The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 74. Keep Creating! Scaling Your Content Business with Books with Matt Briel

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

Are you looking for other ways to monetize your brand and your blog? Today, we are joined by Matt Briel, the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Lulu.com, to talk about another way to monetize your brand or blog. After more than 15 years leading sales and marketing teams in the media and publishing spaces, Matt has developed a unique passion for helping creators become more successful by leveraging books as a catalyst for opportunities and sustainable revenue.  If you are wanting to monetize your blog, tune into today’s episode to hear more! Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsConvertKit is the email marketing hub for creators like you. Check out our affiliate link for more information.Check out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog. Join The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode! SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode74

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Today, we are really excited to talk about another way to monetize your brand and your blog. And we brought Matt Briel from Lulu here today. And Matt is commonly described as equal parts loud music, Disney culture, tattoos, and book nerd. He's an entrepreneur and the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Lulu.com. After more than 15 years leading sales and marketing teams in the media and publishing spaces, he's developed a unique passion for helping creators become more successful by leveraging books as a catalyst for opportunities and sustainable revenue. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Matt. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. We are really excited to chat with you. We just recently heard of Lulu from actually another podcast guest. And we were both very intrigued by what Jordan was sharing with us on the podcast. She had created an ebook. And then she had a demand from her followers, her readers, to create an actual physical book. And she found you guys and just was like, it was so easy. And it was funny in the podcast, she said, it seems almost too good to be true. But so far, I haven't found the catch yet. And so that just really intrigued us. And then we actually connected at tastemaker in Chicago in March. And so we were able to meet in person and connect with Lulu.

And so I would just love for you to share with our listeners a little bit more about Lulu and what you guys do there. Yeah, absolutely. And shout out to Jordan. We love her. So she's our new best friend. Besides you and Jennifer, of course. So Lulu, I'll make it real quick. We've been around for a little over 20 years now. We were founded by a tech entrepreneur. His name is Bob Young. He was not into publishing. He wasn't a writer. He was, again, a tech entrepreneur. He was the original founding partner of Red Hat, which is a Linux-based software company. And so at one point, he took that company to an IPO that was massively successful. And he wanted to write about his story. A lot of people were asking for

it. He couldn't get it traditionally published. He had recently come into a boatload of money from this IPO. So he thought, I'll just start my own publishing company. And that's how Lulu was born. And from that point, the mission, the ethos of Lulu has remained the same, which is basically to remove all barriers to entry for publishing so that anybody from any walk of life can publish their story, whatever that is, and not be hit with those traditional barriers to entry. And so fast forward 20 years, 21 plus years, here we are. We're very focused on allowing and empowering creators to take their content out to the world in the way that they want to do it and not be reliant upon third-party retailer channels. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, if that's the

route you want to go, we can accommodate that as well. But we're one of the only ones that gives you a way to take it directly to your fans, your readers, your customers, however you refer to them, and really control everything from your content to your profits. And we're also a B Corp. I always forget to say that, but that's one of the best things about us. We're a B Corp. Yeah. I love that. I really love the heart and soul behind your company. And the reason being is because as blog coaches, we think that everybody has a story that's worth sharing or a passion worth sharing. And too often, I think people feel like there's not enough space for them or somebody else is already doing what they're already doing. Or what makes my story, quote unquote, so special? That's right.

Why me? It's a lot of imposter syndrome. And I love that you're giving people a way to do that. They don't have to wait to have a publisher. You can do it without that. I think that's amazing. Yeah. And to be honest with you, most of them are not going to get a publisher. It's been this way for a long time and it'll continue to be this way. They reject about 99.5% of the books, the manuscripts that make it into their desks. And that's just a fact. So there's a lot of good content, a lot of good stories, a lot of good messages that go unheard because that's the only route people pursue. Or like you said, they just maybe they know that statistic, maybe they don't. But for whatever reason, they feel like their stuff is not worthy, so they don't bother. And it really is way easier. way of tools and technology where anybody really can put their mind to it and put out a book very easily for the most part. And it's not, there's not too much out there. It's not, I mean, we have

an average of 900 registrations per day on Lulu. So roughly 900 people per day register on Lulu, presumably to start a book or project of some sort. And if in that sea of 900 people per day, Jordan and many others are able to get their content found and take it to market and sell it and do what they want to do with it to grow their business, then anybody can. I mean, that's a staggering number. Like sometimes even internally,

