John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and is a mentor to authors who have sold over a BILLION books. He's also the founder of the Billion Book Initiative to help the next generation of book authors sell another billion books. Over the past thirty years, John has helped thousands of authors and is an icon of the industry. He's helped both major celebrities, and those just starting out, to sell lots more books.
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Screw The Commute Podcast Show Notes Episode 011
Internet Marketing Training Center – https://imtcva.org/
Higher Education Webinar – It's the second webinar on the page: https://screwthecommute.com/webinars
[01:21] Tom's introduction to John Kremer [02:38] What John does [04:30] Had a job, but not for very long [08:43] Advice for transitioning to your own business [09:47] Tips for getting started in writing [11:00] It's not as hard to write if you know your subject [14:07] John has been screwed in business [17:00] Great joke on consulting [18:25] Worst part of being the bossOh My Gosh! You will NOT believe what John Kremer said after the break! Listen CAREFULLY to the sponsor's message and what John had to say afterwards.
[21:33] Sponsor message [22:44] Staying motivated [29:10] Parting wisdom for the ScrewballsHigher Education Webinar – It's the second webinar on the page: https://screwthecommute.com/webinars
Screw The Commute – https://screwthecommute.com/
1001 Ways to Market your Books – https://www.amazon.com/1001-Ways-Market-Books-World-ebook/dp/B01LXAK729
Book Market – http://www.bookmarket.com/
Book Marketing Bestsellers – https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/
John Kremer's page – https://www.amazon.com/John-Kremer/e/B001H6L2T4/
Pinterest Webinar – http://www.onlinemeetingnow.com/register/?id=jdxwubaz7j&
Internet Marketing Training Center – https://imtcva.org/
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Episode 011 - John Kremer
[00:00:08] 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.
[00:00:27] Welcome everybody to screw the commute. And this is episode number 11 and I am really thrilled about it because a good friend of mine. Oh I don't know. For a couple of hundred years and is on here with us and I'll be telling you all about him in a second. Right now I'll tell you a little bit about our sponsor the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia distance learning school. It's the only one of its kind in the country licensed and independent to operate on that topic. So you want to check it out and don't do anything on higher education until you check out our webinar. You can find it in the show notes at screwthecommute.com and watch that webinar. You'll really open your eyes to the opportunities in higher education that won't crush you in debt.
[00:01:20] All right so let's get to the main event book marketing expert John Kremer is the author of 1001 ways to market your books. And I got to tell you I bought that years and years ago. I'm not sure how many editions are out now but it's not just books I use that and that book has influenced all of my 400 plus products over 24 years. So this is really a classic of the world and he is a mentor to authors who have sold over a billion books. That's with a B billion and founder of the billion book initiative to help the next generation of book authors sell another billion books. Over the past 30 years John has helped thousands of authors and that is not any kind of hype. This guy is an icon of the industry. He's helped thousands of authors both major celebrities and those just starting out to sell more books and lots more books.
[00:02:23] That's John Kremer. John I got to ask you Are you ready to screw the commute that is? Tell them a little bit about what you do John.
[00:02:41] Well, I do consulting. I do a lot of writing. I create courses like the pinterest courses you promoted.
[00:02:46] Tell them a little bit about that real quick because people think oh that's just graphics and I thought that myself for a while but that is a lot of stuff you can do with that right.
[00:02:57] Yes there is. It really is a tool. Pinterest is basically the best social network for selling things because it's a buying audience. People are really using it to save things that they really want to buy. And that's what's really nice about it and they share which is something that a lot of other social networks they don't do as well. And on Pinterest they really do. So it's really a great place to drive a lot of traffic and pick up sales. I really like it.
[00:03:29] The average amount of money spent per person is a lot higher than most other social media. Right?
[00:03:38] Right. It's actually the highest according to oh boy I'm going blank on the company.
[00:03:43] Yeah I remember you talking about that so what we're going to do is we're going to put a link in the show notes to that webinar that you do. Is that the one with Daniel Hall?
[00:03:58] Yeah we'll put that in the show notes so people can get access to that because that really opened my eyes. And you know after I started using your method of creating pins in a certain way so that they really stick out wow I sold two protection dogs at twenty thousand dollars a piece coming from that. And so it's not any kind of playtime. This is a serious way to really reach people and you guys really nailed it with that webinar.
[00:04:26] So John did you ever have a job?
[00:04:31] I did. Not for very long. Because I hated doing it but I was the only male clerk typist in Minnesota Department of Health six floors of a building. And I was the only male one and I was actually the only working typist also. Everybody else was doing their nails.
