Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to episode 43 of Publish & Prosper. And great news, it is episode 43 of season none. I have fixed the issue where we had 42 episodes worth of season one. We will no longer be catfishing.

Matt: I greatly appreciate that, because even last night when I was looking for something to just put on the background, let me go check and see if there's a new Catfish episode, I got to get my Kamie fix. To this day it still drives me crazy when I go to that season, there's like 98 episodes and then the new season, there's like 10. And they've not pushed a new episode out since July, by the way. 

Lauren: I was editing this last episode last week and not that I didn't believe you, but you know, when I was listening back - 

Matt: You didn't believe me. 

Lauren: When I was listening back to the episode, I was like, huh…you know, I'm going to look this up now that we're not sitting in the studio anymore and yeah. Like the minute I looked it up, I was like, oh, this is horrible. 

Matt: It is. It's - I don't know what happened and nobody over there seems to care at MTV or wherever it was that whoever does Catfish. It's MTV, I think, yeah. 

Lauren: I think it is too. 

Matt: Oh my God. 

Lauren: But, yeah. That's rough. I’m really sorry. But rest assured, we are no longer doing that. I've gone through all of our previous episodes and edited them so that there is no season attached. 

Matt: Should we do a season? 

Lauren: No.

Matt: No? If anybody thinks differently and you think we should do seasons.

Lauren: I feel like seasons are only really relevant on podcasts that the like, topic changes. Like what's the one, there's a true crime one -

Matt: Serial.

Lauren: Yeah - No. Well, yes. 

Matt: Wicked. 

Lauren: Maybe? Kate Winkler Dawson. Is that the? 

Matt: I don't know. You just gave somebody a plug though. I get the point. 

Lauren: Like every season is a different true crime story. 

Matt: Right. Yeah. 

Lauren: So in that sense, it makes sense to me. I think that's who I'm thinking of. 

Matt: Why don't we change up our topic? 

Lauren: To what? You want to do a season on Disney?

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: You want to do a season on true crime? 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: What else? 

Matt: All of them. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: French fries. 

Lauren: All right. Oh, okay. Now we're talking. This podcast is going to turn into a video podcast of us just sampling french fries. 

Matt: Oh, my God, that'd be terrible. For them. Not us.

Lauren: For them. We would have a great time.

Matt: Absolutely. Lali might get jealous.

Lauren: I think we could have her on as a guest. 

Matt: Maybe. 

Lauren: I think that would be the thing that motivated her to get on this podcast.

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: We'll keep that in our back pocket. 

Lauren: All right. 

Matt: I already keep french fries in my back pocket anyways, but we'll keep that in our back pocket to get Lali on here. 

Lauren: Great. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: I do feel like we should probably dive right in, leave the french fries behind.

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: Come back to them later, because this is a topic that I think that Matt and I could both probably separately, let alone together, talk about for two hours straight. 

Matt: Easily.

Lauren: Easily. 

Matt: I mean, we just did it for almost an hour in my office before this. 

Lauren: We did. We genuinely sat and had a casual conversation about this episode topic as a pregame for the episode topic. 

Matt: Yeah. Okay. 

Lauren: Let's keep it going. 

Matt: Let's go. 

Lauren: All right. 

Matt: What are we talking about today? 

Lauren: We are talking about custom books. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the idea of creating special edition books, how they can be really great value add for you in terms of boosting your revenue. They can give new life to some of your backlist books. They make great gifts. We've talked about it in terms of this is a great way to convert casual fans to true fans, things like that. But we haven't really talked a whole lot about what we mean when we say special edition books. 

Matt: Yeah, that's fair. 

Lauren: We're gonna be talking about books that have like, enhanced physical features, things like sprayed edges, embellished covers, custom end papers, blah, blah, blah. But there are also other kinds of special edition books that aren't necessarily just adding these - 

Matt: I think you and I will differ - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - slightly on those. 

Lauren: Yes.  

Matt: But yes, I think a lot of what we'll be talking about is physical characteristics. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: And then there are some things that can't necessarily be quantified in just a bucket of physical characteristic or traits, I should say - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: and really straddle more of, well, we'll get into that. 

Lauren: We'll get - yeah. We got plenty to go through. It's all good. Anyone who's not watching this episode, this is going to be a video. All of our episodes now will be video episodes moving forward, available on YouTube. But if you are not watching this on YouTube, this is the first time around that we've brought props. 

Matt: It's the first time we're breaking the wall. Well - 

Lauren: On purpose. 

Matt: Yeah, you've broken the wall. 

Lauren: I've already done it like three times - 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: - in this episode alone, so. 

Matt: Going forward now that we're actually going to be potentially showing things as well. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You can break the wall you want.

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, we're gonna have to. The alternative is, like, I was rewatching the last episode as I was editing it, and I've always been aware of how much the Italian in me comes out when I gesticulate really heavily with my hands when I'm talking. But, oh, was it very humbling editing the last episode.

Matt: Man, I so badly wanted to call you out for that on that last one. I really wanted to mess with you about that. And I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna do that because you might be very self-conscious of it or unaware of it - either way wasn't going to make it as fun for me if I called you on it, so I didn’t.

Lauren: No, it's something that I've been aware of since I was ten years old and a teacher challenged me to sit on my hands while answering a question and I couldn't do it. 

Matt: Oh, god. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Yeah, so customized books.

Matt: Where do you want to jump in? 

[5:40] - Popularity

Lauren: I want to just start a little bit at the top and just kind of talk about why they're so popular right now. Because I think that we've seen - I mean, I know that we've seen, personally, a rise in these when we go to author events, when we're talking to authors and creators online. We've also… I think we're starting to see these more - or I don't know, maybe you tell me if you're noticing these as well - we're seeing more and more of these types of books featured in bookstores.

Matt: Oh, definitely, yeah. 

Lauren: I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago and we were in the airport bookstore, because unlike me, my sister waited until we were at the airport to try to decide what she was going to read on this vacation. And, and I was watching what she - 

Matt: I can only imagine how badly that bothered you. 