we have to sit back and remind ourselves, like that's a lot of people per day. I mean, and when you talk about publications, so books published through Lulu, books, talk about, you know, publications, so books published through Lulu, you know, books, calendars, whatever the project is, it's an average of around 300,000 per year. I mean, that is a lot of content. And even in that sea of content, just through Lulu, people are found, you know, missions are accomplished, stories are told. So absolutely, it's a very worthy path to go down. And I'm sure

we'll get into more of that as we talk. So I like how you said it's just it takes down that barrier to entry. And it's just letting people really tell that story. And especially when you when you look at like a content creator, a blogger, somebody who is in that space, and they want to add more, they want to serve their audience in new ways. And so not only are they getting to tell their story, but they're getting to help people with the information that they are sharing. So are there a lot of benefits to publishing something, to creating something like that, that can help even grow your blog or get your name out there? Does it give you more credibility when you have something like that that can help even grow your blog or get your name out there? Does it give you

more credibility when you have something like that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, intrinsically, as humans, we want to help people, whether we admit it or not. We were talking earlier about our kids. And even kids can seem very selfish at times, but at their core, you never see a kid light up as much as you see them light up when they do something that they know helps somebody. So as humans, we naturally want to help people. We want to do things that are going to help them. It makes us feel good. Forget about any financial ramifications that might come from it.

So there are a lot of benefits to doing that. But as a business, as a creator, there's quite a few of them. So you touched on one, which is, I think what a lot of creators, whether they're bloggers or otherwise, whatever their medium of choice is, one of the hurdles that all of you face really is, how do I let people know, like, you should watch my TikToks on it, or you should read my books on it, or you should, you know, you know, read my blog on how to people you need to establish some of that authority and credibility and books are the best way to do that. They have been since the beginning of the Gutenberg press, right? Like, you can hand somebody a business card all day long that says, Hey, I'm the world's leading, you know, small

engine repair expert, but hand them a book or show them that you've written a book on the topic. All of a sudden now you've got that instant trust, that instant credibility. You're probably going to get invited to come on their podcast and talk about it or come to their event and speak. Or at the very least, maybe they're going to hire you to fix their lawnmower. So there's that immediate credibility boost. Sure, of course. And I've got some examples of that we'll probably talk about later. There's obviously, like we talked about, revenue implications for creating a book from your content. It can help you fund other

projects and really get your brand and your presence or your footprint out there in the world expanded. It creates another audience touchpoint, which a lot of people never even think about. So right now, even on this podcast, everything is digital. We're so digital, digital, digital, digital. But what we don't realize is not everybody operates in that plane. Not everybody wants to ingest their information and their knowledge and education digitally. And some do and some wouldn't. I'm a Luddite. I would much rather have a printed book in my hand any day. When anybody on my team sends me a link to an article, I immediately print that thing out in the office printer and everybody hates it.

But I think creating that audience touch point, another one besides the digital one is really important. I think it's underestimated. Along those lines though too, is you create this piece of legacy content that people don't realize either. So, you know, again, not to harp on digital or even, you know, our mortality rates, but having a book on somebody's bookshelf that will be there

for who knows how long or that they can pass to a friend or a family member. That's also a nice little added bonus. And it does create, again, this touch point where we've seen whole communities built around a book that somebody published, you know. So there's a lot of benefits to taking that content, whether it's in blog format or anything else and turning that into a book to grow your business, for sure. Yeah. I'm so glad that you talked about having that other touch point, because I think the idea when we become a blogger is, oh, since I have followers on Instagram, they're automatically going to become blog followers. And then they're going to follow me on Pinterest. And they're going to follow me... They're going to join my email list. And they're going to follow me on Facebook. And the fact of the matter is,

they don't. Because your ideal audience is in a number of different places. And think about all the people who have chosen not to ever get on social media. I know that we can think that there's not that many people out there, but I know of a handful of friends of my own who have never gotten on Instagram. They've never been on there. Yeah. Or they don't have Facebook. It's one or the other. So you're totally missing the impact that you can have on an individual when you only put yourself in one area. And I totally agree with you. I'm the same. I love to have a book in my hands. I understand and respect Kindle and whatever all the things, but there is something about having a physical book

