Hi everyone, thanks again for coming. My name is Grace Madioli. I'm an author of three books, two Witcher novels. One is entitled, All the Branches Don't Grow on Trees. The next one is, the other one is, Discovery of an Eagle. And I also recently wrote a nonfiction guide book for indie authors. It's called, Tell the World Your Story, a super short guide for series indie authors. It may be of interest to some of you out there. And it's available only in ebook format through Kindle, through Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, Kobo, which is Kobo K-O-B-O. For those of you who aren't familiar, that is the eReader for Independent Booksellers Association. So that's a really great one. And also it's available on iTunes. And anyway, we are actually gonna talk about three topics of writing, publishing, and promoting your books. And I'm gonna speak first, followed by Alisha, followed by Bob, and you know, but feel free to ask questions as we go along. And for each topic, it will be 20 minutes. Again, feel free to ask questions, but there will be time reserved for the end of the session for questions as well. And also we'll be selling our books at the end, if you're interested. The first thing I'd like to say about writing, the way that I was able to write two novels in two years while working full-time was by being very disciplined and by setting a quota of words to write per day. This worked really well for me. So I set a quota of 400 words. Oftentimes I would exceed that, but I was always sure to make my quota of words. And this is an idea I got from this excellent book called The Nighttime Novelist by Joseph Bates. And I know that lots of you, I'm sure are non-fiction writers out there, but for those of you who are fiction writers, especially novelists, I can't recommend this book enough. It's been my bible through writing two books, two novels, and I'm about to start on my third. So that's where I got this idea of having a quota per day, and it's a really great idea because rather than waiting for the inspiration to strike, I just began writing and it just, whatever. It's a really good way to go. The other recommendation I wanna make for writing your books, if you're serious about having them published and having more than just your friends and family read them, is to have them professionally edit it. So this is essential for the book publishing process.  And a good edit, an edit can cost anywhere of $500 and up, but it's something that I highly recommend. In terms of finding an editor, it's a little bit tricky because there's not like a formal certification that you need to become an editor. So I used word of mouth in looking for my editors, and also I was sure to give them a sample of my work and see how the kind of edits they made on it so I knew if it was a good fit or not. So that's something I really highly recommend. And that's a little short for the writing session, but I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague or my friend. And Alicia. Thank you, thank you Grace, hello. And my thanks to you for San Francisco Library for hosting us, a lovely opportunity. My name is Alicia Young. I'm the author of The Savvy Girls Guide to Grace, small touches with big impact at home, work, and in love. It's nonfiction, it's a light read, it's about tapping our inner Audrey Hepburn in a rushed world. I feel like today we're more logged on than ever, but less connected. And so it's about simple ways to bring back those connections. So can I just, would you like Bob to introduce himself and I'll come back to writing? How would you like to do it? I don't know what I'd like to do. Yeah, great. How would you want to do it? So I think I'm Bob Finlayson, or R.A. Finlayson is my author name. And I wrote a book called Gene Pool on Natural Selection, which is a science fiction novel set 50 years in the future about how biotechnology takes over our lives in essence and what does that mean? And it's the first in a four part series. So that's who I am. And if you wanna, Alicia, go and speak about writing. Thank you. A couple of thoughts here. My book took two years to write and about 15 months to independently publish. And I would recommend to anyone who's flirting with the idea of indie publishing, please, oh please, make sure that you are passionate about what you choose to write about. I feel like there's two types of writers in the world, broadly speaking.  One week, they're writing about Alexander the Great. The next, they're writing about the mating rituals of sea turtles, good for them. But in terms of, I was so glad that I felt so passionately about writing about grace. You have to be ready to talk about your book and be grateful for the chance to talk about your book. Talk about it in the street, in a crowd, underwater, in a coma, be passionate about it. You can call me at 2 a.m., please don't. And I will talk to you about your inner Audrey Hepburn if you so desire. So do consider that passion. When I, for me, was a three-year project, I'm very grateful that I didn't go with my initial topic, which was identity theft and how to avoid it. I would have burst into flames, I would have been so bored. So make sure it's something that you feel passionate about because if you choose to be an independent publisher, not to be flippant, but they do say, writing the book is the easy part. When you're tired and you just want to put it down, that's when the work is cranking up when you've got to sell it and get the word out in a sea of other authors. So it really helps to feel passionate. I would also encourage you very much to join a writers group, either in person or online, to have that support, writing by nature is solitary for most of us, I imagine. And so getting out there, having the support of other writers, giving them support, learning from each other, I think is a very important part of the creative process. I think I've always learned. We have Elizabeth Fischel here today and Arthur and Elizabeth runs a wonderful series of writers groups in Oakland and I learned very much from that. So I'd encourage you to look at that as well. Elizabeth, can I just ask you to raise your hand just in case? Thank you very much. And there's some flyers over here as well for some events coming up. What I did learn to do when writing my book, one of many things I learned, was the notion of an editor by committee. Now this does not replace professional editing, but with an editor by committee, when you've gone through a few of your drafts, you feel like you're polishing as you go along. Consider six people in your life that you would consider reasonably well read and who can be a little objective, i.e. probably not the person who gave birth to you. They're just going to love it. But what I would suggest you do is don't give someone your whole manuscript. Just say, please take a chapter or two and give them a key to mark it. For example, and I've written this on your handout, if you like something, give it a check. If you don't like something I've raised, put a cross next to it. If you're confused, put a question mark. These kind of simple symbols makes it easier when they give you back those chapters, should let you see what worked and what didn't. And when they give it back to you, there is only one response we can give, and that is, thank you. Thank you for finding the time in your day to give me your feedback. This is not a time to get defensive. I cannot believe you did not get that joke. Where is your sense of humor? Just be thankful. So I think that's important as well. And just if I might make one more thing, I had to make a conscious decision when I set out to write my book. I would not be intimidated by this process. Frustrated, sure. Fatigued, absolutely. I don't drink, smoke, or do fine white powder. I considered starting all of them in this process. But I told myself, whatever obstacles I came across, someone else has also come across, and you've got this wonderful community in the Bay Area to plug into. So jump onto message boards, join Baypur, also on your handout, the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, and you will get answers. People are very gracious in the writing community. That's enough from me. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's a lot about writing. It took me three years to write my first novel, and it was a very complex process because it's a science fiction book, and there was a lot of research involved. So I think Alicia's quite right. Passion about your subject matter is really important because when you're up late at night trying to figure something out research-wise, I can't find a fact. It helps if you really care about the subject and you're really interested. As far as the writing process, I think groups are a really great way to get encouragement, and in fact, the group that I was involved with was called Shut Up and Write, and Renny Saunders is here as well, if Renny wants to raise his hand. It's a great group that's here. It's actually, we have a number of chapters around the country now, but the idea is that you just go there and you write for an hour. And if you go there consistently once a week for a year, you'll have the first draft of a short novel. And it's amazing how you can get the work done. But as one of the lines that we like to use at Shut Up and Write is something that Isaac Asimov said, who has written, I don't know, 420-some books. When he was asked, how do you do it, he said, but in chair. And that is really what you need to do. If you wanna be a writer, but in chair, and that's how you have to do it. But going to these groups and we met in cafes and it's very encouraging just, it's kinda like going to the gym, right? When you're there, you figure, okay, I might as well work out. If you go to the group and everybody's writing, I might as well write.  And that's actually the best advice that anyone ever gave me, is that I think a lot of us spend many years not writing the book that we wanna write. And the biggest obstacle is, oh, we're not ready, I don't have the right material, maybe I'm not good enough, I need practice or what have you, start today is the best advice you'll ever get. Is like start on that book immediately, don't wait. The editing process is the joy for me was writing the book. And then I spent another probably eight months editing it myself. And you really need to do that because when you go back, you'll reread material. I like to read things aloud because I think sometimes you hear what you can't read on the page. And then giving it out to some folks whose opinions you value, but who are willing to tell you the truth. And giving small sections of it, agree with that too. Because you don't wanna force people to read the whole thing, let them have a bit and go, you know what, hey, this is great, I'd like to see more. You know, and see how that goes. And then do get someone who is either a professional editor or a very good editor to do a final edit on your book before it goes out. So basically in terms of writing, the only other advice I would give is if you're, my book has four interweaving plot lines. And I found it very useful to sort of architect that on a wall where I wrote out, I tend to write in scenes, write scene by scene, and then put those up, each scene is described on a card. And then you tape them up on the wall and you're like, does the plot flow? And it gives you a real chance to correct errors before you start sitting down to write the book. And eliminate a lot of problems that you run into, not that you still don't run into them. And finally I'll say it's good to know the beginning and the end of your book, if you're writing a novel, right? So, and that way, cause it's like, it's a trip, right? You know where you're going, now you just have to figure out how to get there. I should add, hi again everybody. So now we're gonna talk about the publishing process. So there'll probably be more time spent talking about the publishing and the promoting aspect than the writing aspect, because naturally there's so many books on writing a book, so. Anyway, I'm gonna start with the publishing process. I would recommend, or I'd