[00:04:56] Exactly. I know that government stuff. And that was funny because you know I was a big strapping football player and I took typing in high school. One of the best things I ever did because I don't have to hunt and peck. Now I'm screamingly fast when I do stuff.
[00:05:12] I did the same thing and I would say for high school students if you're gonna work take typing.
[00:05:21] Exactly and you'll be surrounded by a bunch of girls mostly nowadays. What was the turning point when you said you know what this is I got to get out of this.
[00:05:32] Oh well wasn't hard. I never did want to work for very long. So probably my longest period of working was like six months or one time I did a year but I was only working part time. Well like four hours a day. So you know that was my endurance level. Now I've only wanted to always work for myself. I always wanted to be a writer. And over time I decided that you know I need to start to publish myself rather than wait for a publisher to decide to do something.
[00:06:04] And about when was this?
[00:06:07] Oh gosh almost 30 years ago now.
[00:06:09] You've been working for yourself and making a living writing and consulting for 30 years right.
[00:06:15] Yeah it's actually been 33 34 years I think.
[00:06:19] That is beautiful. That's a screw the commuter hall of famer.
[00:06:25] I do have to commute nowadays. My office is 50 feet from the house.
[00:06:31] You know Daniel was telling me that the other day his is four minutes I'm thinking you guys really got to step it up. I mean minus 37 seconds.
[00:06:40] Yeah well mine's probably 37 Seconds. I'm 50 feet from the house so you know. It's nice. My wife wanted me out of the house so I built the little office for myself with a friend. And it really works out well. It's quiet. I don't have to worry about being interrupted by her. And so all those things are really nice. And I like that.
[00:07:03] You get dressed up like you're going through some work thing?
[00:07:06] Absolutely. Tie and everything.
[00:07:10] Right and you live in Taos, New Mexico right. I bet that's a big tie place.
[00:07:18] Actually, I live outside about 12 miles outside on the side of a hill. So we have two and a half acres of woods. So yes and it's a nice place for the dogs to run around and bark at the neighbor dogs and things like that.
[00:07:32] What Kind of animals are there? Do they have coyotes and bears things like that. Yeah we have coyotes bears. We had a visit from a bear last week checking out our garbage. They come down the mountain about this time a year on their way to the apple orchards at the bottom of the valley and they'll stop and fill up so that they can make the rest of the trip. I've seen a mountain lion, we have fox deer and we don't have elk here. We do have elk nearby but not right around here.
[00:08:09] I just really want to get out there because of that place that does those super homes that are very efficient. I forget the name of them.
[00:08:17] Oh yeah the Earth ships.
[00:08:19] Yeah exactly. So what kind of advice would you give you remember back to that time when you pretty much canned the job if somebody else is thinking about you know I want to get out of here I want to get out of here but you know you can't be irresponsible about it not pay your bills so what kind of advice would you give to people that want to transition and have their own business.
[00:08:43] Well I would say you know try to find a part time job that pays you well enough that you can cover your expenses and then spend the rest of the time creating the life you want.
[00:08:56] Yeah and some people they do that part time draw up to give them time to work on their business and then they don't work on their business. You don't want to fall in that trap. You have to set aside the time to do your work as well the work that you want to do. I did that when I was working that year part time I would work four hours a day then I would write for four hours a day and I finished a book in a year.
[00:09:22] You're beautiful. Yeah. Let's dig in a little bit what you do more because I have been a big advocate of creating information around any business because an information product or a book can promote the other product that the person who is trying to sell. So give us some tips about getting started and in writing things to promote your business.
[00:09:47] Well in today's world you don't have to think about writing a big book. My thousand and one ways that I'm best known for 700 pages. That's insanity. I'll admit it I'm insane. That's how I did it. But you know if I were doing it today I would do ninety six to 120 page books. And I do multiple ones. And that way you can use them as business cards you can actually give them away because they're not that expensive. I have a friend that does what he calls the book of the month club. He's written 12 books. He's a speaker to corporations. And when he finds a hot prospect he sends him a book every month for 12 months. And he books a lot of speaking that way and a lot of consulting and you know now he owns a nice olive grove in Greece you know among other things.
[00:10:42] Yeah. I've always said a book is from the business standpoint is one of the biggest hassle least profitable things but it's massively profitable because it leads to these other things that you can sell. Coaching and speaking and all that.
[00:10:59] People still think it's hard to write. I don't think that way but a lot of people do and so they think that while if you produced a book you got to know your subject and that gives you instant expertise and credibility so that people will hire you as a consultant.