in my hands that I love that. There's a deeper connection there for me to see the printed words on a page and I know that I'm not alone in that. There's a lot of people that like that physical book and they want to purchase it. They want to have it on their bookshelf as a reminder, that book made an impact in my life. And as bloggers, you have that opportunity to make that impact. And the topics are literally endless. You can write a book on all kinds of things. It

can be about your story, or it can be a cookbook, or it can be a how-to, or it can be a fiction novel. I mean, you can write all kinds of things. So I think just thinking in this broader scope that what do you have? What are you sharing that resonates with people now? And how can you get that in the hands of something that they could physically touch and hold in order for them to connect with you on another level. Yeah, that's absolutely right. A hundred percent. I mean, I'm one of those people.

I don't have Facebook. I'm on Instagram, but I don't have Facebook. I can't stand it. You know, I'm not on most of the others. I'll admit that I do have TikTok, but I only watch it for all the dad jokes, the pranks so I can turn around and pull pranks on my kids,

which of course they love. But yeah, I mean, you know, back to the original point there of meeting your audience where they're at. I mean, they're not all hanging out on your blog and they're not all hanging out on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. They're all over the place. And, you know, having that book just helps you expand that footprint a lot faster and easier. And when you talk about, you know, the content itself and how do you go from content to a book, you know, there's a number of ways, but quite frankly, we love talking to bloggers because bloggers, they have a leg up. You have a huge advantage over a lot of other creators. You've got content in most cases already banked. You know, even if

you've only been blogging for six months to a year, chances are if you're doing it with any consistency, which you should be, you've got some content already started. And I'm going to assume it's topical and probably fairly focused on a singular topic or a couple of parallel topics. But for bloggers, it's so easy to take that content and then turn that into a book. Let's say you've got a year's worth of blogs or more. One of the things we say is just go in and look at your metrics. What are your top, let's say, 25 performing posts? Rank them from first through 25th. Those can very easily, in most cases, if you're staying true to your audience and your topic, you've got 25 chapters

right there. You know what I mean? All you've really got to do is just format that into a book. We have templates on our site. If you don't use us and you use somebody else, in most cases, they have templates. You could hire somebody on, you know, Fiverr or something. There's a freelance book designer.

They'll format it for you for, you know, barely a couple hundred bucks tops. So as a blogger, you've got a pretty clear and distinct advantage. And again, you know, for most people who aren't blogging regularly, the biggest battle is coming up with the content, right? We can brainstorm topics all day long about things that we want to write about or something we want to be seen as an expert in.

And for the most part, you can make that happen. But it's a lot longer of a process to generate that content from scratch than if you've already got a pretty good start on it. And even if you're just starting out blogging, I'm assuming you've got a few that have been banked and you've got a couple in the hopper and you've got a kind of an idea of the direction you're heading. You can take that and spend that into a book and just say, OK, my next 30 blog posts or for the next six months, every blog post is going to be a chapter in my book. I'm going to write this book publicly. A lot of people have done that and we'll get to that shortly here. But again, if you already know you're on a path to posting, let's say every two weeks or weekly, there you go. Just keep that in mind. Like this is going to be a chapter in my book. So each time you create a new post, there's a new chapter in your book or half of a chapter or

whatever that might be. I really love that. I know I'm feeling so inspired. Yeah. Yeah. Because you don't have to have it all done. You can just start today and just go. And I think that one thing when you've been blogging for a little while and you start to get that audience is they start to tell you what they want. They start asking you questions. I get an email occasionally like, do you have a cookbook? And it's clear that they want something to hold in their hands. They want an easy way. They don't necessarily want to have to get their phone or their computer when they start to make dinner that night. They want another way to see and consume your content and to utilize that information.

So I think it's really neat to think about even just starting to think about the questions people are having for you. Can I direct my blog content towards that and create this book? And I'm serving everybody with the same content, but in different ways. So I'm not creating a ton more work for myself. I'm just really listening to what people are asking for. Yeah, that's right. And that's the beauty of it too, is again, if you've already got some of that content there, or plenty of it, if you've been blogging for years, then to take your example, let's say you blog primarily on food related topics or food, you know, things like that. Tastemaker, by the way, where we met was a great show. You know, we had so many people that had such great food related content or food, you know, things like that. Tastemaker, by the way, where we met was a great show.

