447 – A “REAL” Amazon Best Seller: Tom interviews Judith Briles

Episode 447 – Judith Briles
Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

Hey everybody, it's Tom here with Episode 447 of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with a repeat guest. We just love this lady, Judith Briles. Listen to this, folks. To date, to date, her books have been translated into 17 languages with over a million copies sold. Her books and work have been featured in over thirteen hundred radio and TV shows, including repeat appearances on CNN, CNBC and Oprah. I think they need her back to get some ratings, by the way, and her print publications that she's been in. Newsweek people Time, Wall Street Journal, USA Today. And she she made it through being in the National Enquirer. So get to hear about that. We'll have her on in a minute. Hopefully this episode 446 at Simon Severino. This guy retired from three things. First of all, he spent eight years learning his craft and then he retired from non-productive work people with bad vibes and commuting. So we had him on screw the commute because he doesn't commute anymore. So that's episode 446. Anytime you want to find a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com slash the episode number. His was 446. And I'm sure you want to hear 447 with Judith. And we're going to have her on next week. Also talking about a related subject today. She's going to talk about publishing and next time she's going to talk about marketing because this lady has been there and done that.

All right. So, affiliates, hey, if you want to make some money for listening to the show, you can refer my stuff. Hey, if you like Judith, she's going to have affiliate programs going to you can refer her stuff for money. I can go up to 5000 bucks per referral. How do you like that idea? So email me at Tom. It's screw the commute if you want more details on that kind of program and also grab a copy of our Free Automation eBook. We sell this for 27 bucks. And just one of the tips, one of the tips, folks, has saved me seven and a half million keystrokes. We estimated it recently and allowed me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and 60000 customers without pulling my hair out. So grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're at it, grab a copy of our podcast app. It's at screwthecommute.com/app. All right. You know, I usually tell you a lot about my school, but something special is going on. I decided to do something really, really great in my life and try to do something in the grade in the world. Again, I've done lots of things, but I'm hoping that this really goes over the top. We've got four people with severe physical disabilities that we are having a pilot program to put them through my school so that they can not only learn from home, they can legitimately be hired from home or start their own business or both. So we're doing a pilot program.

We're doing a go fund me. That's going to roll out in about a week. I love to have your support on that. And I'm currently taking a grant writing course so that when we get this program successful, we can go for the big time and put loads of people that that have these problems through the the course and get them. I'll tell you what, I saw some of the statistics. They're four times more likely to have suicidal tendencies, three point seven times as many as a regular population of being depressed and the highest levels of unemployment in seven years. So, listen, I can do something about it. I need your help. So watch for that announcement.

All right. Let's get to the main event. Judith Briles is here. And in addition to having some secret sauce, she might be kind enough to tell us about, she's an award winning and best selling author of 37 books, including over forty five book awards for her publishing marketing books and just a sample of some of them, Author You, creating and building your author and book platforms, snappy, sassy, salty, wise words for authors and publishers, The Crowdfunding Guide. That's what I'm doing right now for authors and writers how to avoid book publishing blunders, bloopers and booze, and how to create a million dollar speech. She's out of Colorado and she's the founding partner in The Book Shepherd, a book publishing, consulting and project manager firm that works with authors at all stages of their book to create a book they never regret. Judith, are you ready to screw? The commute?

Well, I say yes. Why not?

Why not? I only live once. Hey, thanks so much for taking the time. We've had you on before. People just loved you. So we're going to have you on this week and next week because these people are desperate for is somebody that's been there and done that. So tell everybody what you're doing with publishing nowadays.

Well, I continue to play and sometimes screw around with their heads offers because to try to screw them on, right?

Yeah. We screw the screwing stuff around here.