[00:11:18] Yeah having written a book still has credibility. But I will tell you I hate these guys that tell people to put out any piece of garbage as fast as possible that it would be a better coaster than it would be a book.
[00:11:32] That doesn't work. I mean people read books intelligently. They know if it's junk or not and it doesn't help you it's not a business card. You know you can certainly sell those on Kindle for a little bit until people realize oh this is junk. So I'm not a big fan of that strategy. I believe you should do a good book and really take the time to edit it. I mean I see too many books being done and I look at them and go, way too many errors here you know lousy formatting. It doesn't look great. It's not going to give you any kind of credibility.
[00:12:14] Yeah and what I crack up and kind of rag on as you can pretty much be brain dead and have an Amazon Best Seller now. Yeah you could sell two books in a category that nobody ever reads and get in the top hundreds and then call yourself an Amazon Best Seller.
[00:12:35] That's really bad and you have people teaching people that all the time and I hate that idea of an Amazon Best Seller. Because in the book industry itself an Amazon Bestseller unless you're actually in the top 500 you're not considered that. I mean of all of Amazon and the thing is that people say their an Amazon bestseller right away book industry doesn't really respect you because they know the numbers. And so it doesn't help your credibility with them. And so if you're trying to build an authorship it doesn't work. Now if you're trying to build credibility with people that don't know well maybe it works.
[00:13:20] Maybe it works but then some day you're going to get found out by some really important person that could really open doors and they're not going to open that door.
[00:13:30] Yeah and the thing is that it's most of the people that have claimed Amazon bestsellers they quit three months later or three weeks later because they haven't followed up. They haven't done anything to create momentum. And so the book just dies very very quickly because as you said you sell two books and can claim bestseller status well where's the third book sale going to come from.
[00:13:57] Now have you ever keeping on our topic of screwing. Have you ever been screwed in business. And what did you do about it.
[00:14:08] I have been. I once created a product with somebody else and I realized I did all the work and all the promotion. And she didn't do much so I said look you know I actually told her look you can have that product. I just want to take part of it and create a new course. And she just got mad at me and she just called me up every day yelling at me and stuff. I finally had to just you know not answer the phone when I recognized her number. And it took her like a year two years before she finally gave up. It was not fun. It was really a pain.
[00:14:47] But when you do a partnership it should be equal. The partnership I have with Daniel Hall on the Pinterest course is a good partnership and I like it. We've always done well together we like each other and that's important. And I thought I had that same kind of relationship with this other lady but it turned out that she just didn't do anything.
[00:15:12] You gotta be careful with partners. It's like getting married.
[00:15:15] It is to some extent. And actually we didn't have a written contract which obviously you should. And all those kinds of things so I mean I actually gave her the course I mean she could have done anything but she didn't know promotion. She didn't have a list. You know she didn't actually contribute anything except the little bit of content that I could squeeze out of her. So it was just one of those things.
[00:15:39] The lesson here is written agreements. Of course they're only as good as the person doing it but a lot of times the people that know they're not going to come through are reluctant to sign things.
[00:15:51] Yeah but I actually recommend to authors you know if you're coauthoring even with your spouse get a written agreement between the two of you because there's too many people that get divorced and separated and stuff like that and suddenly all your content whatever you've created is tied up but if you have a written agreement you can get out of it gracefully to me written agreements and contracts are designed to protect people's feelings to protect the relationships.
[00:16:22] Until the lawyers get involved. Get a written an agreement even if it's one you write yourself but that you get something that really you know lays out what the agreement is and then get it signed of course because that really will protect the relationship so even if everything else goes to hell some part of it will stay.
[00:16:45] Yeah and it's easy to get into a pseudo partnership like that. But getting out is where it can be devastating. Anything opposite end of the spectrum funny happened to you or in your business world?
[00:17:03] You remember that funny quote that I heard you say in a speech one time about consulting and rates and all. Tell them that one.
[00:17:11] Basically I was getting you know most of us who do consulting we find out that we give the best advice in the world and people don't follow. And so at one point I threatened to charge double my normal consulting fee and say I'll give you half back if you follow my advice.
[00:17:33] Do what I tell you.
[00:17:35] Yeah cause it's so frustrating and the worst kind of consulting clients are ones that has six people coaching him. Because the last person who talks to him he follows that advice and gets back to you and he's already gone screwed off in a different way and not done the things that you said and then you had to bring him back and you know all of that is really painful. So you know I really did threaten him and actually probably with that one person. I have one person that's really like that. I'm really tempted to say Hey next time you wanna hire me we're going to do it this way.
