Business Book Podcast

An eye opening podcast on how to sell more books in places you would never think to sell. Brian Jud, an executive director at the Association of Publishers for Special Sales describes non bookstore marketing, selling to retailers, non-retailers, and companies that use books as promotional items. Brian explains how he started in this business and learned how to sell the books that he wrote, using them to become a speaker, using portions of them in promotional info for companies, and how to fit his books to the needs of each sale. He provides a number of resources for authors on marketing and learning about the publishing industry through booksellinguniversity.com and full-service options @ APSS.org or bookmarketing.com.

The Wizard of Ads was one of my virtual mentors when I began copywriting and has continued to be a man I admire as an entrepreneur, artist, and gem of a human soul. It was my privilege to have him on the show to talk about how the masters approached creativity, learn how he wrote his bestselling books, and hear about how we both view books as sacred things.

Jane Friedman is one of the most well known and well respected professionals in the publishing industry today. She's the author of Chicago Press's "The Business of Being a Writer" as well as "The Authors Guild Guide to E-Publishing." She writes a column for the trade publication "Publishers Weekly" but is probably best known as the co-founder of "The Hot Sheet." In this episode, she gives us a crash course in publishing today: what to know before writing your book, the prestige of traditional publishers vs. the requirements of self-publishing, what publishers look for in an author, print vs. digital, New York vs. Amazon—and that's just the first half!

Entrepreneurs and publishers often clash. Publishers are looking to sell a mass-market commodity product, whereas entrepreneurs like to play in the sandbox. Then there's David Hancock, founder of a publishing house with an entrepreneurial approach to the business.