You know, we had so many people that had such great food related content and whether that was recipes or, you know, ways to better, you know, organize and structure a pantry for whatever reason, things like anything related, like it all turns into great content. And even right now, especially in the onset of COVID and after 2020, food related books, whether they're recipe books or otherwise, really took off, like really took off. And so a lot of people that have been blogging, you know, on food-related topics for years and years, you know, when COVID hit, you had everybody at home all of a sudden and people were taking up a larger interest in cooking and being healthier and doing all these other things. And so a lot of these creators that had

just kind of been blogging along and making a little bit of money, the few pennies that your blog platform or newsletter might throw your way or even YouTube, all of a sudden, if they had content in hand, eBooks, printed books, whatever that might be, they just saw a massive jump in their profits and their revenue structures. And they were able to create revised editions or new editions and new products and calendars and aprons and all kinds of stuff would spin off from that. So the ability to take that content and turn it into, as you alluded to, and we talked about, whatever format your reader wants. I mean, that's not dominated by an algorithm. It's not dominated by whatever that particular eccentric owner decided he wanted to do when he woke up that morning or anything like that really gives you complete control and autonomy over your business. Okay. So you talked a little bit about finding a way to bring in this extra revenue. So some

people have really been able to bring in revenue with their ebooks and things like that. How can you go about deciding? Do I offer this as just a freebie that somebody might get to sign up for my email list? Do I offer this as an ebook? Do I offer this as a print book? What's the best place to start to figure out, you know, you want to create something more, but where do you start to figure out what that is? I usually tell people your audience. So like you said earlier, I believe it was you, it might've been Amy, but oftentimes your audience will tell you what they're looking for, whether it's verbally or otherwise, implicitly or explicitly. In many cases, if you're staying very in tune to your audience and even asking them or polling them on occasion, they'll tell you, they'll let you know what they

want. But it's really easy to honestly try them all out. You just need a strategy. And so for those that are approaching it like a business, which most of the ones we run into definitely are, that should be the end goal, right? And so you should have a strategy. What are you trying to accomplish with this content and your business? And so if the goal is to, let's say, increase the number of newsletter subscribers, right? Then yeah, use that book more as a lead magnet in the beginning, like you said, or you could just do a couple chapters as a lead magnet. Some people will do that. They'll say, hey, you can get the first couple of chapters free as a downloadable PDF or ebook by signing up to my newsletter. And then in the newsletter,

obviously, you would also want to talk about the ability to purchase the entire book for X amount of dollars, which also contributes to your passive income. Or you can just give away the whole book. If your newsletter is so valuable, a lot of people make really good money from their newsletter, more so than they might from a book. A book is a great way to just multiply your newsletter numbers. We've seen a number of people do that. The goal was to increase

the number of newsletter subscribers or, you know, for example, people who run online courses. Getting somebody to sign up for your online course is probably more valuable if it's 500 bucks, you know, a pop or $1,000 per session. So giving

away a book that only costs you maybe $9 to manufacture tops is nothing if it gets them to sign up for your online course, which is, you know, $500 or $300 or even $100. So using them as lead magnets is one of the most popular ways we see people using books right now to grow their business. That's probably not the best route to take if you're doing like a recipe book per se, but there are other ways you can do that. You can create, what we've seen people do is

it's very easy to create a notebook or a journal through Lulu or anywhere really for that matter. We offer free templates you can download. You just customize them. But to do a little notebook or a template or like a little notebook with some recipes in it,

a few of your recipes and then a bunch of note pages as a teaser is very easy. And I mean, you're talking barely a couple bucks to manufacture that. So for you to give that away, to bring them into your network, your landscape, and then get them onto the newsletter and potentially sell them the full cookbook or recipe book. That's another way you can utilize printed content and or something of that fashion. So there's a lot of ways you can kind of use those books. Lead magnet is the most popular, right? Secondarily, obviously, as a source of revenue. There's a lot of different ways you can weave those in there. What I like about what you're saying is that we get, once again, the opportunity to be creative with what we're doing in our business. So we're in the driver's seat of this. And the opportunities are endless.