Lauren: Oh, it drove me crazy. Absolutely, absolutely insane. But I was paying attention to what she was picking up because I was curious to see what she was picking up. And almost every single book she picked up, including the one she eventually bought, had some kind of special customized detail. 

Matt: Honestly, I think that's really the only reason why you're seeing a lot of traditionally published books get those features. It's because they know that when you walk into a Barnes & Noble or an indie bookstore or wherever these books are being sold, those colors are going to draw your eye right to them. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So those sprayed edges that we're going to get into all this, but what's essentially happening is there's more colors that are drawing you in these bright colors and you're like, ooh, what is that? The edge of the book is a pretty color or there's writing or a design or there's foil, there's shiny things everywhere. What is that? Of course you're going to go right to it. It’s a sales tactic, I think, for trad pub. 

Lauren: Oh, it absolutely is. And this was something that as I was outlining this episode, I was kind of poking around on different forums and different social media platforms, looking for what people were saying about these kinds of things in particular. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And I found multiple threads of people talking about, like: I have once again been suckered by these beautifully designed books that I bought a pretty book that I hadn't really heard about, but because it was so well packaged, and the really cool sprayed edges, and the really cool details about it, I assumed they were putting a lot of marketing money behind it because it was like their next big book and it was really good and all these things. 

And it was so pretty that I bought it. And then it turned out that it was not a good book. All of these people like, agreeing with each other and being like, I even saw on TikTok ahead of time that this book wasn't very good, but it was so pretty that I bought it anyway. 

Matt: Yes, I think that's where we're gonna start to see as more and more of this happens, we'll start to see motivations and strategy, but behind why people are using these custom features, right? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I think for traditional publishing, because of the way they print and ship books and the processes they use - and the technology they use, by the way - oftentimes it's just easy for them to throw on a sprayed edge to encourage more sales. They're just after sales and revenue. Whereas I think what you find is in the indie publishing world with self-publishing, more often than not, it's not necessarily a sales tactic, but it's somebody saying, hey, I've put my heart and soul to this book. I also want it to look really cool. I want to create the best book that I can. And yeah, it might also net me a few dollars more, but I want to make this really great book for my super fans.

I think you're going to start to see more and more of a line of demarcation between why traditional publishing companies are doing these types of things and how they're doing them - cost efficiency, things like that - versus how a self published author or an indie published author, even a hybrid published author for that matter, might utilize some of these things. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's also - I don't want to ignore the collectability of these types of books too. 

Matt: Oh yeah, I just assumed we would get into that. Knowing - 

Lauren: I'm sure. 

Matt: Between us. Yeah, absolutely. 

Lauren: I’m sure we will. But just as we're talking about why they're so popular, I definitely wanted to include that in it too. Matt and I have both talked about how we will collect different editions of the same books because they're books that we love.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And there's something cool about having the same book in multiple different editions, especially when you're nerd like we are. But also things like I have a - I have a copy of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It's one of my favorite books. And I bought it the day it came out and it had it was actually I think it was the very first book that I ever bought that had sprayed edges. So the edges of the pages are solid black. And it turned out that I think it was only the first printing, not necessarily the first editions. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: Like the first print run that they did of these books - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - are the only ones that have the sprayed edges. And now years later, that book is incredibly popular. It was part of a TV series on Netflix. She's a very popular author. It's a little bit of a brag to be able to say to people like, oh yeah, I have the black sprayed edge edition of Six of Crows. 

Matt: Yeah. It’s like - 

Lauren: And like in the right community, that is actually like a big deal. 

Matt: Yeah. No, it's a total flex for sure. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And that's no different than any other industry or community. Again, whether it's music, books, pick anything, it doesn't matter. Every sort of industry, every sort of category of consumer packaged goods for the most part of things. I mean, there's always collectibles - 

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: - that stand out, and people that collect these things. Whether those quote unquote collectibles were done on purpose or not. There are some things where maybe they accidentally issued a thousand of this particular widget from this company, but when they attached it to the backing for the card or whatever it was that would be hanging in the store, it was upside down.

But they still got shipped to the store. They still went up on the shelf. And then 15 years later, if you had that particular, let's say action figure or whatever it was, and it had the card was on upside down, right. It's worth money now. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Like it's not always intentional, but nonetheless, there are always collectibles and collectors for everything and books are no different. And like you said, it's a flex to be able to say, oh, you like that part, that author? Yeah. I've got that first edition. Like check this out and you pull it off your bookshelf and you watch their eyes just get really big and - 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: They just became your new best friend and now they want to wash your car for you and all those other things. So yeah - I made all that up. I would never wash your car for you. But - 

Lauren: I - That's okay.

Matt: I'd love to see that book, but I won't wash your car. 

Lauren: I - I did think about bringing that book in.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, but it's okay. And that's even another thing that you just said there I have seen plenty of books - these kinds of embellishments that we're gonna talk about for these books - they do often because they are not part of the standard printing and production for books,, they do often find versions of them that have errors in them in some way. Where the embossing is slightly off or - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - or the foil didn't land correctly on the book - 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lauren: - or something like that. And sometimes those additions will still make it onto the shelves anyway. And if it's a book that I'm not, you know, if it's a book that I'm really excited for and I'm being a nerd about it, I will go through and pick the absolute best version of it on the shelf possible, because I want the best one. 

But if it's a book that I'm just buying because I think I want it, or I'm not a big fan of this author, sometimes I will go out of my way to buy one that's a little messed up like that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Because the print error is cool.

Matt: Yeah, and you never know, right? 

Lauren: Yeah, you never know. 

Matt: Ten, fifteen years from now, that one could actually be a much more highly coveted copy of that book. Just like anybody who is an actual book collector, right?

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: I've got a super old copy of Dante's Inferno, like super, super old. My grandmother found it for me at some weird vintage antique store in the middle of nowhere. And it's actually got the old school gold foiling around the edges of the pages and like just it's a very old version of it. I don't know how much it's worth right now, but the point is those types of things you never know when they're going to add value or what's going to happen to them, so.