Yeah. I mean, one of the big problems with Arthur is you and I have shared this a lot is they just want around. Yeah. You know, market, you know. No, I can't market. Well, you got to get over that one fast. One of my favorite phrase. Get over it. That you have got to grasp it. If if you believe in your words and your storytelling in your solutions, your AHA's, your conception, you have to really embrace the goit factor. Get off your tush. Or for people who want to be more blunt, the Goya Factor, get off your ass. Really get out there and promote it. No one knows your book better than you. And these authors to get their head screwed on right is they have got to one, understand that publishing is the business from the beginning. It's a business. It's got a P&L. Lots of times you'll lose money in the beginning until you have your product. That's called a book and you get it going from that point. But how do you promote your product? Will you start promoting the day? You're right. And that's another another myth that so many authors have to risk. Their thinking maybe will be using this word risk, grueling, maybe that risker. They're thinking that you you think that the myth is why I can't promote my book until I have my book in hand. Oh, no. You start pre promoting, you start pre doing it. And they one of the they variables in this whole thing from publishing, it's changed so dramatically from when I was first my first book came out in eighty one Tom. Wow. And it had three printings. It was with a New York publisher, three printings in three weeks. It did very well and I was a kept author, I was well cared for, well kept, well paid. And I was also a snob and believed that only traditional legitimate authors with the traditional publishing route. And that's just hogwash today.

Yeah. All the rest of us were schmucks. Yeah, I was right and that's right.

But that's right. Oh yes. And we look down on you. Yes, of course. But the problem is that with, with one point six or more, those are those are with Acebes published every year and knowing that only ten thousand come out, say

One point six million is OK. Yep.

One point six million that have an ISBN on them that now we're not going to count the schmuck one. Right, exactly right. The one point six that ten thousand of that one point six is New York publishing so that even the odds of going to New York are very low on top of that. And here's the latest data from twenty twenty, that of the New York publisher authors. Ninety eight, that's nine eight. Ninety eight percent of the published authors with New York sold less than five thousand books to right now. Now we're starting to crunch money on here. And so traditionally what the author will make is up to they can make anywhere from, say, eight percent, up to 15 percent. That's probably on a paper book that you will get that with New York publishing. You only get paid twice a year. There is a three month lag and they hold back money because returns can come back. That with that kind of lag and that the ninety eight percent, so that means we leave out John Grisham, we leave out Dan Brown, we leave out David Valachi, we leave out the big boys from, you know, the pinks and Peter's and all the big, big, big names in the nonfiction world that you leave those out there, the two percent, the two percent of the 98 percent club, which most of us are going to be in. That means that you're going to make you're lucky if you gross over the lifetime of your book. Thirty five hundred dollars.

Max, do you know that when I did my John Wiley book, not only well, I got a hefty advance at least, but then they started, called me and diamond me to death. They wanted me to pay for graphics. They wanted me to pay for the indexing and just all kinds of stuff. It's like getting me.

Yeah, but that's the way it is in a non-fiction book, which I know a lot of our authors, our listeners here are nonfiction writers, that nonfiction books should have an index for simplicity. And I mean, they're shortcuts to make these. But you can also, you know, pay to have one. And that that was what you got hit with was very normal and is still very normal. But here's also what's changed. Back in my time, when I started my first, I did 18 books with New York before I saw the light and experienced the light that that what went on is that we had at least six months, six, six weeks to two months for a book to take root through. Maybe some buzz starts to stick to the wall. Today's publishing and that really evolved a good 15 years ago, is what I call Velcro publishing. They publish, publish, publish, and they throw it at the wall. And if it sticks, OK, we'll support it. And if you slide down like a runny egg within two weeks, it's Oreos and you become history and it's called next. And for authors who put in their their heart and their soul, which you all do for these things, and to realize that you could be a yesteryear before midnight, that's pretty tough. That's pretty tough. So the solutions are around that. Those of us back in the 80s that pooh poohed the self publishing market or the vanity press that's so evolved and changed the sophistication that the independent publishers and the really high end self publishing entities are outselling in numbers what traditional publishing is is done. And you're seeing a lot of very successful authors leaving the ranks and deciding, you know what, there's another way that's good news.

