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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] Jill Sirianni: From the start, I really wanted something that almost showed a dichotomy because it sounds like we're talking about two very different things, right? Buying what I love and not going broke do not sound like congruent messages. So I really wanted things that kind of seemed dissonant, but coming together in, in kind of a unique way.
[00:00:22] Jill Sirianni: So that was a little bit of the, the nerd behind it. Hi,
[00:00:28] Bethany Saltman: I am Bethany Saltman,
[00:00:29] Fran Hauser: 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
[00:00:41] Bethany Saltman: 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.
[00:00:49] Bethany Saltman: These how I Did it,
[00:00:50] Fran Hauser: conversations will help you pitch your big idea, write killer proposals. Find the right agent and publisher and live an amazing Bookbound life.
[00:01:05] Bethany Saltman: Welcome to the show everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, Jill Ani. Jill and her husband paid off $60,000 of debt over seven years. While cash flowing, her master's degree, a licensed clinical social worker, she's no stranger to doing a lot with a little from launching small businesses to full-time rv, living in Buy What You Love Without Going Broke.
[00:01:28] Bethany Saltman: She and her co-author, Jen Smith, blend mental health and personal finance expertise to help readers identify what they value most and align their money with it. We had the best conversation about how to turn a podcast into a book, all the things that go into choosing a title and why opposing forces are so essential in a nonfiction book idea.
[00:01:50] Bethany Saltman: We also discussed how voice shows up not just in the writing, but in the book's packaging too. Hey, Jill. Welcome to the Bookbound podcast. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we are so excited to have a conversation with you. So we'd like to begin by asking everybody the question, and we're especially interested in this, in your answer here, how did you know, you know, you, you start as a podcaster, so how did you know that you had more than just like juicy podcast content and a book?
[00:02:21] Jill Sirianni: There's a couple of answers here. Probably like no one exact thing that I could hang my hat on. However, I think the biggest reason I could give is longevity in the space and recognizing that. We've been doing this for so long. The way that I kind of equated writing a book, my husband's a musician and has written albums and recorded albums, and having watched that process, it felt like that, like the podcast had been a bunch of songs.
[00:02:55] Jill Sirianni: That each could stand on their own and are fun to listen to. But it'd be really great to compile all of these songs in one digestible album that really gives people the concepts that we've been talking about that can flow really well and tell the whole story. And it just started to feel that way after about six years into podcasting, realizing.
[00:03:21] Jill Sirianni: Okay. We've been doing this for a while. We've put out a lot of episodes, but there's no real one thing that we could point them to and say, here's our ethos on how to approach personal finance. And both Jen and I were feeling it's time to compile all of these ideas that can then last for forever. I mean, the podcast can last certainly, but this is something tangible that we can give to people that's a compilation of everything that we feel we have discovered.
[00:03:50] Jill Sirianni: And. Walked out, lived out, seen works
[00:03:54] Fran Hauser: that we can really give to people. Hmm. I love that answer. That's a first. I love the analogy to the album, and so what that brings up for me is, you know, because you, you have all of these. Different episodes. How did you come up with a through line? What was that process like for you?
[00:04:14] Fran Hauser: Right, because the book right there, there needs to be a cohesion and a through line. Tell us about that process. It was painful.
[00:04:23] Jill Sirianni: So as you know, I have a co-author. She was unfortunately unable to join us, but. Thankfully there was a lot of benefit in having a partner in this where we could bounce ideas off of one another and be able to talk about what is the core of what we talk about, how and how can we create the classic pieces of a book, but.
[00:04:47] Jill Sirianni: We really were all over the place. Tons of notebooks filled with ideas and the notes app on our phones and emails back and forth and Google documents, and we actually ended up paying somebody just to help us map out in a one day intensive. What do we have here so that we could kind of hear from somebody else?
[00:05:11] Jill Sirianni: All of our different ideas, and I will say it changed. So we began with the principles of frugality. We had about nine principles that we thought, what if we just list out all these principles and gave them like tools to people and. About halfway through the actual writing process, we changed that.
