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What’s the story you can’t stop telling? Fran and Bethany are here to help you write, sell, and launch it.
Literary agent Bethany Saltman and bookstore owner Fran Hauser—also both critically acclaimed authors—host Bookbound, the podcast for non-fiction writers who want to learn how to transform their ideas, expertise, and obsessions into successful books and publishing deals. Fran and Bethany interview accomplished authors who share the strategies and surprises behind their bookbound journeys. These how-I-did-it conversations will inspire listeners to claim their own “author-ity” mindset and turn the story they can’t stop telling into a book the world needs to read.
To connect with the hosts and more, go to www.bookboundpodcast.com/
[00:00:00] Melody Wilding: I had been working on the book for. almost two years at that point. And the thought of rewriting it again, I couldn't even stomach it. But that said it was the best decision because once we had that unifying framework. Much of the content was the same, but we had something to orient it around, right?
[00:00:22] Melody Wilding: So that just really made everything like boom, boom, boom, click into place, and now being able to teach it, to bring it into companies, to offer it to my clients, it just makes all of that so much easier. So I'm sure you both have thoughts about that.
[00:00:35] Bethany Saltman: Hi, I am Bethany Saltman, a literary agent and award-winning author. And I'm Fran Hauser, a bestselling author and independent bookstore owner. And this is the BookBound podcast. On this podcast, we talk to women writers about their nonfiction books, but instead of talking about what their book is about, we focus on the process of getting their book into the world.
[00:00:59] Bethany Saltman: These how I Did it, conversations will help you pitch your big idea, write killer proposals. Find the right agent and publisher and live an amazing BookBound life.
[00:01:14] Bethany Saltman: Welcome to the show everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, melody Wilding. Melody is the author of Managing Up, how to Get What You Need From the People in Charge. For more than a decade, she's helped smart, thoughtful, top performers at the world's most successful companies,
[00:01:32] Bethany Saltman: Including Google, JP Morgan and Verizon get the recognition, respect and pay they deserve. She's a licensed social worker with a master's degree from Columbia University, professor of Human Behavior at Hunter College in New York City, and former emotions researcher at Rutgers University.
[00:01:50] Bethany Saltman: Melody's path to becoming an author is super interesting. In our conversation, she shares how she found her agent with zero connections, how the structure of her book wasn't working, and the aha moment that helped her reimagine it in a way that finally clicked and how she handled marketing differently for book number two.
[00:02:08] Bethany Saltman: But I'll let the conversation do the rest of the talking. Let's dive into our chat with Melody.
[00:02:13] Bethany Saltman: Hey, melody, welcome to the show.
[00:02:15] Melody Wilding: Thanks so much for having me.
[00:02:17] Bethany Saltman: Yeah, we're really excited to get into this conversation with you. So we'd like to start every episode asking the same basic question, um, of our guests, and in your case, this is your second book. you have a, a very wide ranging career. You are a therapist, a social worker, a coach, an author,a, a public speaker.
[00:02:39] Bethany Saltman: So I'm really curious, in all of the work that you do and all of the content that you are swimming in all the time, I'm sure.
[00:02:55] Bethany Saltman: How did the idea for this second book rise up? And how did you know that it was a book and not just another talk or another, you know, deliverable in some way.
[00:02:57] Melody Wilding: Yeah, and I think actually it goes back to my first book because my first book, it's called Trust Yourself, and that came out in 2021, so spring of 2021, we were still in the very thick of the pandemic and. At that time, you know, and still years afterwards, I was hearing a lot of the same patterns and themes and that as someone who has a research background, that's what always gets my attention.
[00:03:23] Melody Wilding: And so I was noticing people would say, loved your first book really has helped me become more confident and believe in the value I have to offer. But I really find it challenging when I have to do that with people that have more authority. Or people who I find intimidating and I'm sure both of you remember, that was the time when we were having like the great resignation and people were just really rethinking their relationship with work and so much was changing.
[00:03:51] Melody Wilding: So much was uncertain. It still is. And I just kept hearing from people over and over. I feel like I. Just being jerked around by everything that's happening around me. There's reorg after reorg, and I'm trying to figure out where I stand and how do I assert myself in this environment. the company just laid off 25 people and now I'm having to do the job of three people.