I mean, you've already given me multiple ideas, just for my own brand of different things that you could offer to people. So what does that next step look like? Let's say that somebody says, okay, I'm going to do this. I just want to create a book of some sort. It can be anything. What does that process look like with Lulu? And because you've shared a little bit about that. So do they have to buy a bunch of books or share a little bit more insight into that process?

Yeah, it's really easy. And I'll lead off with an example of one of our content creators and how he went about it. So one of the creators that we work with, his name is Armin Adam-Jean, and he runs, everything he does is under Creative Explained. And he started out really on TikTok for the most part, you know, post pandemic sort of fell into it like a lot of creators did.

And he started doing these short TikTok videos just around gardening and sustainability. And, you know, people whose plants were dead, they were throwing them out. And his whole thing was like, don't throw it out. And he would show you ways to bring it back or just really cool. But obviously, because of the format, especially at the time before TikTok extended the length of their videos, they were just really short clips, but very utilitarian and helpful. He had a few people reach out to him like, hey, these are great, but I'd love to have a book so that I can actually put these into practice at home and not have to keep going back to your 20-second TikTok clip. And so when he came to

Lulu, he had a much harder road ahead than maybe a traditional blogger might because all of his content pretty much was on his TikTok channel, which had two sort of issues, right? Number one is with any of these channels like TikTok or any of the others, you could wake up tomorrow and it's gone and there's nothing you can do about it. You don't own that content. The minute you post it to TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, you don't own that content. They do. You don't own that audience. They do.

And we can sometimes fall into that trap like, oh, I've got X amount of followers. You don't. The channel does. So your job is to get them as fast as you can over to a platform that you have more control over, like a blog or something like that. So he had a very large task of getting that content from TikTok into the form of a book. So through working with some other people and himself being very creative and knowing some of the tools, he was able to take most of those videos and turn them into the written content into any sort of format, whether that's a PDF or a Word doc, or if you're really savvy, an Adobe InDesign file

or something like that, you can basically convert that to PDF and bring that over to Lulu, create the account for free, and then start the upload process. You'll literally start a project, you'll name it, and you're going to upload that file. And the system will tell you if it's good and fit for print, or if you need to make some modifications for it to work. But it'll walk you through like, what size do you want? You know, what type of binding do you want? Do you want coil bound? Do you want, you know, like a hardcover? Do you want a paperback? We have tools on our site that can help you sort of understand like, if you're wanting to do, let's say, a yearbook or a cookbook or some of those things. We have tools on our site that can help you sort of understand like if you're wanting to

do, let's say, a yearbook or a cookbook or some of those things. We have tools on our site that'll tell you like what are the best and most common sizes and formats and printing types and bindings and all those things. So once you get it though into that format where you can really work with it as a manuscript per se, the upload process is pretty easy. You might need to make a few changes based on the size that you want it to be. If you really, really want to make a splash, I would suggest reaching out to a freelance editor and designer for a little bit of help. It's not overly expensive. It's totally worth the money. Those types of projects tend to sell about 50% better than others where you've had another set of eyes on there. This is also, by the way,

a great opportunity for you to reach out and collaborate with another creator that maybe you've been wanting to work with who you haven't had the opportunity yet because maybe they do something totally different, but they're a designer and you're not a designer. And so you can reach out and say, hey, I'm working on this book.

I need some design help. I'd love to work with you on this. We love to see creators working together on these things. But nonetheless, once you get the PDF file ready for print, separate PDF files needed for your cover, upload those. At that point, you're off to the races. At this point, you've not spent any money yet unless you've paid for some help,

which again, I suggest, it's not super expensive and it's totally worth it. And you're going to want to order a proof copy. You're going to want to see what that book looks like. You want to get it in your hands and feel it, touch it, flip through it, make sure it's everything you hoped it would be. At that point, if you're good with the final product, then it's just a matter of deciding how you're going to sell that book, right? On Lulu, for example, you can sell it everywhere. Literally, you can go wide and you can put it into