[13:10] - Sprayed Edges

Matt: Let's jump in. 

Lauren: Alright. 

Matt: Let's start with sprayed edges. 

Lauren: Okay, cool. So if you don't know what sprayed edges are, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's dyeing or spraying or printing the edges of the book pages a specific color instead of leaving them whatever the print color of the paper is. It can be done on any type of book, so you can do it on paperback or hardcover, and there's kind of two different styles of doing it. The most basic one and probably the easiest to do is just like a single color. So it's just a solid color, but you can also see more and more lately that have stenciled edges. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So there is actually a design printed on it instead of a single cover. 

Matt: She's gonna grab an example for people to look at of sprayed edges, but sprayed edges, we need to make it clear. There's sprayed edges and there's printed edges. And some people get those mixed up. They are actually two different processes, two different ways that you actually achieve that. You can do sprayed edges, and you can get designs on sprayed edges by using a stencil or some other method. 

And then there's a newer form of technology that creates printed edges. You can do full color, you can do designs around the edges, you can do just one solid color if you wanted to. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So it looks like a sprayed edge, but it's actually printed. The net result though is what Lauren has in her hand, which is sometimes very subtle - 

Lauren: Yeah, I’m guessing - 

Matt: - like this particular book that she has - 

Lauren: I’m guessing this is a sprayed edge? 

Matt: That's a sprayed edge. 

Lauren: This is a sprayed - 

Matt: You can tell by kind of the roughness of the feel - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - and a few other things will give it away. 

Lauren: But it is where the whole like the whole edge is on the book. Sorry if you're not watching. You should be. But this is just a single solid color. It matches the color of the cover of the book. Looks really cute on a bookshelf, I’m just saying. 

Matt: And so this is what we were talking about earlier too. When you walk into a bookstore right now and you're seeing things like these stacked up on a table. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Like if you walk into any Barnes and Noble right now, you know they have those little round tables in the front always. And the first thing you’re going to start seeing now and already have been - 

Lauren: Oh, yeah 

Matt: - are stacks of these things. And they're so colorful. And everything pops and that's naturally where almost everybody like - just stand there and watch people come through the door for a few minutes. 

Lauren: Oh yeah. 

Matt: That's the first place they go. So just like your sister, right now, this is a good sales tactic for traditionally published books, because everybody's drawn to those colors. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And it makes them want to buy the book, and then either they're pleasantly surprised later when the book's actually good or unfortunately probably not so pleasantly surprised when the book's bad. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But either way, they've got a really cool book now for their shelf. 

Lauren: It is also, and I always the disclaimer that I recognize that I'm a nerd when it comes to things like this. But this book in particular - so if you're not watching, I'm holding up a copy of Heartstopper Volume 1, which is a very cute graphic novel. I already owned this book. I own this paperback edition of this book. This is the Waterstones exclusive edition that I bought when we went to London Book Fair two years ago. 

And the only thing that makes this different than the version that I already owned is the sprayed edges and the little bit of pink foil on the cover on the spine. Everything else is identical - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - to the edition that I already owned. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: As soon as I saw it. I was like, oh man, I need that. It's so cute.

Matt: I mean, it looks good. You can't really deny that.

Lauren: Yeah Yeah, it looks great and it looks cute on my shelf. I also bought this is the most money I've ever spent on a book. I was telling Matt that we were getting ready. But this is an example of a book that has stenciled edges. So you can see how the sprayed edges have a design on it. 

Matt: Which matches somewhat for the most part, the actual cover. 

Lauren: Yes, it does. And it's a great way to continue the design all the way around. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: This is obviously harder to do. A stenciled edge is harder to do. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Whether you're doing it traditionally, self-published, print-on-demand, offset - people do them by hand. You can go on Etsy - 

Matt: Yeah, it’s time-consuming.

Lauren: - right now and see people selling - which, I think there's also some debate about the legality of that, actually. 

Matt: If they're taking books that they didn't actually produce and if they're selling it, I think as a customization, like you're paying for them to - I think there's a loophole there. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But I don't know. I don't think we want to get into that. But - 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: - you're right. If you're trying to do that, you should be careful and figure out the legalities around that, whatever liability you might have, but it's still really cool. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: And it definitely feels and looks different than if that was printed. So there is a machine that will print color around and also design on them. And then there's a way right now where you can kind of cheat that to a degree. If you're doing print-on-demand and you're self published, you can actually send your interior file to somebody like Kingdom Covers or something like that. 

And what they'll do is they'll take your interior file and they'll add a little border around every single page, a little tiny border. And then what happens is the net result is once that book block is printed, you end up with a design on the edge. And so there's lots of different designs you could get done. You can also do full color, but ultimately - because the same amount of printing is basically done, whether or not you have this - it's a really low to no cost way to get a design around the edge of your book. 

And again, if you're working with a really good printer or print facility, somebody like Kingdom Covers or some other people who are doing this - which there's not many, by the way - you can kind of cheat that look that Lauren just showed where it's actually sprayed and has a stencil. We've seen some really good ones that are done with this method, but again, this is kind of a third and more low cost way to do the other two ways we just talked about, which are actual sprayed edges and actual printed edges with a machine that is made for printing just the edge of the book.

Lauren: Yeah, those are some things that are very cool. If you haven't seen them - I'd be surprised if you haven't seen them.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren:  If you haven't seen them at all, I wonder when the last time you went into a bookstore was, honestly, because they're very popular, but. A couple of different ways to do it. And we've seen some people do some really cool things with them. 

Matt: Yeah. One last thing about sprayed edges, printed edges. Some people are probably like, why would I do that? And we did talk a little bit earlier about creating this idea of maybe a special edition or adding features that might make your book a little more sellable or desirable or attractive to somebody who might not otherwise have walked over to look at it or whatever that might be. 