[00:05:32] Jill Sirianni: Thankfully, our publisher was good with it and just made it even more simple, which felt so much more on brand with us and created three parts to the book, how to ident. Buy What You Love, What You Don't Love, How to Not Go Broke. And so that kind of was the piece then. And the publisher was like, yes, this is perfect.
[00:05:56] Jill Sirianni: Let's do it.
[00:05:57] Bethany Saltman: That is so good. So you're bringing up, we got right into the content, which is so exciting. I wanna just back up a little bit and say. When you gave that answer about how you knew you had a book, I got goosebumps because I love that it came out of a sense of robustness. You had so much material that you knew it was time to put it into a book.
[00:06:17] Bethany Saltman: Because I meet so many people who have a feeling, a desire to write a book, but they don't have the material. And it's great to wanna write a book. It might take six years of doing a podcast and having, you know, an embarrassment of riches of material to hit that inflection point. To know like, oh, this is actually a book, not just the companion.
[00:06:42] Bethany Saltman: To the podcast, so I love that. And so can you walk us through, like, you guys decided that, you know, you felt like you had a book and then it sounds like you wrote a proposal and then that went one in one direction, and then midway through you realized you wanted to go in a different direction. That's really good information for us and our listeners, but I'd love to hear about the proposal process or rather even the, the before that the agent process, like what did you do?
[00:07:08] Bethany Saltman: Right? How did you find an agent?
[00:07:10] Jill Sirianni: So we were fortunate to connect with an agent through a. Colleague friend in the personal finance space who had utilized this agent, had great success with them. And while this agent was saying that they weren't taking on any more personal finance books, we apparently had the pitch.
[00:07:31] Jill Sirianni: That worked for her. So we pretty much had our entire proposal written before we went to the agent. So we were able to share with her what we had some of our concept. And she really liked the idea and felt like it was a little bit outside of the typical personal finance books that she's represented in the past.
[00:07:52] Jill Sirianni: Felt like there was room. For her to be able to represent this book and signed with us, and she has been worth her weight in gold so that I can't speak Kyle going the traditional publishing route. She was so very helpful.
[00:08:13] Jill Sirianni: So at first we, we had talked with her about defining your enough, so some of the working titles of the book were, were about defining enough in the personal finance space. We talked about the radical middle, which actually is a concept that shows up. In the book. That was a, a working title for us at one point.
[00:08:36] Jill Sirianni: I'm so pleased with where we landed on the title, but I think for her recognizing that we were bringing not just a how to blueprint on here's how to budget, we take a much more holistic approach to personal finance. My background is in social work, so I'm a licensed mental health. Sorry, a licensed clinical social worker and my co-host, she has been in finance journalism essentially for years, and so collectively we kind of bring this blend of.
[00:09:11] Jill Sirianni: Perspective to certainly the podcast and, and now this book of looking at the whole person that what we do emotionally, relationally, physically, spiritually impacts us financially as well. And so more so giving and, and the principles are still in the book, just kind of the through line that the approach that we chose to go.
[00:09:35] Jill Sirianni: Looked a little bit different, but giving these tools and resources for somebody to make personal finance their own, not just do this and this, which felt so stringent, so full of deprivation. And I think she really saw something in that. And at least the feedback we got from people along the way has been.
[00:09:56] Jill Sirianni: Feeling like youthful voices, friends along the way, taking the shame out of budgeting and managing finances, especially making it accessible for women to feel really confident about handling finances, making money decisions, investing in retirement, all of these things, giving permission to do this and saying, you are capable of doing this in this.
[00:10:23] Jill Sirianni: Usually very male dominated field. And so that's the feedback that we heard back of, yeah, we, we want this message for the people who are ready to receive it,
[00:10:34] Fran Hauser: and voice is so important. You know, it's, it's, it's not something that we actually talk a lot about in, in this podcast, but the idea of bringing a fresh, accessible voice.
[00:10:48] Fran Hauser: To the personal finance space. I have a feeling that your agent was really drawn to that. You know, I think that, I think your voice was one of the reasons that she was so excited to take you on.