Yeah. And throw in the e-book market. I mean, you know, I haven't put out a physical book in 10 years. I don't know more than that. So so there's so many options nowadays that just didn't exist back in the day.

Well, we do have to recognize that I'm a believer. Kiss them all. You make them all. You make an audio book, you make an e-book, you make a print book that over 60 percent of all book sales are still in the print arena. And then the audio book and e-books are pretty close to where they're at. And I remember Jeff Bezos telling me years ago when I had a discussion with him at a writers conference, and he said that if they had found that when people bought the e-books, it actually helped drive sales. Yeah, they want to go back and get more.

Yeah, and he's clean that that kind of mess up quite a bit, because in the early days, people were just stealing each other's books and putting a new cover and throwing it up there, just a mess. But now it's really a force to be reckoned with.

Mm hmm. Yeah, they have done a lot. And I know there is a big love and hate thing out there for Amazon. And I my attitude is, thank God for we authors for Amazon because they have made it has made so much possible that a lot of authors never would have seen the light of day. And yeah, there's hiccups. I get it. There's hiccups. But overall, they're that they're the gorilla and you better play with them.

Now, you say there's four key factors in determining whether you should publish traditional or on your own. What what's that all about?

Well, when I think about that, the first is you got to ask. And these are kind of like come up with questions that you should be looking very, very closely at. And the first really is that the key factors is you have to know who your book is for. I can't tell you how many authors have gone to mainstream publishing or they on their own, but they don't even know who in the hell they're writing for. And you better know who your market is down to. What toothpaste they use will maybe knock down anyway. It's really important to know who you're writing for, what their habits are, what they love, what they hate, the emotional, what the what gets them into trouble, where do they work or they may have female, what their ages are, etc. It makes a different. And so you have that's a key factor in knowing should you should you go because you're just going to ask you that if you know it from the beginning, it'll help make your decision on which way you go. The second is that you have got to ask yourself, are you willing to market your book? And here's what's changed hugely Tom when I started in eighty one that they did everything for us. I mean, I was a kept author. They did the publicity. They did the promotion. They did the marketing. They sent me out nights checks.

It was great. And the way it is anymore, I know that a traditional publisher wants to know. They want to know one, how many social media followers you have. And you're saying, well, I've got 50 on Facebook. Well, Baff to that. They want to know how many because you're going to be the marketing machine. And so are you willing to do that? Are you willing to do that? If you don't, you will succumb to the average self published author if you go on your own of only selling one hundred books. And that's to your buddies. Yikes. Those are things to go. You have to do this. The next thing important is do you speak? Are you willing to speak? Are you willing to learn to speak? Will you. Will you market yourself to to entities that could bring you in as a speaker? My experience is found and I know in my book how to create a million dollar speech. Speaking is the number one way to sell truckloads of books, books, truckloads of them. And if you are if you have that in your pocket right now, you won't you shouldn't even consider a traditional publisher. You shouldn't even consider what you do is you find out how to put together a good looking quality book that you can get into the hands of a meeting planner or some group that will bring you in and one pay you will see.

And the group buys your books and there are some that will say, well, yeah, we've never paid anyone five thousand dollars before. OK, well, but we can pay five hundred. And here's what I would say to them. So you're asking me to make a donation of forty five hundred dollars to your group. What? Well, I get in return. What I get in return and that some some Tom. Then they have to start thinking, I mean, one time I got a new computer, you know, when but but I always I did speak for free at times, and I had to had someone who thought that I had to feel some passion for it, like what you're doing with your disability group and what you're doing with your crowdfunding. There is a real passion in what you've done, what you've done with the support your dogs and anything with four legs of these critters. Passion is in there. So if I had passion or I become real malleable working with someone. And then the other thing is, do I believe that there is someone who could hire me if Beaufoy in that audience? So and I remember one time being contacted by a group in Miami and it was the Miami Sueur people, something from the equality thing, and they said, Oh, we never paid anyone. Five thousand dollars. One hundred. So I said, well, when I discount the group, I have to I have to feel passionate about it.