There's always different motivations or reasons why you might use some of these techniques or things we're talking about. The sprayed edges one again, this is purely aesthetic. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: This is just to make the book look cool. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And so some people might be like, well, I'm just not interested in that. It doesn't matter to me. And that's fine. But I think the one thing you should remember for this entire episode, and I've had this conversation with authors on so many occasions, you probably have too. I had it just the last few days. I just came back from an author conference. I had this conversation several times again. 

As authors, we often tend to produce and or distribute in the way that we would want it. So if I'm a digital first reader personally, I probably write digital first and I probably distribute digital first and I probably don't even mess with print. And if I do, it's probably in a very basic way and I don't tend to really highlight it. But we tend to forget that our readers don't do things the same way we do. And so remember that when we talk about these things or in general, when you're creating books to sell to fans, followers, whoever, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, just remember that not everybody reads, writes, collects, distributes the same way that you do. Never really limit yourself just based on the fact that you might not want a really cool sprayed edge on your book.

But if your book kind of falls into that category, especially YA, fantasy, romance, some of those categories where a lot of these bells and whistles are being applied If it doesn't cost you much extra time or money, you should try it and see what happens.

Lauren: Yeah. And that's the - the key emphasis on that is if it doesn't cost you a lot of extra time or money, for sure.

Matt: Unless you know that there's going to be a return if you know, there's going to be a return - Lauren: Oh, yeah.

Matt: Then spend the extra money. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Absolutely

Lauren: Yes, if you can justify it, if you know there's going to be a return, if you know that something that your fans are clamoring for, then yes, absolutely. But yeah, I mean, Matt, you know, the the book that I just showed that I said was the most money that I've ever spent on a book before? I own - it’s a trilogy. That's the first book in the trilogy. I own the regular edition hardcovers of all three of them. I own these exclusive edition hardcovers of all three of them that I had to get shipped from the UK. I own them all on audiobook and I own them all in ebook. 

Matt: Wow. 

Lauren: So…

Matt: But again, there you go. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You know, again, if I was writing this type of content, I am print-only. And so I might not think about digital and audio. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: But you have somebody who might be a super fan of your work that whatever format you put out, just like Lauren, will go and get it. Not only will they do it and that shouldn't be the only reason you do it, but maybe that's what makes them happy. And ultimately your goal should be to make your fans and readers happy. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's how you keep them committed to you as an author. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Well, yeah. What's next? 

[21:43] - Embellished Covers

Lauren: All right. Embellished covers is kind of gonna cover a variety of different possibilities with your cover design. Some of which we have already just shown you just by showing these first few examples. First off, when it comes to cover design that has embossing or debossing on it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you're not familiar with that embossed details are raised - I always mix these up - embossed is when it's raised and debossed is when it's depressed. 

Matt: I believe so. 

Lauren: Right? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's a cover design that you can do on - 

Matt: You just wanted a reason to move it out of camera.

Lauren: I didn't even notice that actually. 

Matt: This is actually a book cover that hadn't been applied to the interior file or the book block yet. So basically it's a sample that we got from one of our print facilities, so that we could show essentially what foiling looks like, to a degree. You can't necessarily feel this, but you might be able to see it when the light reflects on it. But it is raised slightly. 

So the foiling is also raised and there's lots of different terminology for that and things that some people will call it one thing. Some might call it another. You can also see it across the spine there. The foiling is just another one of those things where you walk into a bookstore or you're selling your books at a table, at an author event, or something like that. That's just going to catch somebody's eye. It's really going make them feel like you put a lot of effort into that book, and it’s really going to make them want to take a second look at it and see if that's something they would be interested in. 

Lauren: Yeah. It's really just a nice little detail. I was trying to see - so I brought this one, I've talked about this book in other episodes, Masters of Death.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I actually brought it in as an example for a different reason, but it does also - 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: it is debossed - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But it's very hard to tell. But it just adds a nice little... 

Matt: The Heartstopper book that you had a second ago, that's a really good example, though, of foiling. 

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: And. 

Lauren: This one has the foil on the cover. 

Matt: Oh, that's a good example when there's no embossing or debossing, which is rare these days. There's foiling, but it's not raised or indented. 

Lauren: Yes. And then actually this other one too. I love this example of foiling because this is a part of a quartet and each of the books in the series has one foil detail on it. So in this case, it's the moon behind the wolf on the cover is the only bit of foil on it. That was literally part of what we were, like my friends and I that really liked this series. We saw the covers well before the books came out. And that was something that we actually were like, I wonder which detail on the cover of the next one is going to be like the foil detail on it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Again, huge nerds. 

Matt: Here's also our point to some of this stuff. If you stack these up on any author table, or in a bookstore, the first thing you're gonna notice are the books that have some of those little extras. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Whether it's sprayed edges, printed edging, or a combination of the two. Like they just stand out, they really pop. Again, for those of you that are only listening, you can't see, I'm just holding a stack of books that has a few regular in there, but then also the ones that had some of the special features on the edges that are not the spine, so opposite of the spine. 

And they really stand out. And so of course, if they're stacked on a table, the first one people are going to go to are one of the ones that stands out. They'll move one of these others out of the way to get to one of these. And now they might ultimately go back to the other one. But the name of the game is to get them to pick your book up first.

Lauren: That's really what it is. It's another way to get somebody to pick up your book, cause that is the first step of the battle, right? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You're getting somebody to pick it up and go, oh, this looks interesting. What is this?

Matt: That's what I love. Like, I don't know who in history, I wish we could find this out. I've looked it up before and didn't have much luck. I don't know who first coined the phrase, you can't judge a book by its cover, but whoever that person is, if it was a person, if they're still alive, you must feel like the biggest idiot on the planet. 

And I hope that all your friends and family on a daily basis shame you. I don't think that was ever true, by the way. 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: So I don't know why. I don't know. That's the dumbest saying. I hate when people say that, but... 

Lauren: These are also things, to that point, all of the things that we've talked about so far in this episode, and the things that we will continue to talk about, have existed in publishing for over a hundred years.