[00:11:00] Jill Sirianni: I, I think that that's where having a platform, not that everybody who writes a book needs to have that, but I think it really did help us in this case where.
[00:11:09] Jill Sirianni: They could hear how, what is our tone, how are we communicating some of these really important concepts to people. They can listen to us and know this is how it's going to hopefully come through in book form as well. And of course audio book form too. So yeah, I, I think that that was definitely to our advantage.
[00:11:31] Fran Hauser: Jill, can you talk a little bit about, um. How you got to harvest. Harvest is an imprint of HarperCollins. Tell us about that. Tell us about kind of the publisher meetings and tell us a little bit more actually about Harvest. I believe you're our first Harvest author.
[00:11:49] Jill Sirianni: Okay, great. So we, through our agent, we're able to set up a variety of meetings with a couple of different publishers, including Penguin Random House.
[00:12:02] Jill Sirianni: And I forget who the third one was. Honestly, this is digging back in my brain archives. If it comes to me, I'll let you know, but it ended up being that we submitted our. Uh, proposal, which included of course, a marketing plan and a sample chapter and the full outline of the book and a little bit more about us and who our target reader is gonna be.
[00:12:28] Jill Sirianni: It was about a 40 page document that we wrote up and submitted to all of these publishers, and we ended up getting three. Interested. So we went to auction, which was very exciting to be fought over with. Money was a little bit of a pinnacle for me. So that was one day that happened to be Jen's birthday.
[00:12:53] Jill Sirianni: So fun. Happy birthday, Jen. I know exactly. They were going back and forth, uh, on. What they wanted to buy the book for. I might be getting a little ahead of myself. Of course. Before that, we met with each editor and the marketing team in these meetings. So they were talking with us about what would the marketing plan look like, how are they really hoping to present the book?
[00:13:18] Jill Sirianni: What are they most excited about in what we're presenting to them? What might be some of the changes that they would wanna see to the book? Kind of talk to all of those. Things through. So then by the time we got to auction and it was our choice of who do we wanna go with, we had a good sense of who do we feel like got it the most?
[00:13:40] Jill Sirianni: Who do we think is going to allow. Our voice to really shine through and is gonna support that rather than overtake it and insert whatever they might want to be saying. And so it ended up being that we went with Harvest, the imprint of HarperCollins, as you mentioned, and the editor there really was the clincher for us.
[00:14:00] Jill Sirianni: She was even self proclaimed our target. Audience as far as age, demographic, gender, and she had even listened to the podcast before she even knew that we were writing the book and kind of understood us and was just really excited to champion. What we were going to be writing, and it felt like a great fit, and they happened to have been the highest bidder.
[00:14:28] Jill Sirianni: So it was an easy decision on our part. Oh my gosh. That is so
[00:14:33] Bethany Saltman: exciting. You know, we often talk to people when they're writing their proposals. Who is your audience? It's actually the editor. When you write your book, it's the reader. Mm-hmm. But I love that your reader and your, your editor in this case, were the same person.
[00:14:47] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. That's like the best case scenario.
[00:14:49] Jill Sirianni: Exactly right.
[00:14:52] Bethany Saltman: 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 nonfiction 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.
[00:15:14] 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 at bookboundpodcast.com/ebook for just $19.99.
[00:15:34] 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. So what was the title of the proposal? So you wrote a proposal to get the agent, and then did you rework on the, the proposal with the agent and then what was the title that sold?
[00:16:00] Bethany Saltman: The
[00:16:00] Jill Sirianni: title by the time we had the proposal together was Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. So the title has not changed. Such a good title.
[00:16:09] Bethany Saltman: Thank you. Yeah, we love it. And so did you work on the proposal again with your
[00:16:13] Jill Sirianni: agents? No, by that point they were sold on it and we were off to the races riding and it was.
[00:16:22] Jill Sirianni: A few months into the writing process that we were just coming up against some barriers. It just didn't feel like things were flowing. That, well, we wanted a better way to organize and structure what we were saying, and that's when we came in with the the three part plan saying that all of these concepts are still gonna be in here.