And I said, you know, I just don't have it for the Miami sewer. But you know who's attending? Is there someone who possibly could hire me for another deal? And I eventually did them and I did get a couple of gigs out of it. So you have to look at that. But so those kind of factors, one, can you speak and you better say yes. Number two, are you willing to ask ask for support and help? Three, you have to know you have to know why you're the go to person to speak on this. You know, whatever you're gonna say, this nonfiction, whatever you field. I had three three key areas that I spoke on. One was money. I was one of the first women who did programs for women and wrote my very first book was called The Woman's Guide to Financial Savvy. And it was based on a course that I delivered at a allday course in community college. And I thought, well, maybe this is the book. Maybe this could be a book. It was a book and it led to a lot more books. The next a group area was in conflict resolution. After from one of my money deals, a dear partner embezzled a million dollars and left me broke. And from that, I went back to school and got my doctorate to turn the projects around.

And out of that pay my dissertation, which was on ethics. Do women undermine other women? And that that created a 25 year career I didn't even know was in my hemisphere and and sold a gazillion books and a lot more books and made millions of dollars in speaking fees. And today, since since 2006, that I have just been writing and speaking in the field involving authors in publishing and writing in that kind of thing. But I'm very clear on what I what path I'm going down sometimes not knowing the path I am. But that's my uniqueness that I've had real hands on experience. I know publishing both traditional and independent and self. You know what is unique? And you've got to look at that factor, what is really unique, what makes you that set you out? And one of my button pushers, Tom, is when I hear people say, well, anyone can be an expert. Really, really? Well, yeah, you have to do I've heard people say this. All you have to do is read 30 books. You're an expert. Really? Have you really been in the trenches? Have you lost it all? Do you know what it is to be homeless? I do. I do. And I can bring a different perspective, different view, a different fear, a different range of emotions that no frickin book that you read is going to.

That's all right. So those four factors, let me just recap. And we got who the book is for. Number two was will you market number three was speaking, but did I miss four?

And the thought is what's compelling. Compelling is really a great word, and that ties into that uniqueness, but also what's the compelling factor? And one of the things that I always think about, and this would tie in with a lot of the e-book stuff that you also do, is that when I you know, in the old days we had to write proposals. When you're on your own, you don't have to. But I think a proposal is a good idea because it's a guide map and the proposal is what's the problem, what's the causation, what's the effect and what's the solution? And when you can put that together and do it with some bells and whistles and the compelling factor. That's huge, that's huge, and it will, number one, help you with your targeting, help you keep on track, and it also, I think when you realized you were into something that you realize there is a causation that maybe you didn't know about. I have done when I was dealing with the ethics issue and why women undermine other women. I ended up doing nine national studies through the years to do updates. And there and there were, for example, elements within that that had a compelling thing, that one. And this is how I got humongous publicity and ended up in the National Enquirer as well as the people and on the Morning America child sex thing.

No, no. I have I have to remember that. No, no. So it's so and it was what I said. Contrary to popular belief, men don't discriminate. Well, and people say, what the hell? What do you mean everyone knows men discriminate are contrary to popular belief. Discrete women do what? I mean, they don't want what. That's not true. I said, oh, it is true. If a woman is going to if a man is going to undermine somebody, they don't care who they do it to. Any gender will do women target their own gender. And then I had three other huge elements that came out in the nine studies that I did over a decade, period of time, each time reinforced. I even had one of the national women's magazines take me on and publicly called me a liar. And and then they asked for me to turn over my actually my dissertation study originally. And I said, fine, fine, you do it. To their credit, they went out and they did it with their readership and announced to USA Today that their results mirrored mine. Wow. So what, what so what's unique and what's compelling, can you come up with some phraseology that will make people say, what

Did I do that with? I'm on, you know, interviews all the time. And I say I couldn't stop the money coming into my checking account if I tried to say, oh, that sounds like B.S., That's hype. But then I explain to them how it works and they say, oh, man, that's true. So, yeah, if you can make outrageous statements and then back them up, then you're really good. But I've heard you talk about publishing predators. What what do you consider as a publishing predator?

