Maggie Langrick | Making The Right Publishing Choice

Editor, writer and publisher on a mission to make the world a better place through shared wisdom.

Show Notes

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieLangrick

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggielangrick 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggielangrick/?hl=en 

Website: https://wonderwell.press/ 

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And now your host, Joel Mark Harris

Joel: Hello, and welcome to the Publishing for Profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we are interviewing Maggie Langrick who is the founder and CEO of Wonder Well. Wonder Well is a hybrid book publisher and Maggie is such a wonderful wealth of knowledge of all things book publishing. She gives so much great information in this podcast about what to think about when you’re looking at selling a book, which is obviously one, if not the most important part of the whole book publishing process.

So I know you’ll enjoy this interview. I highly, highly recommend that you take notes. If you’re thinking about writing a book or you’re midway through the process, listen to this podcast, take notes and you will gain so much valuable insight.

So without further ado here is Maggie. Hi, Maggie. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Maggie: I’m doing really well. Joel, thank you so much for having me.

Joel: You’re very welcome. So I was doing obviously some research through good old Google before, you know, talking to you. And I know you, obviously, as a journalist, I know you as a writer, publisher, all those good things, but I didn’t actually know that you started out as an actor, which, and quite a successful one too.

So, yes, I’m just very curious about how you got into acting and what you learned from that experience. 

Maggie: Oh, yes, sure. I’d be happy to share about that. So I got into acting kind of by happenstance as is the case for most of the, you know, biggest and most important best events of my life. I was living across the street in Vancouver, Canada from an indie filmmaker named Sandy Wilson. This was back when I was a child in England. We lived there when I was eight or nine years old, and Sandy wanted to make a movie about her life, a certain period in her life, would be, kind of, a coming of age story. And she cast me in the role, to play her. The movie was called my American cousin and it was a big hit by Western Canadian standards in the mid eighties. And happily it still is, I think, seen as a Canadian classic, which is just such an honor. I then went on to have a career for about, I don’t know, 11 years or so. I spent the next decade or so acting until I was in my early to mid twenties.

And then I dropped down to become a mom. 

Joel: And then you went into journalism and you wrote for the Vancouver sun, which is again our local paper here. Was writing always something that you loved and you wanted to get into? Or it was, again, it was some sort of like just happenstance?

Maggie: A bit of both.

So I think when I was a child, I used to say that my professional goals, when I was a kid, where I wanted to either be, a writer or a psychologist. Well after having a conversation with my father and learning that what a philosopher was, for five minutes, I decided I wanted to be a professional philosopher because their job is just to think about why things are the way they are.

And I thought, oh my God, that’s a thing. I want to do that.

Joel: Well, writing’s not dissimilar to that, I think.

Maggie: And I think psychology too; really understanding. Yes, so I kind of wanted to be a writer, a teacher, and a psychologist as a child. What I have now in my work as a publisher is sort of, I use a blend of all those things.

Anyway, actually, so at the Vancouver Sun, I wasn’t a reporter; I was an editor there. And I worked on the news side as a copy editor for a while, and then eventually became the feature’s editor. So I was in charge of the arts and life department. So working with a lot of nonfiction that would be looked at in a short format; non-fiction content really that is sort of lifestyle focused. 

Joel: And how did you like working for as, like a guest as an editor x and for the Vancouver Sun. 

Maggie: Well, I’ve always really loved being an editor. I do write myself of course. But there’s something about the way that my brain works, which is that I have a pattern of finding my mind, and a kind of a big picture ability to see the big picture in a piece of writing.

So, it’s easy and fun for me to work with somebody else’s material. I like to describe as editing into the void where you can kind of see what isn’t being said that needs to, or the help. So, obviously, involves reshaping and trimming what’s actually on the page. But I think that one of the most important jobs for an editor is to be able to kind of bring… to understand and intuit what the writer or author is trying to say and bring that to the surface. So I learned a lot while I was in my role at the Vancouver sun about editing for sure. And I was editing the work of our reporters, but also, I was assigning stories which meant really being able to, especially on the feature side, it really means being able to think like a reader and understand what people are interested in, and how to kind of present material in a novel in an engaging way. But the other thing that I really learned in that role was management; how to be a manager of people as well as projects and processes.