distribution on Amazon. You can put it into our global distribution, which will get it in online websites and libraries all over the world. And then you can choose the direct method, which we really push these days and we really encourage people to sell direct. That means you can sell it from an existing website if you have one. We have plugins that work with Shopify and WooCommerce, which is the number one WordPress plugin for selling things. So it makes it really easy to sell it direct. And this way, when you sell direct, like we talked about earlier, you're not reliant upon a third party retailer. They're not taking a cut of what you're doing. And you get to keep creative control over every bit of that process. And the number one most important thing you gain by selling direct is you keep all

that customer data. So whenever you sell something on Amazon or really any third-party retailer, for that matter, Etsy, it doesn't matter, whatever you're creating, if you're selling that through a third-party retailer, nine times out of 10, they're taking a cut, obviously. And more importantly, they're keeping all that customer data. So you have no idea who's buying your stuff. You don't know where they are, why they bought it, have they bought before. Most of what you're getting back from the third-party retailers is just the sales data itself, like how much you sold that month and what size check you can expect to get in 60 to 90 days, right?

So keeping that customer data is key if you want to grow and scale your business. Just like a newsletter list, you have all that customer data is key if you want to grow and scale your business. Just like a newsletter list, you have all that customer data. You have all the subscriber data, right? They signed up. You know how many newsletters they're opening, the click-through rates, what they're doing. If you have an e-commerce storefront where you're basically in control of all of your customer data, your marketing abilities and remarketing abilities are endless. And so every time you come out with some sort of new content or product that is for sale,

you can go back to that audience that is now growing and you have all that data. Whereas if you're selling through a third-party retailer, you can't. All you can do is put it up on that site and hope for the best and hope that when they put your content in their cart, they don't kick it out and decide they want a toaster instead or something like that. So there's a lot of benefits to those things. The process where we started with this question to get started really is pretty easy for bloggers. Most of the time you've got that content, you've just got to get into the form of a book. If you're struggling with it, there are people out there that can do it for inexpensively.

It's so easy these days. And I mean, honestly, you can reach out to us. We're happy to either put you in connection with somebody or just, frankly, if it's a small enough project, we'll just do it ourselves. It's not that big of a deal. But yeah, it's pretty easy. And again, in the case of like Armin with Creative Explained, in the first three months that he put out his book about plants

and sustainability, I mean, he sold over 20,000 copies of that book. If you go on his website, he just talks about how that book completely changed his business and his creative business for that. Now schools use it to teach kids and people about plants and the benefits of sustainability and food waste and things like that. I mean, it's crazy. So, you know, this idea that my content won't work for a book, right? That's just not relevant. I mean, again, Armin was talking about plants. He was talking about how to take care of your, you know, your philodendron or whatever those things are. I don't know. I mean, you know, I kill everything I touch, but, you know, maybe if I had his book, I wouldn't, I'd know what to do with them.

But you know, again, in the first three months, 20,000 copies, like I just look at those numbers and I think, man, that is, that is so cool. Like this guy literally was struggling to monetize his content to figure out how to put it in a book. That is an insane success story. That's amazing. And it's not just something that is only available to that particular individual. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And I think that you've made that very clear that you can literally do it with all kinds of different things. So if your wheels are

kind of turning as you're listening to this, think about that. Think about the value that you can add to someone's life and what that looks like in regards to your content. We say all the time, you don't have to have a degree or be a quote-unquote expert. You're an expert just because you might know a little bit more than somebody else about it. But I think gone are the days that people expect everybody to have some four-year degree or a master's degree in something. A lot of times, I truly think that the most impact can be made by the person who's been through the thing that somebody's trying to get through. And I think that you offering this type of service to have these books printed for people being able to share and add their value to other people's lives is,

like we've said before, you just take out that barrier. And we allow people to come into the story or into the process. And we help them along the way. And what you're doing also is you're funding your business so you can keep making an impact on people. And I appreciate companies like Lulu who are willing to see what creators have and the gifts that they're able to give people and how they can utilize that to further their business. And instead of you stopping them, you're making this process really easy. I remember when Jordan was telling us about the process and it was like, she's like, I literally uploaded it. She hired a friend. So this is another example. She hired a friend and they uploaded it and sold it. And she's selling an ebook version and a printed version.