Oh, anything out of Bloomington, Indiana. Oh, like that. And anything that looks like walks like talks like quacks like. These people get on and say, oh yeah. Oh yeah. We will publish your book for two ninety seven. And this is by the way, these are the old vintage presses that they've, they've published some stuff they have, they have wonderful illustrations and graphics and they set them in and all of a sudden the calls start, the hounding starts, the up sales start and all of a sudden you are involved with a seven thousand to ten thousand. I mean, it is like a fourteen thousand dollar marketing thing where you need editing. We can bring in editors for three thousand. We have a special publicity for another two thousand. We have blah, blah, blah, blah. And what they do is prey on the naive and innocent and who don't know any better. And they don't even know if you're going to do a print book, what a quality print book really should look like and they get roped up along. I remember one time I was able to negotiate all the money back and I have a Lincoln Group that has over eighteen thousand members on it, the author you group. And someone put up a post saying, hey, does anyone know anything about I mean, it's you know, it's kind of Christian spiritual based.

It's got to be good, right? Oh, my God. Tom it was like vomiting happen and that there were over 400 posts about what crooks they were and the manipulation and misleading and misrepresentation that went on. I mean, I even had their attorneys follow up. It was just it was kind of a nightmare what was going on. But the thing is that people don't ask are most times and this is just maybe standard sales and a lot of cases that if they make a mistake and they've they've been screwed, this is how we're going to screw it. If they have been screwed and lost their money or taken advantage of or that most people don't want to shout out to, the crowd said, oh, my God, I got taken to the cleaners, blah, blah, blah, blah. That but we kind of do is look our wounds and try to just bury it. And I'm always been a believer you got to pull it out if it's not working. You know, it's like when I did my book on ethics and Gloria Steinem tried to talk me out of publishing it. Because it would give them, meaning women, more ammunition to use, you know, give give men more ammunition to use against women in the workplace. And I'm going, wait a minute, this magazine is going under because of women shafting other women.

Oh, no. I understand about the people. You know, I have this TV show in development called Scam Brigade. And you're probably aware when I came out against some big speakers that were robbed.

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

And and I have a Harvard psychiatrist on my team and a forensic psychologist. And I ask them, why is it that these people, you know, aren't going after these the people that got robbed? He said Tom society is getting weaker. People don't want the confrontation. All the generations have tried to make it easier on their children and nobody can stand any kind of pressure. And it was really frustrating to me because I had evidence on these people did the right, but people were afraid to testify. And a lot of cases because the the bad people intimidated

And they don't want to get involved. They don't want to get it pulled in. I mean, in some ways, you see that with politics, but we won't go down that. What do you know, how does she predators promised a lot and deliver very little. They love you until your credit card runs out and they they are the end result is often mediocrity, I think. And my objective with my umbrella is the book Shepherd is when we're working on a book, I want to create a book that you don't have any regrets about, that you don't have to apologize for. And and I'm by the way, I've had a few I apologize for that. Came from New York. Yeah. Why crap. So I think it's important to recognize that there are people out there. So one of the things I want to tell all our listeners is that before you engage somebody, you need to go to the Google and you put in the name of the person as well as the company, and you just put the word complaint after it and then put it back in again and then put rip off and then do it again and put lawsuits.

Scam is a good one, too.