like to strongly recommend publishing in both e-book and paperback formats simultaneously, that's what I did for my second book. And the reason you wanna do this is to give the potential buyer as many formats and choices as possible. So, so in publishing in my, in e-books, the other recommendation in an e-book format, the other recommendation I would make is publishing in Amazon KDP, which is Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords. And Smashwords is a really great, it's a distributor, the largest distributor for independent e-books. So once you publish through Smashwords, they will make your book available in Nook, Barnes & Noble Nook Store, iTunes, Kobo, and God, escaping another format. I'm sorry, I can't think. But they'll also make them available in, so the major e-book formats besides Kindle. And they'll also make them available in various databases that are used by libraries, such as Overdrive and Access360. So it's a really good deal publishing through Smashwords. With KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing, I did that as well. Now it's a little tricky because Amazon has a program, and many of you probably heard of this, called KDP Select. And KDP Select requires authors to only publish their book in Kindle format. So Amazon says, no, you can't publish in Nook or iTunes or any of these other, you can't have your e-book in any of these other formats. But the trade-off is they will let your, if they have this program, that's what KDP Select is, is a program whereby your book can go free for five days out of every 90 days. So what this does is it boosts your ranking because you get to promote your book on tons of sites, so you get to reach thousands of readers. The disadvantage is that, again, you can't publish on these other sites then. You can't have your book available in any other formats. So you're exclusively on Amazon. So you're only reaching a certain audience. And it's not something I did for my first book, and it did help my ranking, but there's a lot of negatives to it, and mainly the exclusivity really limits your exposure.  I wanna get my name out there as much as possible. And that's part of why I kept my books really cheap. So I sold my first e-book for $1.99, and the second one's priced at $2.99. And I really strongly advise that because people are reluctant to shell out for a big-name author today. And so I feel like, well, as an unknown author, I should just give them every incentive I can to wanna buy my book. So the other thing I was gonna discuss was the publishing in the paperback format. Unless anybody, does anybody have questions about the KDP or about Smashwords? About Smashwords? Yes. It goes into databases that libraries use. One is called Overdrive, and one is called Access360. And there may be other ones as well. I'm sorry, could you say? Can I get any more money for that? No. So you just get more exposure. Just more exposure. But it's a really great way to get your name out, to get known. Smashwords was really reasonable to publish on, so I just paid $40, and that was to have somebody convert my, not to convert it into a Moby format. That's, I did that on my own. That's what you have to do for, when you're publishing on KDP. But it was just $40 to have it format in such a way that they accept it into what's called the Premium Catalog. And when they accept it into the Premium Catalog, it's available. That's when they make it available in all those stores, in Nook, in iTunes, and so on. So it's really cheap. I hit that. I don't know. I'm still confused. Do they take any part of the price, the retail price? I forget the percentage now, but it's something like Kindle. I am so bad at keeping track of any of that. Because again, I just, I mean, my whole prerogative was to really just expose myself and make a name. But anyway, I wanted to talk about the paperback publishing aspect of publishing. And in doing that, as many of you probably all know, the two leading venues are Create Space, which is an affiliate of Amazon, and Ingram Spark, which is an affiliate of Ingram, which is the largest book distributor in the country. And sometimes Ingram Spark, when I first found out about it, it's also known as Lightning Source. So you may have heard it referred to as Lightning Source as well. But I published my first book in 2012 with Create Space. And I just, I brought in copies of it so you could kind of see the difference. And so I revised it in 2014, and I republished it or had it reprinted with Ingram Spark. And I was much, much happier with the Ingram Spark copy because it looks just a lot more professional. It looks like I see a lot of books as a librarian. I forgot to mention the beginning of a librarian here, 18 years. So I see many books coming through my way. And this particular, this copy of All the Branches of Glow Trees looks like many of the other self-published books that I see, whereas this other copy looks like as good or as professional as any books I see coming out of New York. So I had a better experience overall with Ingram Spark. So it might seem like a no-brainer to you of go with Ingram Spark. But the thing with Create Space is they really do a lot of hand-holding. And so for instance, with Create Space, I didn't have to worry about formatting my book or having it professionally formatted or getting an ISBN number because they pretty much held my hand through the whole process. Create Space ended up costing me more than the Ingram Spark copy did, even with getting it professionally formatted and having to buy an ISBN number. But either company is great. I just had a better experience with Ingram Spark. They are a little bit trickier to use, again. They're not as easy, user-friendly as Create Space. So that's a possible disadvantage. Anyway, thank you. Are there any questions before? Yes, sir? I was just wondering, when you talk about putting something into print, what is your primary motivation for actually having paperback hard print? Oh, good question. And I forgot to address this. The other thing where Create Space is really at a disadvantage is it was impossible for me to get this into bookstores. It was possible for me to get it into libraries because I know as a librarian, most libraries use what's Baker and Taylor database. And maybe half. I'm not sure. I shouldn't say most. But just about all bookstores use Ingram. And so not only could I not get it into the Ingram database, but the other things that they require that Ingram Spark will allow you to do is they make your book available to discount, and they make it fully returnable. And bookstores require this in getting your book into them. So anyway, in answer to your question, I didn't mean to be circuitous. But my main prerogative was getting into bookstores and libraries. And just thereby increasing exposure to my book. No, it's not like your print work is fueling your income. No, copped. I mean, yeah, my royalty checks added up to less than $1,000. They're nothing. So I never looked at it as that I'm going to make a living this way. No, but it's almost like we're at the day and age where it's sort of like, why have anything that's actually physical anymore? Right, but you can't get them into bookstores and libraries. You can actually get them into libraries because they have databases. But you can't have them say somebody wants to put it out in their staff pick section or something, a bookstore clerk. Well, I mean, it seems to be a desired format. Yeah, yeah. Because theoretically, you could have an electronic staff pick so that people don't necessarily think of this. They might not use it as much. And I know from my field that I'm in, there is kind of a little bit of a, there's getting to be a shift back towards print books. And I prefer them myself. So I'm very comfortable with e-formats, but I prefer print. This is getting a promotion aspect. How do you promote an e-book? That's the next one. OK. You can write your names at bookstores with a physical book. How do you promote an e-book? There's so many ways. So, well, OK. We can get into that in a minute, maybe. Good question. But we will get into that. And also, I do get into that extensively and might tell the world your storybook. But there's so many venues for promoting your book as an e-book. So do you think that there are more venues as an e-book than as a physical print book? There are, but here's the thing. I think that I'm not sure how good, like I do all the social media on all the sites. And I do as much as possible. And I have my website and my blog. And I blog every week. And I do everything possible. But I'm going to get into this a little more in the promoting. But I may as well bring it up now. I met a man who I was sitting on the beach. And he came up to me and started pitching his book. And it was an amazing book. But this guy had an amazing pitch that was incredible. And so he started talking. He told me, he's an indie author. He told me in five years he sold 5,000 books just by going up to people on the beach or in the cafe. And to me, nothing takes a place of word of mouth. There's many venues for, and there's many ways for selling your book online. But I'm a big believer of word of mouth. But yeah, we're going to get into that a little more when we get into the promoting aspect. But did you have a question? Is Spark exclusive? Are they mutually exclusive, Spark, in great space? Can you be on both? No. I mean. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have answered that so quickly. I'm not sure. Why would you want? I don't know why you'd want to, though. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I couldn't see why not, actually. But I just, yeah, and I'm not sure if it would really be beneficial. And then also you'd have to have, I think it might be really confusing to the audience. Because then, if you're getting reviews for your books, you'll have two different editions. Because you're going to have the one that creates space, use their ISBN, and then the other one where you get an ISBN from Valcher, one of the identifier services. So yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing that. But I mean, I do have these two published by the two different ones. But that's because this one is revised. They are, but this one's dying out. It's really weird. It took Amazon the longest. So Amazon still might, I don't know, they still have it on their site. So on my website, I have a link directly to this copy on Amazon. But on all of the other sites, when I put in all the branches, don't grow on cheese, on Barnes and Noble or anything, this one comes up. So it's a little tricky. But I really wanted to, yeah, it is, it is. But I'm going to turn it over. And we will get back to promoting e-books, methods of promoting e-books. And I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you. Thanks. In terms of publishing, it's very helpful to ask early on, is this book going to be a hobby or a profession? And I don't mean perhaps your only source of income, one would hope not initially, because it does take time, even with the best publicists. But ask yourself, is this a hobby or a profession? Are you looking at doing a family memoir, where your only audience, as enthusiastic as they are, is your relatives at the next summer family reunion? Because that will help determine how much money, resources, and energy you want to invest in this project. I would still encourage professional editing. I think that's non-negotiable. But it does bring it into focus if your audience is, say, 50 or 70 people, versus wanting to hit the best seller list, for example. So whether it's a hobby or a profession is something to consider early on. I would also, in the publishing phase, or as early as possible, join a group like BAIPA, the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. It's on your handout. Also, again, you have this wonderful community in the Bay area. And I would heartily recommend that you join the California Lawyers for the Arts. It's all of, I believe, $30 or $40 a year, fantastic workshops for creative artists. And I really would recommend that. I also, I believe they're still off of the service, whereby if you join, if you need one, you can get a short, free appointment with an attorney, for example, and an intellectual property attorney, if you need to check copyright issues and things like that. In terms of the thing about independent publishing, I feel, is the good news is there's no one to say no. The bad news is there's no one to say no.  I'm pretty good at this. I can do research to bring myself up to speed on that, but I really need help with this particular thing. And then you're in the position, if your budget allows, as time allows, to bring in professional input as your project allows for it. There's several things that I've learned along the way. Let me stress, I am not a lawyer. Let me repeat that in America. I am not a lawyer. But when I interview someone, I get them first off to sign a release. And again, it's in your handout, but there's certain phrases I've learned to use that I ask for an agreement saying that if I hire a book designer, for example, that I own the copyright to the work that she produces for me. I also added that she retains portfolio rights so that she can, you know, someone designs a book for you. I think it's reasonable that they can put it on their website and use it as part of their portfolio. I think that's good faith. But then usually there are no royalties or other residuals that are paid. Once I pay someone, I like it to be a final payment with thanks and then I'm not having to accrue royalties. It's an accounting nightmare after that. The two things I would never skimp on ever in book publishing is the professional editing and the cover of your book. Now, if you have a graphic arts bent, by all means give it a try and you may find you love what you do and that you get good feedback with it. But just be careful about that. They're the two things I would try not to skimp on and I would put off my project to be able to afford those things. What else, in terms of getting the page layout, I had someone do that. There are people who are very talented with do-it-yourself. Alas, I am not one of them. And so I would go to associations like editorial associations, copy editor associations who have a code of conduct, have a certain skill set that I'm after and I feel that those people tend to keep up through their own communities, their professional development about the newest things happening in their editing areas. So I think that's important. Some questions to ask an editor when you're looking out. What is your experience in my genre? If your editor could be great on fiction, but if you're wanting to do non-fiction and there's a whole other art to that, then perhaps you don't want someone cutting your teeth, cutting their teeth rather on your non-fiction book. So what is your experience in this area? What feedback can I expect from you if you're a developmental editor? How much feedback am I going to get? In what manner? How much detail are we going to get into? Would you consider looking at one or two pages of my work and giving feedback on that? Do you edit only in track changes or are you open to doing hard copy editing which some people prefer? So again, what are your payment terms? Do you work per word, per hour as some do? Or do you do a flat fee up to, for example, 50,000 words? And if you do a flat fee, how many passes do I get at this before you start charging me and at that point, what do you charge me? It's just really good to not get a nasty surprise with the bill later, and I'm sure they would agree as well. One thing I do notice with independent books is that sometimes, not often, but sometimes the author photos look halfway to mug shots. I mean, they're just shocking. It's basically, you know, all they're missing is the sign with their number, you know? But I do also appreciate that having a professional photograph can be very expensive. And one thing I did was to go to a film school. I contacted a film school in New York, and within 15 minutes, they posted an ad for me, saying, you know, author photo, wanted photo shoot, et cetera. We negotiated a flat rate. Again, she retained portfolio rights. I retained the copyright to my photos, so I can use them anywhere. And she gave me a lovely photo that I was happy to use. Now, I did something a bit extravagant, which I wouldn't normally do. I once booked two photo sessions in two days in New York. One was with, and I apologize to any professional photographers here, but I booked a professional photographer. And she was, whatever happened that day, she was a little bit tense and uptight, which made me tense and uptight. When the photos came out, I looked like human taxidermy. Like this. I was like the meerkat in the National History Museum. It was shocking. Whereas the other girl was casual and laid back, so I was casual and felt better about it. So if you want to book a photographer, however you do it, perhaps meet with them before you book them and just get that feeling, because this is something you're gonna want to use for a while. And I went to, I looked at booking a professional photographer and it was $1,000, $2,000. So I could get my head around that, but they wanted another $2,000 for one copyright to my own face. And I thought, don't know about that. I would like to use this photo. It's me in it. Now, I respect that not every photographer does that, but that was when I was calling around a year or so ago, that seemed to be the norm in New York. So there are options through using film schools and things like that. Just consider that as well. And finally, in terms of publishing distribution, if I might say, there's so many platforms, as Grace mentioned, to once your book is done, to get it distributed across different platforms like Amazon. And Amazon, of course, is this giant in the publishing industry. And this is where I envy my fiction writer friends. My book is only available at the moment in the US. Now, if I was a fiction writer, or perhaps a memoirist, I might be able to tick when it comes to it all the different, to make my book available across all the different countries that Amazon makes their books available. But as a non-fiction writer, I've got to be careful that the fair use laws where I've quoted a song or I've quoted someone else's work, the fair use laws in the US are very different to the ones in London. So just be careful about that. Just consider, and again, another reason to go to the California Lawyers for the Arts, just get it sussed out. And don't get excited and choose every country on earth because it might come back to bite you. So just be aware of that. Thank you. Very good. So we've covered a lot of ground. See if I can add a little bit to it as far as publishing goes. I'm actually a firm believer in e-books. I think there is a place for printed copies. It's very hard to get bookstores to pick up in an e-book unless you go around and kind of personally do some hand-selling. And the e-book world is from the numbers. And I'm a technologist, so it's really exploding. So there's a lot of opportunity there to get your book out and it's far more cost-effective. There are a number of platforms, frankly, I would say probably 85% of my sales have come through one and that's Kindle. So it's the biggest platform by far. Barnes and Noble is trying really hard, but they're still way behind. And Kindle just, they practically control the e-book market. So you just wanna make sure that your book is formatted properly for the Kindle and then it looks beautiful there. The two things that are really important in this day and age of publishing is even if you're gonna do a printed copy, is your cover art is really critical. And the reason is because, so this is the cover of my book and when I originally, I had a professional artist do it, I thought, oh, it's just too simplistic. But what happens is, and the reason why is because when this gets squinched down to a thumbnail on that website and people are looking through it, they cannot see the fine details on your beautiful cover. So you wanna keep it simple and bold. So that way, because that is your sales tool, right? There is that little thumbnail. And then your author photo is important too. And why is that? Because we just love to see who wrote the book we're gonna buy, right? So, and it really is a connection. It's very important. So you wanna, I wouldn't spend $1,000. I think you can probably find a good art student who can do a job for a couple of hundred and take a nice author photo of yourself. That should be representative of you as the author of that book. So as far as editing goes, a professional editor is critical, as we mentioned before. I think interviewing them, having them test out, like try a sample of your work and see how it goes, making sure they understand your genre. Cause it's quite different to end, especially editing nonfiction versus fiction. There's many, many different considerations. So make sure your editor is very knowledgeable about whichever area you're in. And I think, and that's probably, any other questions on publishing before we move on to promotion? Please. Right now in the science world, there's this idea of open source publishing. So basically, it's the idea that if you're writing about anything scientific, it should be open to the public for free. But the sort of writing that you're talking about is sort of a combination of creative scientific writing. So how does that sort of fit into the publishing spectrum without parents? I mean, this is a big debate, if I might. I mean, about this. There's a lot of open source talk and it has a lot of it has to do with code, programming, but as far as writing goes, and this is the same thing happening in the music field too. If no one's going to pay, no one's going to do. So it's very simple. If authors can't get paid for their work, then they're not going to do it. Or you're certainly not gonna have professional people doing it in a professional way. I think that an author deserves to be paid at a fair rate. And we didn't talk about pricing and just to add a little bit about that. So there is a big price range out there. My book is 747, and I haven't actually reduced the price since I published it several years ago. It is up for probably gonna reduce it soon. But yeah, the $1.99 price point, or $1.97, seems to be a really good spot to be. And that is not an unreasonable, for someone who puts two or three years into a project, that is not an unreasonable amount of money in my view to take, I don't know if anybody else wants to talk about the open source issue. Well, one of the things I noticed was on Amazon, you can do a quick scan of chapters of a book, and that's free, that's usually... Oh, that's a feature of Amazon. So you have to agree to that. We probably should have said unless you do it through a third party, if you do direct, you have to sign an agreement with, I have an agreement with the iBooks, with Barnes & Noble, and with Amazon. And that agreement has seven pages of terms and conditions. And one of them, for example, with Amazon, is you must authorize them to allow at least one chapter of your book to be available for at no cost. But look at those terms and conditions carefully. And I love the group that Alicia mentioned. I think they would be excellent in terms of advice. But you have no choice, really. You can't alter the terms and agreement, but it's good to be knowledgeable about them. You can choose to, and on all of those platforms, you can tick off what territories you want to be in. I ticked off the maximum, and I actually had some sales in Poland, the UK, and in some other country that I was like, wow, that's in Italy. And I was like, I don't know. And it was all in English, so they're buying it in English. So anyway, I'm sorry, did you... I think one of the choices on Cato, and I'm wondering if any of you have tried this, is for free, I think the whole book. Oh yeah. And I've heard that it could be a good way to launch a book and get it out there, get the word out there. But of course, it's a limited period of time. Have any of you tried that? That's what I was, yeah, discussing before, and the KVP Select is the name in the program. Well, no, I think Kindle will do it. I'm not... Perm-a-free? Yeah. There's a Perm-a-free option, too. I think so. I didn't choose KVP, I didn't choose Select. Right. Because I have snatch words, it's got too confusing. Yeah. I just wanted to... Oh, great, great. Yeah, there's something called Perm-a-free, so that's usually, if you have a couple books, so I've contemplated putting my first book on as Perm-a-free, which would make it permanently free on all the sites. But I just, worth noting, you can't put it free on, say, nook or, and then not, you'll get a threatening letter from Amazon if it's $1.99 on Amazon and it's free on nook. I don't think it works the other way around. But I was thinking it was free for a limited period of time, not free permanently. Yeah, the free days at Amazon S. The free days at Amazon S, that's the KVP Select program. Yeah, you have to be in the KVP Select. Well, because I got lost in the website, because I didn't choose KVP Select. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, and again... It's the author choosing that. It's not you as the purchaser choosing it. The author can choose it. Yeah, I'm the author, and I'm a publisher. I publish a book. Yeah. And I've been at this on the web for months, and I thought, one of my options, and I didn't choose it, but I had, actually, I think there were three, which is I set the price or the purchaser can set price, or the author publisher can make it free for a limited period of time. And I just set my own price. I didn't want to deal with the other two. Yeah. So if you do choose to participate in that program, again, you can't have your book available on any other e-book formats. But it's five days out of every 90-day period that you can let your book go free. Yeah, for Select. And it's a good option, because it provides a lot of exposure. Yeah, yeah. A lot of exposure. So, everybody, we're gonna move on to the promotion aspect and probably the most important aspect, or the one that you're most interested in, aspect of the program. Okay, so the first thing I'd like to say is that when I, one thing I did for both of my books is I wrote a business plan, and I strongly advise you doing that because if you don't, you may miss many golden opportunities. And I organized my business plan into three phases, pre-publication, publication, and post-publication. So things I did in the pre-publication phase, the most important of which was to solicit reviewers for reviews. This is the most important thing, I think, that I did in writing any of my books. And it's something I did very, very aggressively and tenaciously, and I solicited it maybe a couple hundred for my first book, and I came back with 20 people saying that they would review it, and maybe five or 10 out of that, actually reviewing it. So, the reason I emphasize this is you can get reviews from your friends and family, but as a book selector, I can tell the difference. I can tell when somebody's mom is writing a review, and when somebody who's writing an objective, honest review, especially when they state it in the review, this author gave me a copy of a book in exchange for an honest review. And also, what will lend to the person's credibility is if they're running some type of book blog, or if they're a really established book reviewer, such as Midwest Book Review, which is the most established book reviewer for independent writers. So, if you can get a book review from them, that's awesome, that's really great. But getting your book reviewed by people and having them post the reviews on Amazon is really important.  So, I think getting paid reviews from these credible sources is fine, as long as just don't pay some guy, I don't know, just don't pay anybody though for a paid review, for a review, excuse me. Anyway, in my book, Tell the World Your Story, I list a couple of really great sites where indie authors can find book reviewers. So, that's again, can't emphasize the importance enough. The other thing I wanna talk about is having an effective author's site. So, getting a author website, I recommend using, well, of course, do it on your own if money is an issue. I did my first one on my own. My second one, I had designed professionally by a company called Electric Reads, they're out of London, and I highly recommend them. So, they specialize in doing author websites. An effective author website should contain, most importantly, a page on your books with a summary and links to your purchasing your books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on, should also contain an author biography, a blog which you should update consistently. I don't update my blog as much as I'd like to because of time constraints. I started off once a week and now I do once every two weeks, but I've been doing it consistently for four years, three or four years. So, the important thing is to keep up with it, not to blog a bunch and then just stop. So, the other things that should be contained on your website are contact information, a way for your readers to contact you, and a link for something like a newsletter so you can collect email addresses, that's really important so that when you write your next book you have a list of email addresses to send notifications or to. So, they have programs such as MailChimp or Constant Comment is another one that you might wanna check into in terms of getting your own newsletter widget. The other thing is a media kit is really important and I use a media kit in soliciting bookstores and libraries to buy my book and a media kit consists of the following, a press release, review excerpts and again the more established a review source the better. So, if you have publishers weekly, Kirkus, Midwest Review, anything like that or an established book blog review site, that's great. A book excerpt, a lot of people use the first few pages. I did that for my first book, for my second book, I used a part in the middle so it's all up to you. Also a biography, a list of publications and a description of your target audience. So, it's really important to not say that it's kind of the kiss of death if you say, oh, my book is for everyone and anyone can, well, enjoy my book and maybe that's true but it is good if you can be defined somewhat in terms of your target audience. So, you kind of know who you're selling to and another really important bit of advice is to, and this is hard for a lot of artists because it's not our nature, I think, as artists but to really think of your book or your product as, I mean your book as a product.  So, I think that's really important. The other thing is I wanted to answer more a little more extensively. You asked about promoting your book, your e-books and there's so many ways to just create an online presence, social media, obviously and there's many ways to acquire followers and so on and different kinds of etiquette to learn to do on Twitter. For instance, don't exclusively, your tweet shouldn't consist exclusively of you promoting your books. Also, there's things like giveaways, there's what's called a blog tour and I did a blog tour with my first book and that's when I went to these different, I solicited different book review sites and asked them if I could do an interview on an interview or a guest blog post or giveaway which is like, you're giving your book away for a little contest. So, these are some really great ways to increase your exposure. Also, there's radio interviews and your website is very important. So, you should make your website as visible as possible. A lot of authors make the mistake of getting a book, putting it up on Amazon and that's it. But really, you wanna be directing people to your site, not to Amazon. So, that's a really important thing to remember. Anyway, I'm gonna turn it over to Alicia. Well, unless there's any questions, I'm sorry. Maybe we should hold those at the end. Okay, okay, got it. Thank you. Sure. The first thing that comes to mind when the promotional part of your book comes up, the marketing part, is that the marketing really is a marathon and not a sprint. So, please don't put pressure on yourself to crack four figures in your first week or month. Took me a year to sell over a thousand books. So, just be aware of that. Some things to do is, my colleagues are very offay with the high tech side of things. So, I'll go a little low tech to try to balance that. Enter your manuscript or your completed book in as many awards as you can. It's on your handout. The bookdesigner.com, Joel Friedman, has a great link on all manner of book awards that you may not be aware of that you could be eligible to submit. Some of them accept a manuscript as opposed to a published book.  And these are ways to plant seeds in the minds of your potential buyers. The other thing I would consider doing is going to radioguestlist.com. Radioguestlist.com is a free service to join. Now, there are fairly small radio markets and podcasts who will contact you, but they basically say, hey, we need someone to talk about dealing with cancer in the family or someone who's been to India in the last 10 years and wants to talk about the changes, any manner of topics. Again, fairly small audiences but a wonderful opportunity to practice a radio interview. And the fact that it's a dialogue and it's kind of punchy and conversational. A couple of tips on radio. My background is TV and radio. When you do a radio interview, even if you do it at home, stand up. Your breath placement is naturally going to be better. If you need some notes, print them in very large font and stick them on your door or your kitchen cabinets so that you're looking at them and not looking down. Don't worry about having to hammer your book title all the time. They will intro you and outro you. Oh, today we're talking with Grace Mattioli, author of Olive Brunches, Don't Go on Trees. Hey, Grace, what's going on? Then they'll outro you. That was Grace Mattioli, both in lesson at the end of the interview. Another crucial part of publishing is your website, which Grace has already touched on. It is not negotiable. You need your own website. Occasionally we hear these arguments come up in the community. Oh, don't need a website anymore. There's all manner of social media platforms that you can plug on. Why bother with your own corner of cyberspace? We see social media by nature is fluid. Every other month there's a hot new site that you have to join. Now those terms and conditions can change at any time. You could be coasting along beautifully on Twitter or Facebook or whatever, and then maybe they always have the option to change their terms and conditions. By nature, your website is a form of insurance. It's that little corner of the world where people can always find you. Your store is open 24-7. They can learn about you, read your bio, get a feel for you, make a connection, and then also find out about your other services. For example, new authors, and I put myself among them, often think that our first book is the Be All and End All. And in fact, what I've done in the last few years is open up other things like a speaker platform. So consider that you might want to speak to community groups, corporations, colleges about what makes you an expert in your field. Whenever I do speaking engagements, paid or unpaid, I always look for the option to sell what's called back of the room sales. And that's another way to get it out. I always have marketing material, and I'm just conscious of time, but if I can just spend a moment on this. For example, as authors, you'll find on your seats, there's a couple of samples here for postcards. Now one of them has my book title and my photo. On the back is a bit about me and my book. The other side is blank. I then put address labels on that. I send this out to a couple of hundred radio stations, and I got a very good return on local radio stations across the country saying, hey, we could talk about that. And it's free publicity. That brings me to another point, which is your domain name. You must have a clear domain name because in radio, people only get to hear your domain once. In a magazine or a newspaper or a website. Thank you, twice if you're lucky. So it's got