Matt: Many of them, yes. 

Lauren: Yes 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Like if you go back and look at, I mean there are beautiful, beautiful editions of books that are leather bound with hand painted detailing on the pages. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: But ones that it looks like a solid color here and then when you turn - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: - the pages like this, you can see a design painted on them and stuff like that. Like these, none of this is new. Gold foil on covers like that.

Matt: I’m reading - 

Lauren: It's just becoming more popular. 

Matt: I'm reading a really good book right now called The Untold History of Books. It's by… Michael Castleman, I think. It's a great book that talks about the - 

Lauren: It is.

Matt: It's basically the untold history of books really about printing and publishing and how it all started and then where it's at today. But there is some really great stuff in there about customization of books back in the day. And again, it was all done by hand. It was all done by craftsmen and artists and things like that. And so, yes, a lot of this stuff existed not just a hundred years ago, but hundreds of years ago. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But again, it was very highly customized, and it was typically done for royalty or other people, right? Like you can't just give a copy of, I don't know, the King James version of the Bible to King Henry VIII. You need to give him the one that's been completely hand filigreed, you know, with 24 karat gold leaf and all those other things. So these things have been done for hundreds of years for those exact same reasons. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.This looks awesome. Can I borrow it when you’re done with it? 

Matt: No, but you can buy it. 

Lauren: Wow. 

Matt: Actually, you can borrow it. I’ll warn you - I've already promised Paul that he could borrow it too, and you know this about me, there's highlighter all through that book and dog-eared pages, so.

Lauren: That’s fine. 

Matt: You can absolutely borrow it. You should read it. 

Lauren: Okay. I mean if I pick it up before then, problem solved. But it just looks really interesting.

Matt: You know. I don't even remember where I grabbed it. It was either in Boston - In fact, I think it was in Boston - 

Lauren: Well I was going to guess Boston, because I just the search result that came up was the Harvard Bookstore.

Matt: That's exactly where I got it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Lali and I were there a couple of weeks ago in Harvard Square at the bookstore, and that's where I bought it. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Very cool. Other types of embellished covers that you can do - I’m kind of going to cover three in one here - that you can customize the dust jackets on your book. If you're unfamiliar with the terminology, a dust jacket is when you've got the like, paper sleeve over a hardcover book. When you're getting books printed, a hardcover book printed, there's usually two different versions of it that you can get. Linen wrap with a dust jacket is kind of the standard when it comes to dust jackets. 

Matt: Sort of, yeah. So linen wrap means when you take the dust jacket off, like she just did, the book is actually, the outer part is wrapped in linen and then it'll be foil stamped. You can see it, feel it, it's obviously linen. And then a lot of them, when you take the dust jacket off, it's still pretty much the hard cardboard with foil stamping as well. Sometimes there'll be a little foil stamping on the cover, but on the spine, and then you have that dust jacket. 

Now, a lot of people - I used to do this all the time. I don't necessarily anymore, but - a lot of people would get a book like this and they'd immediately take the dust jacket off and either toss it or just put it to the side while they were reading it. A lot of people don't like dust jackets. I think they're great, I think the old  nostalgic style of a book with a dust jacket. But… yeah. 

Lauren: I love dust jackets. I do take them off when I'm reading 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: A physical hardcover because I don't want them to get messed up. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And I want to be able to put them back on and have them be in pristine condition. I also keep them if I lend out a hardcover to somebody. I give it to them without the dust jacket and keep the dust jacket so that I can remember that I've lent it out to somebody. 

Matt: That's a good idea. Yeah. 

Lauren: So. And then the other version of - well, the other version of a hardcover book that doesn't have a dust jacket is a casewrap. 

Matt: Correct. 

Lauren: Which has the cover art or cover design printed directly on it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So there's different ways that you can do that. But one thing that we've seen some authors do lately, including the example that I'm holding up right now, is to have a casewrap design on the actual hardcover of the book and then still include a dust jacket with it as well.

Matt: Yeah and sometimes you can have the design on the dust jacket be different than the design on the case wrap. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yes which can be very cool. So that's a great way that you can do something fun and cool with that. There's also people have been doing lately some reversible dust jackets, which is actually something that I don't have. Which I know that I said that very incredulously to a bunch of people that don't know. I own over 700 books. So for me to say that I don't own a single book that has a reversible dust jacket, that is actually like I am slightly incredulous about that. I’ll have to keep an eye out for one. 

Matt: I'm not, because even though people are doing it, I don't think it's that common yet.

Lauren: Well, that could be a fun motivation for somebody to try it. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: But also, yes. 

Matt: I'm just saying it doesn't surprise me that you don't have one yet. 

Lauren: Yes. That's very fair too. 

Matt: I also wouldn't be surprised if you had one before this week is out. 

Lauren: You never know. Sounds like a reason to go to the bookstore. 

Matt: I feel like you've already challenged yourself on this one. 

Lauren: Probably. Probably. Uh, if anyone has a recommendation - well, I guess that would mean I wouldn't have it for this week, by the end of this week because this episode won't come out before the end of this week. But if anyone has a recommendation for a really cool book that they know that has a reversible dust jacket, leave us a comment on this video and let me know. 

One other example then is going to be exclusive edition dust jackets - which you can also do, it doesn't have to be a dust jacket hardcover. You can also do it with a paperback. This is a great way to motivate people if you're looking for a way to motivate sales from your website directly. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You know? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you want to have your book available through global distribution, but then you also want to have a reason for people to buy it directly from you. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Maybe you say, you know, I have the exact same cover. The global distribution version is white and the version on my bookstore is black. So if you want an exclusive edition of this… you see that a lot with Barnes & Noble will do a lot of exclusive editions where it's just the same cover in a different color.

Matt: Yes, but to be clear, the exclusivity piece is that they have to come get it ideally from you.

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Right? Or some other place. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: So like you just said, the Barnes & Noble version, they do this a lot and they'll put this in contracts with some of the traditional publishers or the authors themselves. Like, hey, we'll stock this book, but we want our own cover variant, right? So the cover might be a different color or the cover might be completely different.