So it was a really invaluable experience for me.

Joel: And can you talk a little bit about your transition to starting your own company from being an editor? 

Maggie: Sure. So that was, I think, boy, that was, it was just such an exciting time; what happened was that the newspaper, the newsroom was downsizing as we’ve seen in a lot of metropolitan newspapers around the world.

And each time they would come around and cut our staff, it became a little harder to do our jobs as well as we wanted, and frankly, it was getting kind of demoralizing. And eventually after I’d been there for, I guess, in that role for five or six years and I realized it was time for me to go, and they offered around staff buyouts. Meanwhile, I had been, as I say, working on this sort of lifestyle content for the newspaper feature content. I really, really loved that kind of food, parenting columns, things that look at its trends in society, and why we are the way we are and how we live. And I really, really love all of that, all that subject matter that reflects back to us how we, as humans, experience the world and how we might be able to be more effective or get more enjoyment out of life.

At the same time I had a few friends in my orbit who were publishing books. They were looking at their options and trying to decide whether to self-publish or try to get a traditional publisher involved. And if so, what is the process? How long does it take? Gosh, there seem to be so many steps. Do I need an agent? What is a book proposal anyway? Should I write the manuscript first? And there were all these questions that they had. And, this one friend in particular, she had her manuscript ready. She was about to self-publish it because she did not want to go through the rigmarole of kind of jumping through all the traditional hoops, and she understood that winning a traditional contract is getting harder and harder and harder as publishers, due to economic forces, just become more risk-averse. And there’s a lot of consolidation going on in that publishing landscape. So she was looking at self-publishing, but she was frustrated because she said, “Well, I really, I want my book to be in stores. I’m taking this book really seriously. I want it to, you know, I want it to be available everywhere and not just online. But I also really,” you know, “The control and ownership of self-publishing. So I wish I could have it both ways.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s very,” a kind of light went on, and I thought there is a gap in the market. Why isn’t there a kind of hybrid publishing model where people can pay for services and access the expertise of a real, kind of, credible professional publisher who can also then get their book in stores. Why can’t we do it that way?

So now usually I set up shop thinking like, “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll just be a hybrid publisher.” Not realizing that book distribution is, like, super hard to get when you have no track record, and no books, and nothing going on. And then it’s not as simple as just knocking on doors or just taking your book up there. You really need to be distributed by a distributor.

And we should go into briefly; I’d love to tell your listeners exactly what book distribution entails and why it’s not simple. 

Joel: Yes. Go ahead right now. If you want.

Maggie: I’ll just finish this little one on one little piece of the story first, which is that, I made a connection like I suppose I sent out an email from the Vancouver sun saying, “Hey, everybody that I know in my network, I’m leaving my post and I’m setting up this thing and, you know, See you on the other side.”

And, I got an email back from Rob Sanders, he’s the publisher at Greystone Books. And he said, “Hey, I’m really interested in what you’re doing. Let’s meet. Do you have distribution?” And I said, “No, no, I, I know. I’m going to get it though.” And anyway, Greystone Books wound up being our, basically, our agency distributor for the first few years, for the first five or so years actually, of our existence, six maybe, even, of our existence. And, basically we piggybacked on their distribution. So we were not an imprint of Greystone. We are our own imprint, but they were our path to market. Now here’s what book distribution really is. So, we think about… and this is really, really important, and I want very much… if you’re listening to this like pay attention now because this is the good part where you really, really need to understand this. I encounter people all the time who have a limited understanding of what books, or a misunderstanding of what book distribution means, and that’s partly because there are lots of people in the sort of service, publishing services space, but misrepresent book distribution. They’ll say, “Oh, are you… we have worldwide distribution through P O D,” or “We have worldwide distribution for e-books,” or even, “We have,” you know, “Your book is distributed to the retail market because it’s in Ingram’s catalog in any book retailer anywhere can order it. Therefore, it’s distributed.” And that is not what distribution means.

