Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper, and welcome back from our little mini hiatus. It's been a minute. 

Matt: What's the difference between a hiatus and a sabbatical? 

Lauren: I actually…

Matt: Is it duration? Or is it - 

Lauren: That’s a good question - 

Matt: Or is it intent of what you're doing? Like -

Lauren: I think it might be intent? Because it isn't a sabbatical, a break from like–oh, I guess this is a break from work. 

Matt: Why did you do praying hands? 

Lauren: I don’t know. 

Matt: It's a break from praying. Is that what you were doing? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: If you pray that much where you need a break… All right. Well, yes. 

Lauren: Well. 

Matt: We were on a break. 

Lauren: We were on a break. 

Matt: A hiatus. 

Lauren: A sabbatical, perhaps. Because what I was going to say is that I think a sabbatical is related to work. But then I remembered that this is work. 

Matt: Yeah. Well, but we were still working behind the scenes. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: So you're right. It's probably a hiatus. 

Lauren: That's true. 

Matt: Or a break. Nonetheless. Welcome back, Lauren. 

Lauren: The point is that we’re back. Welcome back, Matt. It's nice to be back. We are also if you are listening to this and not watching it on YouTube, spoiler alert, we are pretty sure we finally got the video set up. 

Matt: Oh, it's set up. We'll see if it actually - 

Lauren: We'll see if it works. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: We'll see what it looks like when it's done. But in theory, we are video recording this episode through a series of trial and error, but we got there. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So we're here. Everything's great. Our break was great - in theory, it also hasn't really happened yet.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, whatever. 

Lauren: But It’s fine. 

Matt: Now you're just confusing me and everybody else.

Lauren: I know, it’s okay. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: An inside look at how the sausage is made. 

Matt: Yeah, let's move forward. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: First of all, the most important thing is what do your bracelets say today? 

Lauren: I'm so glad you asked, because one of them is for you. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: So first of all, that one's yours. 

Matt: Sweet. Let's see what this says. 

Lauren: What does your bracelet say? 

Matt: What's for lunch? That's perfect. Yep. 

Matt: I'm going to put that bad boy on right now. 

Lauren: Perfect. So great. 

Matt: Thank you very much. 

Lauren: You're so welcome. 

Matt: Now I'm part of the Taylor Nation. 

Lauren: Yes, that's exactly what you are. 

Matt: There's no more fitting bracelet for me than what's for lunch. 

Lauren: It was your idea. 

Matt: Oh, was it? 

Lauren: Yeah. It was. 

Matt: I was trying to give you credit - 

Lauren: I appreciate it. 

Matt: For being very creative and knowing me very well. 

Lauren: I appreciate it. I mean, it's probably what I would have landed on even if you hadn't suggested it.

Matt: I'd like to think it is. 

Lauren: It was your idea. The rest of my bracelets say, Feral Goth Barbie, Swemo, and Modern Idiot. 

Matt: Feral Goth Barbie could not be more fitting for you.

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: Modern Idiot. Didn't you wear that one recently?

Lauren: I did.

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: And it actually has no real meaning today, except that I liked the pink. 

Matt: And what is Swemo?

Lauren: If you are a Swiftie and an emo kid. 

Matt: Oh my gosh. 

Lauren: You're a Swemo kid. 

Matt: Man, I can't hide my face now that we're on video either. 

Lauren: No, you can't. 

[3:10]

Matt: All right. What are we talking about today? 

Lauren: Today? That’s such a great question. 

Matt: Holy cow. 

Lauren: Today we're going to talk about an episode topic that we brought up a while back actually, that is incentives to encourage sales without discounting your book. 

Matt: So ways to sell more books without discounting. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Or, you know, ways to encourage people to buy from you instead of - 

Matt: Oh, directly from you? 

Lauren: Yeah, maybe? 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Directly from you, or indirectly, whatever it is. But we are approaching the holiday season. I thought this would be a nice thing to have as not a holiday-specific episode, but something that people could say, like, how do I make my content or my products stand out and add value to people as they are shopping either this holiday season or whenever. 

Matt: Yeah. Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: All right. Got it. 

Lauren: We're definitely going to be talking about some things that we've talked about before, but I wanted it all kind of in one episode that we had it all together. And we've also got some new ideas in here too. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah, yeah. 

Matt: But well, first and foremost though, ideally you should be able to just ask your readers and fans and super fans to buy directly from you and they should oblige you. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: But I guess - 

Lauren: Well, maybe -  

Matt: That's not always the case, is it? 

Lauren: No, it's not always the case. And also I think maybe this… a lot of the stuff in this episode kind of goes at least in line with the episode that we did on turning casual fans into super fans. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Or maybe turning browsers into casual fans. This is the kind of incentivization where people are able to see like, this is why I should be interested in this person in the first place, or. 

Matt: Yeah, so it's essentially the actual we have talked about turning fans into super fans, but this is more of like what you just said. This is more of turning kind of browsers and casual people into buyers. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Where then you can then turn buyers into super fans. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: We're talking about kind of, what the first part of that could be, right? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So again, turning a casual browser or follower or something like that into a buyer and then from there a buyer into a super fan, hopefully. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Right? 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: I also like… I don't want to discourage people from the idea of discounts and promos. Like, if that's something that you want to experiment with, go for it. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: I just want to provide some opportunities or suggestions for like, your other ways to incentivize people, especially as we're coming into something like the holiday season where you’re seeing these big box retailers, they can afford to lose profits on books. 

Matt: Oh yeah, it's a strategy. 

Lauren: Right, right. Barnes & Noble right now is running one of their like semi-annual 50% off select hardcovers, which is also an important distinction to - 

Matt: This podcast is not sponsored by Barnes & Noble in any way. 