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Let's say it's, I don't know, for the sake of this conversation, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Barnes & Noble might want the very special cover that was done by Edward Gorey, right? Some famous artist. And so you can only get that by going to Barnes & Noble. You can get Bram Stoker's Dracula everywhere else, obviously, but not - oh did, is that a thing? 

Lauren: It is a thing. 

Matt: I forgot. I own that. 

Lauren: Wow. I thought it was such a specific example that I was like surely. And of course, Edward Gorey -

Matt: I'm sorry.

Lauren: - being the illustrator that he is, that would make so much sense, but wow. 

Matt: I own that. That's why it was stuck in my head. I totally forgot. But my point is that's the exclusivity piece. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: It's not always about just changing one color. And in fact, I would encourage anybody that's gonna try this, which you should, right? 

Lauren: Oh, yeah. 

Matt: If you're selling direct already or you're thinking about it, here's a great way to try it or start. To get people to buy direct from you, sometimes they need a little extra incentive. And so by releasing your next latest book or the 30th anniversary of whatever your best book was, have a completely different cover variant done, whether you have another artist do it or you do it yourself and that's the fun part of it, or you tie a paintbrush to your dog's paw and let your dog do it and that's supposed to be the, it doesn't matter. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But do a completely different cover and have it only be available if they buy that book from you directly off your site. If they go get your book at whatever, some other place, that's fine, but they won't get the special edition whatever. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: 30th anniversary variant cover. 

Lauren: I would argue all of these that we're saying, you should be doing, this should be a motivation for people to buy them directly from you. 

Matt: That's true, yeah. 

Lauren: Any of these details, or they're also great for Kickstarter campaigns or something like that.

Matt: Oh, well yeah. 

Lauren: If you're looking for a little extra motivation for people to buy your books directly from you, for whichever reason, repackaging your books as some kind of special edition is a great option. 

Matt: Kickstarter's great for this stuff, especially when you're trying to do stretch goals, right? So on your Kickstarter, let's say you're trying to hit, I don't know, $15,000. And then let's say you have a stretch goal of 25,000. And so what you do is you tell everybody, listen, if we get to 15,000 and you're in this donor category, right, of… let's say the paperback, that's what you'll get. You'll get the paperback and all the other things. But if we hit my stretch goal of 25,000, everybody who donated at that level for the paperback, will automatically be upgraded to a hardcover with a special edition dust jacket on it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And ideally you've already calculated that cost, you've worked with your printer like Lulu to already know if I do hit my stretch goal and I upgrade everybody from a paperback to a hardcover with the dust jacket, this is what it's gonna cost me, so that you're still in that ballpark range. So yeah, I mean, it's great for hitting those stretch goals by adding something like a really cool special variant dust jacket or something. 

Lauren: Yeah. It's also, I mean, it's great if you want to not do stretch goals, but just have different tiers to inspire people to try to commit different amounts. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lauren: Maybe the basic tier is just a paperback. And then the next tier up is a standard hardcover. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And then the next tier up is an embellished hardcover. Yeah. Different ways to do it. 

Matt: I think - 

Lauren: There are also different things you can do. What? 

Matt: I was going to say, I think we're done with the covers, but maybe we're not. 

Lauren: Oh, I was in - well, I was going to say there's additional things you can do to the book design. 

Matt: Oh, yeah. 

Lauren: So, not covers.

[34:54] - Illustrations & End Papers

Lauren: The next example that I wanted to show is exclusive illustrations and custom end paper. There's a couple of different ways that you can do this. I think we all are familiar with the idea of a fantasy novel that has a map in the first couple of pages. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: Or like, family trees in the first few pages. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: So you can see how the different characters are connected. 

Matt: So the other day at this author conference, Haley and I were talking about something. And basically, I believe her comment was, if I ever open a book and the first few pages have a family tree or a map, I'm putting that book down. 

Lauren: That's very fair. 

Matt: And I wholeheartedly agreed with her because it's just not my genre. But what you just said is so part of that world, that genre. 

Lauren: It is. 

Matt: It's funny, but just struck me because we had that exact conversation just a few days ago. 

Lauren: Yeah, I don't blame you. That's fair. So I guess maybe take that with a - although Matt's probably not your target demographic anyway if you’re writing that kind of book. 

Matt: No, not if you've got a family tree in the front of the book. 

Lauren: But some people are very into that. 

Matt: No, for sure. Yeah, it's just not - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - not my genre. 

Lauren: So if that's the kind of thing that you wanna do with your book and you wanna have it in those first couple of pages, you're just gonna include it in the interior file of your book.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But another thing that you can do to make your book stand out a little bit is to have it on your end papers or to have some kind of custom illustration on your end paper. And if you're not familiar with what end paper is, it's the part of the book that is attaching… it's literally the first page of the book. So it's the part of the book that is attaching the interior block to the actual cover of the book. 

The standard example of that is just going to be to match it to the same color as your pages. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if you were printing it on white paper, it's going to be just standard white paper. If it's on cream, standard cream. But there are also really creative and fun ways to customize that. So you can get really simple and basic with it. I have an example here that the book is called Scattered Showers and the end paper on it is just a nice solid color with raindrops on it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Nice, simple design, but it's a little extra something on the interior of the book when you open it up.

Matt: This is also a low cost option, by the way. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: To add something extra to your book. For all of you out there that self publish or indie publish, you can have this done print on demand. It's not something that has to be done on an offset printer. It's very low cost. It does not increase the production cost of your book by much, but I think it adds a really extra feel to it that I think makes it feel more professionally done and just looks better.

Lauren: I think they're beautiful. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That's one of my favorite things. So the other example that I'm going to show, this is again a book I've talked about before on this podcast. The reason that I bought this book was because of the end paper illustration that is beautiful custom art of the characters in the book. And it's different on both sides. So the front cover has one illustration and the back cover has another illustration. 

