Marina Aris: With me today is Michelle Kulp, who is a bestselling author of 28 books, she is also a book launch expert and a publishing specialist. I am thrilled to have her with me today.
Michelle, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Michelle Kulp: Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk about books and making money with books.
Marina Aris: Yes, authors are very interested in figuring this part out since you have such a breadth of knowledge. As we agreed, we're going to first talk about the writing because what you have done is not just write 'a' book. You have written one book per month since January 2020, if I've got that right.
And that is an enormous effort that I'm sure a lot of writers would love to hear more about. So please tell me about the inspiration for this and how it's gone for you.
Michelle Kulp: Since 2013, I've run the Bestselling Author Program, which is a done for you service for clients where I help them with writing the book, editing the book, formatting, launching the book, all things books.
I have different programs and we also do book launches. We do book launches to Amazon and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. We've had authors hit all those lists.
And because I'm working with authors all the time, I wasn't always getting to write my own books and I really wanted to write books.
At that point I think I had eight books on Amazon and I wasn't really marketing them or paying attention to them because I was really busy working with authors. And so in December 2019 I happened to come across this blog post on Written Word Media that said the average author who makes six figures with their books has 28 books in their catalog.
And I was like, oh, then I'm just going to write a book a month and test this theory.
Marina Aris: That is an ultimate level that even I have not reached. So I applaud you for that.
Michelle Kulp: Thank you. I literally the next month, right before COVID hit, it was January 2020, and I planned out the year. What I did is I just picked like three books for each, like a series. So I wrote books for authors. I wrote business books, like Work from Home and Make Six Figures.
I also wrote books about how to find your passion and career books and, stuff like that. So I kept like three categories. They were all nonfiction. And I just started writing, and I didn't really know how this process was going to work.
After I did the first book, I regretted telling the whole world that I was.
I had to do it. I told so many people, my clients, my friends, my family, and I couldn't get out of it. And I was like, what was I thinking?
I was forced to come up with a system. And now I teach the system because of all the struggles I went through getting the books done.
Because not only in 30 days was I writing the book, editing the book, formatting, getting the cover design done, publishing the book. I was doing a book launch on top of that.
And so it wasn't easy getting it done. I don't have any shortage of ideas as far as books, probably because I'm so immersed in the book world and I'm always researching keywords and categories on Amazon and seeing what people are searching for.
So I do recommend Chris Fox wrote a book called Write to Market. And I love that concept because a lot of times we just write what we want to write, and that's okay.
I have a client who wrote a book about real estate investing, and we were trying to come up with a title. And she said, Michelle, why don't we just use the keywords people are searching for? 'How to Invest in Real Estate for Beginners' We just went with the keywords. Sometimes being clever doesn't always work. If you're a big name, you're going to sell probably no matter what you call the book.
Marina Aris: You don't have to share everything that's in the book, but maybe just some ideas for an author who is struggling with just getting past that first hurdle.
In a month you managed to get a whole book done. So what would you recommend to an author who just maybe needs to get out of their own way?
Michelle Kulp: There's a couple things. One, I call write in your pajamas. So when I was writing the book a month, it was really hard. I found that if I just rolled out of bed in my pajamas, and got to the computer, I would get my one or two chapters done a day.
So for me it worked really well. Get out of bed, go to the computer, write what you got to do and then do your other stuff later.
The other thing is to do a mind dump.
You have to have a working title and an outline. I tried it without an outline and I tried it with outlines and it was much smoother if I had a working outline to write the book.
Right. Because you can go in a million different directions on any topic. And so it reigns you in a little bit and gives you more focus. So I would do a mind dump.
I would have a topic for the book and then I would just take post it notes and I would write down everything that I could talk about on that topic.
Then I would group those little post its. Okay, this can be a chapter and this can be a chapter and this can be part of that chapter.
And that's how I would write the outline with post its and the mind dump.
Marina Aris: I like that. Mind dump in your pajamas and have an outline.
Michelle Kulp: I like winging things. I'm not like real structured. But it doesn't work if you're trying to write a book in 30 days.
And the other thing was you have to write short books.
Marina Aris: What do you define as a short 100 pages?
Michelle Kulp: Around 100 pages or less. So if you are at 100 pages or less, they will put your book in the Short Reads category. And people love, love short reads. They're short on time, and short on attention span.
And so people love when they could just buy a book, get their problem solved and read it really quickly.