Distribution is a complex and very infrastructure-heavy set of supply chain activities. And so it encompasses warehousing and shipping of materials and books out to retailers and processing of returns. But primarily what book distribution really is, is this sales function. So a book distributor, we have a third party book distributor, most small to medium-sized presses do, and the big houses have their distribution function in-house. What book distribution really means is a Salesforce. So, what that means is that we must maintain a steady flow of titles each season in order to put that product through our distributor’s business.

Each season I give a presentation to them, they have a fleet of sales reps across the country and every publisher that they distribute goes into these sales conference meetings, and presents, I’ll say, “Here are the books that we have coming on our list,” the sales reps listen to my spiel, they sometimes give us feedback on the cover or the title or the positioning of the book somehow. And they might even have feedback on the format or the pricing, any because these are the people that are on the front lines.

So I give the spiel on what the book is, and everything I know about it to kind of educate them to go and sell it. And then they take what they have heard from all their publishers and each sales rep is assigned a territory, a part of the market, whether that’s like there’s one person for Barnes and Noble, there’s one person for Amazon. And then there are regional sales reps, there are field reps, which go out to kind of mom-and-pop bookstores, but also libraries; also big box retailers; also specialty stores like sporting goods, stores, or museums, or really literally anywhere that books are sold; airport stores, grocery stores, those books come there through a distributor and that is the distributor’s primary role is to sell them.

So here’s what we’ve got coming: How many do you want? And taking orders, fulfilling them and also processing returns. So the management of physical inventory is only part of it, but that is part of this much, much, much larger, cyclical, flow of activity. And that is what distribution is. That is why it’s impossible, really, for one author with one book to get into bookstores across the country or around the world. And, you know, that most bookstores, I mean, you might be able to persuade your local bookseller to take a few copies from you and put it on their shelves. But most bookstores, they buy through their distributor because that’s just part of their operational processes. That’s how they do it and how all of their systems are set up.

So if you don’t have distribution and you’re not prepared to go knocking on the door, I mean, many of them won’t even take the call of an individual because that’s just far too taxing on their time.

So, anyway, that’s what this book distribution is. 

Joel: Do bookstores, because it used to be the case that bookstores they looked at self-publishing or even hybrid publishing as, I guess, it’s negative, that it has, like a negative connotation. Is that still the case? Or if you go through these channels, is it pretty much as you would like a traditional, like a big five publisher?

Maggie: So we’ve never found there to be any distinction for us. As, as a hybrid publisher, we are distributed by our distributor’s sales force, and we’re presented along with the others. I’m not even sure if the stores are aware of the distinction or, you know, the type of publisher that we are, what they know is that.

That this product is being professionally produced and it’s being made available in physical format. And so they stock it and sell it, and every single one of our books goes into stores; that is in our hybrid program.

I think that I have to know a little bit about this because I’m also on the board at the independent book publishers association, the IBPA, and so I hear from members of our community all the time, and including booksellers. And what I hear from them is that there are some, especially indie bookstores who are keen to support indie authors, and it’s not so much about having a beef against self-published authors, the issue is one of quality. And when you know, books come to them that are not professionally developed, and they, really, they’re just tells, they are just things about the formatting or the physical manufacturing quality or the editing quality or the content quality, and the writing quality, all those things that may give the book away as an amateur effort and non-professional product.

Nobody wants to stop those books, and their stories because they will outsell, and then the other barrier is simply… they don’t have time for their staff to be like making a deal with one author with one book. Like I said, they’re purchasing through distributors. I think that, you know, as part of the IBPA is real mission is to, well twofold: To democratize the industry so that self-publishing authors who are publishing to a professional standard might have the same access to market as other forms of publishers do, and the other part is education. IBPA cares a lot about educating its publisher members, including: Author publishers. And so there are lots of educational tools, including a checklist that any member can download; I think you might even be able to download it, if you’re not a member, a checklist for a professionally published book, which will help you to adhere at least to industry norms. They won’t help you with your character or plot development, but at least they would tell you what should go on the copyright page and how to format the interior.

So any of anyone who’s listening to this, if you are thinking of self-publishing your book, I really, really encourage you to become a member at IBPA. They have a tremendous community and a tremendous set of tools available for members to help them, to keep those standards high. 

Joel: You have mentioned, or we’ve been talking about hybrid publishing and, you know, we talked about digital rates and foreign distribution and that can get very complicated.

So what is, “hybrid publishing,” and what should somebody look out for when they’re thinking about publishing a book? 

Maggie: Okay. So those are two different questions, but what is a hybrid publisher: A hybrid publisher essentially does everything that a traditional publisher does, but on a different business model; on a fee-for-service model, which is author subsidized, or wholly authored financed. I was actually a part of the working group that was made of… it was a mixed group of traditional publishers, hybrid publishers and self publishing authors at IBPA. I was part of that group that developed their list of criteria for a bona fide hybrid publisher.

So if you’re looking for a hybrid publisher or you’re thinking of setting up shop as a hybrid publisher yourself, you should really check out that criteria list and see that it adheres, but the firm adheres to those criteria. Essentially, here’s how I’ll explain it, Joel; I just gave a talk about this last week at their conference: I think that a publisher, any publisher of any sort has two main responsibilities, and there is a third, which some would argue is part of the defining criteria. And I would argue it is not. So let me talk to you first about the two, which I think any publisher must do in order to be a publisher.

We turn words into books, and get those books to market in the best and most thorough way possible. So turning words into books that you may need, that even can be ideas. What that basically means is: The words are the raw material, the ephemeral thought content, or maybe it’s digital in a document.

And actually productize that and turn that into a thing that can be sold, which is either a physical or digital book that people can buy; so that’s job number one. And that’s true, whether you are a hybrid publisher, self-publishing author or a traditional publisher. Job number is used to bring that book to market. If you are a traditional publisher or a hybrid publisher, you’re able to do that digitally, and in stores. And so you are fully participating in the market.

You are everywhere that books can be bought and sold and you are playing the A-League game; I can’t do sports metaphors. I don’t know if that’s a thing.

Joel: I get what you’re talking about. It works.

Maggie: Anyway, you’re in the real arena where all the most important action is happening. if you’re a self-publishing author, you’re really only limited to online only sales through digital platforms, or of course, direct sales that you can make yourself physically through your office or shop or speaking events or whatever.

the third thing that some people would argue is also the job of a publisher is to invest resources into the development and manufacturing of that product. And I disagree. The reason that I disagree is that there are all kinds of traditional publishers out there who is, yes, they’re ostensibly their business is investing in the creation of their own product and then taking that product to market, but there are many, many, many traditional publishers who have a brisk line of business in author subsidized deals whereby the author is required to buy back a minimum number of copies. So it could be, and they typically sell those copies of the authors at wholesale price. So same price that they would sell to a store, which is usually 50% of what the consumer will pay. So in some cases an author might be required to buy 5,000 units at 10 bucks a pop, they’re making a $50,000 investment. They’re essentially covering all of the publishers’ costs of development and manufacturing, but they’re still only making a 10% royalty. And I have an issue with that.

I think that as with movies and yogurt, any kind of product, the person who’s writing the check to bankroll the creation of the product is almost always the person who stands to profit the most from its sale. It’s like, okay, you brought the know-how to make it happen, you brought the intellectual raw material in the form of the words, you other person or taking it to market, but I’m writing the check to make it happen, and so I get the big payday. And in the traditional model, the traditional publisher performs all three of those duties. They turn the author’s words into a book. They take that book to market, and because they are the investor, they also are the primary profit maker. In our model that profit, that investor and profit maker role is the rest with the author.

And that’s the only difference between hybrid and traditional.

Joel: Wow. That’s a lot of information and that’s fantastic. So thank you so much for sharing.

Maggie: Does it make sense? I know I have a lot to…

Joel: It does. Yes. No. It does. Actually, it does. 

Maggie: I’m trying to get… it’s a complex thing. And every time I describe it, I’m trying to get kind of clearer and clearer about it, but that is in a huge nutshell, what it is. 

Joel: I want to play devil’s advocate for a bit here.

And is it still, cause I know up here in Canada, like the main book retailer, Chapters, they’re selling less and less books. There are more candles, blankets; I haven’t been in Barnes and Nobles for awhile, but I’m assuming that’s sort of the general trend down there. Is it important to get into those stores anymore?

Maggie: I think it depends on what your goals are. First of all, let me say some things about the non-book items actually: So at IBPA’s conference a couple of weeks ago, James doubt, who’s the CEO of Barnes and Noble, he is also the CEO at Waterstones in the UK and he recently was brought on board at Barnes and noble, he was talking about the non-book content in the store and he is really leading Barnes and Noble into a book first future, and also a locally curated future where they’re empowering the individual store managers to merchandise their stores. He said that he thinks anytime you’re getting anywhere close to like 20% of your merchandise, your SKU is being non-book products, then you’re in the wrong business or you’re, you know.

First and foremost is that I also have to love the candles and blankets that they sell at Chapters.

Joel: I do too. I do too. I love them. I love everything at Chapters actually.

Maggie: Number one place to buy picture frames if I’m in Canada. But, anyway, yes. So is it important to be in bookstores at all? And you know, why draw the line at Barnes and Noble and Chapters when I also talk about your local indie bookstore down the road. Why not talk about airport stores? Why not talk about all of those physical places? And I think that the answer is: It depends on what your goals are. And it depends on who you are, and what kind of author you are, what kind of book you have.

If your goal is to really be out there in a big way and create to raise your stature as an author. Not necessarily, like, just as a business person or a coach or an expert or whatever, but really if you’re trying to build a career as an author of books, then for sure you have to be in stores, you just have to. Otherwise, you’re really kind of like you’re in the other sports… I’m not going to make it out in this sports, I was going to say farm team, and I don’t even know if that’s a thing anymore, so I don’t have to say that. But anyway, you’re…

Joel: You’re in the big league.

Maggie: Now, there you go. There you go. Thanks. Joel. You helped me out there. You throw me a bone then.

Joel: I should try.

Maggie: Anyway, so if you have serious career aspirations for your writing, then yes, you need to be in stores.

Also, if you have a book with widespread, consumer appeal, you should be in stores. Sure. Why not? You know, this is where… So yes, a lot of books are being discovered online, but people are still definitely browsing bookstores. And in fact, there’s been a real sort of Renaissance for local bookstores that often host events. And they’re doing those events online sometimes too. Local stores can often really curate their merchandise for their community, their market; people love their bookstores. They love them in a way that is more personally meaningful to them than a different type of retailer. I would say it’s probably certainly beyond kind of fashion or home goods or, or even food. And I say that as a foodie who loves food boutiques.

But bookstores are really personally meaningful to people. So, I think it’s important to be in stores if that is, if you have… but that only really makes sense if you have a book that consumers want to read. If on the other hand, most of your target readership is made up of people who already know you and have a direct relationship to you through your email list, or through your live events, through your customer base or through a really kind of niche community of interest say, I don’t even know, like some really arcane topic, like kind of coin collecting or whatever, and you’ve written like, “The Book on Coin Collecting.” It probably doesn’t make sense for that book to be distributed widely into local bookstores across the country. It probably makes more sense to sell that book through an online channel and really market it to those passionate fans of that topic that are… They’re numerous, but they’re really dispersed.

So, that’s what I’d say about the wisdom of getting into bookstores. 

Joel: So for my listeners, viewers here, who are thinking about writing a book, but they’re not sure if it’s for them, who do you think should write a book and who should not? 

Maggie: Well, you know, there are all kinds of reasons to do it and all kinds of reasons not to do it.

I don’t know if there’s like a really clear definition of this and that. I think that much of the answer is sort of like, “if then, and if not this, then that,” you know. And I’m going to strictly speak about nonfiction here because I don’t work in the world of fiction and I never have, and I don’t really understand its dynamics.