It is a very cool little addition that you can do. And like Matt said, it's really not - I mean, if it's something that you're designing yourself, then it's going to be very low cost. If it's something that you're commissioning a freelance designer to design for you, there'll be a little bit of cost to it.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But even that is just - that's a cool thing to have in general, because you could also do like… I own this book with this end paper design in it. And if I was in a store somewhere and saw this author selling prints of that thing that I already own in a book, I might buy that. That's a cool option to have for yourself for you to sell in your store in general. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Something to keep in mind, another option to add. 

[38:21] - Special Bindings & Ribbon Bookmarks

Lauren: And then really the last thing that I wanted to bring up as the little extra that you can add onto here is special binding. So that can be anything from like… the difference between the linen wrap versus the just cardboard hardcover.

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: To even like faux leather binding, which is less and less popular, but still technically a thing. But then also ribbon bookmarks. I think these are really cool for people that are doing journals, or reading logs, or some kind of like, guided… I realize that a lot of these have been very fiction-focused, but if you're doing something nonfiction, that is something that having the ribbon bookmark attached directly to the spine would be helpful because you're kind of encouraging your readers to refer back to your book constantly, or it's something that you're going to be motivating them to write in a journal every day or something like that. That could be a great addition.

Matt: I think any hardcover book, regardless of the genre, can benefit from a ribbon. 

Lauren: Sure. 

Matt: Because I am a dog ear person. Not that I enjoy it, but I don't carry a bookmark around with me. So when I'm reading and I get to a stopping point, I just dog ear page. I would love it if most of the hardcover books I read had ribbon bookmarks in them, because then I wouldn't have the dog ear of the pages.

Lauren: Yeah, that's fair. 

Matt: But nonetheless, yeah, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, I think it is a cool little added bonus. It's very inexpensive to have that added. And I think a lot of readers appreciate it. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt: There's some other things like that that you can do too. You have noted in the outline lay flat binding, that's typically something you see more with like photo books and cookbooks. It's a type of binding that allows the book to open all the way up without cracking the spine. But you can also achieve that by using spiral or coil bound. But nonetheless, lay flat is nice, but it's primarily done with photo books or portfolio books or cookbooks. 

There's a few other things you can do that can be accomplished with print on demand. And so to back up twenty steps, most of what we've been talking about here - if not all of it - is stuff that you can or should be able to achieve with print on demand. For a lot of you that self-publish or indie publish out there, you're more than likely using a print on demand provider. That's what Lulu is. It's all done print on demand. There's no offset printing. 

There are some other things though that you can do and you should check with your printer or publisher on. You mentioned having maps in your book. There's something that's called a gatefold. If you've ever opened a book and there's a page in the middle or somewhere in the book, the page might be a little thicker quality, but it unfolds out from the book so that there's a map on it. Or maybe it's a book of architecture and you unfold that gatefold and it's like the Empire State Building is on it or something like that. 

Gatefolds are another really cool thing you could do for maps or family trees or anything really. And there's a few other really cool things you can do too. So we would encourage you if you're interested in customizing some of your books, or a book, or a special edition to reach out to your printer or your publisher, or do some more research or reach out to us because there are a lot of really cool things that you can do, and even some more that we haven't touched on today. 

But I think for today's episode, we also tried to focus on things that are probably a little more common, easier to do, and can bring some value to your book without breaking your bank as the person paying for these to be produced. There are lots of other things you can do. There are tons of bells and whistles you can add to your books, even print on demand, and they're great. But there are lots of things to remember there.

Two of the most important things to remember is everything you add to that book to make it super cool and collectible increases your cost to produce that book. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: The second thing is not everybody out there is as big of a book nerd as Lauren and myself. While some of these things sound really cool and you're like, oh, for sure, my next book, I'm doing all those things, Matt and Lauren, and I'm going to try to be able to put french fries in the back, and I want to do this thing. That's just probably not going to be feasible. You really need to sit down and think about your audience and are they going to pay for these things? Is it going to make your book a better book for them? 

Yes, you can cater to a handful of super fans and do a few of these things and you'll get probably some pretty decent sales for sure. But the crazier you go with that book - as sad as this might sound, the more bells and whistles you add to that book, the crazier you get with it, the less of them you'll probably sell. 

Lauren: Absolutely. I think that that's something that's really important to remember that you don't need to do all of these things. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: And Matt and I were talking about this before we started recording the episode, and I was saying - you know, I said earlier this episode, I own a lot of books. I thought I was going to have a very easy time going through my library and pulling examples of all of these different types of books that we were talking about and like types of embellishments. And I actually had a harder time than I thought I was going to, because despite the fact that I am somebody who buys specifically custom editions and special editions of books like this, I don't have as many as I thought I did. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: If this is something that you're interested in doing, I do absolutely think that there's huge value in having special edition books. 

Matt: Absolutely. 

Lauren: I think… I think that I stand by that. I stand by the idea of having a couple of different variants of your book. But I think it is something that is important to remember that you don't need to do all of these. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: To your book, pick one or two key highlights - I also think it's important to be - I feel like this episode is going to have so many ridiculous background noises in it. I keep like, kicking things and - 

Matt: Well, you're the only one pointing them out. 

Lauren: I know. I know. It's fine. A lot of the books in these examples that I've shown are not the first books by these authors. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: And I think that that's really important. Like Wolfsong is a good example. TJ Klune started as like an indie published very, very small press author with like a niche genre audience, an unrelated series or an unrelated couple of books of his got picked up by Tor, and then they started publishing some of his backlist. 

So this Wolfsong and the other books in the series were already published books that had a fan base, and then they repackaged and reprinted those in these nice special editions. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So there was already a dedicated audience of people that were interested in these. 

Matt: So what you're saying is I shouldn't come out of the gate with my very first debut novel with all the bells and whistles. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: Foiling, stamping, ribbon bookmarks, debossing, embossing. No? 

Lauren: No.

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: No, I don't think that your debut book should be a $60 special edition hardcover. 