So people get an option for both. So that's another idea. Because some people are fine with the ebook version, but other people like that hard copy and they want to have it in their hands, or they want to support the in their hands or they want to support the creator in that way and be able to purchase a book that they've written as well. That last point that you made is a really important one too. And this is one that we talk about a lot when we go out to different events or on other podcasts or things. I think one of the things that other people struggle with, too, other creators is this idea that, oh, somebody is not going to pay, you know, twenty four ninety nine for my cookbook. You're dead wrong. You're so dead wrong on that.

Whether it's well done or not, and hopefully it is, if you have followers, if you have fans, if you have readers, if you have people that, you know, you consider for one reason or another subscribers, it doesn't matter. consider for one reason or another subscribers it doesn't matter they want to support you gone are the days where everybody is just out for the cheapest price on something that they've been looking for it's if you have a creator that you follow if you have somebody that you're you're somewhat invested in what they do because for whatever reason it resonates with you or it touches you a certain way you are more than happy to spend24.99 with them and wait the extra couple of days because it's not going to come overnight prime delivery to get that product because you now have this product in your hands and you can officially say, I'm supporting this creator. I'm invested in what they're doing. I believe in what they're doing. And for that creator, there's no better feeling

than somebody who's going to pay $24.99 to buy your book or your ebook or your audio book, which we'll be offering soon or whatever it is. It doesn't matter. That's such an important thing that I think creators, we talked about briefly, somebody mentioned imposter syndrome. I think one of the hardest things to do is to just get over this idea that nobody's going to pay for my content. Yeah, they might read my blog right now, or they might open my newsletters, but the minute I start trying to sell them something, they're going to run for the hills. Yeah, they might read my blog right now or they might open my newsletters. But the minute I start trying to sell them something, they're going to run for the hills

and nothing could be further from the truth at all. You don't have to price it rock bottom. You know, there are people out there with Patreons and other things where, you know, they're charging $50 a month and they're not getting a single dirty look one way or the other. I mean, we want to support the creators that we enjoy.

We want to see them flourish. And so this idea that you can't sell a product is just, you got to get over it or you're not going to be successful. I mean, scaling your business, growing your business, utilizing only digital advertising and things like that, that's going to end soon. It's just not sustainable. And if you want some longevity in what you're doing, you've got to establish these different types of products and solutions for the market. And so, again, if you have something that you feel somebody can benefit from, you've just got to take the risk. And when you can find low to no cost options to give it a shot, you should absolutely take those. What do you got to lose at that point? you got to lose at that point. Yeah. And you talked about how people want to purchase from people that they're following, that they're supporting, that they feel connected to. And I think that's such an interesting point because I think that was also a common theme at the Tastemaker conference that we were talking about. We talked about how creators are in this

space right now where people want to feel that connection. It's going away from this just, I want the information and I want it now and then I'm gone. They want to create a connection with somebody that they like, that they trust, and they're going to go back to them for content. So I think this is, in my opinion, a great time to start thinking about how can you expand your offerings in this way, whether it's just a simple journal, like you said, or a notebook, or just start with something and just start giving your audience this idea that you're going to be able to provide them more. And I think that will just build that connection even stronger over time.

Email marketing is an essential piece of blogging. Growing your email list is just as important as SEO and keyword research in our opinion. And in order to grow your list, you need a reliable platform that will allow you to connect with your community and turn them into email subscribers. That's where ConvertKit comes in. ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators like you that helps you grow and monetize your audience with ease. ConvertKit allows you to grow your audience and reach, put your funnels on autopilot and earn an income with your email list, all with an easy to use platform that is approachable, even for beginners. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about the different plans that ConvertKit has and how it can help you propel your business

to the next level. There's so many tools right now. In this day and age, there's really no reason that you can't do this successfully. The idea that you don't have enough time is not applicable here. You know, I think your last podcast talked about time management or the ones before that. I was just going to say that. Yeah. And that was a great statement. Like, that's not an excuse. I don't have time.

That doesn't fly. Like, you make time. But there's so much technology out there. You can automate almost every bit of this, by the way. There are tools like, you know, ConvertKit, for example, where you can run your email and newsletter subscription. They've got an e-commerce option. You can sell products. I mean, it's just that easy. It's almost one and done these days. And this notion that you can make money in your sleep is true. I mean, if you're using us to sell direct, once you upload your product and you connect it to your Shopify store or your WooCommerce or whatever it is you're doing,

that's it. Because once somebody buys that book or that product from you, we get all that order data on the backend. It transmits directly to us. We print and ship that book out. It's fully white labeled, by the way. It doesn't come from Lulu.