Mmm. I think that, I mean, I will say that I think if you’re an artist and you want to write some literary work for your own self expression, then you should do that regardless of, and don’t wait to be invited. But getting back to non-fiction, which is the side that I know, everybody wants to write a book right now, and there are a lot of voices out there saying that, “Anybody can be an expert. Putting your name on a book automatically makes you an expert.” I don’t subscribe to that view.

I think that there is such a thing as true expertise. There is such a thing as new and original thought and ideas that further the conversation and help people to understand things in a new way. I think that a book ought to do that. I think that a book ought to teach something that people don’t already know. or, present old information in a new light.

But that’s not the only value that can be in a book. It can; its value can primarily be in the enjoyment of reading it. But then not every nonfiction book has, is really high on the enjoyment factor. So either has to be high on the information, you know, utility practicality factor or high on the enjoyment factor where ideally both. If you don’t have a big idea at the center of your work or anything truly new or novel to say, should you write a book? The answer is maybe? I don’t think that you should try to seek a traditional publisher. I don’t think you should have high expectations of great high volume of sales.

But a book can still be useful if it is well developed. It can still be useful to further your career. Even if it’s not distributed into stores. Even if you don’t have… even if your material is like not super groundbreaking. But in that case, I wouldn’t attempt to distribute it because it’s going to sit there on the shelf next to the best sellers in the category.

So, I have this kind of like, it’s sort of, “If this, then that,” sort of equation. If you have something truly novel to say that is of value to people that people actually already want and want to know, and it has high consumer appeal, then you should traditionally or hybrid publish, and get your book into stores.

If your materials kind of like, “Good, but not like the best,” you know, but you have a really great audience and a really solid platform in a way to reach tens or hundreds of thousands of readers, they’re going to buy that book for me because they know, like, and trust you. Regardless of whether or not, they’re not going to be comparing it to somebody else’s bestseller on the shelf. So in that case, you should still publish and probably either hybrid publish or self-published because you’re kind of creating and bringing the audience with you, and you don’t need discoverability in bookstores in order to sell those books. So. It’s kind of a complex equation.

Now, if you have both of those things, high consumer appeal and a really awesome platform, then the world is your oyster and you can do any, or all of those routes to publishing. If you are low on both of those, you have no platform and your ideas are just so, so, or… and your writing quality is, you know, not that great, and then should you publish a book? And that’s where I come to like, “Well, the answer is either no, don’t bother because it’s expensive and time consuming,” or, “Yes. Do it, but consider it a labor of love and invest accordingly. 

Joel: Awesome. Yeah, that was great information for sure. I want to switch gears a little bit, and go back.

So the company that you founded, Life Tree Media, you were working under that title, and then you, you rebranded, essentially. What was the purpose of that rebrand? 

Maggie: Yes, that’s right. So I launched the business as Life Dream Media back in 2013, which means we’re coming up on eight years, which sort of blows my mind a little bit.

and a couple of years ago, I moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles, just for personal reasons. And it was part of, like, a kind of a bigger career and life shift. And at that time, I kind of thought, “Oh, well, I’d like the name Life Tree that we had, and our publishing focuses on books that help heal and inspire, it was then it still is now. But, for some folks, especially in the kind of like business category or certain other areas, there was just too strong an association or perception of connection to like Holistic Wellness or natural foods or something. And I wanted something that was a little grander and more expansive and more encompassing.

And we also had not put the development to the name Life Tree through a really rigorous process, so I wanted the opportunity, and to do that, so I thought like, “Okay, well I’m moving,” which meant that I needed to set up a new corporation in the state of California. And so, because this is the way I think I was like, “Well, oh, I might as well just rebrand the entire thing.” I mean, this sort of like making the new company have a completely new name and just migrated because, yes, because complex things are better when they’re made more complicated; I don’t know. But I did that and I’m glad that I did. I’m really glad that we did that. It was a lot of work. It was crazy timing. We were supposed to unveil the new brand in like March, 2020. That didn’t happen as planned. But we did go live with it in October of 2020, and the response has just been really phenomenal. People can really, they can really sense the energy vitality, mission and polish of our publishing program and our brand; I’m really pleased that we did it. But, oh my God. Was it ever like so much harder than I expected? It’s so much more time consuming, and too expensive too.