Matt: Damn, that really throws a wrench in my launch plan. 

Lauren: I know. It's okay, we'll celebrate the one year anniversary of your launch with a special edition instead. 

Matt: We'll celebrate the five copies that might have sold to my mom by then. 

Lauren: Perfect. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: I mean, you've got a built in team of people here that you're gonna sell at least 15 copies, right? 

Matt: Yeah, I think - well, maybe not. Well, I guess if your boss says you should buy his book, maybe you buy his book. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: But the only other thing we would point out that could potentially be a con or just something you should think about when you're looking at the pros and cons of this is that production time and consistency with production. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: So again, if you're using a print on demand provider like Lulu or somebody, making sure that if you're going to add a couple of these things to your book, that they can do that throughout all of their print facilities. So that if you sell a book to a fan and the UK and you're based in the US, can the UK print facility do those same things to the quality that would be done by the print facility in the US? Same for other countries as well, if they have a multi country print network. 

The other thing again, is understanding that when you're doing these things, the whole point is to add quality, to add value, to make something really cool and special out of this book. And if you can't - if you can't ensure that these can be done in a timely fashion, you really don't want to have to be sending out apology emails to people because the print facility can't get it right and ten days goes by, twenty days goes by, thirty days goes by and the books still aren't shipping. 

So always get a proof copy up front and always make sure again that the facility can do these things and they can do them consistently across all markets that you're going to be selling in. 

Lauren: Yeah, that consistency is really important. Not only just in all markets that you're selling in, but also in terms of just the print production in general. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: If you're getting a hundred copies of a special edition printing of some kind and 25 of them are damaged because there was something difficult about the print process that wasn't done well, then that's not great for you, you know? 

Matt: Yeah, one-hundred percent. 

Lauren: You don't want 25% of your bulk order to be unusable. 

Matt: Yeah, especially when it's a slightly higher cost per unit than just a standard paperback or something. 

Lauren: Yeah, there is one other thing that Matt mentioned. We talked about a lot of these things and we tried to focus on things that are doable for indie authors and self-published authors. You might be listening to this or saying, okay, I'm going to go check out Lulu's website and go order these books like this and not see on our website, in our publishing tool, like this is how I add a ribbon bookmark to my print order or whatever. 

That doesn't necessarily mean that your publisher of choice can't do those things. So if this is something that you're interested in doing, if you're interested in doing special editions of your books, if you're interested in adding some kind of cool custom features to your books, reach out to your publisher and ask them what's possible. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: You know, don't hesitate to reach out and be like, hey, I'm interested in doing this. Can you tell me more about whether or not that's possible, what that would look like, if it is, if it isn't, whatever. You may be pleasantly surprised by being told, yes, that is something we can do. And even if it turns out, oh, no, that is not actually something that we're currently capable of doing, knowing that there are authors out there that want those features is motivating. 

Matt: Yeah, you're right. And specifically for us, that's a great point. We do do this fairly regularly. So we will have an author reach out to us and say, hey, I'm gonna do a Kickstarter coming up and it's this type of book and I would really love to be able to offer this version that would be… let's say it's a hardcover with a dust jacket, it's got foiling, it's got a ribbon and maybe one other thing. Can you guys do that? 

Well, the answer is yes. And as long as you're willing to commit to, you know, a minimum of probably a hundred copies, we can absolutely work through that and get that done. We can do cool things like printed end sheets and - we just don't typically build that into the system that is used by everyday general users.

We probably will at some point, or we'll start inserting those things regularly. But right now it's kind of for those people who are really trying to do something special and yeah, absolutely. You can just reach out and most of that stuff we can walk right through with you. 

Lauren: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, if you have any questions about how to do any of these things, ask, reach out, not to us. No, I'm kidding. 

Matt: Why wouldn't they reach out to us? 

Lauren: They can absolutely reach out, podcast@lulu.com. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean, you know quite a bit about this stuff. 

Lauren: I do. 

Matt: You just talked about it for 60 minutes. 

Lauren: So do you. 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. 

Lauren: Yeah, I guess we'd probably be pretty good people to ask. 

Matt: I would be, I love this stuff. 

Lauren: So do I. 

Matt: Sounds like you might not wanna bother Lauren, but. 

Lauren: No, no, no, you can definitely bother me about it. For sure. Look, I was trying to be conscientious of your inbox, okay? 

Matt: Well, listen, nevermind. What do your bracelets say today? 

Lauren: Oh, none of them are new. Actually, they're all ones again, tying into the Haunted Mansion shirt, foolish mortal, happy haunt, and modern idiot. 

Matt: Okay. We've definitely heard all three of those before. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Maybe not just in that order. 

Lauren: No, no, I don't think so.

Matt: I forgot to put mine on. It's on my desk. 

Lauren: I saw it. I saw it when I was in your office. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It still counts. 

Matt: Well, I did text you that. 

Lauren: You did text me what’s for lunch. So, you know, the, the point was there. Well, if you do want to hear about anything else, if you want to ask us any questions about what we talked about in this episode or any other episodes, you can always reach out to us at podcast@lulu.com. You can leave a comment on this YouTube video or on any of the Lulu social media channels, where we might pop in and answer you ourselves, or we might bring up a whole episode about it. You never know. 

Matt: Sometimes the response is let's just do an episode about it. 

Lauren: Yeah, I mean I'm always looking for that There's actually nothing - I think most of my favorite episodes that we've done have been ones that were inspired by a question or a comment from somebody.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: Don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Matt: And if you have not done so yet, I realize this might date the episode, but that's okay. Author Nation is coming up in November in Las Vegas. It's pretty much the biggest author event in the US for the most part. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to be there having a lot of fun. We'll probably record some live podcasts while we're there. You should go check out and see if that's something you'd be interested in where you can learn a lot more about how to create and sell your books. So check out Author Nation.

Lauren: Yeah, I'm really excited for Author Nation. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Hopefully we'll see you there. 

Matt: Thanks everybody. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening.