Episode Summary
Fall is coming and authors are packing their bags for Vegas to attend the first Author Nation Conference hosted by Joe and Suze Solari!
Episode Notes
Fall is here and authors will soon be packing their bags for Vegas! This year, the big conference to look forward to is Author Nation, being hosted for the first time by Joe and Suze Solari. Join us as we talk about what authors can expect from this new Vegas experience.
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Transcript
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:01]:
You just tuned into the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs, and all the all arounds of self publishing with the team from d two d and their industry influencing guests. You’re listening to self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:00:26]:
See, I have to start dancing to it, Joe. Thank you for doing that. Awesome.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:00:33]:
Jim Azevedo would be so proud of us because he loves dancing to that that new intro as well. So thank you for that. Hi. My name is Mark Leslie. I am the director of business development for Draft2Digital. I’m so honored, so thrilled to have Joe and Suze from author nation live with me in the studio. Welcome, guys.
Joe Solari [00:00:50]:
Thank you for having us, Mark. We’re Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:00:52]:
Thank you.
Suze Solari Style [00:00:52]:
Pleasure to be here.
Joe Solari [00:00:54]:
You’ll be speaking too.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:00:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. All all the exciting. We were already getting comments from people. Just so looking forward to hearing from you guys. So the first thing I wanna say is I wanna say thank you guys so much for this. This event coming up in November, and and for anyone listening to this in the future, hey, from the past. But in November of 2024, we’re gonna be gathering in Vegas, the largest indie author conference in the world, and you guys are at the helm of it with a great group of people.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:01:21]:
Can you talk a little bit? So for people who don’t know, what is what is author nation live?
Joe Solari [00:01:27]:
Author nation. Yeah. So the the what we are doing is we’re creating a 5 day event that is focused on authors looking to create their best life through writing. And what we’ve tried to do is, lean we can here’s here’s the thing, Mark. We consider ourselves, creatives and storytellers ourselves. We’re just using a different format. We’re using this event. And we’re trying to help people understand that there’s a way that we can, as a group, come together, figure out the best practices, not just figure out how to find follow others, but to figure out our own path and to innovate rather than imitate.
Joe Solari [00:02:09]:
So we’re doing a lot of things that, help an author who’s who’s deciding what they wanna do with their career to figure it out as fast as possible. Right? So, you know, if you’re if you’re just beginning author, you can come in and you can really, you know, get scaled up quickly because you have so many experienced authors. They’re gonna say, well, this is just how you do it. Like, don’t Yeah. But, also, for folks like you that have been around a while and have seen this industry change a lot, what we’ve focused on is bringing in insights from outside of the industry. And I think one of the biggest things that we’ve done to change this from, you know, what other shows have been is, you know, we’ve opened this up to a a broader idea than just k u and focusing on, one strategy. We’re really showing people that storytelling can be, you know, wide in kinda the the traditional kinda wide for the win way of thinking of things, different formats of storytelling, a lot of different ways that as a creative, you can figure out what your best way is for connecting with an audience.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:03:21]:
Right. Thank you. No. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I I saw it. I love I I love the fact that you’re bringing in expertise from outside the book industry, from outside of silos and pockets because I think we creatives and and, again, we storytellers, we writers, have so much to learn from so many other creatives that if we if we narrow our focus to just just what a writer, even in our own genre, is doing, which which is important. It is important to know and understand and and understand that market.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:03:49]:
But we can we can grow so much, better. I mean, because you guys have you have tremendous experience that goes well beyond, you know, the the I mean, you are creatives in storytellers, but you have experience that goes well beyond that. Right?
Joe Solari [00:04:03]:
Oh, for so one of the things that we’ve done when, we decided to take the show on was, we started going to other shows. Right? It’s like, let’s go and learn from other people. We actually hired a coach to teach us how to do shows. Right? We, actually, it’s a guy out of your neck of the woods, a Canadian guy in the real estate industry who runs the largest real estate com and he’s an amazing coach. Right? Because When
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:04:34]:
you learn how to run a show from him, it’s not a a writer show or an author show, right, which is pretty amazing.
Joe Solari [00:04:40]:
Yeah. I I think that, like, in in anything any endeavor just like coming to an event like ours is, like, there’s there’s people that have made a lot of mistakes that you can learn from. Right? And it’s like, like, you know, it’s like that scene from jaws when they’re showing each other their scar tissue. It’s like there’s lessons to be learned. So that’s been really helpful. And then, you know, Susan and I have been running around, going to other shows purposely to find better processes and great speakers. So, like, we went to social media marketing world solely looking for talent to come. And, we’ve got several people from that show that we reached out to afterwards and said, hey.
Joe Solari [00:05:25]:
We we can help you get exposure in this amazing author community that they didn’t even know about. Yeah. And then, you know, they’re the the things that they’re bringing were bringing in a really interesting way too. So I’ve I’ve talked about, Julie Brady from Measurement Marketing IO. She teaching she’s gonna be teaching a class about Microsoft Clarity, which is a free analytics tool.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:05:52]:
Mhmm.