Lauren: Well it's not and I'm also about to - 

Matt: Regardless of how Lauren just rattled off that promotion. 

Lauren: Okay. Look, I was there yesterday. I didn't buy anything but, it's fine. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: But they are able to do that because they're basically just recouping their losses. If you go through that and you look at all the books that are actually included in that sale -

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: Most of them are books that have been out for a while and or the paperback has recently come out. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So it's their way of kind of just clearing their stock and then saying, instead of losing -

Matt: It's a last ditch effort -

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Before those books get returned to either be recycled or put in a clearance. 

Lauren: Exactly. 

Matt: Yeah, no, that makes total sense. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And I agree, I don't think we're not trying to discourage people from doing discounts or sales. However, I would - from a personal standpoint and a business standpoint, to a degree - I don't think you ever want to put yourself in a situation where that's the only way you're selling books is by discounting. If you get in that habit and people come to expect that from you, then that's the only time they're going to purchase, is when you're offering a discount. And you never want to be in that race to the bottom, meaning you never want to be trading on price or competing on price or, or incentivizing on price solely, so. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: But yeah, an occasional discount to get people onboarded or if you yourself have some back stock or dead stock that you're sitting on and you just want to move it, absolutely discount it or use it as a way like we're going to talk about as, as a true incentive to solidify somebody potentially from a browser to a buyer and then to a super fan.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. But don't have that be your only strategy is discounting, and even bundling sometimes. That can't be your only strategy because that's going to be the expectation going forward. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: We don't want that. 

Lauren: Right 

Matt: What you were talking about with Barnes & Noble, in all reality Amazon didn't make a dime off books for like the first ten years. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: It's a loss leader. It's what they call a loss leader. They put it out there. They'll either break even or lose money on it. But the goal is to sell something else to you. Same with Barnes & Noble, if they offer their dead stock at a highly reduced rate, the hope is that not only do they clear some of that out, but that you'll put other things in your cart. Or if you're there in store, that you'll pick up one or two other things full price, because what brought you in was that massive discount. It was the same for Amazon. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Let's get everybody to Amazon with books and then we'll sell them toasters and like flip flops and like, keychains - 

Lauren: Yeah, remember when Amazon was an online book retailer? 

Matt: Yeah. But that was the whole, it was never meant to be an online book retailer. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: That's the only thing I'll ever agree to that Bezos was a genius about. They knew from the get go that they weren't gonna be a book company, they were going to be a customer data and logistics platform, and that's exactly what they are. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: They hold more customer data than anybody in the world, and they've now built up a massive global logistics chain, so.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: There you go, hats off. 

[8:27]

Lauren: All right, so instead of talking about why you should not be discounting, let's talk about some other ideas for what you can do instead. So I kind of like, split this up a little bit into book-specific related ideas. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And then reader or buyer behavior ideas. So let's talk about some book related ideas first. 

Matt: Let's do. 

Lauren: I don't think any of these are gonna be new to anybody. I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but. 

Matt: Let's not assume too much though. 

Lauren: That's true. Let's talk through them anyway. First and foremost. Exclusive content. Offer people exclusive content. Whether it is a motivator to have them buy directly from you, so only on your website can they get this exclusive edition that has an extra bonus chapter in the back of it. There's something they can only get if they're buying it from your website. 

Matt: Which, by the way, is really easy to do if you're self-publishing and using print-on-demand, especially, right? Because now you're just creating an alternate interior file. One is used specifically for people who are coming to your site and buying directly from you. So that is the interior file for the print copy that's used there because it'll have that extra bonus content in it. The other interior file that doesn't have the bonus content can be the one that you put into distribution or sell in other places. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So, very easy to do. 

Lauren: Yeah. And we see people do that all the time with different editions for different places, and also different editions for like, different price points. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: There's a journal creator who creates… or I guess planner, because they're dated. She creates new planners with us every year and she always sells them in full color versions and black and white versions. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Because the black and white versions, it's a little bit of a cheaper price point because you're not printing in full color. And it's super easy for her to do that because she just uploads like three or four different interior file versions. 

Matt: Yeah, but some people want that color version as well. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: She sells quite a bit of them. 

Lauren: Yeah, her journals are great. So this is something that's definitely, I think, viable for both fiction and nonfiction authors. For sure if you're writing fiction it's easy: bonus scenes, deleted scenes. I mean, even things like playlists. I have books that the authors have put in the back of it, these are the 25 songs that I was listening to on repeat when I was creating this. Here's a list of them and here's a QR code to go to my Spotify and share the playlist for yourself. 

Matt: I mean, that's fair. I hadn't thought of that, but there's probably a few authors I read where I'd love to know what they're listening to. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt: Okay. Yeah, that's cool. 

Lauren: Yeah. So that can be really fun. And then nonfiction, obviously things like exclusive educational material. If it ties in with your book, sometimes maybe even like a list of supplemental book recommendations. Depending on what, what your topic is. If you want to say something like hey, if you want to dive deeper into this… I mean even - there's an author that I really like who is a sports… so she writes baseball romances. 
Matt: Oh my god. 

Lauren: But she's actually like really interested in baseball in general. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: And she'll recommend a lot of, if you liked this and you want to get into more of actual baseball, like here are a bunch of nonfiction books about baseball that I really like. 

