so many people. So you're right about having that multi-dimensional skill set. We might do 10 things where most times overseas they might only do the one thing. Yep, seen it many times. It's very true. It's not something I often think about, but yeah, you're right.

Dixie Carlton 30:29

Yeah. If you're a speaker wanting to break into this market, I think that there's a new way of looking at it. And the internet and the the change in the way the retail systems for books, the kind of speakers that are actually making headway globally as global citizens, has evolved, I think, in the last five years.

Brad Hauck 30:54

In other words, the things that make it worth going all that way for. What are two things that really whacked you between the eyes and made you go, oh, okay, that's amazing.

Dixie Carlton 31:07

Probably the one thing was what we've just been talking about, actually, that it is easier if we have a different mindset to get into the American market, if that's what we really want to do. Two, that we have to be thinking about spending more on the bigger picture, not just trying to piecemeal our way into putting the nuts and bolts together and hoping for the best. We actually have to be a lot more strategic about playing a bigger game. And the third thing was the fact that if you get on a plane and you come all the way across to the other side of the world, wherever you are from this applies anywhere.

For me, I had hero status for having traveled the furthest to get to this particular conference. Now there was another couple there that had come from Iceland and one other person who had come from Colombia. So I had still traveled the furthest, but that was a talking point. And it also meant that I was taken very seriously. Oh, you're here because you actually believe in what you're doing and you invest in yourself, and you must have something important to say or do or share with the rest of us. And so when I was I got to go to the VIP dinner last night and hang out with all the speakers, the people who had organized the conference, I was given absolute due to have my say, to be part of what was going on.

Because I was seen as someone who hadn't just turned up from down the road. I was there because I was on a mission. And because I had come so far, I was given plenty of opportunity to have conversations with people that really mattered. So I think you need to sometimes take that time to invest in traveling a lot further for your professional development because you will have those corridor conversations that matter so much more than if you were just having a Zoom call or a short meeting with someone locally. The perspective you get from getting on a flight and going somewhere different is huge.

Brad Hauck 33:04

Amazing. I think that brings us to the end, Dixie. So thanks for tuning in to the experts journey. If you picked up some useful tips today, take a moment to subscribe and share this episode with a fellow expert or speaker in your network. It really helps us help more people. And don't forget to check out our books on Amazon, Dixie's Start with the Draft, How to Easily Plan and Write a Nonfiction Book and a dynamic new conference in a book series. The first one being Connect, Lead Succeed. And finally, my book, Microcourse Profits, Build a Seven Figure Income with Bite Sized Courses.

Both are packed with practical tips and tools to help you grow your income faster. Catch you next time.