[00:18:19] Love that. So what do you think the worst part of working for yourself is.
[00:18:25] Well you have to be disciplined you know and that can sometimes be hard because you know you're either tired or there's something like you know I walk with my dogs every day and that's a special part of me. And I like doing that but sometimes you can't do that because you've got to finish something. Probably the toughest thing for me is finishing something.
[00:18:51] It's easy to get ideas than to get stuff started.
[00:18:54] In fact my wife said you cannot start selling this Pinterest course until you finish it. But the reality is it's not finished yet because people keep asking questions so I create new content to answer their questions. So that's good on one side but on the other side it means it's not finished yet but the basis of the course is finished and I like that because I have done it the other way where you know we basically sell the course and then start to create the content. And it's much harder to continue to create the content especially if the sales weren't there.
[00:19:33] Yeah but I thought you had that thing were on your some of your courses you are adding to them as new things come about.
[00:19:40] I try to with everything that I've done. But that's a challenge the main challenge is make sure you finish the things that you start and I'm not always good at that. But I try. Because I've noticed the pain of not doing that.
[00:20:01] So what do you promote mostly now? Is it the Pinterest or do you have something else that you'd like them to know about.
[00:20:06] Right now we're still doing primarily Pinterest marketing. We just had a couple of people that really sold well. I mean they really went to bat and we sold like 80 courses from each of them. And that's nice that's good income for them and good income for us it keeps us happy and it keeps the momentum going. So that's nice. And then I'm working on with the thousand and one ways to market your books. It's always been one big book and then I decided to break it into a real world edition and digital or online marketing edition. So the online marketing would all be in one book in the real world stuff publicity TV stuff like that bookstores would be in the other book. So I finished the real world one but I haven't finished the digital. So that's on the side. I've been working on that.
[00:21:01] So we can put the real world one in the show notes for this show?
[00:21:06] Yes. It's done. It's on Amazon and it's also available on my site if you want a print edition. Right now it's not available on Amazon in print but it is available in ebook.
[00:21:19] Ok so we'll get all that in the notes. We'll follow up with you and get all those links ready. Well we've got to take a brief break from our sponsors so we will be right back in about thirty seven point two seconds.
[00:21:34] Today, almost two billion of you will go online retrieving over 100 billion searches for information, goods and services, and 6 million of you will view a page on the internet before this commercial is over. The world has changed and so is the way we do business. At the Internet Marketing Training Center, you can study online at your pace to fit your schedule, and you can graduate with the skills and knowledge to compete in the global marketplace or start your own home based business. Call us today or go online at IMTCVA.org. Because, it's about time. Yours.
[00:22:34] Ok we're back. Hey John. What is a typical day look like for you and do you have any particular techniques of how you stay motivated to create all this great stuff you've created.
[00:22:45] I don't really have a technique for staying motivated because you stay motivated because you're doing something you love. And because I love what I'm doing it's not hard to stay motivated and I'm also motivated of course because my wife wants me out of the house. So that gets me into the office you know. So I come over to the office in the morning again I can choose when I get up and when I come you know and all that.
[00:23:15] When do you walk the dog?
[00:23:18] Usually in the afternoon and walking my wife at the same time.
[00:23:23] What kind of leash do you use for her?
[00:23:28] I don't. I got to be very careful about that. I come and I usually start and it's probably a mistake by checking my email. Because in some ways I think you should probably only check e-mail at the end of the day.
[00:23:43] Not me. I got to do it all day long and all night.
[00:23:48] And I do too. You know I'm always checking in. But and you know probably like you I get five or 600 e-mails a day. Now probably 30 of them are important. The others are sales messages and so on because I'm always looking at what's happening in Internet marketing so I belong to all these different lists. And I buy a certain number of products just to check them out see if they work how they work and so on.
[00:24:13] But you know like a lot of people I bought a lot of products that I've never actually used and I never actually checked out because things get complicated but I like looking at what's happening so that when I'm consulting with people I can say you should check this out or you should check this out because you know you need to know what's going on so that you can teach people the right things because so much of book marketing today is online.
[00:24:45] I need to know about online marketing. I'm following everybody that's doing Internet marketing what they're doing. You know product launches and things like that. So I actually went to the product launch Formula live event couple of weeks ago in Phoenix. Just to learn a little bit more about the process and you know how people do it. The product launch formula. It's been one of those things that's historic I guess you could say a lot of people had success with it and it's been something that teaches. You know I think does a good job.