Yep. And you've got that, you know, problems. You just go through it and you don't stop on page one, which is what ninety percent of most people do that you've got to really dig down to see what's there. There was some scammer in Oklahoma. Oh my God, there were over three hundred complaints with Better Business Bureau, but they still put in a rating. They still had an A rating and they were, you know, a mess. And when I was working with the client came to me with turns out they were using the same ISBN on multiple. And it turns out that they were doing this guy who I got on this there, little controller and who got on the line, and he says, well, there's no way we can track down all these different Amazon sales with all our different books. And I said, that's total bullshit. Every book has a different ISBN number. If you're publishing this, you have an account called If That Time It Was the advantage account. And if you have that and you can look up at any time what the sales are, don't tell me that. And and I'm trying to be the advocate for the client. But I just stepped in and I said, just a second. I have I own a publishing company and I'm on Amazon and I can tell you exactly what my sales are for that book for the month. Well, we eventually got all her money back, so one of the things I'll tell people is make sure you use your credit card because you can go to these credit card people in the magic word is called misrepresentation.

Mm hmm. If they don't deliver, they're going to start backing up. But that means it's on you. It's your responsibility to be in charge of that. And I know going back to one of the things that really started turning me off against some of the stuff of New York that I had a book published with McGraw-Hill. And one of the things that the old days and I will have this if any of you sign a contract for a publishing entity, make sure it has a reversions of rights clause in it. Please do this. Reversions of rights. That means that if a book only sells, it used to be, you know, is very friendly thing that after a book had its life, they would send you a letter. You know, you've really enjoyed working with you. But all good things come to an end and we're going to revert the rights to you. Well, they don't do that anymore because with print on demand, they can keep your book and print in perpetuity. I wouldn't let them do that. And what I would suggest to you to do is put in the clause the reversion of rights. And you, you, the author, have the right to declare the contract terminated. If, for example, less than two hundred print copies are sold within a certain period of time, like a year. And that means you can get your book back because a lot of times, you know, maybe you want to alter it, maybe you want to make changes. Maybe you just want to do it on your own.

Now, are you in favor of author agents if they can even get one?

Well, you know, a lot of times that's a great question. With all their agents, they want you to most publishing companies unless they've come to you. And that's a rare thing. Want to have an agent in between. And my attitude is that that if it is involved, that they have to earn their 10 or 15 percent, whatever they're getting, because all moneys, by the way, flow through them. So, again, you're going to go back to the Google and check out the agent's name. Has there been any complaints? Are there any problems? Are there any lawsuits? You've got to do that now. I was represented when I was publishing with New York by William Morris. So, you know, I had a big, big clout. But even they I mean, I ran into a problem and they said, you know, if you decide to sue them, I mean, these people are crooks. If you decide to sue, the publisher will certainly testify on your behalf. And I remember saying to Mitchell, you got me into this. Get me. Yeah. And they never did. So I learned how to rewrite, restructure. And I just said, screw it. I'm going to go in another direction and I'll just ignore this book that had a printing's in a year and and go off and create some other stuff.

Well, there these contracts from major publishers are all one sided unless an agent or attorney,

The benefit for the publisher, the benefit for the publisher. So reversions of rights you make. I want to make sure that you you make sure you have that. And the other one is you want to make sure that you have the first option for buying the remainder books at their cost. Mm hmm. And I Tom when I got that, I didn't even realize what I was doing. I had a book that it was with World Publishing and Thomas Nelson bought them out and they got rid of a lot of their their backlist related books. And so they had like a thousand copies of one of my little hardback books with them. And I got them for eighty five cents. I didn't realize what I was doing and the book was selling for ten dollars. Well, I immediately raised the price to twelve ninety five, no resistance. I raised it to fifteen at my gigs. I went to twenty and when I realized that that book was selling for half the price it should have been. But I didn't, it didn't dawn on me. Hey Judith, you could be publishing this yourself that you know because I was a snob still.

Well they, they were charging me thirteen dollars apiece for my books

Wiley?

Yeah.