Joe Solari [00:05:52]:
And just say, hey. Come do us, a slide presentation. We set her up to do 3 case studies with authors that they’ve been running for the last 90 days.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:06:02]:
Oh my god. So this is fresh and live and, that is fantastic.
Joe Solari [00:06:07]:
So if you’re a direct salesperson and you’re wondering about, like, how do I get free apps? How do I learn more about my site? That is gonna be a powerhouse course to sit in. And I can attest to her expertise because for 2 things. 1, she’s an avid reader. She’s giving me feedback about the experience from the reader perspective. But 2, when we set up the signing store, which I hope we can talk about a little bit later
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:06:34]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:06:34]:
She came in and, you know, we put clarity on there. And we went through the heat maps. And she started showing me stuff like, see, people are clicking here. They expect there something to happen when they hit that, and it’s not. So either make it, you know, an action or make it so it’s not something people think they should click on. And it’s like, oh, wow. You never you never would have seen that without that insight. So those are the kind of things that, like, I’m really excited about people having the exposure to this and how it’s going to, you know, inspire them to do things in their business.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:07:09]:
So I I wanna I wanna dig into the innovation. I wanna, dig into all the amazing things you’re doing. One of the things I was most impressed with to to start off with, it’s it’s hard to stop being impressed.
Joe Solari [00:07:20]:
I know. I know.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:07:20]:
Is it like, what? You’re doing this? But even looking at Eventee and even looking at the schedule, I was going, oh, you’ve made it easier for authors to determine, okay, I’m a beginner in this thing, like selling direct, but I’m not a beginner in this other thing, whatever, how to work with, you know, libraries or whatever.
Joe Solari [00:07:37]:
Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:07:37]:
And so you can pick different channels. You’re not stuck in 1. You you as we are, we’re all dynamic. But a question was was asked from somebody in the live audience, and and I wanna address it because I think I think it’s an important question. And, where where is this? So the question came from someone says, was this the old 20 books conference? So when that question comes up, I’d love to give you guys an opportunity to say, was this the old 20 books, conference? And, obviously, let’s let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about author nation and what that is.
Joe Solari [00:08:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, we took over the contracts that existed for that Craig Martell had when they ended 20 books, Vegas.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:08:19]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:08:19]:
So he and Michael decided last year was gonna be their last conference, and it ended. We’re not affiliated with 20 books. There’s no like, we didn’t buy it or brand. All we did is we took over these contracts, which the Solaris are now exposed to $980,000 worth of expenses and liabilities every year Yay. 3 years.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:08:44]:
Oh, wow.
Suze Solari Style [00:08:45]:
That’s what you get when you sign up to do a conference in Vegas.
Joe Solari [00:08:49]:
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, like, that was, you know, something that I negotiated with Craig Martell and his choices around his health, and this conference was literally killing him.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:09:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:09:02]:
So we offered to do that. And, you know, what we saw as an opportunity is that there’s this this change, and maybe it’s a post COVID thing. Maybe it’s the market. I’m not interested in figuring out why things changed, but they have. And you’ve been around a long time, Mark, and you’ve seen a lot of these changes. And some are good. Most most are good. There may be some things we cherish that go away, but I think we all have to if we’re really be serious about being in this business, we have to understand that we have to adapt and change.
Joe Solari [00:09:41]:
And so this is our this is this is us demonstrating that. We’re gonna take what what was really great. The community that kind of existed around this event and make it so it keeps going on in a new way. So it’s not 20 books, but it’s got some DNA from that that
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:10:02]:
Right. Right.
Joe Solari [00:10:03]:
Set for an answer.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:10:04]:
I love that. I love that. And I have to I have to pop up this comment from Melissa who is the graphic designer at, Draft2Digital. So aesthetics are very important. And Melissa is like, I like the author nation logo. And, of course, Lexi chimes in to say, yes. It the a is very aesthetically pleasing. So, I mean, the the the author, it it’s the author is big here.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:10:23]:
Right?
Joe Solari [00:10:24]:
Yeah. And so I I think that what’s what’s important to understand is that right from the beginning when we started doing this, we we we really leaned heavily into the community. The name came out of a contest. We asked people what they wanted to call the show. And Yeah. And then once
Suze Solari Style [00:10:38]:
weigh in on the logo. Like, which what’s your favorite? Right?
Joe Solari [00:10:43]:
Yeah. So, like, right from the beginning, there’s been feedback from what people want. Right. And as you know, being a big company with a diverse community, that’s hard to deal with. Right? Because you have both ends of the bell curve that feel there is important as the middle.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:11:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:11:02]:
And, we have to play for the the majority. And but I think we’ve figured out a pretty good way of doing it and, you know, building out what we did around, you know, the the core concepts. But, you know, let let’s hear some of these questions, and we can kinda
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:11:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. We didn’t, there’s no other specific questions from from the audience, but I wanna I wanna dig into a little bit of the survey, because you surveyed the name of the conference, the look and the feel of the conference, but you also took very seriously feedback in order to make improvements. Now one of the ones we saw or or discussed already was was the alignment of the various, I guess, channels depending on where you are in your author career. So it’s it’s it’s applicable for everyone. What are some of the other changes that people can expect? I think we were talking about space how you Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:11:56]:
Well, I’ll get to get, get to space because that’s a really, really big one. That was probably the number one thing. But, like Right. The number 2 was, authors really feeling that a lot of shows were turning into pitch fest. And, so I think we came up with a pretty elegant solution to, solve that problem in that, we have invited speakers and we have vendors. And they’re clearly designated in our programming. You can see that on event t. Right.
