Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to a very special episode of Publish & Prosper. It is officially our one year anniversary. We did it. We have been doing this podcast for a full year. 

Matt: It's less that we've been doing it for a full year and more that somehow or another, nobody has kicked us off of here. 

Lauren: That is maybe, maybe the more impressive feature. Or feat, rather. 

Matt: That's what I'm going with. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, so we did it. And we thought we would do something a little fun for our one year anniversary episode. 

Matt: I just realized that was an extremely sort of anticlimactic and lackluster anniversary. We should have had like, confetti cannons, or... 

Lauren: So I actually, I did think about that. I thought about like the confetti poppers and like doing something a little fun in here for that, especially for the video. And then I thought about who was going to be the person responsible for cleaning that up. And so…

Matt: Interesting, that's why we're not celebrating with cool stuff. 

Lauren: I think it makes a lot of sense actually. 

Matt: Okay, alright. 

Lauren: It's fine. But more importantly, this is our 45th episode after a year of recording this podcast. It's coming out also the day before Halloween, which if you can imagine with me and Matt being the people that we are, is a big holiday for both of us. 

Matt: Yeah, I would say so. 

Lauren: Tis the season. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And all that. So all in all, this is some good timing and that is way more important than confetti. 

Matt: I mean, clearly you underestimate how much I enjoy confetti cannons. 

Lauren: I actually would never underestimate how much you enjoy confetti cannons, because I've interacted with more confetti cannons in the time that I've worked at this office than I have in the rest of my life. 

Matt: That is true. 

Lauren: I think maybe one of my favorite things that we've ever done at Lulu, was the confetti video for when we were launching Lulu 2.0. 

Matt: Some of that footage is still on our site. 

Lauren: Oh yeah. 

Matt: So if you go, I think it's the About Us page.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I think we still use some of that confetti cannon footage. 

Lauren: I think it might even still be on our YouTube channel. If it is, I'm going to link it in the show notes because it was such a good video and it's so funny. It's slow motion footage of different people on the marketing team getting confetti shot at them, and the faces that we all made for it. It's incredible. And it was really fun to film. It was really fun to like, watch the production of it. And then the end result is incredible. 

Matt: I forgot about that. Yeah.

Lauren: It’s my - it's my favorite. 

Matt: When Ashley was having us all stand there and get blasted in the face with those things. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I remember being extremely nervous. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Because I think - I think she bought him off of Amazon or something. And so they probably came from some not very reputable like fireworks and confetti cannon creator or something. And I just remember thinking, man, if I go home with like first degree burns on my face from a confetti cannon, that's not gonna be cool. 

Lauren: I think there were one or two that didn't work. So there was like, a delayed reaction to it too.

Matt: Oh, that's even worse if you're sitting there expecting it. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And then you pull the string and nothing happens. 

Lauren: Right. Oh no, but it was so great. And it turned out so, so good. I'm not seeing it on our YouTube page, but I will ask Ashley about it and be like, hey, is this, is this anywhere that I can post it up on the podcast show notes. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Because it's worth sharing for sure. In the meantime, everyone listening will just have to imagine. 

Matt: There's a clip of it. Yeah. On the About Us page.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: There's a clip of Kat. She's getting blasted in the face with it.

Lauren: It’s a great - it’s a great clip. So I can always post that, but I will try to find the whole video. Just imagine that's what's happening here right now. There's your confetti. 

Lauren: We thought it would be fun for this episode to do a little bit of an AMA, ask us anything, which is not the acronym, but there are two of us, so. 

Matt: Ask Matt anything? 

Lauren: There you go. Oh, Matt just volunteered to do this whole episode by himself. 

Matt: No, he did not. Absolutely not. 

Lauren: No, so we've been, you know, reaching out for questions for a while now, you may have noticed in some past episodes or in show notes, on social media. We've also gathered some questions that people asked us at conferences that we have been to recently. So we've got a good list of questions here from people ranging from different topics, different interests, different areas of publishing and such and such. 

Also, if there are questions in here, if you asked us a question for this episode and it doesn't show up in here, it might be because we didn't have time to get to it or it might be because we liked your question so much that we're planning a future episode on it. So don't rule it out if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, they didn't answer my question. There is still hope for you. And also this doesn't mean that you can't ask additional questions after the fact. You can always reach out to us, submit questions to podcast@lulu.com or on any of our social channels. And we will always be happy to answer them on air in an existing episode or as the whole episode topic itself. 

Matt: Well said. 

Lauren: Thanks. You want to get started? 

Matt: Yes. 

[5:43] - Do you start building your audience first and then write your book, or do you start writing your book first and then build your audience?

Lauren: Okay. I'm going to choose a question, and this question is actually coming from someone at a conference. I don't have the names of people that ask these questions at conferences, so sorry, I can't shout you out. But the question that I'm gonna ask, or answer, I guess, was: do you start building your audience first and then write your book, or do you start writing your book first and then build your audience? 

Matt gave a really good answer to that, actually. So I said I was gonna answer it, but now I'm putting it on Matt to answer it. Do you wanna repeat the answer that you gave earlier?

Matt: Yeah, I mean, the answer ultimately is that it doesn't matter what you do first as long as you start doing them. And if you've not started building an audience yet, you need to start doing that. And if you've not started writing your book yet, you need to start writing your book. The answer there is both, yes, all the above. Start now. 

I think a lot of people get wrapped up in this idea that it's too late, that even if I start working on my audience now I'm late to the game, so it's gonna take forever to build an audience. Or if I start writing a book now after I've waited all these years, it's too late. The topic already exists, or there's already enough books in the market about this topic or genre or whatever I'm writing in, so… 

None of that is true. The answer is both. Do it now. Get started. Audience building takes time regardless. And so the sooner you get started, the better off you'll be. One isn't necessarily going to be a very intense and dramatic catalyst for the other. Writing a book can help you build your audience, but you still have to get started building your audience. If you're off to a start building your audience, then writing your book in public can be a great way to keep building that audience. But at the end of the day, what's important is that you get started. 

Lauren: Yeah, I'm going to agree with that entirely and say that I think it has to be both at the same time. I think that's the way to do it. Do them concurrently. 

Matt: Yeah. Now, if this question is geared more towards sales about selling books and what's more important to do first, that's a little trickier, or I should say not trickier, but that's a little more complex. There's layers to that answer. But for book sales, obviously it does help if you have a large audience. 

But what I will tell you is if you think the term audience means social media followers, you're sorely mistaken. When we talk about building an audience, we're talking about building an audience on land that you own, so an email newsletter, an ecommerce direct sales store, even something like a podcast. Social media though, that's not your audience unless you're getting them over to something that you own. Because when you go to release a book and you go out there and blast it out on your social media channels, you're basically just kind of opening the door to a big dark room and shouting. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And hoping that there's people in there and they hear you. But there's no guarantee. You could have five million followers, release a new book and get ten book sales, literally. Like. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt: That's happened before. So social media following does not equal audience or buyers. So please don't get those terms twisted, to put it bluntly.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Build an audience that is your audience, that is engaged, that wants to hear from you and wants to purchase things from you. And you do that by engaging with them directly through email newsletters, your website, your blog, your podcast, those types of places where you kind of own the land that you're building on. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think I'm also - as I'm listening to you talk about this, I think I'm revising my answer slightly because as much as I am like, yes, you should do these things concurrently. We've also made the point repeatedly that you want your audience to be an audience that is supporting and loyal to you and your brand, not to one specific book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So if you're building an audience that is tailored specifically to one book that you are writing or publishing, what happens when you publish your next book? You got to start all over again. You got to build a different audience. You want to build an audience that is invested in you, that is interested in your content and your expertise and your writing. And so no matter what book you're publishing and writing, they're going to be on board for it. All things to keep in mind when you're building your audience. 

[9:37] - If I write in multiple genres, how do I set up my social profiles, newsletters and website? Do I have just one author brand or do I keep everything separate?

Lauren: Do you want to choose the next question? 

Matt: Sure. I'll choose one. Let's kind of stick in that same vein for a second, since we have this question. This was also asked by somebody at an event. And it says: if I write in multiple genres, how do I set up my social profiles, newsletters and website? Do I have just one author brand or do I keep everything separate? I know that Lauren has answered this question or talked about this on several occasions across several of our podcasts. So I'm going to have you answer this one. 

Lauren: Okay. I - actually, I think that's a really good question and I'm always going to make the argument that no, you should be sticking to your brand. You should not have multiple different profiles or multiple different accounts, or newsletters, websites for different brands. The only way that I would consider the possibility of you keeping things separate like this is if you are writing in multiple genres under multiple different pen names.

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So if you're somebody who's writing, like you're writing cozy mystery and romance and nonfiction, and you are using three different pen names to do those three different things, then I could see an argument for having a different social profile for each of those, different newsletter for each of them, different website for each of them. Although I would still link them, I would still have them like, cross-connected. Unless you're being really coy about the fact that you're the same person writing all these three different things, which I would ask you why. 

Matt: No judgment. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I know that some - 

Lauren: No, no, no, I’m not - 

Matt: - romance writers, especially if they write on the edge of not safe for work type of content - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - they use a pen name for that reason. And they don't tie it back to anything, even if they do write other stuff, but otherwise, yeah, I agree with you. 

Yeah. That - which is totally fair. I absolutely get that. That was something that never even occurred to me until I started working at a publishing company, was that like romance authors, there are plenty of romance - there are plenty of authors in general, but specifically there are plenty of romance authors that are not writing under their given name. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: And that I was like, oh, huh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I guess that's fair. So I'm not judging you if you're choosing to do that one way or another, but I would encourage you to, if you're comfortable with it, link your like - you want to have somewhere on your website, let's say like, other books by this author, or whatever, and link to those other websites. 

But in general, I mean, if you're writing if you're writing all under the same author name, if you're comfortable with the fact that you're cross-promoting your books, or that there's like a variety of different types of readers that are going to come looking for your books and for your content, but some of your books are this genre, some are this, this, this, whatever - I would encourage you to keep that all under one umbrella and just have one brand for all of it. 

Matt: Yeah, and - 

Lauren: And just be clear about how you're separating them, I guess. 

Matt: Yeah. That's probably the outlier. We spent a lot of time talking about that.

Lauren: That’s fair.

Matt: But I would assume that's the outlier. In most cases, it's one author, one name, whether it's your real name or a pen name. The first part of the question was about setting up your social profiles and newsletters. And again, you're gonna wanna try and secure your namesake, if you haven't already, across whatever channels you're going to be utilizing. If I was doing this as an author, I would want to secure handles on my social media channels of at Matt Briel.

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: If those weren't available, I would wanna try something that was still with my name, but also maybe referred to what I do. So maybe it would be Matt Briel Writes or Matt Briel Writes Horror, or something along those lines. And then I would use that across all your social media channels, whichever ones you're going to participate on. And even the ones you're not going to participate on, secure those handles and then just leave the accounts dormant so that nobody else can get the handle and try to clone and make a fraudulent account of you. 

Lauren: Yeah, it's always worth having those. 

Matt: Same for your newsletter. Newsletter is slightly different because email providers have stricter requirements for the name you use in the reply to field, things like that. So you'll want to use whatever author name they're using for that. But otherwise set up all your accounts using the exact same social handle. And then you won't have any problems with people finding you on their preferred platform of choice. 

And again, like Lauren said today, and many times over, you're promoting you as the author, as the brand, whatever that might be. So try to avoid getting social media accounts or handles based on a specific book. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Just use that author name or brand name and you're good.

Lauren: If you want to take a look at somebody who's doing it right, check out Katie Cross, check out her website. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I'll link it in the show notes. She writes in a variety of different genres, her books are in a variety of different genres, and she has them displayed very clearly and distinctly on her website. 

Matt: Yeah, she does a really good job of that. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, for sure. 

[14:04] - What trends have you seen from Lulu creators over the years in how they've adapted their businesses to sell more books?

Matt: All right, your turn. 

Lauren: Okay, this is a question from Laurie. What trends have you seen from Lulu creators over the years in how they've adapted their businesses to sell more books? 

Matt: Easy, direct sales and newsletters. To sell more books, right now, if you're relying on third party platforms, is extremely complicated and it means investing a lot of money. You're not going to sell a lot of books on any of the retail platforms unless you're buying ad space on those platforms. Any author right now that's moving units on Amazon or anywhere else, they'll tell you that they've been spending money on paid ads. There’s just - there's no such thing as organic discovery anymore, for the most part, on those channels. 

So what people are finally sort of seeing and shifting to is this idea that if I'm gonna be doing a lot of that work anyways, i.e. potentially running some paid ads, maybe on social media, you know, on Facebook, things like that, or even some paid Google ads based on keywords associated to my book, I might as well drive that traffic to something that is mine and not somebody else's - which is the right thing to do, by the way. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So direct sales is a big trend that we've seen, especially over the last two years, but really since the COVID lockdowns in 2020 people really started embracing direct sales finally, as they were almost kind of forced to in some cases. But nonetheless, direct sales is a good one. It puts you in control of pretty much every step of your customer's journey. And in the end, gives you full profits and the ability to keep all that customer data so you can keep remarketing new books to them.

But then email newsletters. So, social media is fine, but again, like we've talked about, just use it as a place to farm potentially new readers or fans. Once they're following you, you've got to try your best to get them over to an email newsletter list. And if you haven't started one, just start one today. It doesn't matter. Even if you only get five signups in the first month, it doesn't matter. Send valuable content. 

We've already done episodes on email and email newsletters, and there's plenty of resources out there, and we're happy to answer any questions you have. But email newsletters right now are one of the easiest ways to have direct communication with your fans and buyers, as well as utilizing direct sales to maximize your profits. You can sell five books direct to your fans and still make more money than if you sold ten or fifteen books to people on Amazon or whatever. I mean, the math is the math. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You can't change that. And in the process, you retain all that customer data. So the trends that we've seen so far that are really, I think, doing a great job of helping people sell more books are utilizing email newsletters and direct sales.

Lauren: I think it, like it really comes down to people realizing and understanding that this is a long-term endeavor and not short-term flash in the pan kind of thing. Something trendy like social media, we've all seen the rise and fall of different social platforms so much in the last few years, and people are realizing more and more we need a long-term way to connect with our audience and to create these relationships that are going to last with our audience. And the answers to that are for sure direct sales and email marketing.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, when we talk to authors and creators who have large followings on social media - tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands - their stories are always the same. You know, I've got 300,000 followers and every time I post something, I get barely a couple hundred likes. And whenever I post something for sale, I get lackluster sales numbers. It's because those aren't true fans and customers yet. You know what I mean? For whatever reason, they just click to follow you. And maybe it's because they've read some of your stuff, but maybe it's because you happen to post something interesting that day, they decided to follow you to see if you'd repeat that content another day and just haven't bothered to unfollow you. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: And then obviously on every platform, there are tons of bots and bot traffic. So your stats are never going to be what you actually think they are anyway. So again, making every effort to get that traffic over to somewhere like an email newsletter list or your blog or something else. That's your best bet. 

[17:59] - Do Lulu ebooks get enough readers?

Matt: All right. I'm going to go ahead and read this one. This is from Emma C. Kennedy on Instagram and it says, do Lulu ebooks get enough readers? 

Lauren: I'm going to say the answer to that is they get exactly as many readers as you, the author, are setting them up to get. You are marketing your books. You are promoting, whether it's your ebooks or your print books, whatever it is, that's up to the author to do. There is no default base of readers that are just here to read ebooks wherever, whether it's Lulu or anywhere else. It's up to the author. 

That is like, kind of the thing with - not even self-publishing anymore, because it's also in traditional publishing, too. It is largely the author's responsibility to market their book and get readers to their books. So, Lulu ebooks get enough readers if you as the author are marketing your ebooks to enough readers? 

Matt: Yeah. I'm not sure we're fully understanding what she was intending to ask. Yeah, that's the short answer. Do they get enough reads? It just depends on how many customers you're driving to your ebook. The other possible interpretation of this question is a question of traffic and visitors to the Lulu bookstore. That question is slightly different in, and you know we'll speak to that. How much traffic does the Lulu bookstore get? 

Specifically for ebooks, I can't rightly say necessarily, but what I can tell you is that on a monthly average, we get about 950,000 page views in our bookstore. A page view being they're looking at a product, a book. What percentage of those pages are ebooks? I'm not sure off the top of my head, I could get that data, but regardless of what that data is, I think Lauren is correct. However many people are looking at and reading your books are the amount of people you're driving to them. 

And as far as, you know, a place where people are just going to hang out and browse ebooks, that's just not the reality today. I mean, more times than not, somebody's coming to an online bookstore to buy something they were already directed to buy. That doesn't mean people don't browse, but it's a different activity. So no way to fully quantify how many people are browsing ebooks. We can quantify how many people are looking at specific ebook product pages on our network. And I'm happy to find that information if Emma wants to reach out separately. But otherwise the short answer that you gave is correct. However many people are looking at your books are the amount of people you're driving to them. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That's the unfortunate side - I won't say unfortunate side. That is part of that DIY aesthetic that comes along with self-publishing, is you got to drive the traffic to your book. 

Lauren: Yeah, I was thinking about this question as I was recently looking for a new book to read, and I think even - and I know that I'm not speaking for all ebook readers, and I know that my co-host over here is not an ebook reader, so he can't weigh in on this at all. But even for me, when I'm browsing for a new book to read, I don't browse on any of the ereader platforms that I use. I look for books on places like Goodreads, recommendations on TikTok or Instagram, or from my friends. I do my book browsing on other places and then go find that ebook somewhere. 

So, I don't know if that answers the question, but Emma, if you - if we did not accurately answer your question because we misinterpreted it, let us know and we'll try again. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[21:21] - Why does Matt hate the Oxford Comma?

Lauren: All right. I'm going to switch it up a little bit. I did tap in our team and ask them to give us some fun questions that we can mix in with these more in-depth questions, and I got one from Paul that I would love to address. It is: why does Matt hate the Oxford comma? I will also preface this with Paul and I are both very big advocates for the Oxford comma, so I laughed when I saw this. But then when I read it out loud to Matt, Matt had a reaction to it. 

Matt: I don't, I don't know where Paul got that from. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Because I am a staunch advocate of the Oxford comma. I've corrected many a person who hasn't used it. I can't remember writing something in the last probably… I don't know, since college - I'm not going to tell you when that was - and not used the Oxford comma. So I don't know why Paul thinks I hate the Oxford comma. Maybe he caught somewhere that I missed it before.

Lauren: Maybe. Paul -

Matt: But it's unlikely. The two things I'm notorious for are using an Oxford comma and using ellipses. Mainly when I'm texting people, I will end almost everything with an ellipses. I don't know why. I don't know where I got that habit, but…

Lauren: I actually use ellipses a lot in the transcripts for these episodes. 

Matt: Yeah, I don't know. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So I'm definitely not an Oxford comma hater. I don't know where Paul got that from. I love the Oxford comma. In fact, you know what? I'm gonna do a t-shirt or a sweatshirt that says Oxford comma on it.

Lauren: Ooh. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Fully support it. 

Matt: So Paul - 

Lauren: If you disagree with us - 

Matt: If you're listening. 

Lauren: He better be. 

Matt: You can mind your business. I love an Oxford comma. 

Lauren: Yeah, Paul, why are you trying to pick a fight that doesn't exist? 

Matt: Yeah, dude. 

Lauren: All right, well, I just wanted to acknowledge that on air because it felt important that we clarify that, that Matt is not an Oxford comma hater. 

Matt: Not at all. 

Lauren: And if you are, I don't know, catch us on Instagram because you're wrong and we will argue with you. 

Matt: If you're an Oxford comma hater, you can catch me outside. How about that? 

[23:12] - When you mentioned releasing the right format in regards to the right go-to-market strategy, what do you mean?

Matt: Okay, let's see. Let's get out of the fun bucket for a minute and go back to some more serious questions. We had somebody ask - this is from Clara via an email. When you mentioned releasing the right format in regards to the right go-to-market strategy, what do you mean? That's a great question. And apparently it did a terrible job of explaining that on the episode where we talked about this. So my apologies, Clara. 

Right format in regards to your go-to-market strategy simply means a lot of people these days, authors and creators, when they're going to release a new book, they think about the distribution strategy. So launch date, which format do I want to release? Because maybe it's going to be the most widely received format. If you know that the majority of your readers love ebook and you're not trying to push print or something like that, then that's the format to release first. 

I wouldn't flood the market with all formats when you first launch, I think a staggered format launch is always the best way to go because it helps breathe new energy into your sales cycle. Again, for example, if the bulk of your readers you know like ebook then release the ebook first and release it on whatever channel you want to release it on. 

And then in about three to six months, when your sales cycle is starting to wane, release the paperback version, because you know there's gonna be readers out there, viewers that, like me, won't read an ebook, and I won't read your book until the print version comes out. So then release that paperback in a staggered three or six month point, and you can breathe some life back into your sales cycle. 

Conversely, another way you could do that is, even though, you know, a lot of your readers may prefer ebook, if you're really trying to push print or get into print because you like the profit margins better - Again, the assumption is that you're probably selling direct, but even if you're not - then maybe first release is a paperback with the ebook to follow in thirty days or sixty days. 

Again, breathing new life into that, the sales cycle of that title, but also allows you to push out that print version first and try to get a few more people converted over to print if that's your agenda. Really what we were referring to was just thinking about your reader base as much as you can, as much as you know about them. And some of this can be hard if you don't sell direct, or if you only sell one format currently then again you don't have any other data to tell you that they would read otherwise. It is a great way to experiment with new formats if you don't, but it's really just about understanding your audience, which format you want to release first to get the most widespread absorption or adoption rate of that book, and then releasing other formats in a staggered or phased approach to sort of reinvigorate your sales cycle for that title.

Lauren: Yeah, I don't disagree. 

Matt: Does that make sense? 

Lauren: Yes, I think it makes a lot of sense. Hopefully it makes a lot of sense. 

Matt: Yeah. Clara, if it doesn't just email us again and tell us we're idiots and we'll - 

Lauren: That's fair. 

Matt: I'm also on DayQuil and cough drops. 

Lauren: You're doing great. 

Matt: I might not be talking right. 

Lauren: I also wanted to add to that - because I don't disagree with anything that Matt just said, but I wanted to add to it kind of a reminder of something that he said in a recent episode.

Matt: Cause I certainly forgot by now. 

Lauren: For sure. I don't remember what we talked about two days ago, so it's fine. In the episode that we did recently about custom books and making custom books, Matt brought up that - the idea that as authors we tend to prioritize producing books in the format that we are most interested in reading them. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And that this is something to remember specifically when designing your go-to-market strategy, is that just because you are primarily a print book reader doesn't mean that you should only go to market with a print book.

Matt: Yeah, that's true. For sure. I would never just release one format because that was my format of choice. That's a great point. So many authors that we talked to or work with, most of the time they've started their career with ebooks and just stayed in that format because it was easier for them, or depending on what time they came into the indie publishing game, that was where the money was for a while. And they're always pleasantly surprised when they do release print paperbacks, hardcover special editions, and people rush to buy them from them. 

And I think that's great. And it just, again, furthers the point, like just because you only read ebook or you only like audiobooks, that doesn't mean that your audience is the same by any means, yeah, 100%. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So I'm glad I made that point. I forgot I did but, good for me.

Lauren: It was a really good point. And so I'm glad to remind you of it. 

Matt: I think that just applies to everything, but not just authors and book formats. But in general in business you see this happening all the time. Sometimes we just get locked into our, our lane and we make decisions based on what we like. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: Or we might pitch to somebody based on our wallet size and you shouldn't do that, you never know what somebody's willing to spend for something that they deem extremely valuable.

Related back to the authors, when you're pricing a book a special edition or a hardcover, things like that, don't be afraid to ask what you think it's worth, you know? Just because the standard hardcover goes for anywhere from $25.99 to $35.99 in a retail store, if you put a lot of extra time and effort into this thing and it's got some bells and whistles and you think this thing is worth $40, $45, $50, whatever, and you need to recoup your costs, your super fans will pay that. They'll support you, they'll pay what that price is. So again, let's not make important decisions about our books and our business just based solely off of what we like or dislike. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully that helps clarify that. Okay, is it my turn or your turn? I lost track.

Matt: Do you say clarify or clarafy? Because it was Clara that asked the question.

Lauren: I'm so glad you caught that. 

Matt: All right. I like it. 

Lauren: Thanks. 

[28:40] - Can I move my book files from another publisher to Lulu and consolidate product reviews on platforms like Goodreads?

Lauren: I think it's my turn to pick a question. 

Matt: Maybe.

Lauren: I'm just gonna pretend it is anyway. So we actually - we got a couple of questions that were related to the idea of moving your book from another platform to Lulu and the different requirements that go along with that. We got some questions about ISBNs, about file migration, stuff like that. I think we can answer these questions, but broadly. 

And if you had more specific… there was at least one person on Facebook, I think, had a much more detailed question about the specifics about this that I think realistically the best answer for that is to connect with our customer support team. If I thought I could get away with it, I could do a full two hour episode by myself just on ISBNs. And I've never even bothered pitching it to Matt because I know Matt would probably fire me out the spot. 

So we will not be doing a deep dive into ISBNs, but just kind of to answer the broad strokes of that question, yes, you absolutely can move your books from any other indie publishing platform to Lulu. If you have published them with any of those other platforms and you used an ISBN from those platforms, you will need a new ISBN. You can get one from Lulu if you're publishing for distribution. If you're publishing just to sell direct, you do not need an ISBN at all. If you are publishing with the intent of distributing your book through retailers, you will need a new ISBN.

This is a new edition of your book, so you will need to do that. You can bring your own. You can acquire your own from Bowker or you can use the ones that Lulu supplies. It's up to you how you do that, but you will need a new one. Your files should work, assuming that they are the correct product sizes, the formats are the correct sizes. 

Matt: Yeah, all the variances in the files, the bleeds, the margins, things like that, they're very similar between all of us - 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: - in terms of self-publishing platforms. So your files should be okay, but nonetheless, it never hurts to double check and then order proof copy just to make sure everything looks the way you want it. ISBNs is Lauren's 100% right. If you bring your files over to Lulu from a different platform, and you're using ISBNs that that platform gave you, they don't want you to do that. So once you upload them to Lulu, you can either use the free Lulu ISBNs or you can go to Bowker and buy your own. 

But that's the beauty of self-publishing is you own that content, you take it wherever you want. There is one platform in particular that is very… if you're gonna publish with them, they really want your content to stay there and only there. And so they do put a few things in place that can sometimes make it seem a little scary or… complicated to take your work elsewhere, but it's actually pretty easy and there's nothing scary about it. So yes, you can absolutely do that. 

Lauren alluded to a few other components of this question that Troy on Facebook sent in. Some expanded questions around ISBN numbers. For that situation, Troy, and what you're asking, you should probably speak to one of our experts here in customer support because you have some very specific things, especially regarding reviews attached to ISBN numbers. And so some of that either they'll need to help you through, or you would actually need to look into for those particular review platforms. Um, we're not sure exactly how that would work, so yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, I can definitely say, so Troy was asking like, can you consolidate reviews across different editions of your book on different review platforms? And the short answer to that is yes, you can. If you go on Goodreads and you look at a book, technically, if you're looking at a book on Goodreads that has a paperback, an ebook, a hardcover, and an audiobook, they're all under one profile. Like, all of the reviews for those different product types are consolidated under one profile for that book. 

So Goodreads is designed to do that. Whether or not you have to manually reach out to Goodreads and ask them to do that for you, or if it will happen automatically, that's not something that we can answer like that. That's something that you probably would have to either speak directly to our experts here and maybe they can help you out with that, or more likely reach out to Goodreads and ask that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[33:01] - What ride would we ride for 24 full hours straight in order to get a free lifetime annual pass from Disney?  

Matt: All right, let's pick a fun one. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: If Disney said to you, Lauren and Matt, we’ll give you a lifetime annual pass - a lifetime annual pass - if you stay on one ride for a full 24 hours straight, what ride would you choose? And the person who posted this question, they excluded Haunted Mansion from us, saying either a, it would be too easy to do that ride for 24 hours straight or B, they knew that's probably what we would both pick. So the, the, the limiter on this question is that we cannot choose Haunted Mansion, but what ride would we ride for 24 full hours straight in order to get a free lifetime annual pass from Disney? 

Lauren: Okay, so first of all, there is no ride that I wouldn't ride for 24 hours if it meant the end result was a free lifetime annual pass to Disney. Would it kill me to ride Guardians for 24 hours straight? Perhaps. Would I die trying? Yes, for sure. 

Matt: I'm so old I couldn't stay like I - my body just wouldn’t do it. Space Mountain would kill me after three hours. 

Lauren: Oh, I won't even ride Space Mountain once these days. The Disney World Space Mountain? I am putting this on the record, the Disneyland Space Mountain far superior - 

Matt: I agree.

Lauren: - to Disney World Space Mountain. 

Matt: I agree. 

Lauren: But I won't even go on the Disney World one anymore. I can't do it. 

Matt: It is so jerky. 

Lauren: It's so jerky. 

Matt: You come off that ride looking like you got ran over by a train. 

Lauren: Yeah. And I also feel this very weird - something about it feels so small and claustrophobic that I spend half the ride ducking because I'm convinced that I'm going to hit my head. I'm - I'm five ten. 

Matt: But you’ve -  

Lauren: I'm not that tall. 

Matt: You've seen that entire ride with the lights on. 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You know you’re not. 

Lauren: Yes, I know. But it doesn't matter. 

Matt: All right. So what's what's your ride of choice, though? 

Lauren: Oh, so actually, I think the only logical answer to this question is the People Mover. 

Matt: I don't think it's the only logical answer. I think it's a great answer, yes. And I was agreeing with you earlier, but as I was thinking about it, they didn't say you couldn't sleep on the ride if it was possible. So I think I would actually choose It's a Small World. Well, it's a boat. 

Lauren: What. 

Matt: You're on water, and I feel like that tune, after a little while, would just lull me to sleep while I'm on the water. 

Lauren: That was the most… if you asked me to rank a list of guessing your possible answers, that would have been in the bottom five, if not the bottom. 

Matt: I was just trying to think of like, for 24 hours, man, I'm gonna fall - I need to fall asleep.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I'm too old. So what ride could I potentially fall asleep on? And I think that's probably the only one because there's no big drops. It's on water, so it's kind of soothing. And again, that chorus, I feel like after a while would just lull me to sleep.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Or bore me to sleep. 

Lauren: I will give you - actually what I did not think about for the people mover is comfort of the ride vehicle. 

Matt: It's hard plastic. 

Lauren: And even though it is one of the few ride vehicles that has the bench seats that are facing each other, so you could put your feet up, you're not going to get a full recline anywhere on it.

Matt: No. I can stretch out across a whole bench on It's A Small World. 

Lauren: Man. 

Matt: So. I don't know. I think that's my answer. I'm going to stick with it, but I will agree with you. I think I probably could tough out just about any ride for 24 hours to get free lifetime annual pass, but if I have my choice, it's probably going to be It's A Small World. 

Lauren: Wow. Wow. I. That's. An amazing answer. I'm going to be thinking about this for a while now, because People Mover has always been my default answer to that. But now I have to reevaluate the comfort level of sitting in that seat, so. 

Matt: You know, what really would backfire on me, though, is if I just wasn't able to get to sleep for some reason, hearing that song over and over - 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: - for 24 hours would drive me literally clinically insane.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I'd get off that thing and wouldn't even be able to use the annual pass. I'd have to go straight to a mental hospital. 

Lauren: Okay. Anyway. 

[37:00] - Are there plans to integrate with Etsy? / Any chance of decreasing shipping times?

Matt: I think we have time for maybe one more. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: So let's pick another serious one. Well, kind of serious. I'm going to do this one. So Karla on Facebook asked us a series of questions. They were actually really good questions, but they're lengthy. And I think the answers for most of those questions could be summed up in really - it was more feedback. She wanted to see some features introduced into the Lulu platform that would allow things for downloading a month's worth of sales and importing that over into her bookkeeping tools and things like that. 

So Karla, we have gotten that feedback from you. We are going to take that to the product team and see about potentially getting some of that stuff introduced into the Lulu bookstore and Lulu accounts. A few other things Karla asked though: are there any plans to integrate with Etsy? 

So we've been integrating with a bunch of different ecommerce platforms. Etsy is on our list. It was originally a little closer to the top of our list. There are some limitations and things there with their technology and their platform, so we're still trying to figure some of those things out. But as far as I know, there still is a plan to give you some way to connect your books to Etsy for those of you that want to sell on Etsy - or your projects, whether it's calendars, journals, whatever. 

Another question or another part of Karla's question set was: any chance of decreasing shipping times? I'm going to assume that Karla was actually speaking about the total duration of time that it takes from an order being placed to when you receive it. The big myth is that it takes a long time to make a book print on demand and that the reality is it doesn't. Now, that's not to say that sometimes our print facilities don't get a little backed up, especially going into the holidays. They print thousands and thousands of books per day. And oftentimes these are book of one, meaning they're not throwing a big roll of paper on the machine and printing 10,000 copies of one book, which is infinitely easier. Most cases, they're printing one or two copies of one title, one or two copies of another title, one or two copies of another title, so. I think you get the picture. 