OK, yeah. And that's what they do. Now here's here's my other horror story from it. And this is where this is. But this, this is that what broke the camel's back that I had a book with McGraw-Hill and I always say McGraw-Hill because I'm going to I'm going to zap them. McGraw-Hill and I took you know, I got the rights back. They had a nice letter, got the rights back. And I was doing this kind of weird search. I saw him give me a lead to find out where your books were in libraries around the world. And it was kind of fun. Local library, the Nelson Mandela Library in South Africa. And I ended up in your. Looking around and all of a sudden my name comes up in France and Belgium and I said, wait a sec, I don't have a book published in French or you know, this book is published in McGraw-Hill, continued to sell my book, Foreign Rights after after I took the rights that. Now, is that a copyright infringement? You bet it is. Could I have gone after them? Absolutely. Would I have one? Yes, I would. Would I have lost? Yes, I would. Because if you engage and there's some new laws that are coming up with copyright in a small claims side that have just burst this year, but you're looking at a 50 to one hundred thousand dollar, you know, cost to you, and you have to prove what your damages are. You think I'm going to get the exact sales from them? No freakin way. No frickin way. So lesson learned, lick your wounds, go away.

Ok. All right. So we got to take a break, sponsor break. But when we come back, we're going to have Judith tell us about some of her workshops and all the great resources she has. And remember, you're just getting a taste. She's going to be back next week telling you how to market your book. So so, folks, I usually tell you about my mentor program, but I want to throw that out the window for now because I'm so passionate about this project that my school is undertaking with the people with persons with disabilities. Just tell you about some of the people that are going to be going through. We have one guy that's got 20, 500 vision and juvenile macular degeneration. He has to stick his face in a giant monitor, has to stick his face in the keyboard. But he's one of the most upbeat guys. And I would take him before a lot of regular sighted people. He's just so gung ho to do this. So that's why we have another lady with ankylosing spondylitis where she has to wear this massive back brace and knee braces and and hunched over all the time because of this crazy disease. Have another guy that's got diabetes and a walker he's hunched over, was vibrant in his careers. But prior to this. But it's really taken a toll. So he's got to stay home. That another young woman that had a big career coming in neurology and she got hit with this, I can hardly pronounce it allures something disease.

And then two other diseases hit her to the point where some day she got up and didn't know her name. And so I'm going to do something for these people, whether you help me or not. All right. But I'm going to I'm going to take my strengths and all from 6:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend. I worked on this project because I thought, how better could I honor the people that died defending this country and giving me this opportunity to be strong? How best could I honor them? And that's what I felt, not going to the beach. And I don't hold that against anybody that just had fun this weekend. But the weekend was to honor our fallen soldiers that gave us all these abilities and chances in life in this great country. And so that's how I spent my Memorial Day. And I'm just hoping that you will help support me.

Ah, let's get back to the main event we got Judith Briles, just prolific ladies. She doesn't lay down and take crap from anybody. I love that about her. So tell us about some of the workshops you got and the things that you have for people that are authors.

Well, I created the Dr. Judith Briles speaking unplugged, book publishing, unplugged, book marketing unplugged and social media unplugged. Now, this past year, we had to go underground and Zoom's bill and we're and they are two day intensives that I am at your hip literally. We at we keep the classes small just because I hotseat everybody. And I know actually Tom at the end of this month, we just opened it up and I think I have three, four spots left for my speaking unplugged. We're actually going to do it live in person here in Denver. And there is a requirement besides being registered is that you have to be vaccinated, period. There's no exceptions. That's it. And those are the workbook is actually one hundred pages that I go through. But it's life scenarios there. Each one is distinct in marketing. I go through a lot of my favorite tools to show you how to really excel and expand what you're doing. You kind of you do this to tricks of the trade, social media strategies, pushouts, how how to really how to write and get behind a campaign. I've got a program that I have my Amazon bestseller that I actually guinea pig to one of my clients over a year ago and asked him, do you mind if I try to make your, you know, your book a best seller for many, many days on Amazon? I've got some ideas and I want to experiment. And you, Kathy, I'd like to be my guinea pig.

Is this the secret sauce? We're talking about the program.

You know, that's one of the Amazon secret sauce. Yeah. How to do it. How can you be an Amazon best seller? Grab no one. Not for a frickin ten minutes.

Yeah, that's how I complain about a lot of these programs, though. You your brain dead and there's no credibility to it. So you're doing something that's way above that, right?

Yeah, no. You're going to own it for three solid days. Twenty four hours period. And you're going to change your, you know, so many the structure and we take you through. It's a step by step. Each each session is a live session with me. Ninety, ninety minutes and so runs over a month period of time. The next one opens up in July and then I do it on Wednesdays. I usually and that what we do is I, you know, I'm going to be behind you. I will help push your campaign. I've got a big Twitter following and I've got other followings that we announce it that we let everybody that we are in connection with online do it. But I also show you how to do it with all your followers and your email connections and all that and that. Here's here's one of the fun things that we have them do now. You're going to go to your book designer. Could be you, I don't know. But you're now going to grab the magic golden seal that says Amazon best seller and you're going to upload a new book cover on Amazon. And guess what? Your book, Secret Source, your book will stand out in any category because it's got the gold number one seal on it from Amazon and Amazon doesn't take it down. How cool is that?

Yeah, beautiful. So how do they get hold of you?

Well, the best thing to do, One you can email me Judith@briles.com. And if you're interested in any of our work, you can just put that in the subject line. Just I want to talk to you about whatever your language is, but I'll get back to you. You can go to my website thebookshepherd.com, and you can click on the tab that says experiences. And right now we're in a revamp on that. But it's the current one on speaking is there in the Amazon July best seller is there and if we get it overload, this one starts at four o'clock Colorado time mountain time. That's where my own basis I know Tom is in the beach area, but what I like. But that if there's enough enough area that I will consider doing a second day on that. And then there I will show you literally I'm going to rewrite. I'll tell you when is. Homeworks you do and you bring back with. Besides, you're going to make posters and I'll show you how to make some really fun coattail posters on the your competitors comparables that you will come back with in writing.

And I'll show you. All right. I'm going to rewrite your marketing. I always do that. That's part of the coursework. So that that be in July. And it's just so much that we can do. I mean, it's amazing. It's fun. It's exciting. And I can I'll say it on air. I can't put in writing, but we have never, never had a failure. So what what are the categories that and we also look for and we're looking at Australia and Canada and Germany and we're looking everywhere where you might be getting some traction and you don't even know it. We had won one of our candidates based in Canada last month old down 16, no ones during those three days, 16. And we're not talking Mickey Mouse categories, something that's totally unrelated. We're talking about categories that are connected with your book. And the objective is to build track in the start the buzz factor and then you with your astute marketing. They're going to continue to push your forward. That's what that's all about,

And to give them a little bit about what you're going to talk about on our next episode next week.

Oh, marketing. OK, so we're talking about The GooYa Factor. Get off your hands. And and we're going to get into the strategies and steps to start marketing from the day you think about writing a book. So if you're past that, so that would be today, then you bring it in and we're going to talk about some strategies of what what if your book is just kind of limping along? How do you rejuvenate it and get it going? And I'll bring in some of the key factors that you've got to do for all your social media and for those of you to say, but I don't want to do social media, get over it because it's the town hall. It's the town hall. And the other factor is and I think Tom you and I are on the same boat here is how important it is, is to have lead generators and opt ins within your website and how your website is the golden kernel in your basket.

Beautiful boy, looking forward to that next week, folks, and here we go. So thanks so much for coming on, Judith. And we are going to have all this stuff in the show notes so people could just click on it to go check out all your great unplugged stuff. And we will see you next week.

Thank you.

All right. Catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.

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