Joe Solari [00:12:36]:
Somebody that is coming as a invited speaker, is getting compensation from us, ticket room, that kind of stuff. And they’re not allowed to sell. There there’ll be no if they are, they’re gonna learn the hard way. I guarantee you.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:12:56]:
But that’s a high level of quality. I wanna pause there and say that how important this is. People are are investing their time and energy to come to this amazing 5 days with so many other authors and experts from all across the industry and outside the industry. They wanna get value. They want to learn from people on stage. They don’t wanna go into a session and go, oh, this was a teaser for what something they wanna sell me. So I have to say on behalf of all authors, oh my god. Thank you guys so much for doing this.
Joe Solari [00:13:24]:
Now now on the other side, we have an amazing community of vendors that have spent a lot of money and time developing products to solve all other problems.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:13:33]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:13:34]:
And they are paying to talk to you about their products. They’re they’re they are investing in the show. Right? The the economics of our show, you know, we we we’re we’re we’re making money from sponsorship. We’re making money from ticket sales, to readers and to to authors. So, like, sponsorship dollars are super, super important, especially this 1st year to help us build the things we needed to have for the show. But they’re here because they have good products. And, yes, they’re going to try and get you to buy them. Most of them are gonna do it because they’re gonna show you the value of their product.
Joe Solari [00:14:15]:
And it’s my I I say it like it’s it’s like it’s if you want the free breakfast for time share, you gotta sit through the presentation. Yeah. So, like, you And
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:14:25]:
I’ve had some really good breakfast.
Joe Solari [00:14:27]:
Those waffle get me every time. So that that’s the the thing that we’re trying to do is, like, hey. This you’re gonna go in here and, you know, Damon is gonna talk about his product. Yeah. And, you know, I think it’s important, especially for authors just getting started when you’re thinking about your your tech stack trying to build for your business to come to one place and be able to evaluate 3 or 4 writing softwares to marketing stuff, that that’s money and time well spent.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:14:59]:
Yeah. And, I mean, there’s a I think there’s an important distinction. You’re going to a session because you wanna learn more about because maybe you didn’t get a chance to see them at their booth or whatever it was. You wanna learn more and you wanna be able to ask questions, or someone else is gonna ask a great question that I didn’t think of, but it’s gonna help me. And I there there is huge value in those sessions. I I mean, even for existing users who aren’t taking advantage of all the cool things that, for example, BookFunnel has.
Joe Solari [00:15:24]:
Absolutely. Suze, you wanna talk about the spacing and, like, that was the number one thing people mentioned was, I for those that had been to the previous conference and had been in Sam’s Town, which was a much smaller venue, While it may have not been the most ideal venue, what was interesting about it was the intimacy of it. Like, pretty much everybody you ran into was an author, and you could have a conversation even if it was interrupted every 60 minutes by a laser light show.
Suze Solari Style [00:15:58]:
I think it was every 2 hours, and
Joe Solari [00:16:00]:
the answer’s
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:16:01]:
every yeah. Because the conversations are so good.
Suze Solari Style [00:16:04]:
Yeah. Then there’s a waterfall. Yeah. But what was cool about that was you had a place where you
Joe Solari [00:16:12]:
She cut out. So where you could hang out. And, so, basically, with all the feedback that we had you cut out there, Suze.
Joe Solari [00:16:22]:
I know. That’s okay. Right. So you got to meet people, and, you know, that was part of the ethos of the growth of that community. Right? And so the feedback that we got with our surveying was that we want more of that. We wanna be able to stay in, in the area and connect with, you know, all these industry people and other authors. And we don’t wanna have to go out into a, a casino and look for a bar. You know? We wanna have that community right inside
Joe Solari [00:16:55]:
Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:16:55]:
Together. And so what we did was we opened up. We took out a huge, component of the space. People might remember the silver room. And we opened that up to the grand salon, which is the area where you would normally be sign you know, registering.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:17:12]:
Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:17:12]:
And so we have this sort of l shape or t shape, what we call the mix and mingle midway.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:17:18]:
I love that.
Suze Solari Style [00:17:18]:
Right? And so we’ll have, you know, coffee in the morning, networking, bars, drinks at the end of the day. Right. Joe mentioned to you earlier, Mark, that we were actually renting soft seating. So we have, like, sofa, you know, seats so people can sit and lounge and hang and, do what we are there partially to do. And really important component is, you know, connecting. And so that’s what we have have done. We’ve, also done some other things with the way that registration will happen, in the morning and, going through, sort of a different lineup of getting people through, the registration a little bit easier without the, the kind of crowd and sort of incoming caving walls that, you know, can happen when you get a lot of people in one space at one time. Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:18:10]:
And so we’ll be moving people through there into the event center where we have, you know, sort of a welcoming morning.