Marina Aris: Got it. And did you by chance publish any paperbacks of your books?
Michelle Kulp: Paperbacks and ebooks.
Marina Aris: I'm curious since I prefer books to be 120 pages at the minimum because I don't like such a thin spine.
Michelle Kulp: So in order to have a spine we might add notes or something at the end.
Marina Aris: So did the first month happen? You got it done?
Michelle Kulp: Yes, done.
Marina Aris: Are you going to share the title of that book?
Michelle Kulp: I think the first month was 'How to Find Your Passion, 23 questions that can change your entire life' which interestingly ended up being one of the top selling books.
So that was the first book I wrote.
Marina Aris: Nicely done. Did you do some laptop writing or did you write hand to paper?
Michelle Kulp: It was all laptop. I was a paralegal for 17 years. I prefer writing by hand, it's more creative. But to get it done, I had to type it.
Marina Aris: I'd love to hear what your insight is on an effective book launch.
Michelle Kulp: You have to remember I've been doing launches since 2013 for clients and I've done over 300 of them. I feel like that all just gave me data and information because a lot of authors don't have that benefit.
I have the benefit of working in so many different genres, doing so many different launches, testing different promoters, doing different things.
So I guess that probably is the key. There are a lot of different book promoters out there. And I did at times test one at a time to see.
And I was just testing it to see how many sales we would get for the book from one promoter. And then try to put a list of like the top 10 promoters I felt for nonfiction business books would work well.
Marina Aris: Okay, so it sounds like promoters are a big part of the launch. What else?
Michelle Kulp: One of my favorite promoters is Robin Reeds. There are a lot of promoters out there, but I just found what works for my niche.
I also have an email list that I've been building since 2005 when I started my first website Become A 6-Figure Woman.
I have a 5,000 plus email list. I have some social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Facebook groups. And so when I do a launch, I'm using my email list, my social media, and I'm hiring promoters to do the launch.
Marina Aris: Got it. So you have promoters you work with and are they paid?
Michelle Kulp: They're all paid. It could range from 15 dollars for a promotion to a hundred and something dollars.
Marina Aris: When it comes to launches and marketing, this is where there's a lot of struggle and authors look to me.
Michelle Kulp: I have people that come to me that don't have any book and I have to work with them through the whole process. So I have different programs where we can launch to the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. We can do a launch where we guarantee a thousand sales. We can do a launch where we guarantee certain bestseller list.
Marina Aris: We've covered the launch, I've left marketing for last. Because from my perspective, marketing is a long game. It's an experimental thing that no one really has the answers to. I think the best I can do for my authors is to suggest that they consider who they are? What they write? Why they write? and use that reflection to reach the right reader.
I'm curious to hear about your views on marketing. How do you approach it? Because to me the launch is separate from the ongoing effort that comes with marketing over the long haul, right? If you want to sell it, you have to market it and you have to market it forever.
Michelle Kulp: And this really is an ongoing issue. Like you do a launch, right? And then maybe it does good for a while and then a year later it starts to go down. You almost have to redo the launch again.
In my opinion books have a life on Amazon and because there's, I don't know, 40 million books on Amazon, it's really hard to get recognition and visibility.
That's why it is important to be on bestseller lists so people can find your book. But I do use Amazon ads for all my top selling books.
Once I do a launch, I automatically set up the Amazon ads and then I test it and if the book isn't doing well in a certain amount of time, I focus on the bestselling books.
After writing a book a month, I know what my three to four top selling books are based on history. I focus on those books and I run Amazon ads to those books.
I do have a private Facebook group for one of my books. And I have a online course. So I think building a community around the book is a good idea. You can sell things on the back end, as we all know, right, to make money with the book.
Marina Aris: I, I agree. Absolutely. So here's a concern I've had with bestseller lists. This is my limited perspective. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. This is why I ask people like you.
The question that comes up for me when you talk about reaching a bestseller list, whether it's on USA Today, Amazon, doesn't matter. Is there a gaming system that is part of this?
You know, some people have said that you pay for it. Some people say there's some algorithm that'll get you on the list for a day or two, or three seconds, whatever it is.
So I'm trying to demystify what it really means to be a bestseller on each platform. And how viable is this for someone to want to do that? Because let's say the book is mediocre. It's never going to make it. Even if they sign up for your program, it's just not going to make it.
Michelle Kulp: Some of those books come off the bestsellers list. And even if they're doing ads and marketing and they have their email list, like you said, every book can't be a bestseller.