Matt: For nonfiction, also what I think is really cool is we see a lot of people, they will… if you buy direct from them, you will get a supplemental sort of little workbook or notebook. Along the lines of putting it in the back of the book, you could also just make it completely separate. And so if you come and buy… whatever, Epic Content Marketing from Brian Piper, maybe he could also offer if you buy directly from him a little workbook that goes along with it that's based on the book itself, or a journal, or a notebook, or a planner, or something like that. Just creating wholly separate content, which can also be extremely easy when you're talking about something like a notebook or a workbook, is also a great idea. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. And you also don't have to put this in the physical copy of your book if you don't want to. Let's say you wanted to put a sneak peek at the first chapter of your next book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Put it on BookFunnel and put a link to it in your confirmation email for orders placed on your website.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Tell people like, thanks for purchasing my new book, and as promised, here is the first chapter of the next book. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lauren: Right here in the email. And then you can change that out without having to like, republish a new edition of the book and all of this stuff that goes along with that.

Matt: Yeah, that's a good idea. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. 

Matt: And also pretty easy to do. 

Lauren: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Especially when you're using something like BookFunnel. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[12:35]

Lauren: Similarly, not just exclusive content, but exclusive or limited editions. 

Matt: Yep. So this is something we talk about a lot. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: But again.

Lauren: But we love them. 

Matt: It's probably one of the best examples of how to actually use it and why. 

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A new edition with a new cover. It's amazing how much that little - I see it all - literally this morning when I was getting ready I saw a TikTok of somebody using a popular TikTok sound and they were putting a new book on their shelf and then they like zoomed out of the shelf and the entire shelf was just different editions of that same book. 

Matt: So I like that you're getting ready for work in the morning and watching Tik Tok at the same time. 

Lauren: I need to like, ease myself into the day, okay?

Matt: All right. Let's move on. 

Lauren: Okay. Anyway, exclusive editions.

Matt: Special limited editions, yes.

Lauren: For sure. Cannot recommend it enough. An edition with a new cover. We've talked about the idea of if you've only published ebooks, maybe a paperback. If you've published ebook and paperback, maybe a hardcover. 

Again, cannot reiterate how much people will do - my best friend and I reached out to an author that was going to be at a bookstore - like, a book signing - in Maryland. Neither one of us live in Maryland because they said they were going to have print editions of ebook exclusive books at that event. 

Matt: That's smart. Very, very smart.

Lauren: And we reached out to the bookstore first and the bookstore was like, no, sorry, like the author is selling them directly, we can't help you with that. So then my best friend reached out to the author and was like, hey, I would like to order two print copies each of whatever books you're going to have there. Is that something you're willing to do with me? We are willing to go the extra mile to get print copies of books that we love as readers. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: We the royal we. 

Matt: I mean, we talk about that all the time. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And there's so many authors that, and I get it. It's not always snap of the fingers and you turn ebook into print. 

Lauren: Right 

Matt: But it's also not rocket science. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And I think so many of them are leaving money on the table, and new readers and fans on the table, because they're not utilizing that. 

Lauren: Absolutely. Whatever creative way you can think of, even something as simple as like, using your existing cover, your existing book, whatever, but maybe creating an embellished edition of it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Something, experimenting with like foil on the cover, or maybe custom end papers, something like that, maybe just creating like a scarcity kind of rush. Like I'm trying something new with doing embossed covers and it's a really cool fun thing, but I'm only getting 50 of them printed. So if you want one you have to get one of the 50. 

Matt: Right. Yeah, no that stuff is great. And obviously that means you need to work with your printer or publisher to understand what your capabilities are. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Through Lulu, you can do some of those things for sure on a print-on-demand nature, which is great. And then we also work with some authors on some more sort of customized options that are not handled through the system per se. 

Lauren: Which is something that I would always encourage people, no matter who your publisher is: ask. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You know, find out. There's nothing stopping you from reaching out and just checking like, hey, is this something that I'm able to do - 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: - with this publisher? Worst case scenario, they say no, but now they know that there's interest in that. 

Matt: Yeah, and I don't think people realize how much you can do with print-on-demand these days, too. There's a lot of cool stuff. I know we'll be releasing a lot of cool print-on-demand stuff before the end of the year, and talking about it at Author Nation, some other places, so.

Lauren: Yeah, I'm excited. 

Matt: Me too. 

[15:49]

Lauren: Okay, Matt actually brought up book bundles a little bit already. So we don't have to talk too much about them. I think that's like a really kind of an obvious one. 

Matt: Yeah, I think that especially as we get closer to the holidays, again, I don't know when people are listening to this episode, but the holidays is a great time to also experiment with bundles. Because again, people are primarily shopping for gifts, not for themselves, and so bundles make a great gift. 

Especially if you're somebody like Lauren and you want to get a friend of yours into a particular author, sometimes the best way to start is with one of their trilogies or something, and if that's readily available in a bundle, that's great. Whether it's a print bundle or combination of print and ebook bundle, right? So they get the digital download immediately and the print shows up later, whatever that might be. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Bundles are awesome. And then bundling is a great way to experiment, like we said at the onset, with some discounting and different types of incentives as well. 

Lauren: Yeah. And they are popular. You know, I think sometimes people think about that and they're like, oh, why would I, why would anybody care about buying like their three ebook bundle instead of just buying the three ebooks individually?

Matt: Well, I wouldn't buy three ebooks at all.

Lauren: Well, I know you wouldn't. But it's still, I think it's just something -

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: - that like, people do use them. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Even just to have all of the books together at once instead of just being like, oh, I didn't kind of realize that this was a trilogy and I…

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Bought the first one and now I don't have the other two and that's annoying.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, no, I've done that before too. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Again, obviously with print, but. With a print bundle do you like a box set that comes in a sleeve or do you - like I toss the sleeve out. 

Lauren: Absolutely not. I throw the sleeve out so fast - 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Like it's - it just seems like such a waste to me. 

Matt: Yeah, we had a lot of people asking us to do sleeves. 

Lauren: I don't understand it. 