Joe Solari [00:18:17]:
Mhmm.
Suze Solari Style [00:18:17]:
That’s really important too because, again, we’re looking to provide that that kind of experience that is, you know, is welcoming, is, you know, nonthreatening.
Joe Solari [00:18:29]:
Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:18:29]:
That is it that is it’s full of excitement. Right? You get to have a place where if you’re there on your own or it’s your first time, you may have have a little bit of anxiety or nerves, and, so we’re really leaning into every aspect of the experience that, you know, attendees will have as they come to the show.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:18:46]:
I love that. I I love that you took the best of Sam’s Town and and got rid of the other stuff that wasn’t as good. So, I mean, and and it comes to this. I remember, Joe, a few years ago, you and I just wanted to have a conversation, and we had to go all the way down the hall, all the way, and then find a spot at a bar and push aside the the the ashtrays and the
Joe Solari [00:19:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:19:06]:
Have a conversation, but then we both needed to get back, so we couldn’t stay long. So we spent 5 minutes or 10 walking to find a spot. And then the other aspect, and this is something Alyssa mentions, is I don’t wanna have a conversation at a bar either. The libations help, but not the ambiance. And that ambiance, I’m oh, thank you guys for doing that. Just because then we can have conversations with people and then still be so close to the next conversation or or or the next. And so let’s talk about the intimacy. Let’s talk about how you I mean, that’s one of the elements that where you’re bringing the intimacy back, but you’re all you’ve also, implemented some other things as well.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:19:40]:
Right?
Joe Solari [00:19:41]:
Yeah. So I think one of the things we’re we’re really leaning heavily into this whole idea of community and how can we help people not just at the show, but outside of the show Yeah. Connect. And and, you know, for you to come to the show and get a bunch of information, you know, what I think would be a really successful show for somebody is you’ve come away with one highly impactful, you know, low effort item to implement for your business.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:20:14]:
Okay.
Joe Solari [00:20:15]:
Appear to hold you accountable, and somebody that you look up to to kinda mentor you. Like, if you have those three things coming out of the show, like, it should be an amazing, impetus for your business to to grow in the next 12 months. So how can we do that? Well, a lot of what I talked about there isn’t session stuff. It’s connecting with people. Right? So we have to make that happen. So like Sue said, we we doubled the the the networking space and created our own networking space. So, you know, when people are wondering, like, what are we spending money on? It’s like we have to rent furniture and have it brought in and put away so that when you’re there, you can sit on a comfortable couch and have a table to put your drink on, and there needs to be a bar there. So these are the kind of things that we have to put in place to create this event.
Joe Solari [00:21:04]:
Right. Right. We wanna have it so that you can hang out in a, a a smoke free environment that allows you to hang out and, you know, pretty much everyone there is an author. Maybe there’s some more books than you, less books. Maybe they write books you don’t like to read. It doesn’t matter, but you know they’re there because they’re authors.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:21:23]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:21:24]:
And then the other thing we’ve done is we’ve created some events in the evening, so there’s reasons to stick around. Like, the old show is kinda like after the sessions ended. It’s like everyone dispersed. Right? And there’s lots of places in Vegas to disperse to.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:21:39]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:21:40]:
So, an old blast from the past, Kelly Lytle is back on the scenes. Awesome. Yeah. And he’s he’s running he’s running a thing called story wars. So on on Wednesday night, we have the story wars grand final, the first one ever. There have been 5 semifinalists that have been picked that are one trips to the show through the story wars contest. Uh-huh. And they will be competing on stage to see who wins a a ticket and, the championship.
Joe Solari [00:22:13]:
So, if you win that, you’ll you’ll get a all expense trip back to the show in 25. We may pick a wild card or 2 out of the audience if you show up.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:22:26]:
So And and and that I mean, that’s such a great experience because what you’re also demonstrating there is not it’s not just entertainment and something to do, and it’s interesting, but you’re also showing authors. There are different ways you can exploit your IP. There are different ways that as a business person running this author business, you can leverage your skills and, and and use your skills not just to publish a book here or there. Right?
Joe Solari [00:22:51]:
One of the one of the really interesting things that came out of story wars is, you know, we’ve had we’ve got a really generous community of authors and companies that that donate money so that other authors can come, and we Susan and I matched the fund so that we’re contributing into that and Wow. Got a significant I think it’s 13 or 14 authors that they got ticket and they get a stipend to come. Oh, wow. But there’s some folks that it’s real important for them not to to come on somebody else’s charity. And so it gives them an amazing way to to initialize the the monetization of their their intellectual property. Right? It’s like I I wrote this story, and I entertained you enough that you voted for me to go to the show, and I’ve got the compensation. Right? Like, you earned your way to the show through that. So I think that that does it’s 2 things.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:23:53]:
I think I think we froze again. So, Suze?
Suze Solari Style [00:23:56]:
Yep. We can take over. So not sure where he was going with that, but, the idea of, the story wars team, doing the regional events is a way for our different communities. So we one thing I can just kind of dive into is our online community. We had a lot of people asking, are you gonna make a Facebook group? And we just felt that, you know, again, from lessons from the past of creating something that’s not our IP, where, you know, we don’t have the option of of maybe someday it’s turned off or whatever. We wanted to keep it within our own community. So I’m talking about, our online community.