After a year, I only have three books that make up 80% of my income. I wrote 12 books.
So you have to put your best foot forward. You write a great book, you do your keyword research, you do a good launch, you get it out there, and guess what?
The market gets to decide if they like it.
Marina Aris: At the end of the day, it's the reader, it's the market. People have to read the book. But that being said, what you do has a lot of value.
What are some of the greatest benefits you've seen come out of a good book on a bestseller list? Other than book sales, Is there anything else I'm missing?
Michelle Kulp: It is true that you can manipulate it, right? You're putting all your marketing into one day or two days, right? Or for a Wall Street Journal launch, in one week.
So you're putting all your marketing into that and you're trying to jumpstart the book. You're trying to put it out there in this big way, see what the market thinks of it and then see how it goes on after that.
Well, with continued Amazon ads or your email list, your Facebook, the benefits are, just being visible or else you're lost in the abyss on Amazon.
If you're not on a bestsellers list, people can't find your book.
But the way I know, there are some people that think it is manipulating the system to get on a bestseller list by doing a launch. But here's how I look at it.
From 2011 to 2014, I did website design and I did SEO, which is search engine optimization.
People wanted their website to be on page one of Google because that's how you got found. Guess what? You had to pay an SEO specialist, which is like a keyword specialist, who knew how to get backlinks, who knew how to use the right keywords.
So Google would send traffic so your book shows up on page one. Now is that manipulating the system? to me it's working with the system.
It's a crowded marketplace and if you want to be found, you have to do these things to show up on page one of Google. It's a big search engine. There are 40 plus million books.
If you want to be found, then you have to play the game. And the game is you at least have to show up on a bestsellers list, and at the minimum do a launch.
And I can tell you this. When I wrote a book and didn't launch it, like maybe I had a problem with it. If I didn't launch it, nothing really happened to that book. It didn't get on the bestsellers list. Nothing happened. When I did the launch, the book got on the bestseller list, then I followed up with some Amazon ads.
Marina Aris: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds to me like it's a good idea for an author to plan for a book launch.
Are there any tips or standards on how long a launch should be to be an effective launch? Should it be two days, a week? What do you think? Does it matter?
Michelle Kulp: For Wall Street Journal, and USA Today there it is a week-long launch and you need to sell about 5,000 to 10,000 books during that week to get on one of those lists.
So that, and we're talking, when I say launching a book, we're talking a 99 cent e-book. So discounted to 99 cents for the launch.
Marina Aris: Got it.
Michelle Kulp: For Amazon, it's not that complicated because as Amazon has like whatever thousands and thousands of categories and subcategories, we don't just want visibility on like sub, sub sub-categories. We want to be on categories like business or money.
Right now, if you go to women in business, I think I have eight books on the Bestsellers list. I'm trying to dominate that category.
And so that's another sort of marketing point is don't write one book. At least write like three books in a series. Because Amazon will show your book on the series page.
You can advertise those books in a different way if you have a series. It really benefits you. Like, you can have an idea for a book, break it up into three short books instead of one big book.
Marina Aris: And to clarify, are you mostly focusing on the nonfiction side of things?
Michelle Kulp: Yes.
Marina Aris: Got it. Any advice for fiction authors? Anything that you do transferable to a fiction author?
Michelle Kulp: I have a client who is actually a family member who wrote a fiction book. At first he was my nonfiction client and then he wrote a couple of fiction books. And I think the marketing was completely different. The fiction book promoters are different. The marketing is different. The cover design is different.
So I don't know much about it. But I am about to pick his brain soon because I do have a lot of fiction authors that come to me. And I know it's much more competitive and I'm like, no, I can't help you.
And In 2021, I wasn't writing a new book every month. I did box sets. I did an audiobook and then I just did a multi author book to Wall Street Journal called the 'Younger Self Letters.'
So I'm coming out with a new product every month, but not necessarily writing a new book.
I created the Facebook group, then I created the online course, then I created the group. Coaching.
Marina Aris: I thank you again for your time. This was very insightful. Just give me the URL one last time before I let you go.
Michelle Kulp: They can go to bestsellingauthorprogram.com and they can connect with me there. They can fill out a form and do a strategy session with me and we can talk about their book and what they're looking for. And I have an online course. They can get the first module free when they join the Facebook group. So if they go to that group, they can get the module on how to write a book a month.
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