to sound right. For a year or so, I had to hobble along with this awful website, which was not savvylife.com, savvy-life.com. It was really clunky to say on radio. So eventually I kept an eye out and savvylife.net eventually became available and I was able to get that. Something else I would encourage in terms of promotion, own your name if you don't already. If your name is Jane Doe, please own JaneDoe.com. I didn't and I paid for it. I noticed that my blog was suddenly skyrocketing in Barcelona of all places and I'm thinking, this is kind of great. And then I realized there was another Alicia Young and God bless, she is known as the boob blogger. Three million hits. She puts a picture of her girls on every day. And that's it. So I was getting these awful letters from dirty old men in Barcelona who were thinking they were writing to the boob blogger. Had I been able to own my domain name, I might have had a bit of a better branding opportunity. And finally, when my book came out, I got excited. And I sent out my book to leaders in my field and now I talk about being savvy and graceful. So I sent it out to people like Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sandra Day O'Connor, the retired Supreme Court Justice. I got lovely letters back from all these ladies but I made a classic mistake. What I should have said was, please enjoy my book. Please supply me with one tip on savvy living. Just one tip. Though we're gonna write back anyway. These are women of incredible upbringing and I know we're always gonna write a thank you note. But imagine if each of them had said, hey, Michelle Obama has a wonderful agenda on healthy living. I'm sure she would have said, hey, thank you for your book. You know, I would never flatter myself to think she actually read it. But thank you for your book and I would encourage everyone to limit the drive through to twice a month. Now what I could have done with all these little insights was cobble them together. And I know I could have got that into a feature magazine or into a supplement of a weekend paper. And so just think about that. If you're gonna give it away, think about asking for just something small in return, like a small tip. If you're doing a book on leadership, what's your, what did you learn from your first boss? What's the best or worst thing about leadership? Give me a little bit back and I can use that. Thanks for your patience. Well, we've got a little bit of time so I'll go into just a few items. About your domain name, mine is genepoolthebook.com, right? So that makes it quite easy. So I recommend that use your book title and it's very simple for people to remember. There's a couple of things that you wanna create when you're marketing your piece, which is a one sheet, right? And there's mine is back there for you to see. It's a very simple. This is also done in a PDF so you send it out digitally for the most part, but also you can have it printed out.  Once you engage with the reviewer and the process is basically identifying them, there's a number of guides out there that will give you lists of these people. You send them an email and say, hey, I'd like you to review my book and I've attached a one sheet, right? Cause that's what they're gonna wanna see and then they'll come back and say, yes, I'm interested in reviewing your book and they'll do it. So you wanna make sure you create that. Planning is critical to your marketing process as Grace has already said. I do a work back schedule. Okay, when's my book gonna be published? Cause you wanna set a deadline for yourself and then what are all the tasks that I need to complete? And then how do I make sure I get back to where I am? Okay, I can get it all done, right? So everything that you wanna do from all your promotion activities, which are basically your website, your PR outreach, various kinds of marketing, social media. One thing about social media, I would not get hung up on, it is great. If you can do a post every week or every other week, that's fantastic. Most of us don't have the time. You don't need to do that, but get that website up there and get at least initially when you get the book out, have right up 10 or 12 interesting posts and then spin them out over the next 10 weeks. Cause that's when you're gonna get the bulk of your sales and that will engage people. If you're fortunate enough to build a big audience, then you can keep going and that'll be quite helpful. The one other thing I mentioned is promotion, constant promotion and there are very simple ways to do it. So one example of what I did was KQED, the local public radio station here, has a show called Perspectives where they invite outside writers. So my book deals with the future of biotechnology and how we're all gonna live forever in that future. And so I wrote a piece called The End of Death, which was tied into my book. Now you can't promote your book directly, but what they do is they say Bob Finlayson, who is the author of Gene Pool, A Natural Selection, and then people listen to that and they hear that plus they hear genepoolthebook.com at the end and they go to your website, which should have a free download for the first chapter of your book and also a link to where they can purchase it. So there's, oh and one last little tip, a good thing to carry with you at all times is to create yourself an author book, an author or business card, which I left for everyone on your chair, right? So this is how, because in every conversation, you wanna say, Alicia it's so nice to meet you. You know I wrote this book, you might be interested in. And this business card has of course my name and it's got all the website information and on the back there's QR codes. So with my phone, I can scan in that code, go directly to Amazon and purchase the book instantly. So no one's got, how do I get that book? It's right there. So this is a very simple and it's very inexpensive. It's just a simple marketing tool. Hand it out to all your friends, hand it out to everybody you meet. So with that, anyway, questions, please. I had two books published, one with a vanity press, which is a rip off. And then I had another one published with a small press. And I know that they both have a lot of books to market like since they work with a lot of authors. So basically I'm trying to decide if the next one I'm writing, if it would be, this is the only route I haven't tried, the indie publishing. I'm trying to figure out if it would be like better or would it be better to go with a small publisher.  I tried to go with, to get it published traditionally. But I wanted to say something else and then I went to indie publishing. The nice thing with either of these IngramSpark or CreateSpace is they have these what are called expanded distribution programs that you can get into. So you can get your book in databases that librarians and booksellers are gonna use. So if you solicit these places to buy your book, then it's really, you make it a lot easier for them to go in and just find your book in their database and buy it. You make it a lot easier for them to purchase. And I highly advise, I know it's harder for indie authors to get into libraries and bookstores but I highly advise people to do that, to solicit librarians and book buyers to get their book there because this is really what's gonna really increase your exposure so much. Somebody might walk into a bookstore in Arkansas or wherever and see a copy of your book and it's not gonna happen if you just kind of keep yourself in this, it's something to really help your exposure. One of the things about publishing as an indie author is something that's very simple to remember, it's called 70%, right? So when you publish an indie author, you get 70% of the service takes 30% as a royalty. When you go with a traditional publisher, you're gonna get 12%, right? So it's a big, big difference. So as a new author, as you're building your reputation, going the indie route can help you and you can collect much more. Unless you're very fortunate to get with a good publisher who also promotes you because by the way, that's the other thing that happens is when you get, when a big public or any publisher takes on your book, you have to do all the promotion and bear all the expense and you still only get the 12%. Did that kind of answer, oh, sorry, Alicia, do you have anything to add? I just want to ask you as a librarian, would you recommend authors, for example, a page to have a booth at the annual, the American Library Association's annual state or national things? Would you recommend having a booth and saying, hey, all these thousands of librarians are coming here, please order it and have something available or not? That's a great idea, but I did have my book in combined, through a program called Combined Book Expo. I had my book in American Book Expo in New York and Javits Center. And that's the biggest book in, that's the biggest show of the book industry in the country of the year. Much bigger than ALA. And I got maybe one person that wrote to me, promoter, a publicist that wrote to me with interest. So I didn't, it wasn't a whole lot of money, but if you are gonna do it that way, just because I had a misfortune, what I'd recommend is doing this Combined Book Expo, because through that, you don't actually have to pay for all the traveling expenses. You don't actually have to be there. You get your book, like I didn't go to New York, I just had my book in this expo with a lot of other books. And it's a pretty, it was like $300. So it's not bad, in terms of pricing. And ALA, American Library Association, is gonna have a similar, you could do ALA through Combined Book Expo. And so I'm a fan of going that route, as opposed to, I mean, who has like thousands of dollars, who's been for traveling and so on, you know? So yeah, look it up. Just as I said, CombinedBookExpo.com. I have a question. Do you think that the indie writers are gonna, are they threatening the regular publishing industry? Are these trying to lose clients because everybody's going indie? And what are they gonna do to get us back? Because I've been rejected. I'm dying to get back. I am passionate about being an indie author. We used to talk about the big six publishers in New York, which are really now the big four with consolidation. I think the writing is on the wall in the sense that we've seen successful authors like Hugh Howey who does a science fiction series called Wool, very well reviewed by The New York Times. He did something really unprecedented very recently. He was able to negotiate with a traditional publisher to handle his print books, but he got to keep his digital rights. And that is a huge development. The big publishers in New York would never have said that. We control everything. That's their motto. And I understand that's the model they work from, but with respect to what they offer, it is becoming outdated. There used to be a stigma of self-publishing or independent publishing. We're really seeing that erode. And I don't believe I'm being a Pollyanna about that. We're seeing J.K. Rowling has now, she does all the e-books. Because basically your book today is always going to be in a file, in an electronic file. Why wouldn't she assume rights and distribution of profits for her Harry Potter e-book series? And then Stephen King, also the novelist, Jackie Collins. She's done 30 titles, now she does self-publishing. She buys in the experts as she needs them. She retains control of her voice, her creativity, has the final say on her cover design or manner of things. And she's keeping the profits as a result. So, I do believe it's going... Go ahead. Well, they've undergone a lot of change. A lot of change. And I was going to say, as a book buyer, the database that I work in, I see a lot of publisher out of business and can't be located. And, you know, just a lot of indications that publishers are dying by the day. Just, there's a lot of factors. I don't think it's, I don't really know. I don't think it's indie publishers as much as just the economy in general. But there's many factors. But they are really suffering. And so, it, yeah. You know, I don't want to bash my traditional publishing either. If you can get a book deal, I will please let me know. I'm glad to see you don't go down. I'm sorry? I've been rejected by all of us. I'm glad to see you're my heroes. I also noticed them going for whatever they think is going to sell. And so, I encourage people not to write from your heart and from something, from what you're truly passionate about and not to jump on any bandwagons. Cause just in my, you know, I read hundreds of reviews, book reviews through many sources. And I, you know, it looks to me like a lot of publishers are standing behind and selecting books that they think are going to sell over a book that they think is a good quality and that is something, you know. Yeah, they're not taking risk. And they're doing a lot of bandwagons, too. But I also respect, you know, they're there to make a profit and they need to make an assessment of all the things that enter the slush pile, what's going to work. So, I don't want to bash traditional publishing. I think, you know, it has worked for a long time. If any of you get a book publishing, traditional publishing deal, please call me. I will raise my glass to you. But the beauty now is that independent publishing democratizes writing.  There are so many motives for doing it. And so, you know, we're just going through a lot of change in the publishing landscape. And that's a good thing for all of us cause we get more options. Exactly right. So, well put. Okay. Hi. I have published a children's book. This is the cover I happen to have with me. I didn't even know I was going to be here tonight. Congratulations. I think I have so many ideas that I don't stop and market. And also I'm having trouble moving from writing to publishing those stuff I'm working on now. And I know it's personal self-discipline I have to somehow come up with but I was hoping you might have some suggestions. In terms of time management? No. Is that what it is? I think I know what you're talking about but if I'm incorrect, let me know. But it's really been challenging for me to simultaneously write creatively and market and be that business person. So I have to kind of do my writing and begin my creative mode, my artistic mode. And when I'm done and I've edited it and I've gone through my manuscript and you know, after it's published then I go into the CEO mode. But I personally can't be in both modes simultaneously because it's kind of, I don't know. I just, is that kind of what you were saying? I just want to put it inside. So I think kind of maybe what might work for you is what worked for me is kind of separating these things and saying, okay, now I'm going to write, I'm going to be creative, I'm not going to worry about marketing or any of that practical stuff. I might do a blog post once a week and put it out on social media but that's it. But I, after that and after the publishing and the editing process, I go into the marketing mode. And that seems to have worked pretty well for me. I don't have nearly as much fun with the marketing as the creative process. I mean, I'm in it mostly to be in that process because I love it so much. But I, you know, it's a necessary part of it. And I did do a video for you two, children, and seeing one of the daughters singing on Mr. Roger's song is wonderful. But nobody else, I had a publicist for a while but that's $1,500 a month. Yeah, yeah, publicists are very expensive and not something that I would highly recommend because it's really a gamble that you take. Well, no one can guarantee the results. They can't really guarantee the results and they cost thousands. What do you think about you to publish and promote your stuff on YouTube? This is a big new area is author videos. So if you go to the sites for some of the very well known authors, you'll often see a very well produced video on there. So it's being used a lot but then of course you have to promote the video as a tool to get that out, put it in front of the right audience. And there are ways to do that but it's very time intensive. It's sending it out to thousands of sites, sending the link out to thousands of sites and saying, you know, this is a video about this book.  And especially if it's a particular topic that you're engaged in, then find the blogs that care about that topic and they'll often post the video. And in the video it should be something interesting that adds value to whoever's watching it. And then at the end is where you say, and this book is available, you know, at this website and the video can actually be clickable so that they can get right to it. And add it to your e-signature on all your outgoing emails. Put everything, your book title, any awards that you're a speaker, for example. I've got speaking engagements booked from a lady at the gas company who just saw it and said, oh, well, my husband is a company with a speaker roster. You know, someone I would not normally be able to reach. So just make it easy for people to find you and get to know you. That connection, that human connection through your about page, through your author photo. We're all just, we're humans, we're looking for something in common or something relatable. Absolutely.  I'm just wondering like how for each of you, do you determine what the success of your suit exposure is or like, how do you evaluate that? Where you need to be working or how successful what your efforts are in terms of sort of the online reality that you use like Google Analytics or do you look at sales? I mean, there's a very simple analytic and that's just your sales, right? And then each of the sites that you're on gives you very detailed information, you know, day by day of what the sales look like. So you can see, like if I spoke here, was there a sudden spike? And you can tie that directly to those activities. And using, you can tie it directly to things. Unless you're doing so many things where you don't know which one of them was responsible for that. And it can come at a lag time too, but this is, we live in a digital age, people just wanna go, boom, and they're done.  And you know that it was successful. If there's no spike and it doesn't, and after several days, nothing happens, then you know, well, that didn't work. Yes. There is a saying that, you know, not only half of all advertising works and no one knows which half. So it is experimenting, isn't it? And watching after you do a radio piece or a local television piece, watching that spike and monitoring activity on your site or in your Google analytics afterwards, and you're just getting to know whether you've reached people or not.   Oh my God. You have to exist online, that is non-negotiable. And you want to, as an author or a speaker, do you feel you want to be available 24 seven to anyone across the world to find you? Did you mean exist physically? I'm sorry, I just wanted to clarify your question. Well, that's what I mean. Like getting on a radio, mentoring your program, to me is almost like live, you know, it's not quite the same as a post on Twitter or whatever, but like, you know, actually being present in readings or speaking engagements. I mean, do you, I guess it's more effort to do that. So is it worth that effort? Absolutely. Absolutely. You're making a connection with potential readers and building a following. And I was just going to add my story about the man who sold 5,000 books in five years, which is, he probably exceeded many people who were published traditionally and you know, just going up to people and this person was not tech savvy at all. I don't even know if he has an email address, but he just goes up to people and he gives them, you know, his spiel. And he's selling a physical book. He is. Yeah, if you're not selling a physical book, that can be more difficult. But being, That's true. And you can't be everywhere and that's a hard road to go down.  I mean, your online energy should be, my personal view is, you should be probably in the 80, 20 range, 80% online because it's just so effective and it's convenient. And 20% of being very selective about what you do and where you go, but then also always be willing to hand that card out. And every, whenever I'm talking to someone, I always work into the conversation that I wrote this book. You know, and I see what the reaction is and they're like, oh, that's so interesting. I love science fiction. I'm like, well here, you know, buy the book please. So, you know, but that's hand selling on a one by one basis. So, you know, that can be helpful but really the digital is where you're gonna get the biggest exposure. Yes. And the other thing I wanted to add is your mailing list is another indicator. So, getting people to sign up for your mailing list, another way of judging how well you're doing in terms of your presence and your. You mean just the bad number of the people on your mailing list? Yes, so you were saying, exactly, like how to judge your success. So, that would be another way of, you know, if you get so many people signed up for your mailing list, you're doing pretty well. And that's, they're really important again. I've made great successes that you are publishing a revised version of your book. I published the revised version. But is it, are the words different or just the format? Oh, I just, I grammatically, I just went the. Because I got a revised question. Actually both, words and format. Well, not, it's in paperback format and ebook formats, but it's a different printer. So, I published this book on, which I showed you on Sounds of Movie in the interviews in 1996. I was very focused on selling it to college film courses, got reviews in all major trade magazines and really sold the book with very, except for the stress of calling the editor and saying, I can't send you a book unless you're gonna review it. It was very effective. So I've now revised it somewhat, only in that I've added the credits of these 15 major sound mixers. We've made hundreds of movies since I published this book in 1996. So now, and it took me a long time to do this, now that's done. And I have a list of about 1,000 educators in all, you know, actually, I'm sorry. What's this book's name? Sounds of Movie, I'll show you, I'm gonna buy it. So the question is, how do you, and I've heard that if you're coming, okay, so. We have about two minutes. I'm promoting the revision of a book, which was substantially already published. I'm hoping that there's an audience that'll still buy this book. I just promoted the way I've been promoting the book all along. So it was more for myself than anything. I just, so I just prefer this. There were things you wanted to change. Yeah, there were things I wanted to change. Exactly. So in the revised version. Yes, and I just did it the same, you know, I didn't change anything in terms of how I promoted it. Are the sales comparable at all with the original? I think so, but again, I'm not so great at, I'm not as good as I should be at looking and seeing that, but I think they're pretty good. We are, we are. I can get, yeah. But I think, is there, okay. Oh yes, and when I wanted to remind you all that we'll be selling books after if you're interested, but I'm sorry, what question did you have? Have you ever sold the new book in person? Yes, absolutely. So they take the card and click on it. Oh yeah, well sometimes they'll intentionally do it right in front of me. They want to say, oh I definitely want it, and they want to show me that they did it. So, and I'm like, very happy to see it. What is that little thing about the requirement? It's called a QR code. I gotta get that. You can go, if you just type in QR code into Google, you'll find the site where you can create it, and you just apply a link and it generates the code for you, you take that artwork and then you apply, you know, you give that to your designer. And QR means quick response code. So they'll click on it and you'll go to Bob's page. Hopefully my page. Hopefully your page is not someone else's. Well, thank you very much. I think that's all, right? You've all been wonderful, thanks, thank you very much. Thank you. We have chocolates over here as well. Please grab some, that's very important.


How many have been thrown the ball really well last 14 game sub one era? What do you think has been the key over that span? I'm just taking my routine and just stay in the course I guess this year trying to just keep you know staying positive and Basically just comes down to the my routine and everything trying to stray away from it and stay positive A lot of swings and misses with that change up. It's been a big pitch for you Why do you think you've been able to execute so well with that pitch this season? It's just been really consistent this year It feels like I just have the same mechanics wise with it every time I throw it and so far It's been my best pitch this year. You feel like you're pitching with a ton of confidence right now. I would say so Yes The bullpen as a whole you have a ton of guys back there that that can give you quality inning How much confidence overall is there in the ability of guys to get out? Very confident I mean you look at the back end of our bullpen or anybody in our bullpen I feel like this whole year. We've all been very great and I think you can throw any of us in there and we'll get the job done Encouraged by Paxton's performance very yeah, he's I mean he looked great tonight. There's nothing you could say about that He looked incredible Not a test is more just staying with ourselves, you know and just staying the course I mean we had a rough stretch right there, but you know, we've been resilient and It's just basically getting back to what we do best and that's just being snaking together and getting through the tough times What's that like just to go from 2-0 down to 4-2 up in the first inning? It's pretty crazy. I mean it's a whirlwind at first, you know After Glaber it's all right, but oh, yeah, this is awesome You know and then it was fun to see so, you know, he's incredible hitter and it's just fun to watch these guys play Do you have those moments with him maybe more than some other guys with the stuff that he's doing in the box? I mean I get I guess so I mean everybody here they all got they bring their own thing to the table It's you watch any of them there. They all have that whoa factor. It's it's incredible watch this lineup What's the difference between how you guys pitched tonight and then last weekend when they beat you up pretty well? I think we're just getting ahead and account better and we're just putting them away and keeping them off balance I think they were a little too comfortable Maybe last series and I think coming into series where we want to prove that you know We're better than what we showed out there


Today we got some CQB training going on. We're doing battle drill six. We're just covering the fundamentals of room clearing, entering clearing rooms. Battle drill six is one of the battle drills we use to accomplish our tasks. You're going through rooms and you're clearing rooms with your team at the team level and then eventually we'll go up to the squad level. We'll be leapfrogging each other and we'll be doing this exact shoot house at the squad level. As a squad leader, one of the best ways I help these guys out when we're not in the shoot house is we have them run through glass houses. We do repetition after repetition after repetition. So these guys continuing to train and train and get proficient in those movements and working together better with their teams and creating internal SOPs. So when they get over there, whether it's in Afghanistan or any deployment setting, GRTC, they can almost work with each other without even speaking to each other. They get to a point where they know how each one operates.


All right, so as you know, back in January, we voted with 86% support from our union. It was a clear and decisive choice to unite as a staff and meet management as a collective. So in May we went into negotiations. Many of you have been and continue to come to the negotiations. We started the process of bargaining by making it clear to UVMMC administration that we were serious about making improvements. We're serious about making improvements to pay equity, increased salaries and a livable wage for all, attracting and retaining quality staff, protecting and improving worker safety and patient care. And it's not too much to ask but a healthy work-life balance. Thanks Shannon. So far we've had eight bargaining sessions with management. We've met to earnestly and honestly share our experiences in the hope that management would hear us and realize what we're going through, then work with us to make a change. Our colleagues courageous honesty moved us to tears, stories of housing insecurity, inability to afford health care, violence in the workplace and the constant stress of being overworked and underpaid. We're just asking to be heard and we ask to be respected. So we're here today because it's clear that they're not hearing us. There it is. Let them hear us. Yeah, so we show up here and we show up every Wednesday, right? We show up on Wednesdays. Our colleagues bravely share their experiences. We offer proposals to fix what is broken in our workplace and we know it's broken. We work there and they file in week after week and they continue to present us with insulting proposals. They refuse to acknowledge that our jobs are dangerous. They resist giving us the tools that we need to protect ourselves and they don't seem to grok that we feel lucky when we make it through a shift without being hurt or when we manage to somehow scrape by with a couple of bucks left in our bank accounts after we pay our rent. Yeah, right. It's real. Happy end of the month, happy payday. So while management seems to get that short staffing really is a problem for us as well as a problem for patient safety, thus far their proposals only address staffing concerns for some of our positions, not for all of our positions. And similarly, their wage proposal has given significant increases to some of us, but not to all of us. So do you see the theme, right? We see it. Our management is willfully ignoring our needs and is attempting to divide us from each other. Apparently our priorities are not their priorities. And they rightfully fear the power of a united support staff. They know that if we're divided that they can walk away from these negotiations without successfully without addressing our needs. But we're here today to show management and to show our community that we are not divided. That we stand together, unified behind our bargaining priorities. We believe that all staff must be supported in their jobs. We believe that all staff must earn a livable wage. We believe that all staff should be safe at work. And we believe that all departments should be fully staffed. Our community deserves a better hospital. We deserve to live and work in a community of care where our needs are met and where safety is a priority. So we're here today to show our unity and make it clear that we're prepared to do what is necessary even if it's standing out in the pouring rain to make improvements we need to do our jobs, live lives with dignity and provide the best patient care possible for our community. Management keeps adding additional dates to bargaining. They're dragging their feet, y'all. They won't do what is right until we put enough pressure on them. So now we are going to sing. Do we have the lyrics? We're going to pass out the lyrics, but essentially it's a call and response. We got this. We got this. All right. I'm going to sing it a couple of times and then you'll just sing along with me. I know you will. Make them hear it way up there. Oh, my mom. Yeah. There are mean things happening in this land. There are mean things happening in. There are mean things happening in this land. Now I'm going to sing the verse and you're going to repeat it back to me. There are mean things happening in this land. We can't afford to pay our bills. We can't afford to pay our bills. There are mean things happening in this land. There are mean things happening in this land. There are mean things happening in this. There are mean things happening in this stuffing everywhere. We need safe stuffing everywhere. There are mean things happening in this land. Worker's safety in a livable wage. We want worker's safety in a livable wage. There are mean things happening in this land. Last verse, there'll be good things happening in this land. There'll be good things happening in this land. I just, hey everybody, I'm Brett. Here are the facts. There are 2,300 members of this union. Over half of us struggle to pay debt and loans and they struggle to afford food. Over 71% of us struggle to pay rent or mortgage. Over 90% of us qualify for the hospital's own patient financial assistance program. This is unacceptable. People who work at this hospital, the largest private employer in the state should be guaranteed a living wage. And the dignity and dignity at work. We shouldn't be struggling to put food on our table, keep a roof over our heads. We should not suffer the indignities of discrimination at our jobs. We are here today because we are serious about making changes. UVMMC just recently submitted a request to the Green Mountain Care Board asking for a 24% budget increase, citing significant cost pressure and inflation. And their most recent wage proposal to support staff, they offered a 1% cost of living increase for 2024.  And to help bring that point home, I'd like to welcome up Amber. Hi everybody, I'm Amber. This is my dog, put it to my mouth like this. OK. My name is Amber and I am an OSS in women's. I have worked for the hospital for eight years and women's for six. This is my daughter, Rachel. She's joining me here today in solidarity because she is a kid who has grown up with the consequences of my employment at this hospital. I started working here because I have two kids who were patients here and I really appreciated the services that they were getting. And I wanted to be part of that. I really wanted to be part of the patient experience. Thank you, Jordan. Oh, my goodness, right there. OK. Smell it. Smell it. Now I've lost my place. I love you. Thank you, guys. It's really important that we build a foundation of trust with our patients. And as the people at the front desk and at the door and on the other end of the phone, we are the first contact that patients have with this hospital. And that experience sets the tone for the rest of their appointments with us. And I don't think that management recognizes that. I'm also a single mother. I have raised two of my children trying to live on the wages that the hospital pays. I live in some of the least expensive housing in Chittenden County. I rent from Champlain Housing Trust and I can't afford to pay my rent. When I first gave my statement about six weeks ago, I said I can't make it till October. I don't know if I'll make it till the end of July. It is now the end of July. And I guess you could say I've made it in that I am still in my apartment, but I am behind on my rent. My last two paychecks have gone to car payments, groceries, vet bills, I've had car repairs, and I have had nothing left. This Tuesday, before we got paid, my son came to me on Tuesday night and all the way home I was trying to think of what we were gonna have for dinner. And I would think of something that we make pretty often and I'd go, oh man, can't make that tonight because we don't have this item. And I went through probably five or six items before I was able to come up with something that I could make for dinner out of what we had left in our house. And later on that night, my 16-year-old son came to me and any of you who have raised a 16-year-old know what it's like when you have a 16-year-old in the house. They are ravenous. He came to me right before bedtime and he goes, Mom, do we have enough money so I can walk over to Shaw's and get a can of oranges? A can of Mandarin oranges costs a dollar and 58 cents in case you're wondering. I did not have a dollar and 58 cents to give my 16-year-old child because all of my money goes to paying bills, goes to putting gas in my car so I can get back and forth to work. I don't have extra money. And my kids have been denied so many experiences growing up. They've never been to the Guarain Canron. They've never been to New York City. They've never been anywhere. They've never been to Disney World. I can't afford to do that for them. My CTO time has gone to doctor's visits because I have a child with a chronic illness. It goes to teacher's meetings and pretty much that's it. I have very little time left over and that's just not fair to them as kids to have to grow up like that. And when they came into that