Joe Solari [00:24:34]:
Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:24:35]:
And, you know, with that, we’ve been building these different regions that are supporting the story wars competition. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So if you guys are looking for a way to connect with local authors, both virtually and at the coffee shop, you can do that within our community, meet ahead of time. A lot of the, the groups, have, you you know, a program manager for each, region. They’re organizing meetups. Right? And then you can meet live for the first time in Vegas.
Suze Solari Style [00:25:06]:
So there’s there’s that that’s that’s circling around, these events as well.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:25:12]:
I wanna spotlight that because I think this is so important. So many of us authors are introverts. We’re stuck behind a keyboard. We we’re comfortable there. And sometimes going to an event like this, even though we know it’s good and the investment’s amazing and we know we’re gonna make connections, but I don’t know anyone. And how do I make that connection? You have created an easy way to get a light entry, to get to know someone. And then I find, for example, as a as an omnivert, when I have a purpose, oh, I need to talk to Joe about this because we connected about this thing. When I walk into the room and I’m overwhelmed and when I see everyone, I go, oh, there’s Joe.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:25:45]:
I need I remember Joe and I need to talk about this. And and that gives the introverts, a purpose. Small talk and all that stuff is very uncomfortable, but now I know. So those online communities are so I’m talking to you, dear author. Those online communities are a great way for you to prep and get a little bit more of those connections that’ll help you when you get to the room, look for the people that you’ve connected with. And that can be the thing that gets you through. Right? That Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:26:11]:
And we’ll we’ll have stickers, Mark, so that we can your regional sticker on your badge so you can find people.
Joe Solari [00:26:18]:
And there’s regional managers. And so, like, they’re we’re really trying to systematize this whole thing because, you know, again, if we hop into my kind of fantasy world of how all this works is you come home with, these ideas that you wanna implement and an accountability partner. And you go back to that community and you guys support each other and keep each other accountable to get the work done. Though the funding that we do next year with scholarships, we’re going to wait to the communities that are doing this the best. Oh, okay. Incentivize you. So, like, if if you have in your in your in your region, say, 10 people that say, hey. I I wanna get published in the next 12 months.
Joe Solari [00:27:03]:
If we see that you’d help them all get published, and then we’re gonna send more of the the contributions that come in through the the scholarship fund into the that place because you guys are delivering on the message. Right? Like, that’s how my business brain works around this. It’s like, let’s build the pieces so that they all work with each other.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Joe Solari [00:27:27]:
To that point, like, one of the things that we’re super excited about is, just
Joe Solari [00:27:33]:
Show the workbook.
Joe Solari [00:27:35]:
The this And
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:36]:
the workbook.
Joe Solari [00:27:36]:
Book. Right? And, like, what’s so important about it is
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:43]:
I’m gonna make you full screen here so we can, how do we do this? Yeah. We go like that. Is that right? How do I how do I make you the
Joe Solari [00:27:54]:
Well, well, you know, what let’s let’s let’s let me get on with the story.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:27:57]:
There we go.
Joe Solari [00:27:58]:
And now we look at this. He’s a technical whiz. So I’m gonna move it around so people can see. What we’ve got is for every sesh every day, multiple pages for sessions for you to to, rank. So take, you know, write your takeaways, write things down, and then we’re gonna force you to have, a ranking system for effort and impact on 5 different things. So you can every every session should have a score between 525 on effort and impact.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:29]:
Okay.
Joe Solari [00:28:29]:
And then the idea is like an Eisenhower matrix is, at the end of each day, we’ll go through and the the ending session will help you to kinda consolidate this information. And at the end of the week, we put those all we plot them out on a chart. So where we have that quadrant that ends up being low effort, high impact, just pick one of those items.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:52]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:28:53]:
Right? And then find an accountability partner and sign each other’s book that we’re gonna help each other get this thing done.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:28:59]:
Oh, I love that.
Joe Solari [00:29:00]:
Right? So, like, here here’s a hilarious thing, though, Mark. It’s like, I’m already making notes how we wanna change the book for next year because, like, for us Mhmm. It’s like, oh, it’s just it’s not right for, it’s not right for Monday. Like, Monday needs to be completely different. We set up Monday like the other days, but, like, we had so many moving parts. But now it’s like, oh, how do we help people really organize themselves for Monday because there’s so many vendors there? How many vendors do we have?
Suze Solari Style [00:29:30]:
Oh, gosh. Well, let’s see. I think there’s about 70 total including I’m I’m putting them into sponsors and exhibitors. So for Monday, you’ve got the exhibitor tables. Yeah. I think there’s about 60 or so, just maybe 6 to 5. And then we have the larger, sponsors, which are in the booths. Again, those are gonna be in the mix and we go midway so that, you know, our sponsors have access.