[00:25:21] I think Jeff Walker does a good job with it. But it's not the only thing and I'm not sure I like the actual process. It doesn't work with my mindset. Because I don't like to close off sales.
[00:25:39] And the product launch formula is designed that you sell for 10 days or seven days or five days and then you say I'm cutting you off if you don't sign up. You have to wait a year or two years before you can get in again. And I understand the logic of that in terms of you set a deadline more people are going to sign up.
[00:26:03] Yeah, it's an urgency technique.
[00:26:03] Yeah and we use that in our Pinterest webinars as well. But I liked having something you know I come from book publishing where when you publish a book it's available and it's going to stay available. There's no scarcity except that sometimes it goes out of print. But in today's world with print on demand it never goes out. So I like that it fits my mindset. I like that when I promote something whenever somebody decides it's right for them. They can buy it.
[00:26:35] Ok so you check out all those other stuff what else you do in a day.
[00:26:39] Oh well I checked my Vikings team and I'm disappointed last year they didn't do it. But you know when I checked the news I did some of those things but mostly I'm checking out new things and I'm working on the writing and developing content. And then of course I have my coaching call so depending on how many people coaching at a time I may have a call or two a day and then you have that plus of course I'm always doing interviews like this where you get a chance to promote yourself and that's important. I think online that's really important because interviews are so much better than somebody reviewing your book because in an interview you have a chance to least control some of the content. People hear you and they like what you offer and you share some good content. They're more likely to go and say hey I need to check out his book or check out the webinar series or whatever it might be. And you know when somebody I mean I've had some terrible book reviews.
[00:27:50] I had one up on Amazon when somebody quoted me quoting my book and said I said this and I said that and I checked my book and it's nowhere in the book and I'm going, What kind of insanity is this person involved with that they can quote me when it's not from my book. It took me years to get Amazon to deemphasize that and delist it because it was inaccurate. So you don't always have control you know it's like Yelp you know small business. They don't always have control what people are going to say. And if somebody is in a revenge mode because you happen to be a little irritated then when you checked them out of your store. I mean I've seen some bad reviews.
[00:28:35] Or they don't like your politics or whatever.
[00:28:38] Whatever it might be. One thing I do is I make sure that politics what I believe in politics does not get shared anywhere because I don't want half the country to hate me. And it's going to be half.
[00:28:58] So you have any parting wisdom for our screwballs that listen to this thing and might want to get into writing and do stuff like you do.
[00:29:10] Well the key thing is find something you love to do because then you'll do it and you'll do it well if you hate doing something like I tell my authors you know if there's a part of marketing that you simply don't like doing find somebody that likes doing it and hire them to do that part.
[00:29:30] Don't try to do it yourself because you'll screw it up you won't like it you'll hate it and you won't do it well. So do the things you enjoy doing and use those find out things that will work for you that you enjoy doing and use that as a way of promoting what you're going to be doing. And everything you're doing it's going to involve marketing so you have to start to fall in love with marketing.
[00:29:54] And it's probably you had the same experience I did when I first started speaking in public. I mean I'd have stomach turmoil, nervous and all those things. Now I push people off the stage to get on. And I know you're like that you want to get in there and start to share what you have to share and start talking to people and having fun. And you know I mean one time I spoke to the National Speakers Association and I was sicker than a dog.
[00:30:23] I remember I think that's when I heard your quote.
[00:30:27] It might have been. I have 300 people in the room and I get up on this stage and I speak for an hour and a half and you would not know that I was sick because I was on. But the minute I was off I was sick again. Yeah I mean but you do that because you love it you know and I do enjoy that. Now I enjoy sharing. I enjoy giving good content and sharing that with people and helping people to find what they love and to sell it.
[00:30:59] Beautiful advice. So how do people reach you if they want to hire you or ask you questions or buy some of your stuff.
[00:31:07] The best thing is to go to my Web site at BookMarketingbestsellers.com.
[00:31:14] We'll have that in the show notes for John and they can reach you through there for consulting and help with books.
[00:31:21] Wow John so great to reconnect with you. We did it recently with a pinterest but this was great one on One. Thank you so much. These people are going to go crazy over this. And don't forget the 1001 ways to market your book. That's the one they can get on your Web site?
[00:31:42] Web site or e-book on Amazon.
[00:31:45] Ok. Beautiful.
[00:31:47] Well all you screwballs this has been another great event. This is episode number 11 with Jon Kremer and don't forget to visit screwthecommute.com to look over the show notes click on the links go over and check out all John's stuff. And leave us a review. Really appreciate it.
[00:32:07] And we will catch you on the next one. See y'all later.
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