It comes from you and whatever white labeling you've set up. You're making money in your sleep. And that's global. We have printers all over the world. So if somebody in London orders your book, we're going to print and ship it from our UK facility. So they're still going to get it in a couple of days and it's going to come from you and all while you were sleeping because there's six hours ahead, you know? So it's like you said, I mean, there's really no excuse right now. In 2023, there's no better time to be a creator.

It doesn't matter what your genre is, what your chosen medium is, what your favorite social media channel to farm leads and create followers is on. All that matters is that you get them over to your platform where you can control that experience that they have for you. You can start to build that feeling of community and books and other things are just another way to do that, to make everybody feel connected. Yeah. This has been incredibly amazing. Seriously, one of the best podcasts I think we've done.

Because I and Jennifer and I both believe in what you say there about this is a great time to be a creator. And I want to just encourage anybody listening to have faith in yourself to build your own brand. Quit relying on other platforms to build your brand. Quit relying on that algorithm and take that into your own hands and go do it. Writing a book has been on my bucket list

and I think you're just going to make it happen, Matt. Pretty much. That's going to have to happen. That's great advice. I mean, the last thing I'll say, and we hear from a lot of creators, especially individual creators who are maybe just starting, and there's a lot of great research out right now that a lot of these organizations are doing around the creator economy specifically, right? So you don't have to feel alone anymore. You can seek out that information. But what I was going to say is, again, for bloggers specifically, there are so many examples

of people who were in your position right now. And I'm assuming you've got at least some people who only have, let's say, 100 to a couple hundred subscribers so far, and they're just sort of building their sort of individual following. That does not matter. Number of followers is not necessarily equal to measuring success in the way that dollars and cents are coming in. And you can look at a lot of people right now who are in extremely good places because they started with a blog and they turned it into a book, which took their quote unquote business, because a lot of

them aren't even thinking about it as a business right now. A lot of people listening to you, they're not considering themselves a brand or a business. And that's the first thing they have to change is that mindset. So you can take somebody like Joe Polizzi, for example. I don't know if you guys know who Joe Polizzi is. He started his career early on something called the Content Marketing Institute, right? And really talking about content marketing. He wrote his first, actually, his first couple of books were blogs, basically. He was blogging and he started writing in public. He's like, I want to write a book, so I'm going to start writing in public. Every blog became a chapter in his book. And his first book, he got it published. It did well. Second book,

same, all from his blog articles. Content Marketing Institute goes on to get larger and bigger. And then he starts Content Marketing World, which was an event to the point where he was able to exit from all of that in 2014 or 2016 to the tune of millions. Content Marketing Institute from the people who bought it. And that all started from Joe's blog and his blog to book strategy. And fast forward to today, Joe Polizzi still is a very influential figure in the marketing world, still publishing books, by the way, and still believe strongly in the impact that books make on your business. So you've got to make sure that that mindset is there. This is a business. I'm building a brand. My name might be Amy or Jennifer or Matt. And right now, I might just be starting out blogging about, you know, again, plants or sustainability or whatever that might be, you know, counting macros. It doesn't matter.

But at some point you've got to flip that switch and you've got to start thinking like, if I want to do this as a career, if I want this to be my life, it has to be a business. I have to think about it that way. And it can be done. There are way too many examples for you to say it can't be done. So you're absolutely right about that. ourselves get two in our head and say, I can't do it. Only they can do it. You know, there's no way I can be as good as they are or I'll never do like quit. Stay in your own lane. Quit looking at what everybody else is doing. Get in tune and get intentional with your purpose and go chase it and go find it and then go to Lulu and print your book. We love that. We love that for sure. Yeah.

Matt, can you please tell people how they can find Lulu? Yeah, absolutely. It's super easy. Lulu.com. L-U-L-U.com. Don't type in leggings or anything like that. Just go to Lulu.com. Perfect. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming today and just providing this insight for people. And I really hope that when they get done listening to this episode, their wheels are turning and they start brainstorming some ways that they can make a larger impact through printed books for their audience. Thanks so much, Matt. Me too. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us,

please find us on Instagram at spark media concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.