Suze Solari Style [00:29:57]:
And then
Joe Solari [00:30:00]:
am I still here?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:30:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Joe Solari [00:30:03]:
Yeah. I’ll I’ll jump in. So they’re you know, the the sponsors’ booths, we’ve moved out of the event center and into the main area so that there’s more traffic and they can have people come in and hang out. But with that Monday, you know, you don’t have enough time to see everybody. It’s too many there’s too many options. So, like, how could how how can we help you to, like, carve that down? Right. And then for folks that have bought a ticket, we do send you, like, a preplanning guide to help you get ready for this. Right? And it’s it’s basically a document for you to think about.
Joe Solari [00:30:39]:
Like, what are your objectives when you come to the show? Like, what what that that helps you to get set for what are the right sessions for you to go to. Right? And I think too often, it’s just like we overwhelm ourselves. We don’t think through. Like, you know what? I’m just gonna pretend, like, 70% of these sessions. Okay.
Suze Solari Style [00:31:01]:
Who’s frozen now? That’s awesome. Oh, aim a frozen whack a mole.
Joe Solari [00:31:07]:
Yeah. Still
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:31:09]:
taking turns. It’s good. It’s good. It’s it’s all all team team work.
Joe Solari [00:31:12]:
We both have the same crappy Internet connection right now.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:31:17]:
But oh, sorry. You were talking about you were talking about the organization and and the planning. I wanna go back. This is an earlier comment, and I missed it earlier, from DF Hart. And, again, multiple tools. You have the physical notebook. You have the eventee, and and Deanna says or DF Hart says, love the tool. For first time attendees like me, this is super useful to be able to see all at once everything that’s available on it.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:31:40]:
This this helps make a big conference less overwhelming. So I’m as I’d like I was just probably saying thank you.
Joe Solari [00:31:47]:
Yeah. No. And and we you know, one thing we’re doing is trying to strike a balance between over programming
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:31:57]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:31:57]:
And, and and trying to give people space to absorb all this. And Yeah. The the, this almost came to blows in our committee our programming committee because we had 400 submissions.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:32:12]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:32:13]:
And we had initially had a much, smaller schedule about a 120 sessions and, more space in between things. Right. And we just had to compromise and include more things because there was too many things that we couldn’t, like, we
Suze Solari Style [00:32:32]:
Could not have. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:32:35]:
Like, I I so that’s the hard part about that is is that there’s so many people that have come with great content that we wanna provide. So, hopefully, where we like, what people are seeing and they they get have the patience to watch us do is this almost becomes one massive conference with, like, kinda smaller conferences inside it. Right. So that, you know, like, we’re building out content for narrators to help narrators become better business people.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:33:04]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:33:05]:
Trying to help people understand that, like, you know, there’s these milestones that you have to cross. Right? You have to publish. Yeah. So, you know, Mark, I know you could teach that. Right? Like, that’s something that we could we could lay out for how people, you know, deciding based on if you wanna go director wide. These are the things you better do. We don’t have to be airy fairy about it. We we should be very helpful in just saying, if that’s where you’re at, why don’t you just make the most of this week getting up to speed? Right? And then as you scale your business and and and you clear profitability, you know, publishing and profitability, now you have optionality.
Joe Solari [00:33:53]:
And you do have to make some really hard choices on what you wanna do with your business. And if we can give you the opportunity in 1 week to kind of think through some of those things, I think that’s gonna be the go to conference.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:07]:
Yeah. I I I love, and I was thinking, about that when you think about author nation and you think about all of these communities within the greater nation, and that’s where you’re gonna get some of those powers, whether it’s based on genre, whether it’s based on where you are, what you wanna focus on, whether, based on learning next steps. I I I love I love that. But they’re all parts of communities, and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck in one because you can then move on, to other ones. Right? It it’s like a very flexible nation.
Joe Solari [00:34:38]:
Yeah. You know, I think that, one of the things that’s always been, really cool about the author community, and this is across several conferences that I’ve been to, is the the willingness for people that have benefited from a show to come back and continue to give back to that show.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:34:55]:
Yes.
Joe Solari [00:34:55]:
And, let’s just be completely self interested in when we’re doing that. Right? Like, maybe you wanna help the new guy because he’s gonna be the next big thing.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:35:04]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:35:05]:
And he’ll remember you, because you were there in the start. But I think it’s more so that people remember how much that helped them
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:35:12]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:35:12]:
To not make mistakes. Right? And that’s why we decided we wanted to make the show continue is because we’ve made some really powerful long lifelong relationships from shows like this that have you know, it’s not just about that we made money from that. It’s that we’ve, you know, we we’ve made friendships that we are dear to us, and we want people to continue to have those kind of opportunities.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:35:37]:
Awesome. And speaking of opportunities, before we went live, we were chatting in the in the virtual green room, and we talked about that importance of, of readers. And and and let’s talk about author nation and readers and and what you’re doing there.
Joe Solari [00:35:52]:
So this, I think, has probably been the part that’s been the hardest for folks to understand what we’re up to. And it’s, it’s a it’s it’s a deep, you know, philosophical thing of ours is that Yeah. All the money that this industry has run on, the 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars that fly around, It is based on the symbiotic relationship between the reader and the writer. And when I say that when I say reader, that includes listeners and any other way people are consuming your content. Right? But with without people seeing the value of that story and willing to pay cold hard cash for it, this whole thing caves in on itself. This no. There’s no more podcast. There’s no more.