However, on average, a paperback in normal operating times would never take more than two to three days to print, bind, let the glue set up, get it packaged for shipping. The rest of that time is basically whatever carrier you chose when you checked out, whether that was FedEx, UPS, US Postal, Royal Mail if you're overseas. The rest of that transit time is on them, not us. We have no control over that. 

The most time it should ever take a book to be produced by Lulu in normal operating times, you know, again, non-holiday peak times, is three to five days depending on the format. Hardcovers can take up to five days, but they need the proper amount of time for the glue and the binding to set up properly so that you don't get a crappy book. Anybody that prints and binds and ships you a book in less than 24 hours or even less than 48 hours sometimes, I would pay very close attention to what you got in the mail because it's probably not a quality piece of print work. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt: I guess the answer is any chance of decreasing shipping times: no. We produce books, really good books, as fast as you can actually produce really good books. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: The rest of that is transit time and we have zero control over that, yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. Nothing to add to that. 

[40:07] - Is there a way to do box sets with multiple books in them? / Can you add sketchbook-type paper to your options?

Lauren: I do want to sneak in one more answer really quickly. 

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: Because it ties into something that I said in an episode recently. Foxtrot Artistry on Instagram asked the question: is there a way to do box sets with multiple books in them? And I think they asked this question before the episode that I mentioned it in was ever aired, so it might not even have heard it yet. 

But I did ask in an episode recently if this is something that you as an artist, author, creator are interested in - why? I'm genuinely curious, because I've never understood the value of them and I'm - it's something that we get asked about a lot, and I like, don't really understand why, so I would love for somebody who is interested in them to tell me why this is something that they would want. So if you get the chance, like - so right now no, the answer is no, there is not currently a way to do box sets with multiple books in it. But it is something that we are aware people are interested in. 

Matt: And we're speaking of traditional box sets here, right? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: With a cardboard sleeve, all the books. 

Lauren: Oh, I assume so. 

Matt: Yeah. Okay, then your answer is 100 percent on point. 

Lauren: Yes. But I'm really curious. So the fact that somebody like, specifically posed this question out here, if you are interested in elaborating on why that's something you're interested in, I would be so curious about it. So either comment on this episode on Instagram or shoot us an email at podcast@lulu.com. I'd love to know.

Matt: Well, and they are not the only one to ask this. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And that's why we talked about it before. It is a question we get from time to time about traditional box sets, again, with a cardboard sleeve or some way to keep them all together. And for us, given the amount of books that we print, the amount of orders that run through our system and what it would take to facilitate that in our print facilities all over the world, because if we offer it in the US we want to be able to offer it in the UK or France or anywhere else that we print and ship.

There's just not enough demand for it. So the more feedback we can get, the more understanding we can get around why people want this, why creators and authors want this, the better. They also asked another question, so I'm just going to throw that in there. It was a good one. The same person asked, can you add sketchbook type paper to your options? 

The answer to that is yes, that is in the plans. That is something we're working on to add a heavier sketchbook type of paper that's not coated, so that you can create and sell actual sketchbooks on Lulu or wherever you want to, or even just for your own enjoyment. That answer is probably one you'll like.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Compared to the other answer about the box sets, but it is coming and we will let people know when it is available. So just make sure you're opted in to get marketing emails from Lulu. That's where we typically - there and social media, where we'll announce new features as they roll out. 

Lauren: Yeah. That question, that product is something that I personally have wanted from Lulu. So I'm glad you asked that question, and I love that we got that answer. So thanks for sharing that. 

Matt: You wanted sketch paper?

Lauren: I make my own planner every year and the lightweight paper, the 60 pound paper that we use is thin enough that if I write with Sharpies - 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren:  in my planner, it bleeds through the paper. 

Matt: I gotchu. 

Lauren: bBut the heavier weight paper is coated and isn't as easy to write on. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So, yeah.

Matt: Makes sense. 

Lauren: Alright. 

Matt: Okay. 

[43:16]

Lauren: Well, thank you everyone for submitting some great questions for us. I hope you are all satisfied with your answers. I understand that podcasting is inherently not a two way question and answer street, but if there is anything that we didn't get to that you want to ask more about or if we did not answer your question thoroughly, if you have more questions about what we asked - or if you didn't get a chance to submit a question for this and you want to ask us a question, you can always reach out to us, podcast@lulu.com, or leave a comment on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram, Facebook, wherever it is, you can always reach out to us. And thanks for submitting questions. And more importantly, thanks for listening to this podcast for a year. It's been a year. 

Matt: Yeah, if you have been listening. 

Lauren: What do you mean? Everybody here is a day one OG fan.

Matt: Wouldn't that be great? 

Lauren: It would be. 

Matt: All right. 

Lauren: Shout out to all our OG fans. 

Matt: Agreed. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you next week. And happy Halloween.

Matt: That was an afterthought, but yes, happy Halloween.