Matt: At first I was like, yeah that's a great idea, we should do that, and then as I looked into what it takes to produce those versus how many people actually like them or would care? I was just like… nobody really, I don't know. We'll probably still offer it at some point, but I don't, I don't, I tossed the sleeves. 

Lauren: If you are an author that specifically wants a cardboard or whatever sleeve for your book bundles, please explain to me why. Because maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. 

Matt: Well I think it's just a matter of personal preference. 

Lauren: But I'm just really curious. Like, I'd love to know what is appealing about that. Because just like for me, the way that I display my books, it doesn't, it's pointless. 

Matt: Yeah, but you're also not the norm. One day we'll have to show - 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Now that we have video, people - we’ll put up there on the screen what your bookshelves look like. 

Lauren: I'll do a video tour of my loft? 

Matt: Oh my god. Maybe not. What I will say though is the one thing I do like about a sleeve is if you are at an event and you are selling your books, it's a great way, it looks good on your table - 

Lauren: That’s true. 

Matt: As an author, to have the books in the sleeve. But I still think that after that, people just go home and toss it. And then some people will keep it. 

Lauren: Well, and they are actually, as you say that, they are a nice way to protect the books until you get them home.

Matt: That's fair too. Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: So if you're, I mean, in that case - which does not answer the question of people having them shipped directly to them.

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: But if you're buying them at an event or a bookstore or something that is a fair point. 

Matt: Yeah I guess I'm just more coming from, does the cost justify the end result? As an author, if I've got to pay X amount extra to have my trilogy or whatever in a cardboard sleeve, in a nice looking sleeve, knowing that X percentage of people are probably gonna throw it away then I don't know if it's worth it - 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: - for me or not.

Lauren: Uh, yeah, no. 

Matt: But I don't know. 

Lauren: I don't disagree. But one thing that you can do if you want to bundle your books together instead of putting them in a box set like that is publish an anthology edition. 

Matt: I like that much better. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I don't read a lot of comic books, but I do love Batman and like a few others. And what I love is that they'll take twenty of the actual comics and put them together in an anthology instead of an actual bundle or something like that. And I wait for that to happen, and then I buy it. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I won't buy the singles for three or four dollars each. And then like, I'll wait till they get about twenty of them bundled into, you know, compilation or anthology, and then I buy that.

Lauren: Yeah, for sure.

Matt: It's more expensive, but it also looks better. And again, I have them all in one place. 

Lauren: Well, and even something like, if it's not comic books, I was thirteen, I think, when - twelve or thirteen - when the Fellowship of the Ring came out and I loved it. My mom was a huge Lord of the Rings fan. So we went to see it opening weekend and I loved it, and I was deeply upset by the ending of it. 

And my mom was like, you know, you don't have to wait until the next movie comes out. But the movie came out in December, so that year for Christmas, I got a complete set of the three Lord of the Rings books, except it was all one big omnibus edition. So you can buy the three individual books, or you can buy them as one big set. And yes, is it the size of a brick? Absolutely. 

Matt: I mean, there is no better way to tell somebody, like, you are an introverted Dungeons and Dragons basement-dwelling bracelet-creating Taylor Swift emo elder fan of - then to have this brick of an anthology sitting on your desk. 

Lauren: That's true. But I was also - I was also a child of much depth and layers. So I carried it around school for a month in the new designer handbag that I'd also gotten to Christmas.

Matt: I wish we had that right now since we have video. Please that would be such a great image to show people.

Lauren: I actually do still have both of those things. I still have the bag and - well, I think my sister has the book but either way the book still is definitely still in our family's possession. 

Matt: That's actually really great. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And I was just kidding, by the way. 

Lauren: No, I know. 

Matt: All of those people that, that fit what I just threw out there are probably doing some of the best things in life right now. 

Lauren: We all contain multitudes, it's all right. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Anyway, if you're… if you’re like, I'm not a serial fiction writer, I'm not publishing a bunch of books, you can still publish like a collected works edition. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You can put together a few unrelated books. Maybe you've got three books that are three different genres and you want to give people like, a sampler of your work kind of thing, you know? Or maybe you've got, you've got a lot of different books that are different genres. And you say, I want to do like the best of my romance collection and the best of my horror collection and the best of my cozy mystery collection and do three books of each. There are ways to do it. 

Matt: Yeah. I think you're reaching a little bit. 

Lauren: Alright. 

Matt: But I think the real point here is that there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to creating, whether it's a bundle or an anthology or again, just some other way to draw either new users, buyers, and fans over to you, or satisfy some of the urges of your existing fans for more content or differently packaged content that maybe they've already consumed. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But wWould still love to have their hands on. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

[22:17]

Lauren: Kind of the last idea for book-specific incentives is going to be personalized editions of books, which: disclaimer at the top, is hard to do if you're using the print-on-demand direct sales model. Because the whole point of that is that you don't have to deal with order fulfillment, you're having books dropshipped directly to your customers, which obviously means that you're never going to be able to get your hands on them to sign them, so... 

Matt: So, yeah, I mean, again, autographed copies, that's always hard, right?

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: To automate to a degree. There are other forms of personalization -

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: - that can be done with print on demand, especially if you've become pretty adept or savvy at print on demand and file manipulation and things like that. Even more so if you use our print API versus just the standard sort of Shopify plugins or whatever that might be. With using the print API, you can fully control, customize, and personalize books to include the first name of the buyer in the actual book, or a dedication page that's different for every purchase.