[00:04:13] Melody Wilding: How do I set boundaries around that? And so there were these persistent, consistent themes of assertiveness, of being able to stand your ground even with people in power. And my entire audience and myself are people who consider ourselves to be more emotionally sensitive. And so that adds an extra layer to all of this.
[00:04:37] Melody Wilding: How do you, how do you navigate this, have these tough conversations and be able to. Be confident asking for and projecting what you need in the workplace. When you're someone who tends to be very vigilant of what's happening around you, you are absorbing all of the stress and the dynamics. And so that was really how this book came about was I couldn't not write it because I was having these conversations.
[00:05:02] Melody Wilding: Again, and again and again in coaching, every question was coming back to some form of managing up or managing across, and that's what made me say, okay, there's something here. This needs more of a meaty framework around it versus kind of the tip or the tool I could give here and there. People really need more of a holistic method to follow.
[00:05:27] Fran Hauser: and the book is really structured around the 10 most common conversations that you would have, with the person who's managing you. So whether it's like setting boundaries or. Getting into alignment. did you always know that you wanted to structure the book that way?
[00:05:44] Melody Wilding: Absolutely not. And actually it was a. Painful process getting there, but so, so worthwhile because I'm, I'm so happy we, landed on the 10 conversations and I'll, I'll tell you a little bit about how we got there. So I started the book in, I think towards the end of 2022, and I wrote two entire full drafts of the book.
[00:06:14] Melody Wilding: I was not happy with it. It didn't feel like it was coming together in the way I hoped it was. None of the concepts were really sticky or standing out to me. It also didn't feel like me. It felt like I was just writing another leadership or management book and almost performing that, I was feeling just very.
[00:06:35] Melody Wilding: Stuck and swirling in that. And so we had this sort of come to Jesus moment with the, the editor I worked with who was sort of my partner on the book, kind of helping me get out of my own head and out of my own way. and my, my editor at the publisher and. The publisher said, this isn't quite clicking yet, and I think you recognize that.
[00:06:57] Melody Wilding: And I was wondering, you know, it seems like all of these things come back to conversations. What would you think about orienting the book around that and later, my editor, the one, the one I hired personally was like, I could see the blood drain out of your face when she said that you turned like a different color.
[00:07:16] Melody Wilding: Because at that point I had been working on the book for. almost two years at that point. And the thought of rewriting it again, I couldn't even stomach it. But that said it was the best decision because once we had that unifying framework. Much of the content was the same, but we had something to orient it around, right?
[00:07:41] Melody Wilding: So that just really made everything like boom, boom, boom, click into place, and, and now being able to teach it, to bring it into companies, to offer it to my clients, it just makes all of that so much easier. So I'm sure you both have thoughts about that.
[00:07:54] Bethany Saltman: Oh my gosh, my head is exploding. yeah, I have so many. First of all, just from the beginning. I love that. that this book came out of your, work as a coach. And, that's so important because I think that a lot of people, they know that they wanna write a book and they have an idea, but it's a little abstract.
[00:08:14] Bethany Saltman: It's really always so much better when it comes authentically from a practitioner's perspective, so that's great. And the fact that you had a framework, which is really interesting because it sounds like that initial framework was not the framework that you ended up with. But even framework is so important because a lot of times people don't understand that a book, really a book like yours.
[00:08:37] Bethany Saltman: Which is so useful and so helpful, and I love both of them and I've been really helped by both of them, that it's really about having a framework. So I'd love to hear about how that shifted from the proposal.
[00:08:48] Bethany Saltman: the book that you sold and then, and, and so many drafts, so many years. Thank you for saying this again.
[00:08:54] Bethany Saltman: People have no idea. So yeah, take us from proposal framework to book framework.
[00:09:01] Melody Wilding: what was interesting about this second book is that I was in a, privileged position where, because it was my second book so we already had a relationship with the publisher that was interested in this type of book. And so I didn't have to write, you know, my first proposal was a hundred plus pages.
[00:09:21] Melody Wilding: And because I had some credibility behind me, they knew who I was. It was a much shorter proposal. And so I think I had a sample chapter. I had shorter, uh, chapter summaries than I did in my, in my first proposal. the framework was. If I recall, it was something around like mindset, managing your boss and then managing others.
[00:09:45] Melody Wilding: It was very plain vanilla basic. It just, it didn't have a lot of grippiness to it. It was still. Psychology informed and that was very important to me because that's how I wanted this to Differentiate this book about managing up from the other books about managing up that are out there, which are also by some are by amazing other practitioners and coaches.
[00:10:10] Melody Wilding: Some are by people that have been, assistants and the right hands to executives. So they're speaking from their perspectives. But I wanted something that was about the psychology component, because that was the piece that was missing more of that research backed science influence, persuasion based approach to this.
[00:10:29] Melody Wilding: So it definitely had that, but it didn't really take the reader on. A journey like the, the current book does, where it gives them the conversations. Now follow this, idea of there's five foundational conversations, as you were mentioning. Alignment styles, ownership, boundaries, feedback, and then those give way to some of the later conversations.
[00:10:52] Melody Wilding: Visibility, advancement, money, quitting, things like that. and it was really through. Conversations with my readers. So even after I sent the proposal in, I had it accepted. even as I first started writing, I immediately got the sense that what I pitched may have worked on paper or on the proposal paper, but it's not going to work when I try to blow this out into an entire book.
[00:11:25] Melody Wilding: And so as I started to dig into that, Let me also say, I think what I had also been sensing and had been listening to was how reader's preferences were changing from before the pandemic when I started my first book to now this one, and what was very clear to me is that people didn't want theory.
[00:11:45] Melody Wilding: They didn't want a lot of. Five chapters on mindset before we actually got to the tactics, which was how the proposal was set up. They wanted immediately get me into this. I want the scripts tell me exactly what to do. I want something that I can scan because I have 15 minutes on my commute in the morning, or you know, 20 minutes before between when I send my kids off to school and when I sit down to work that I do some reading for myself.
[00:12:11] Melody Wilding: And so I need to be able to get a really quick hit. And that was a mistake I had made with my first book because it was, I almost wrote my first book as a workbook that someone had to sit down with and reflect, and that's just not how today's reader works. those two things combined together. I immediately reached out to my audience and I had dozens, I think close to 35, 40 conversations with readers, with past clients who volunteered to speak with me, and I was really trying to understand for them, what did managing up mean to them?
[00:12:46] Melody Wilding: What did they most want out of this? What were the biggest blockers? And that also very quickly showed me that, okay, these first three chapters I was proposing, people don't really care about any of that. they are frustrated what they have identified the problem as is not them getting in their own way when it comes to managing up, which is where I was taking it from.
[00:13:09] Melody Wilding: Kind of your fears about looking pushy or overzealous? No, it was more so they saw the issue as. My manager and I aren't even on the same page, and so I can't get anywhere with them. I can't ask for a raise or more responsibility unless we're both working in the same direction. And so those conversations were invaluable for being able to pull out themes, but also specific language that people were using.
[00:13:37] Melody Wilding: So I could reflect that in the chapter titles, in the actual, headers for each of the chapters.
[00:13:43] Fran Hauser: I just, I love so much about what you're saying, you know, especially with prescriptive nonfiction, the importance of actually speaking to your readers and really understanding what their pain points are, you know, what, they're struggling with. The way that you wrote the book, melody, it's just so useful.
[00:14:02] Fran Hauser: You know, it's the kind of book that, oh, I'm having a hard time getting, on the same page with my manager, like, let me go to that specific chapter. So I just think there's so much value per page in this book. mean, you nailed it. and it is really also I think, important for. Our listeners to understand that, if you are a coach and if there is a certain framework that you're using as a coach, that it may work really well in that situation.
[00:14:31] Fran Hauser: But then when you have to get that onto the page, don't be afraid to change it up right in a way that's going to be sticky and interesting and fresh. I feel like we could talk about this for three hours, but I would love to segue a little bit, to your relationship with your agent, Lisa Damon, who is amazing.
[00:14:50] Fran Hauser: Um, and I believe was your agent on both books. and I'd love to just kind of hear your journey, like how did you get to her because it's always like. It's so hard, right? For writers when they're, they're looking for an agent that, really can be like one of the tougher parts of the whole book publishing process.
[00:15:08] Fran Hauser: So can you share with us a little bit about that?
[00:15:11] Melody Wilding: I love Lisa. She has been such a godsend every step of the way in advising me, and I mean, just having tremendous wisdom and I think that's such a huge part of the benefit of having an agent, someone who is looking out for you, who can, especially as a first time author. Explain terminology to you and and how the ropes work.
[00:15:32] Melody Wilding: So it's a funny story about how Lisa and I came to work together this goes back to. 2016 and I was speaking at an event for a, website that I, wrote content for, and that's been a huge way that I've built my presence online. My following is writing content for other sites and building my thought leadership that way.
[00:15:55] Melody Wilding: And, uh, I was speaking at one of their events and at that event, a. Different publisher came up to me and said, you know, I'm an acquiring editor at this publishing house and been following you for a while. Love your work. Would love for you to write a book for us. And I was like totally taken aback. 'cause of course this, this was something I had always wanted to do, but I thought it was, 10, 15 years off just a bucket list goal.
[00:16:21] Melody Wilding: And I started having conversations with that person. Things moved along very quickly. I wrote a very bare bones proposal and I had a contract within, I would say about 10 or 12 days. And when I looked at the contract, I knew immediately as you're looking at all the different terms and royalty amounts for different prints.
[00:16:43] Melody Wilding: And there's just so much in there. I knew immediately I don't wanna make this decision on my own 'cause I may commit to something I'm not happy with and lock myself in to a situation. And so what I did is I went to all of the books on my bookshelf back here, and Fran, I'm sure I looked at your book.
[00:17:00] Melody Wilding: I'm like, pretty positive. I looked at your book as well, and I turned to the back and I looked at who everyone was thanking and their acknowledgements. And for most of the authors I respect, there were a handful, maybe three to five different agents that came up. I cold emailed all of them. I found most agents, their information is available online because they want people reaching out to them.
[00:17:27] Melody Wilding: They wanna source new authors and exciting work that they can do. I cold emailed them and Lisa responded, and, you know, thankfully she, she saw something in me. I think that largely had to do with the volume of writing. I had already done online that she could see, I could string together a cohesive thought, and I had, I had certain perspectives.
[00:17:53] Melody Wilding: from there she was very helpful in just coaching me, advising me, guiding me. what I ended up doing was I stepped back and. As I said, even with this first proposal or with writing the second book, I realized this isn't quite me. And I tend, I tend to do that with a lot of things. I tend to, because I'm a people pleaser and a nice girl,
[00:18:17] Fran Hauser: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:18] Melody Wilding: I, I tend to create first what I think people want me to create.
[00:18:23] Melody Wilding: And then I often have to go through stepping back and asking myself, what do I really want to write here? And what is. Uniquely my perspective. And that's what I had to do on the first proposal as well. And that process unfortunately took, I would say like two years to actually figure out what I was trying to say and target with the first book.
[00:18:45] Melody Wilding: from there, the. The rest is history, and it's been wonderful. It's been wonderful to have a, just a partner on this journey. Again, also having someone who can advocate for you with the publisher and, make sure as the author you're getting the opportunities, is consistently making sure that the book is.
[00:19:06] Melody Wilding: Featured in different ads that the publisher is doing or that we're continually in front of them asking about foreign rights, deals that may be coming up. So all of that, I wouldn't be able to do without her.
[00:19:18] Fran Hauser: And I, I think hearing this story will be really encouraging to our listeners because you didn't have the connections. It's not like you were connected to any of these people, right? they weren't in your world and this pro. Process of going through the acknowledgements of books that are, in your space or like adjacent to your space and cold emailing.
[00:19:40] Fran Hauser: It works. we've heard this from others too, right? Bethany, where, especially if you put together a really thoughtful email, right? it is a process that can work. So I'm, I'm really happy that you shared that.
[00:19:52] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. We always tell people to look in acknowledgements. If you're looking for an agent for books that are like yours and that you admire, it's the perfect place to look. So that's great. And as an agent, I can say you'd be a dream. Email to receive someone who has done a lot of work and is looking for representation on, on a real project.
[00:20:14] Bethany Saltman: So I'm not
[00:20:15] Bethany Saltman: surprised. Hey there, book Bond friends, if you're a fan of this podcast, you've definitely heard us talk about the agony and the ecstasy of the non-fiction book proposal. Yes, proposals are challenging, and yes, they can take a while, but we truly believe that for non-fiction writers mastering the art of the book proposal, and we really do think it's an art isn't just necessary to land a book deal.
[00:20:39] Bethany Saltman: It's one of the best ways to become the expert of your own topic. And to sharpen your craft. That's why Fran and I wrote our ebook. It's called BookBound, A tried and true method for turning your great idea into a standout book proposal. It's available now@bookboundpodcast.com slash ebook for just 1999.
[00:21:00] Bethany Saltman: So if you're serious about your idea, but not quite ready to invest in coaching or courses, this is the perfect place to start. Download our ebook today and take the first real step toward writing the book. Only you can write.
[00:21:15] Fran Hauser: How did, um, melody did Platform come up for your first book,for Trust Yourself? Because that was published in 2021. was platform a part of the conversation when you were pitching the, that book?
[00:21:28] Melody Wilding: Oh yes, absolutely. And that, that was one of the biggest learnings for me as a first time author, was even realizing that a proposal is 60% about your platform and 40% about the actual content of the book. And what was, uh. Another learning I had through that process is to accentuate the positive as someone said to me.
[00:21:51] Melody Wilding: So in my case, and still to this day, I don't have the biggest social media following, and I was very self-conscious about that and thinking, well, that's going to. Paint me in a not a great light to the publisher when they're dealing with people that have a hundred thousand followers plus on Instagram.
[00:22:07] Melody Wilding: And it was very helpful to understand from Lisa, from others that, you know, think of it like a diamond. You wanna shine on the facet that. Strongest for you, that is shiniest for you. And for me, that was mainstream media. So I had tons of coverage on different mainstream news sites, CNN, NBC, New York Times, wall Street Journal.
[00:22:30] Melody Wilding: And so that was what we really emphasized was that that sort mainstream media as well as a lot of my writing, whether it was for the Muse or Fast Company or Business Insider, Inc. And. Really shining a light on those pieces and giving as much, tangible data as we could about how many even social media shares my articles had or comments.
[00:22:54] Melody Wilding: so that was very insightful for me that I didn't have to cover everything, so to speak with my platform. I could choose which aspect of it was strongest and lead with that.
[00:23:05] Bethany Saltman: I'm trusting that you didn't go with the publisher that approached you.
[00:23:10] Melody Wilding: I did not. We, of course, gave them, you know, we, as soon as my, my full proposal was ready, we came back to them and it wasn't quite the book they were interested in, so we went out to other publishers at that point.
[00:23:22] Bethany Saltman: Got it. But that's a good lesson too. For a lot of people who are doing their first book, they have the dream, and oftentimes when people get approached, they say yes because they're so happy. And I always encourage people, don't say yes until you've. Really done the research because if one person wants it, probably other people do too.
[00:23:41] Melody Wilding: Well, and what Lisa had said to me, and then as I was talking with other authors at the time, they said, make sure you're writing about something. You're going to be comfortable. Talking about nonstop for the next 3, 5, 10 years.
[00:23:56] Bethany Saltman: Yeah,
[00:23:56] Melody Wilding: when I looked at the initial, you know, the sort of bare bones proposal I put together, I was like, I'm already a little bored by this.
[00:24:04] Melody Wilding: was also another huge impetus for stepping back and thinking about what am I comfortable standing behind for the rest of my career? Because that, that's what you're doing.
[00:24:14] Bethany Saltman: absolutely.
[00:24:15] Fran Hauser: is such a great point because you're talking about it in media interviews. You're talking about it when you do talks. I mean, it's podcasts, right? You're just, you're talking about it all the time and it really is for years. Like my, the Myth of The Nice Girl, my first book came out in 2018. I am still talking about that book.
[00:24:37] Fran Hauser: I am still. Doing talks, I'm doing speaking engagements about that book. I'm doing podcast interviews. So it really does, you know, have to be something that you're really excited about, you know, and that you can see yourself talking about for a long time. And the other thing you said, melody about platform is also really important because I think often we equate platform to social media.
[00:25:01] Fran Hauser: It's so much more than that. There are so many pieces to it, and I love that you really leaned into your media relationships. You know, for someone else it might be,their speaking, you know, engagements or their relationships with big organizations that can help amplify the book. so really not pigeonholing yourself to the social media piece.
[00:25:25] Fran Hauser: That's really just one piece.
[00:25:26] Bethany Saltman: and I'm thinking about our listeners who are thinking, okay, great, but you had all of these amazing connections in media. Can you speak to them for a minute just on how you got started, even writing and getting all those big bylines?
[00:25:39] Melody Wilding: Yes. Yeah, my secret was help a reporter out, which.
[00:25:44] Bethany Saltman: I remember that.
[00:25:45] Melody Wilding: Yes. And I think it just recently came back, I think they shut it down for a while and now I could see that they recently brought it back. But there's other services that, that do something similar, which is essentially it help a reporter out, at least back in the day, was this service that reporters would put, requests for experts out on.
[00:26:08] Melody Wilding: And you would get an email three times a day with these different source requests and you would respond. And I really perfected the art of doing that. And the secret I'll give everyone is that if you are responding to any journalist request, respond in a way where they can just simply copy and paste what you have given them and plop it right into the article.
[00:26:30] Melody Wilding: it should be a tight, compelling soundbite. That they can just drop in because most of the time they are moving so quickly. That's exactly what they will do.
[00:26:40] Bethany Saltman: Make their job easier,
[00:26:41] Fran Hauser: right?
[00:26:42] Melody Wilding: Yes, yes. And so from there, I was then able to leverage putting those, those emblems on my website. the SEO engines started to take hold of people would google an article about setting boundaries at work, and I was an expert quoted in one piece.
[00:26:59] Melody Wilding: So they would reach out to me for another one
[00:27:01] Bethany Saltman: And then there you go. Yep.
[00:27:03] Fran Hauser: Yeah.
[00:27:03] Melody Wilding: The, the snowball just kept rolling downhill.
[00:27:06] Bethany Saltman: Oh my God, that's such great advice. So for our listeners, check it out if it's still there. HARO help a reporter out. You get digest emails three times a day. It's really, it was amazing back in the day and I'm delighted to know if it's back. That's great. That's such good advice. Thank you.
[00:27:22] Melody Wilding: and something on that, I think what's also different now that wasn't as true back then is. Journalists and writers, they're on. Twitter X, they are on LinkedIn and they are always posting, looking for sources. and so many times if you are just, if you make a list of some of the publications that you really wanna be in, and you find those contributors and those journalists who are writing for them, follow them on social, make a, short list where you can easily check their posts maybe twice a week, once a week, scan through those.
[00:27:56] Melody Wilding: that is another very easy way, that that wasn't as true back then. Where now everyone is just on social, has their own, has their own platform,
[00:28:05] Bethany Saltman: sure. That's so good.
[00:28:07] Fran Hauser: Yeah, that's true. I'm actually seeing that more on LinkedIn now that you say yeah.
[00:28:11] Fran Hauser: So let's talk about marketing. Now that the book is out and you're an expert, this is your second book. And by the way, having a second book is really,it's unique because a lot of times people have that debut and if it doesn't go great, that second book is really tough.
[00:28:28] Bethany Saltman: So congratulations on that.
[00:28:30] Bethany Saltman: Congratulations. so how's the marketing going? And, um, yeah, tell us anything you can about a masterclass in marketing.
[00:28:36] Melody Wilding: The marketing has been great it was fun the second time around 'cause I knew a little bit more about what I was getting myself into and what I was doing. but also, again, the, the market has changed because everyone was online during, when I was launching my first book and. Now that's, that's a little different.
[00:28:55] Melody Wilding: We're more so back to regular programming. So with this second book, from basically day one that I signed the contract, I started building my beta readers list. And at first it was those people who were willing to talk to me for interviews. And then I started just very early on putting it out to my email list, just building that consistently.
[00:29:18] Melody Wilding: So I had that loyal group of followers who were. At different stages, I would tap into them for different things. So I would survey them about, chapter titles or to get, you know, stories to inform certain chapters. They helped me pick covers, for example. And of course, as we got closer to pre-order time, I gave them the best incentives, the understanding that they would rate, review the book, all of that.
[00:29:43] Melody Wilding: that, that was very helpful to build that. Early to get those people excited, because also what it did was a lot of those people said, Hey, this would be great for my employee resource group at my company. Or We have this annual conference that we do and we'd love to buy 500 books when it's time.
[00:30:01] Melody Wilding: And so it was really helpful to have some of that locked in early. And then as the, as the release date got closer, what I experimented with this time was more rotating bonuses to incentivize pre-orders. So the first time around I sort of just did one kind of static bonus, which I believe at the time was a companion workbook for trust yourself.
[00:30:28] Melody Wilding: And then towards the end I added like a live book club. Experience, but this time around I was doing, I treated it almost like a coaching program launch, so I would do. Free webinars that I would offer. And then at the end of the webinar, my pitch, quote unquote, what I was selling was a pre-order of the book.
[00:30:50] Melody Wilding: And if you pre-ordered the book, you got these certain bonuses, like a, a exclusive masterclass that I was doing or whatever it was. that was really successful. It was really successful to give people a lot of value, to bring them somewhere. Live where there was more accountability for them taking action.
[00:31:10] Melody Wilding: And I did that I think three times. And I would change what the bonuses were each time. And of course anybody who had already pre-ordered then got all of the bonuses, which I was able to sort of sell that as well. That the earlier you pre-order, the more you are getting and. That worked very, very well for individual pre-orders.
[00:31:31] Melody Wilding: And then this time I was also much more cognizant of organizational and company bulk, bulk orders, and so did a lot of, outreach to all of my past speaking clients to see if they would like to bring me in. That was very successful. and a lot of cold outreach to people on LinkedIn to see if they would like a copy of the book and then potentially.
[00:31:53] Melody Wilding: Nurture that into a talk or something for their organization. So it was kind of a multifaceted approach.
[00:32:01] Bethany Saltman: Wow. Did you work with anybody or, or is this all your genius?
[00:32:07] Melody Wilding: Well, on the side of what I mentioned, the, the webinars and all of that, that was just me and my, my small but mighty team of. My online business manager and my assistants, I did hire a PR firm. I worked with Cave Henricks on both of my books and they are fantastic. I refer everyone to them. so they really worked with me on the PR side, which was very successful as well.
[00:32:35] Melody Wilding: we were able to get like a lot of the top tier media that we wanted, had a ton of interest in the book, and they also handled some of the. Speaking outreach that was coming in, so they would help me with following up with people and moving things along to secure some of those events and those book buys as well.
[00:32:55] Bethany Saltman: Amazing.
[00:32:57] Bethany Saltman: So what's
[00:32:57] Fran Hauser: Oh wow. Yeah, that's what I wanna know. I'm seeing a third book already. I'm sorry. I don't mean to rush you. I hate when people do that to me.
[00:33:05] Melody Wilding: Well, I, I appreciate that. my dream since I was five years old was to be an author and a writer, and so I hope to continue write writing more books. Fran, if you, if you have an idea for me, I'm all, I am all ears because at this point, I feel like my, well. Is depleted and I need a little time to fill it back up and kind of observe what comes out of this book.
[00:33:27] Melody Wilding: But yes, I think there's definitely a third one in the future. but for now I'm really, I am continuing to just. Do a ton of speaking podcasts. there's such a long tale from, from a book, and that also surprised me the first time around. It still is, is very satisfying now that even though it came out in my managing up came in March, I still feel like we're in the launch that it hasn't ended yet.
[00:33:58] Melody Wilding: but now I'm seeing much more of. The wheels are turning on their own where all of those seeds I planted, all of the interviews I did and people I reached out to, now they're all starting to come back. So that's always really cool that you can, you can have the work you've done just paid dividends for for months and years.
[00:34:18] Fran Hauser: You know what's so cool is that these books are clearly. A very natural part of your business. Like they, they make so much sense, like from a coaching perspective and your thought leadership platform, and, but the thing that's really cool is. How much you're enjoying
[00:34:38] Bethany Saltman: Yes. Like I see it in you, like you know, when you said, I've always wanted to be an author, I've always wanted to be a writer.
[00:34:43] Fran Hauser: it's just, I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you that you found this career and the role that these books are playing in your career. it's just so wonderful and so inspiring to see Melody. So thank you so much for your time today. We learned so much from you and. We wish you all the best, and please let our listeners know what is the best way to stay connected with you.
[00:35:09] Melody Wilding: Yes, you can find me@melodywilding.com. Information about both. Trust Yourself and Managing Up. Is there and find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. I always love hearing directly from people, so I'm just Melody wilding on LinkedIn as well.
[00:35:24] Fran Hauser: Amazing. Thank you so much.
[00:35:26] Fran Hauser: Thank you. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leading a rating or review to help other writers find us. And don't forget to check out or read like a writer book club, and our downloadable BookBound proposal guide, both designed to support you as you bring your book idea to life.
[00:35:49] Fran Hauser: You can also find us on Instagram at BookBound podcast. Happy writing.