Joel: I love the new brand, and I love the new website. I love everything about it. So yes, you did a fantastic job for sure. Can you walk us through, like somebody who wants to work with you?

What are the initial steps, and how does that process work? 

Maggie: Yes. Sure. We have a submission form on our website; that’s the easiest way. Anybody can fill it out, and send us their material. We look at them all within a day or two of receiving them. We will check the author out, and see if we think that either their material and they themselves are a good fit, both thematically.

And also in terms of where they’re at in their career or business, whether we think that we’re kind of well positioned to help them get where they need to go based on what they tell us their goals are. So from there, if there’s a manuscript or a book proposal, we will look at those, and if those materials seem strong and meet with our approval, then we’ll typically schedule a meeting with me, and if the meeting kind goes well, and everybody wants to proceed to the next level, then I write a proposal to publish, which would contain the sort of steps and recommended services that we would offer and provide, give them a kind of like a timeline and a process map, and of course fees. And then we kind of just go from there.

In terms of like, how to approach us and with what to approach us, I think that the best place is… I love working with authors whose manuscript is a work in progress or just at the outlining stage. We do take authors on sometimes who have a completed manuscript, but it almost always must go through a really deep developmental edit before it is ready to go through into the market.

And so, I don’t know, it was painful when you’ve put hundreds of hours of your life into writing a manuscript only to learn that 50% of it needs to be thrown out and rewritten from scratch back in; I think that’s a hard pill to swallow. We would rather that while the author is writing, that we know the book that they’re writing is one we can sell.

And so, we love doing conceptual development and with authors, if you come to us with… but it’s also helpful if they’re not completely at square one. We have worked with people that are completely at square one where they’re like, “I want to write a book. I have a head full of knowledge. What should I do?” It could be about this. It can be about that. It can be about that. It can be about that.

And we can definitely help those people, who are those… we’ll pair them with an editor and be like,”Okay, what are your goals? Or do you know? Who do you want to help or share this with? And kind of gradually get into the right zone of like, “Okay, write this book first, and make it be about that and help them to do it that way.

But it is helpful if they at least come with some sort of an idea of what they want to focus on, and what they want to say. 

Joel: So, I know we talked about distribution, but the book is written. What are some of the marketing activities that potentially you could help them out with or that they can do on their own?

Maggie: Yes. So book marketing now is really author marketing. It really is about building that platform and having a connection to an audience. They hear from you regularly and want to hear from you regularly, whether that’s through your email list or social media or your public writing, television or YouTube or any other way that people are hearing from you.

And this is not a surprising statement. Everybody kind of knows this, right? Having said that, there are certain books that also really, it makes sense to do a PR campaign around, not all of them. PR is a really costly undertaking, it just is. And it doesn’t make sense to do it in every case. But where your book has any sort of news value or public interest, consumer appeal and it just kind of makes sense to do.

If we think that it will be successful in achieving media coverage, then that is still really, especially national media coverage, it’s still the most powerful way to move the needed one, sales, I think. But you know, the platform building stuff is tough because it’s a really long, slow burn. It’s not something you can just turn on for months before your book comes out and then expect that to work as a driver of sales. You need to be cultivating that relationship for the long haul. You need to be, committing to your own public visibility on an ongoing way, in an ongoing way.

And so we help with all of those things. What we include in all of our packages as standard, is our marketing essentials, which is essentially consultation. It’s essentially, “What is your marketing plan going to be? What are the levers that you have that we want to pull? What makes the most sense for this type of book and this type of author and this type of audience?” And then from there, there are a bolt on service. We have built certainly like book launch. Campaigns that run through email or through social media. We can do content marketing around the books launched. We have organized or helped to organize author events, and we have run full-scale national, media outreach campaigns. You’re getting our authors on TV, on radio, certainly the podcast circuit is a big thing these days. So any and all, but it’s really not a one size fits all thing.

The one thing that remains true basically across the board is, the better known the author is to the readers that matter to their book, then the more copies you’ll sell. Period. 

Joel: Yes, pretty… it’s so simple yet so hard. 

Maggie: Yes. It is. It’s not, I mean, I don’t even know how hard it is, but it’s not; it’s not a small activity. It’s kind of like… you know what, Joel? It’s like working out. Like I go for a four mile walk every day. I live in the Hollywood Hills, and I’m bragging. I don’t go every day. But I like almost every day. I go in the morning and I go up and down the stairs and I’m… It’s kind of zipping around in the fresh air; it doesn’t feel hard at all. But I remember a time when I wasn’t working out most days, and it was hard. And the thought of, “Where do I find the time? How do I get the energy? What if it’s raining? What if I don’t feel like it?” You know, “That’s just a lot.” And it felt hard, but once you’re in a cadence with it, it’s not at all hard. It’s just part of life. And I think that you need to look at marketing yourself as an expert in the same way. 

Joel: I’m going to cap it off with this question, and I realized it is a super stupid question to ask a publisher. But sometimes it stimulates an interesting conversation. So I’m going to ask it anyways and we’ll see what happens and that’s, and it’s something that I ask all my guests, and that is: What is your favorite book? Or perhaps, it could be, maybe something easier is: A book that you like to gift a lot? And I won’t limit you to one book. 

Maggie: And, yes, it’s not a stupid question. It’s a great question, but I need a spreadsheet in order to answer it. So, and actually because I love books, I don’t think I can narrow it down to one or even 10, depends on the mood. It depends on your need. And there were some books that I read once, 30 years ago, and they had a profound impact on my life. Is that my favorite book? I haven’t read it again since. I don’t really know. The way that I’d like to answer that is just how you, the book I’m reading now, that I’m really enjoying, and then also just talk about categories of books that I like.

So right now I’m reading how to be an anti-racist by Ibram X Kendi, and I’m really appreciating it. I’m just finding it super illuminating to understand. How we got to where we are. What the history of racism is in our culture. And how to be a force for change.

So I’ve been really enjoying that on so many levels. I’m also a… I’m just a huge self-help book reader. I read them all. I have done it. [ crosstalk 56:00] I just read them all. And I read a lot of business books too. So I will actually call out one business book in particular that has been super important to me in recent years, and that’s: Traction by Gino Wickman. Are you an EOS entrepreneur, Joel?

Joel: Yes.

Maggie: Okay. So yes, so we run our company on EOS and it has just been an absolute godsend. And so that book is super important to me. On in a completely different category, I would say, I mentioned earlier that I love to cook, I’m a really big food person. And I think my favorite cookbook of all time is: How to Eat by Nigella Lawson. When she published that cookbook, The Guardian Newspaper reviewed it and said, “You will need two copies of this book; one for your kitchen, and one for your nightstand, because it is that entertaining.” And it really is.

So there you go. Three very different books. 

Joel: Awesome. Well, Maggie, I appreciate the time. I appreciate you being on the podcast and, just, yes, you have so much wisdom and thank you so much for sharing. I know I personally learned a lot and I know my listeners will too. for people who want to reach out and connect with you, who potentially want to hire you, where’s the best place to go?

Maggie: Yes. Great. So, we, thank you, Joel. We, first of all, it was great to meet you. Great to talk to you. I’m super passionate about helping people to understand the publishing industry better, regardless of what method of publication is right for them. So, thanks a lot for this opportunity to speak.

You can definitely find us online at: wonderwell.press. And also we’re, “wonderwellpress” on Instagram and Twitter. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a submission form that anybody can fill out if you want to just it doesn’t obligate you to anything. You can just send us the details of your project and request a meeting by using our form online.

Joel: Thank you so much, Maggie.

Maggie: Thanks, Joel. 

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