You can do really cool things in terms of customization and personalization if you're using a direct API with us, versus just the standard direct plugins. But there's still cool ways around the whole like - hand signed I mean, there's other cool stuff you could do. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Absolutely. So that is something then that if you want to - if you're like, I'd like to do this personalized idea. I'd like, I think that's a nice incentive to be able to like, add a personal touch to books - 

Matt: We had an author a few years ago. I can't remember who it was. I wish I could because I love to give them a shout out. But what they did was for the holidays, they did update their interior file to have this title page, or this page in the front, that basically said something to the extent of: this book was purchased for and there was a line there to write the person's name in. And it was just a note from the author that said, I hope you enjoy this gift from so and so. And there was another line to write who the gift was from. 

Lauren: Oh, cute.

Matt: Right. So it's kind of like a gift tag, but also personalized. So it was: I hope you enjoy this gift from so-and-so and I truly hope you enjoy the story, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it went on. It was just a really cool way to customize - to a degree - that book for a holiday purchase, so that if somebody bought it for somebody else, they could fill in those two lines, it felt more personalized. After the holidays, they just put up the original interior file and right back to business as normal. 

Lauren: I love that. 

Matt: But it was a really cool idea. I wish I could remember who did that, but it looked really cool and I think it went over well. They sold a pretty decent amount of copies.

Lauren: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Honestly, yeah. So that is something that you can do. That's also something that you can do maybe independently of your book if you wanna figure out how to personalize these. Whether it's like the book will be shipped out from my publisher and then you had greeting cards printed that you were able to write out directly.

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: If you’re selling direct you have all the addresses of the people that purchased from you. So you can then - what? 

Matt: No, no -

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I was going to say, yeah, that's one of the biggest benefits. 

Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah. So then you can go ahead and say like, or even, you know what? Even if you wanted to do that without it being holiday-related purchases, at the end of the year, you said, I'm going to mail a thank you for supporting a small business this year. Have a great 2025 card to everyone that bought from me this year. I would be so I'd be like, oh my god, that's so sweet.

Matt: There are so many missed opportunities that selling direct actually solves for people. And when you start, this is a whole nother topic - 

Lauren: I know.

Matt: You're going to get me fired up and I haven't even eaten lunch yet. Like that's the key to selling direct. That's why everybody should do it is you have that customer data. And so then just like Lauren was alluding to, take that customer data and do something special with it, which is going to solidify a buyer into a super fan. So just like you said, for that twelve month period.

Get that list of everybody who bought one of your books. You'll already have their mailing or shipping address. Have some cards printed up at Vistaprint. It's super cheap. That again says, thank you so much for supporting me this year. It means a lot, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Looking forward to an amazing 2025 and be on the lookout for this… You know what I mean? Like, and give yourself a little plug. 

Lauren: Yeah, that’s a remarketing opportunity at the same time. 

Matt: If somebody like Lauren got a card like that in the mail from one of her authors that she buys books from, I can just see you running around your loft right now, shaking your cat, screaming, dancing to Taylor Swift. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: Like it's a cool thing, all kidding aside, but there's no better way to deliver that wow experience and really again, take somebody from a standard buyer to a super fan. And it doesn't matter. Like, if you're a bookseller and writer or a musician or anybody else. If you've got fans, if you've got customers who have bought things from you, you need to acknowledge that is now a relationship that you can continue to foster because you have that data. If you sell through any other platform, you don't have that data. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And if you're selling through a third party retailer, not only they take in most of your money, again, they're taking that data. So there's no way for you to continue that relationship. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Okay. I'm off the soap box. 

Lauren: No, it's okay. But it does, it absolutely makes sense to me. And if you're listening to that and you're going, okay, like how do I turn that into an incentive for people to buy from me because I'm sending them surprise cards. They don't know that's coming. If you are - I’m telling you right now, if an author that my best friend and I both loved was saying on Instagram or something, like if you buy a print book from me this holiday season, I will include a card or a note or some kind of personalized shout out in it. I would buy it for myself. I would also buy it as a gift - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - for my best friend. I'd be like, absolutely. Like, I'm not going to tell her that it's coming. And then all of a sudden she's going to get a book or a card in the mail. I would do that. Absolutely. So it is an incentive.

Matt: And you don't even have to be specific. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You can just say by buying directly from me, not only are you supporting an author that you enjoy, but you're helping me maintain the lifestyle of an author so that I can continue to create great content. And on top of that, as a thank you, I do from time to time do fun special things that only my direct buyers will get access to. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And so you're setting them up to say, you know, something like on Valentine's Day, maybe they get a card from you. This is - Happy Valentine's Day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

Lauren: I was actually just going to say The Lost Bros do this all the time. Like they did it Valentine's Day this past year. They did any purchase made on Valentine's Day, we will stick a Valentine in your order when it gets sent out to you. And I still have it hanging on the cork board in my room. 

And it's literally just one of those cheesy Valentine cards that are like 25 cents each that they stuck a Post-It note on top of. And what I'd ordered from them was one of their mystery imperfect tees. And the note on the card said, these tees might not be perfect but you are. And I was like, this is adorable. This is delightful. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And I, and they do it all the time where they'll be like, hey, like today only free koozies in every order or today only, you know, we'll ship out stickers to anyone that places an order today. Even if your order doesn't come for a while. 

Matt: Man, I tell you what, if they hit you with messaging that said free koozies, I know you bought a bunch of stuff.

Lauren: I have two now. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: You know I did. 

Matt: Let's move on. 

Lauren: All right. One last thing for personalized editions before we do move on. If that is something that you really want to try, doing a signed edition of your book. If you're already working with a local indie bookstore, or if there is one that you've been looking for an opportunity to try to have them carry your book, check with them and see if they do online or phone order fulfillment. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Because that's definitely something that we used to do at the store that I worked at. Authors that lived locally, whether they were self-published or traditionally published, would come in and say, hey, can I send people to your store to like, order signed personalized copies and I'll come in once a week or whenever there's a new order or at whatever frequency you want, sign them, personalize them, and then you guys can handle shipping them out?

Matt: Yeah, that's a good idea. 

Lauren: So, if it's something that you really want to do, try that. 

[29:57]

Lauren: Okay. So those are all ideas for using your books specifically to incentivize people, but there are other ways that you can incentivize people as well. I cannot stop looking at this camera. It is just quite simply unavoidable. I'm going to start wearing sunglasses instead of my reading glasses. 

Matt: No, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. 

Lauren: Okay fine. 

Matt: I think you'll get used to it after a while. 

Lauren: I think so too.

Matt: We should put like, a mask over the camera and just cut out a hole for the camera. But the mask could be something you don't want to look at, like a really scary character or something.

Lauren: Pennywise. 

Matt: You don't want to look at Pennywise the whole time you're recording? 

Lauren: No, I'm actually terrified of clowns... okay that's a mistake. 

Matt: That's so awesome. Yeah, you did just mess up with that one. 

Lauren Oh no. Okay. It's fine. Anyway, some ideas for how to use something. 

Matt: You'll float too. 

Lauren: Okay. I actually do love It. Like, as much as I don't like Pennywise, I love… it’s one of the only Stephen King books I’ve read, and I loved both versions of the movies or the mini series and the movies. 

Matt: How could that be one of the only Stephen King books you've read? 

Lauren: I - 

Matt: You're infected with the romance bug.

Lauren: I know. I know. 

Matt: Oh, my gosh. 

Lauren: Sorry. Incidentally, the same person that got me to read It and see the movies is also the best friend that reads all the same romance novels as me. She's kind of the hybrid of the two of us. 

Matt: We should move on. 

Lauren: Okay. We already talked about bundles, but I want to talk about a different type of bundle. And that is the idea of not just bundling your books together, but bundling different types of products together. So whether that is something like bundling a paperback copy of your book and a calendar. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Or a paperback copy of your book and a coil bound reading log, or something like you buy a print copy of my book and you'll get access to my online course for free - or not, not for free, but - 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: We're bundling together the price of the course and the price of the book. 

Matt: Right. Yeah. 

Lauren: If there's something that you can think of that isn't necessarily eating into your profit margin, maybe, maybe you aren't already offering a free consultations - not free, free air quotes - Matt: Right.  

Lauren: - consultations, but that's an incentive to say, hey, if you order… Or it doesn't have to be like a single copy of your book, if you order $50 worth of books from my bookstore I will meet with you for a one hour free consultation. 

Matt: Well, so I've seen this happen before and I think it's a great idea, and you could do this with fiction too. But in the world of nonfiction what we've seen happen from some very creative people is that what they'll do is they'll offer a bundle of the same book, right? But they'll market it to businesses or organizations. 

And so it'll be like, let's say a bundle of fifty books. But if the organization or business buys that fifty book bundle, again, all the same books, but assuming they're buying it for their staff or their employees or whatever, that bundle brings with it a thirty minute video call with the author to talk about the book after the staff or team has read it or something like that. 

Lauren: That's awesome. 

Matt: That's - yeah. So now you've encouraged somebody to buy fifty copies of your book. And you just have to give them thirty minutes of your time afterwards. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And why wouldn't you want to, to talk to fifty people who just read your book that could turn into even more, you know, on the nonfiction side consulting or other types of revenue that comes in. Or more book sales for that matter, if you have other books. On the fiction side, if you marketed like, hey, a book club bundle, twenty copies of this book. And if your book club buys this twenty unit bundle, I'll do a twenty or thirty minute book club call with you at some point where we discuss the book. You know what I mean? 

Lauren: I love that idea. That's such a great idea. 

Matt: Dude, I don't, I don't know why more people don't do that. Cause if yeah, whatever, there you go. 

Lauren: Yeah. You could even like - 

Matt: I'm trying not to get fired up a little bit. 

Lauren: No I - 

Matt: I don't want to extend this episode. 

Lauren: I know it's already, it's already running long, but it's okay. But again, great idea. You can create tiers of that if you wanted to, too even where you say like… okay, book club idea. Okay. Buy ten copies of this and I will include a personalized letter to the book club talking about the book, and then maybe like, book club question guide for like, topics to talk about. 25 copies and I will Zoom into whatever the meeting is to talk to you guys live and in person while you're doing it. 

Matt: Yeah, that's - again. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And you're really just playing off the whole mastermind group concept -

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: - or some of those other things, but it's a great way to incentivize somebody to buy your fifty book bundle or your twenty book bundle or whatever that might be. And again, it's 20 - 30 minutes of your time, whatever, whatever you end up offering. And I mean, honestly, if I was a creator and author and somebody bought fifty of my books for their group organization and then wanted to talk about it with me afterwards, I'd be overjoyed. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And I just got paid to do it, so. 

Lauren: Absolutely. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Win-win at that point. 

Matt: Yep. 

[34:29]

Lauren: Segueing that right into kind of the next incentive: reader engagement communities. I think that's a great way  - I mean, maybe we should do an episode on specifically the idea of creating a community. Maybe we shouldn't. I don't know. 

Matt: Is this just a really more modern and nice way to say book club?

Lauren: Well. 

Matt: Reader engagement community? 

Lauren: Well, no, because I don't think that I don't think that it's necessarily a book club, because it also depends on whether we're talking about fiction or nonfiction authors. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But the idea of having like, a Circle community, or a Discord server, or a Facebook group or somewhere where your readers, customers, fans, whatever they are, can come to talk about your brand, your books. If you're writing nonfiction and you have people that have worked with you in the past and are saying like, oh, I went through this online course with this author and learned this, this, this, and this, but I'm like continuing on with my journey and other things and I want other people that I can talk to about it. That's a good opportunity to have people in these communities. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So something like that. Which I would say I would consider the idea of doing a matter of what, could be fun. And if you want ways to use this as an incentive for people, create tiers within that community. Have a free version that's open to anybody that wants to come join and then a gated version that a book purchase gets you access to. 

Matt: Yeah. And again, just a bit of caution for anybody that's worked with actual communities or community platforms or - which Lauren and I have, and lots of other creators out there can attest to this - it's hard to build a community. Like a Discord server, any of those places where you're wanting people to come and discuss things, whatever that might be. It can be hard to get one of those going. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: And then, equally as hard to maintain it, right? Keep it up and running and keep people engaged in there, having conversations and adding value to the others that are in there. This can be a great way to help boost a community you're already trying to get running. Or it is oftentimes a good reason to create a community, but go into it with the understanding that it's complicated and can be a little bit cumbersome to do an actual community versus some of the other things we were just talking about.

It's not to dissuade people, it’s to set the proper expectations. Most of the communities that I've been in that were actually decent communities, or places where I would go back to, or where I found there was some really good conversations going on, oftentimes books were at the epicenter of those communities. And then sort of ancillary things would come from that and conversations. But Mark Schaeffer had a Discord group - he may or may not still have it - for a long time. I would be in there and there was a lot of great conversations happening. A lot of that was around a lot of the different books that Mark Schaeffer had published. He writes marketing books, but that was a great example. But I also know that that community was a lot of work for Mark. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And he ended up having to have other people help him run it. But nonetheless, there were a lot of great conversations that were happening in there, most of which came on the heels of some of the books that he had written. It was also a great place for him to go when he was writing a new book and he had this audience now of potential beta readers and a place for feedback and he could use that as a sounding board. So community can be a great thing, but just know going into it that it can be a little rough going in the beginning.

Lauren: Yeah, that's fair. And maybe this is something that's an easier incentive for people that already have communities. 

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: This is something… one of my favorite podcasts, they have a Facebook group that I don't even know how much engagement the hosts themselves have anymore in it. Like I think it's now pretty much the exclusively fan run, even though they did start it. And they also have a Patreon tier that is an additional - instead of a once a week. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It's now twice a week if you're in the paid… For them, it works really well because they're able to, they're able to pull from that paid content when they take breaks. And they're like, hey, you know, we're taking a couple of weeks off the main feed episode this week. And the next couple of weeks -

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Are going to be episodes that were previously behind the paywall. 

Matt: And not available to the people who were not subscribed. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: In theory, yeah.

Lauren: And then just kind of giving them a taste of that - 

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: - and saying, hey, you know, there's more content like this. If you go over and subscribe the like, eight whole dollars a month that it is to be a Patreon subscriber. If that's something that you already have, kind of the opportunity in place, access to your existing community or access to some kind of gated community could be a great way to get people to purchase copies of your book.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. 

[38:57]

Lauren: Another one that's… this is again something that is going to cut into your profit margins a little bit, but you can control how much it does one way or another. But the idea of charitable contributions and donations. I think that in a world where people are a lot more conscientious about who they're buying from, and like, what kind of companies they support and leaning into this whole idea of being transparent with your customers about them buying directly from you, supporting a small business, supporting a content entrepreneur instead of a big box store. This is right in line with that. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. What would be an example of how you would sort of execute that?

Lauren: Well, I think if you said like for the month of June, every book that I sell this month, I'm going to donate a portion of the profits -

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: - to the Human Rights Campaign. 

Matt: I got you. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's - that's the easiest and most straightforward way to do it. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: That makes sense.

Lauren: Which is actually something that you can do when you're selling through the Lulu Bookstore. You can set that up. We have a lot of… a lot of our calendar creators, which are coming up this time of year, that have specifically pet influencers. Insane thing for me to be saying right now: there are pet influencers that have massive Instagram followings that create print calendars with us every year, and they're very popular. And a lot of them, the proceeds from those calendars go to animal shelters - 

Matt: Yeah. ASPCA and stuff like that. 

Lauren: - or like animal rehab organizations. 

Matt: Yes. Nonprofits basically. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: But there's a lot of nonprofits themselves that do calendars this time of the year 

Lauren: That too. 

Matt: That's a good point. That's the easiest thing for a nonprofit to create is a calendar, because you just need a bunch of photos, but it's a great way to drive awareness back to what they're doing and what they're trying to earn money for. So yeah, that's a good point. 

Back to an author though, using that as an incentive for people to buy from them. I like the idea that whether it's breast cancer awareness month or something like that, that whatever percentage of the proceeds will go towards this. I think there's a lot of flexibility there too. 

But you can also talk about again, for example, if you use Lulu, we are B Corp. We go through a lot of effort every year to make sure we get recertified as a B Corp, which means there's a lot of work that's done around sustainability, community, social and economic awareness, making sure our print facilities are using the best materials, recycling habits, dyes and inks are up to code with things that are being more sustainable for the environment and leaving less of a big footprint out there. So being able to tout that your books are printed or produced by a B Corp company, I think in a lot of circles also carries some weight. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: To those same lines of working with a charitable organization or things that are good for the environment, the community and so on. 

Lauren: It's that transparency of encourage people to shop conscientiously. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: Whether it's shop conscientiously because the proceeds are - and a portion of the proceeds, I'm not saying your entire revenue from every book sale has to be donated - but, they’re supporting a good cause, or choose the environmentally friendly option of print-on-demand or a B Corp - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: As opposed to books that are going to get pulped. 

Matt: It's like volunteering with your wallet. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: You know what I mean? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Like, not everybody has the time to go and volunteer somewhere to an animal shelter or whatever that might be, but being able to spend money when and where it will help make a difference in some of these… whatever areas where you have concern or you're a strong proponent of -

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I think is another way that you could do that, yeah. 

Lauren: If there's something that ties in with your book specifically - there's at least one cookbook that I can think of that was a community cookbook that was, I think everyone in the neighborhood had contributed a recipe to it. So instead of dividing the proceeds from the book by a hundred people or whatever, all the profits from the book went to supporting a local food shelter.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Something like that, like, that was a really great way to do it. Another thing that you can do, another way to build that relationship with your fans is to ask them.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Is there an organization, especially if there's something - I've seen creators do this before, where they'll say like there is one product in their store that every month all proceeds from that product are going to a different charitable organization and it's up to their fans every month to nominate and then vote on which organization that's going to be. 

Matt: Yeah, that's a cool idea too. 

Lauren: Then people get excited about it, then they become passionate about it. It's something that it gives you an opportunity to talk to your fans. It gives you an opportunity to build some relationships with them. And you know, if I voted for something where I said, like, I think all proceeds from this should go towards supporting this organization, I definitely would then feel like, well, I guess I should go buy the thing, right? Like… 

Matt: Yeah. I mean. That's a huge motivator for getting people to spend money with you is making them feel good in the process. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: You know? Like, if you're going to go buy $75 worth of books from your favorite author, it's an added benefit that you walk away from that transaction feeling good because not only are you now getting a bunch of books that you wanted and supporting any author, but you were also feeling good because some of that money is going to go support whatever effort that you might feel strongly about as well. 

Lauren: That's the whole premise behind Bookshop.org. 

Matt: Yes. Yes. 100%.

Lauren: Which, I love. If you ever need an online retailer and there isn't a specific one that you want to go to for books - Bookshop.org. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Love them, support them. 

Matt: Also not a sponsor, but - 

Lauren: But if they want to sponsor us they can. 

Matt: It's a good organization. 

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. 

[44:15]

Lauren: One last idea for incentives: contests and giveaways. Setting something up where you're running a contest or a giveaway that can only be entered if somebody purchases something from your store. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And it can be, you know, there's two ways that you can kind of approach that. You can approach it where you're offering something valuable that is still just lower than the total profits you're hoping to make. One person is going to get a complete print set of all of your books.

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: That'll cost you something. But there are also ways that you can do that where you can offer something that's valuable to your customers without costing you anything. 

Matt: Yeah. Well. 

Lauren: Like at least like a monetary cost. 

Matt: Time. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: So, time with you, as an author. 

Lauren: Yes, that's exactly - what I was thinking of was that author that you brought up ages ago that did the like, book a half hour with me. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And it was so popular that she had to stop doing it.

Matt: That's right. Yeah.

Lauren: I would absolutely - I would probably buy print copies of books I already own if I was entered into a giveaway -

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: - to have like a one hour coffee talk with said author.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. 

Matt: I mean, there's tons of stuff here. Well, even, you know, 30 0 an hour’s a long time.

Lauren: Actually an hour. As I was saying that I was like an hour sounds like a nightmare - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - and I would have to have a guest on the call with me because I couldn't do it alone. 

Matt: For sure. But yes, the point is still the same. There are things you could give away that would drive and incentivize people. And then on the back end of that, it's very easy to manage that because as the orders come in, you've already got a record of who is ordering - which, that also becomes your contest entries. 

At the end of the period that you specify, you just download the CSV file of everybody that ordered something. So now you have all the names of your entrants and you get one of those free automated raffle chooser apps online. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And there you go. You're done. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But you can't do that if you don't have that customer data. 

Lauren: That's right. 

Matt: Yeah. Okay. 

Lauren: Sounds like another great reason to sell direct. 

Matt: All roads lead to direct sales. 

Lauren: It’s true. All podcast episodes lead to direct sales. 

Matt: That too. Hey. 

[46:12]

Lauren: But I think we did cover some other good things in this episode too. 

Matt: Lots of great things. 

Lauren: We got that. And in theory, we recorded it all on video. 

Matt: Yeah, well, we'll see what the finished product looks like.

Lauren: It's going to take me a full month to edit this and figure out how to make it work and have something presentable for the people.

Matt: Yeah, better put a beta tag on it when we upload it to YouTube. 

Lauren: Just a content warning at the beginning that says this is our first time ever doing this. Please be kind. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Perfect. Well, I think that about sums it up. So if anyone has any fun ideas for incentives that they've found are super successful for them, leave us a comment on Lulu's social media, send us an email at podcast@lulu.com. We'd love to hear about them. 

Matt: You can comment on this episode on YouTube. 

Lauren: You can comment on this episode on YouTube, which for the record, they are all on YouTube, even if they don't - 

Matt: Yes, yeah. 

Lauren: Even the ones that don't have video, the audio is up on YouTube. 

Matt: No, we actually get some really good comments on there too. 

Lauren: We do, so shout out to anyone who's ever left us a comment on one of the podcast YouTube videos.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: For sure. But also there's Instagram, Lulu.com's Instagram. You'll usually find most of our episodes up there. You can again send us an email, give us a shout, let us know how much you missed us for the last month. I know it must have been really hard without us. 

Matt: It had to have been.

Lauren: I know.

Matt: Had to have been. Lots of tears were shed, I'm sure.

Lauren: I'm so sure. Mostly mine. 

Matt: Well, that's… that's not hard to believe.

Lauren: No, it's definitely not. 

Matt: Elder emo or swemo or whatever that is. 

Lauren: Both. 

Matt: Yep. Okay. 

Lauren: The answer is both. Don't worry about it because we will be back next week with a brand new episode and we'll see you then, so thanks for listening. 

Matt: Thank you