meeting last week and said it was gonna cost $80 million over the course of four years to pay all of us what we're worth, like that was a big sum of money to them. I just, I couldn't fathom, I was angry. And y'all should be angry because that's not lost money to them. That's maybe not a profit but it's not lost money. It's money that's invested in the safety and welfare of their patients. And until they recognize every single employee of this hospital as a professional from the people who clean the floors and do the laundry to the people who answer their phones and room their patients and clean up behind their patients. This hospital will not be a safe working place. It will not be a good place for patients until the leadership of this hospital recognizes us all as valuable members of their staff. That was a good mic drop moment. Yeah, give it up for Amber. Wow, Matt, good call on the paper. Okay, so when someone does a job for eight, 10, 12 hours a day, every day for weeks, months and years, they become acutely aware of the intricacies of that job. Their experience lends itself to ideas about how the job can be done better and how the staff holds the institutional memory that is an unsaved database rich with information, rich with information. Sorry, guys, it's like running ink. But when those people are not supported at work with equipment they need or appropriate staffing, if they are not paid enough to pay their bills, if they are not able to take days off because there is no coverage, those folks burn out. Our proposals are designed to make the jobs at our region's level one trauma center, ones where we can attract staff because of the quality entry level wages and keep people because we provide supportive environments. So now I'm gonna introduce Tricia. My name is Tricia Ellis. I've worked in the phlebotomy department of UVM Medical Center for almost seven years. I love my job and I love my team. I wanna stand up for them today and voice my concerns. Our department has been hemorrhaging staff for years and we train new phlebotomists constantly. Phlebotomy is a skill that can only come from experience and that requires lots of hours training on the job. We face great responsibilities. Mistakes are costly and delays in patient care can be harmful. We need to be able to focus and be well-trained to do our job. Our patients depend on it. They can't afford for us to lose our most precious commodity, our experienced staff. Our phlebotomy department is at crisis staffing levels. We've continuously worked short staffed in some cases less than half staffing. We have skipped breaks, picked up extra shifts, stayed late and in general, given 100% to get our department through this stressful and difficult time. The newest proposal we were offered to help with the situation is unacceptable and will change absolutely nothing. The amount of money our new phlebotomists are being offered under this proposal is not an incentive, rather it is an insult. We are told the hospital can't afford to do better. My boots on the ground perspective is they can't afford not to.  Not only is this bad business, this is deplorable patient care. Our patients deserve better. We deserve better. Please give us adequate compensation so our phlebotomists can afford to make a career here and enrich our department. Otherwise, we're working for nothing. Please stop the endless cycle of hiring and training and start valuing experience and working for retention. So we are looking to protect and improve worker safety and patient care. You could throw a stone in this crowd and hit someone who has been threatened or assaulted either verbally or physically. So don't throw any stones because we're injured enough as it is. Sure there are metal detectors in the ED but security seems more interested in patrolling parking than keeping us safe. Take that one from Jordan. All we're asking for is additional CTO available following incidents of violence and proactive counseling support for staff when we experience physical or verbal violence. All we're asking for is more accountability for patients who are abusive to staff. All we're asking for is de-escalation training for patient-facing employees. Is this too much to ask? No. We're gonna hear from Shannon who is a mental health technician in our emergency department and her delightful children. I'm Shannon and I'm currently working as a mental health technician in the ED. Before that I worked as a CPSA. I know firsthand that our frontline staff do not work in safe conditions. As a CPSA I was punched by a patient and kicked in the back. When I got kicked I was lucky enough to have a day off the next day because I could barely get out of bed. I don't know what I would have done if had I had to go to work. Since I've moved to the ED many of my coworkers including my husband have been victims of assault. My coworker Scott has lost track of how many times he has been assaulted. His eye socket was broken by a patient causing half of his face to swell. He's also received a black eye and had teeth loosened because of patient violence. Another coworker Joey had his hand broken by a patient and was out for a month. Once he came back he only took low risk patients but had to intervene when several coworkers were attacked in front of him. As a result he sustained a large visible scratch on the side of his face and onto his collarbone. We initially literally take a beating for this hospital. Why wouldn't the hospital show the same level of loyalty and commitment to us? We should not have to use our own CTO time to recover from assaults. We deserve safe working conditions and a livable wage. So it's great to see more people coming out here. That's what's gonna happen, right? As we tell these stories more people are gonna come out and join us because these stories are heartbreaking, they're compelling and they're real and I have to say as my kiddos only parent, my heart goes out to Amber and the things, we're trying to raise our families in this community and they're making it damn near impossible. So we work for an organization that claims to prioritize strong healthy families but our experiences as the support staff at UVMMC is that we are unsupported. We can't afford to pass up the overtime and the urgent time when it's offered to us. We count on those extra hours and those extra dollars to supplement our dismal wages and don't think that management doesn't know it. But that's time, that's our time. That's our time with our friends and our family that we have to give to them in order to make it. And here we are, that's time we could be using to run errands, to take care of our homes or perhaps even take care of our own healthcare needs. That is if we can afford healthcare. Currently, if you opt into the UVMMC health insurance, a physician or a manager or the CFO pays the exact same amount that you would pay towards the premium, right? Towards those of us making just over 16 bucks an hour. We all pay the same amount. This approach is terribly regressive and it leaves those of us who are the lowest paid taking home even less of our income than the higher paid staff. So to address this problem of inequity, we propose a system where contributions to healthcare premiums are based on what we take home every year, right? Not, we are looking also to fix this system of combined time off and the holiday system so that folks can be with their loved ones. So they can be with their families and friends at these important moments. Because as we said on Wednesday, we don't live to work, we just work to live. So I'd like to introduce my friend from the lab, Amanda. She here? There she is. Amanda brings a bright umbrella and 23 years of experience to her work. And for all of those years providing healthcare to her community, she struggles to access care herself. Hi, I'm Amanda. I've been here for 23 years. I've worked in the laboratory. I've never been insured, ever. Not one single year, neither has my son. I had to get Dr. Dinosaur so that he could get his knee and injury taken care of with surgery, which probably would have been hundreds of thousands out of pocket or not gotten at all. It's crazy that the traveling nurses get $7,000 a week to work here, but they're not taking care of those of us who have been lifers. Half of my life I've spent here. Not one year of health insurance. Nothing that I can afford, $320 a month isn't affordable. It's not fair. I think that's why. All right, so we've heard some pretty heartbreaking stories, but now with the mic, even if the mic cuts out, it shouldn't matter because we should be loud enough, but we're going to do some chants and kind of boost up the energy, boost each other up. Hold on, I'm getting it, I'm getting it, I'm getting it. All right, so I'm going to start and then these guys are going to answer and we're going to do it two times and you guys are going to answer when they answer. We're going to be nice and loud. Four staff united. We'll never be divided. Support staff united. We'll never be divided. Support staff united. We'll never be divided. As we have time to work on this, we can be out here all day. Okay, C&G offers have to go hit, hit. Now that I know what I'm supposed to speak and what I'm not supposed to speak, we're going to do the support staff one, ready? Support staff united. We'll never be. It's important that I drink. I know we're going to make a great contract and look at us here. I'll be winning a great contract. I'll be able to buy fresh kale and spinach from local farmer's market. Seems to be easy, thank you, but right now I'm buying frozen broccoli from Costco. I'm vegetarian. I gotta keep my iron levels up. What does it look like to only have one job? Instead of coming home from the hospital, landing home for a quick bite and dashing to the next thing, what if you could just get home, get into your coziest PJs and just rest? What if I don't have to put off, like taking care of my janky knees? Because there's no one in the office. Yeah, my janky knees. Because there's no one in the office that can cover me when I'm gone. This is what looking like a great conscious contract. There'll be enough staff in my office that I can take care of myself. Woo! Brett has something to say. I'm here today for my daughter. I'm here today because with a great contract, I see the two of us hopping in a car with a full tank of gas, not having to ration it out to get to work in the off week of the pay period. Friving in this beautiful state to get a creamy together. Sitting at a picnic table, squeaking our legs, chatting about anything and everything a little girl thinks of. I wanna make core memories. Summers at the beach or by the river, days filled with energy, not too overworked to run around the yard with her. My beautiful girl deserves your life and I can see it for her. I see it for my family and I see it for every single one of us. Can you shout out things that you, that will look, what it'll look like when you have, when we have a better contract? Just shout it out. I'll repeat it. Fair wage. Full staffing. What about your life? Vacation. Vacation. Vacation. AC in a car. Before it's an emergency. One job. One job. One job. Just one. Just one, Trisha. Freedom for your hobbies. All the sewing. Get access to care when you need it. Dreaming. This is what we're fighting for. This is what we're sailing to. Is there anything else on our agenda? Should we sing again? All right, so here's our plan to win. We're gonna continue the pressure on the decision makers. The directors. We're talking about the very top. Those are the ones that are holding this money back. And through public engagement, we'll get to them. If they're not listening to us, you better be sure they're gonna listen to the community members. We're gonna engage our colleagues to have a majority participation. This right here, I didn't expect that this many people would come out in this kind of rain. We gotta double it. They're up there looking at us, counting our numbers. How much we care about what we're asking for. Yes, wave. Okay, the next. If you haven't already, send the email to Leffler and Sunil and the, I think he's the CFO of the chair. We got a call from them saying, when are you guys gonna knock this off? They've noticed, keep on sending community petition. There's a QR code that leads to a link tree. The more people that sign our community petition, the more we're able to call on them and say, here's the number of people that we think. All right, so that's it for today. If we're feeling it, if you're feeling fired up, we can do a little march around. How are we feeling? Thumbs up, thumbs up.