Joe Solari [00:36:40]:
Right?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:36:40]:
Right. Right.
Joe Solari [00:36:41]:
Because that’s we’re all getting money off of that. So what if we built a show around an amazing reader community? Right? What if we took, what we know we can do with authors and we created a multigenere event where readers came together and they have the support, that they look for and they could hang out with people that get them for who they are. And they have that sense of belonging, and they have something to look forward each other. Like, that is why we invested so much time and money in the reader event. And to the point of we’ve built, this thing called the signing store where for the first time ever, an author that wants to sign go to a signing doesn’t need to print books and bring them to the show. It it it and I know this is hard for some people to get their minds around, and this is one of these things where we have to follow the good old, you know, author adage, you know, show don’t tell. So, like Right. We’re just kinda gonna go through this 1st year and get people to understand.
Joe Solari [00:37:54]:
But why it’s so powerful is that an author that wants to come, to the reader event and sign, and let’s say they live in the UK, They can upload their books just like they would upload their books into draft to digital with their files. Our store allows them to sell their books.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:12]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:38:14]:
And then we go and get those books printed and delivered to the event.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:20]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:38:20]:
So it becomes the point of sale system. So all the transactions go through there. You don’t have to worry about, like, collecting sales tax and all that horrible stuff that people hate to do. We that’s on us.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:31]:
Okay.
Joe Solari [00:38:32]:
And we take care of the biggest single headache, which is getting books to the show. And, it’s a big, big deal.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:38:40]:
Like It’s huge. As a Canadian, trying to get my books across the border, I’ve had books shipped to a giant facility hotel where it gets lost. This this you guys are just streamlining this in such an effective way. So efficient. You’re actually taking advantage of what print out demand was meant to do.
Joe Solari [00:39:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, we’re different. Like, we’re not a we’re a many to one deal versus a a a many to many. Right?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:39:09]:
Like Right. Right.
Joe Solari [00:39:09]:
The idea of how we’re different is, you know, this isn’t like connecting my Shopify store to a print on demand. And then, you know, Mark buys a book for me, and it gets printed for him in one spot. In our case, all these orders come in.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:39:30]:
Alright.
Suze Solari Style [00:39:31]:
I think Joe is frozen.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:39:33]:
So all these orders come in, right, from your front?
Joe Solari [00:39:36]:
Yeah. So, and these these order, am I frozen still?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:39:40]:
Yeah. You no. You’re back. You’re back.
Joe Solari [00:39:41]:
Okay. So, you know, we’ve got hundreds of orders that have come in. We’ve got close to a 1,000 SKUs up there, but all those come in, we then send that order to a printer that prints those book load to our expediting company, and then that expediting company will bring those
Suze Solari Style [00:40:02]:
Bring the books to the show, and we’ll have them distributed to each author’s table so that when the fans, their fans, they’ve invited to come, or someone else’s fans that are there. Right?
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:40:14]:
Yeah.
Suze Solari Style [00:40:15]:
Come up, they their books are there. They’re ready to be signed. So
Joe Solari [00:40:19]:
Wow.
Suze Solari Style [00:40:19]:
Again, back to streamlining and making it making it an amazing, you know, experience for both fan, reader, and author author doing the signing.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:40:31]:
And and that is so incredibly powerful. I I thank you guys so much for doing this. I have to say and this is so true, and this is evidence of this of of the people spearheading this because, Lexi says, glad Joe and Sue can pick up where the other left off. Because that’s what you’re doing, right, is you are filling in gaps. Like, this is a huge gap that caused a lot of consternation for authors, and you’ve come up with a new solution for it, which is amazing. The the other thing I really wanna pop this up. So opportunity said, came in. I’m glad there were replays because I missed half of this.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:07]:
I don’t even know what we’re talking about, but I already know I need this.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:12]:
I wanna I wanna talk about so anyone watching this saying, is author nation for me? What what are sort of the responses? How can an author determine, like, opportunities? Is this something that I need to get to or need to be a part of?
Joe Solari [00:41:24]:
Yeah. So I think that, it is for, anybody that is really serious about indie publishing in their, as a as a career path. And we’re we believe that we’ve got, the best curriculum out there if you if let’s say you’ve never published before. We’re gonna get you up that learning curve faster, and you’re gonna walk away with people that have done it and can help you get it done.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:41:53]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:41:54]:
So, like, there’s a lot of opportunities out there with courses or groups to learn stuff, but this is a different way to get up the curve faster. I think where we have the the biggest, am I back? No. You’re back.
Suze Solari Style [00:42:11]:
You’re back. Keep going. Yeah.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:42:15]:
Oh, now I lost you.
Suze Solari Style [00:42:16]:
Right. Now he’s gone. Right. So trying to pick up where he left off. Sign me up. I love this authoritivities person.
Joe Solari [00:42:29]:
I’m, the the whole idea of helping us helping you figure out how to get your business so that it’s profitable. Like, we’re really we’re really focused in on the business of writing in this whole idea of like Yeah. Hey. We we need to get some things right sized here and you need to think through some big decisions. Right? Because Yeah. How you go to market really needs to be nuanced based on the genre you’re writing, where you’re at in your career. I think you’re gonna see things that are not available elsewhere. And then for the folks that are like, know, I’ve got this figured out.
Joe Solari [00:43:05]:
I’m making money. I’m good. I’m just really got nobody to follow anymore. We’re giving you ways to challenge your thinking. We’re giving you these things like we talked about with some of these speakers that are really talking more at a transformational level to make you think, like, hey. If I took this and this and put it together in a novel way, that would really delight my fans.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:43:27]:
Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:43:27]:
Right? And, so I I think that, you know, I know I know it’s a big expense, but if you’re somebody that’s never been to an author show before, while it may seem daunting to be like, oh my god. I may hang out with all these people. I don’t know them. This is a community that’s really welcoming, and they have all felt that way, and they are looking to find more people like them to help them succeed.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:43:56]:
Yeah. Because we do it together. Right? That’s what really it really is about this author community supporting and lifting one another up. And like you said, people who’ve been through it and learned things along the way are gonna come there and say, well, I made this mistake, so you may wanna avoid this thing and save you some heartache. Right?
Joe Solari [00:44:14]:
Yeah. And, you know, no one we’ve known each other quite some time. It’s like we’ve been through a few of these cycles. Right? It’s like and it’s not like, oh, well, this is how it is. You know? It’s like, well, it was this way. It’s not that way anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:44:28]:
That don’t do that because it’s not working for me either. Yeah. What maybe this is what needs to happen. Maybe we need to be thinking and that’s so, like, think about this. Why why didn’t we just lean heavily into the author thing? It’s like, oh, people come to shows to learn ways to find more readers. What if we cut out the middle man? What if we get more readers just to show up? We fill the barrel full of fish. Then you guys are probably gonna wanna load up with your shotguns and shoot the barrel. Yeah.
Joe Solari [00:44:58]:
Right? So, that’s that’s the whole thing. Like and so, like, we spent a lot of money and a lot of time to create a lot of extra work to build things like the signing store and and market to readers.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:45:14]:
Right.
Joe Solari [00:45:15]:
Because we know we have to do it as good as we can this year so that we can build on it for next year so they can build on it so that in 3 years’ time, that that reader event is why our author event sells out is because people want to be there so they can be connecting up with their audience. Not just because they know there’s fans to sell books to, but because they’re desiring to hang out with those fans. Right? They love hanging out with those people. Right? So, like, that’s what we’re trying to build.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:45:45]:
That and I’m so excited with what you’re building, and I cannot wait to experience it. Firsthand, I look forward to seeing you 2 there. I look forward to seeing so many of our of our listening audience there. And you guys can learn more, about author nation over at authornation.live. Right? Authornation.live, and they can they can find out more about it. They can register or sign find out more about the signing store, how they can get involved. Right? It’s still not too late?
Joe Solari [00:46:13]:
Still not too late. Please sign up. We got 39 days. Ironically, this is we get a lot of sign ups right now where people finally are like, oh, wow. That’s just around the corner. I should probably do something. Like, yesterday, we had a ticket so selling, like, in the UK and Australia, and I just that boggles my mind that
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:46:31]:
Travel planning. Yeah. That’s, wow. I mean, I had I booked mine in, quite early, because I wanted to make sure I could get there and and be there on time. So thank you guys so much. Thank you for doing this, and, and I look forward to seeing you there.
Joe Solari [00:46:45]:
Thank you, Mark.
Joe Solari [00:46:45]:
You. And, again, thanks to Draft2Digital for all the support that you guys have done, here, for us. You you know, we couldn’t do without companies like you that are trying to make this thing so easy for authors to get their books to their readers.
Suze Solari Style [00:47:00]:
Being part of being part of our story, the author nation story.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:47:03]:
Yeah. And it’s all part of building up this great author nation. We’re all proud and excited to be involved, so thank you, guys. For you those of you watching, I wanna say thank you to Joe and to Suze. Please, like, share, comment, subscribe, all of those things. Help us get this content out to you so great guests like author nation, Joe and Suze, can be brought to you. Make sure you bookmark D2Dlive.com. We are here every Thursday at 1 PM EST, providing you fantastic guests so you can ask questions.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:47:36]:
We can all learn together. And if you’re new, you can sign up for a free account at draft2digital.com and get your publishing career started. If you’re going author nation, we’ll be there with, with all the other great vendors, 70, other service providers, and you can learn anything about that. But, again, I want to say thank you, guys, and we’re gonna probably close out with a little bit of a of of a brand ender, a little bit of, information. And, Joe Solari, I look forward to enjoying some M and M’s with you in the green room at the end. Thanks, guys. Cheers.
Joe Solari [00:48:07]:
Bye, Mark.
Mark Leslie Lefebvre [00:48:08]:
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Kevin Tumlinson [00:49:09]:
That’s it for this week’s self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with your will be author friends, and start, build, and grow your own self publishing career right now at draft2digital.com.