[00:16:45] Jill Sirianni: It just feels right to us to break it down into three simple, digestible portions. And thankfully our editor was. Fully on board. Our agent helped with that too. She's like, okay, here's how we'll go about this. And again, another reason for another or an agent.
[00:17:03] Fran Hauser: And I, I just wanna read the three parts. Yeah.
[00:17:05] Fran Hauser: So the titles of the parts are so good. So part one Buy What You Love. Part two, Say No to What You Don't. And part three, Don't Go Broke. It's just so simple. Like you write clear over clever. It works every time. And again, I think, you know, we talked about your voice being so accessible. I think the packaging and the structure of the book is also accessible.
[00:17:32] Fran Hauser: Mm, thank you. And speaking of which, oh my gosh, before you got on Jill. Yeah. Bethany and I were obsessing over the cover of this book. For those of you on YouTube, I'll show you.
[00:17:44] Jill Sirianni: It's
[00:17:45] Fran Hauser: so
[00:17:46] Bethany Saltman: good.
[00:17:47] Jill Sirianni: Yay. Thank you. We were really hoping for something unique, something that you wouldn't typically see because we actually sit on the business and finance portion of shelves and so, you know, there isn't a personal finance section at bookstores and so we really wanted it to stand out and we kind of wanted a bit of a retro vibe.
[00:18:09] Jill Sirianni: It's a little bit the way that our branding is trending and we really. Pushed on the publisher to give us something very unique. And yeah, I, we, we are pleased with it.
[00:18:22] Fran Hauser: What you got the retro vibe, the typeface, I mean, the colors just thank you everything. And I have to tell you now, being on the side of actually owning a bookstore, Hmm.
[00:18:33] Fran Hauser: Covers are everything I watch. I watch customers, they walk in, and if they don't know who you are as an author. What they're looking at is the cover. Exactly. And they literally just walk right by ones that are a little bit more boring and don't stand out. Especially in the nonfiction Yeah. Space. Yeah. So I think it's so smart to think about what is this gonna look like on, on the shelf, right.
[00:19:01] Fran Hauser: What is it going to look like on Instagram? Right. It just needs to be visually.
[00:19:06] Jill Sirianni: Yeah.
[00:19:06] Fran Hauser: Compelling.
[00:19:07] Jill Sirianni: Well, and it's so word heavy too, you know, there, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. Transform your spending. It's a, it's a lot of words. So we had to really fit it all in and yeah, thankfully we got there. It was important to me to have a cover, and I don't think this is way more behind the scenes.
[00:19:27] Jill Sirianni: I'm not sure that anybody who even reads the book would put this together, but. From the start, I really wanted something that almost showed a dichotomy because it sounds like we're talking about two very different things, right? Buying what I love and not going broke do not sound like congruent messages.
[00:19:48] Jill Sirianni: So I really wanted things that kind of seemed dissonant, but coming together in, in kind of a unique way. So that's the color block difference on the top and the bottom, but yet kind of congruent. Lines happening, and so we, yeah. That was a little bit of the, the nerd behind it.
[00:20:10] Fran Hauser: Do you know the, the title is so good that you almost don't even need a subtitle for this book.
[00:20:15] Fran Hauser: Mm-hmm. Right. Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. That's the value proposition,
[00:20:20] Jill Sirianni: yeah. Of the book.
[00:20:21] Fran Hauser: You know, we typically say that the value proposition goes in the subtitle. And the title is a little bit more of like an image, a metaphor, a trope.
[00:20:29] Bethany Saltman: Thank you. This is so kind of you. Oh no. We are not being kind.
[00:20:34] Bethany Saltman: We are, we're trying to teach our listeners. This is like a masterclass in an amazing title. And you know, just your whole process I think is so good for our listeners. The other thing that's amazing about this title is that it's a counterintuitive, like you were saying. And you know, every successful book has a counterintuitive, it's, so it's gotta be somewhere in there.
[00:20:56] Bethany Saltman: You might have to, it might be in the introduction, it might be in the subtitle. You might have to dig Here we are like right front and center. Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. And you got to put the word love in there. Mm-hmm. I mean. You know?
[00:21:09] Jill Sirianni: Yeah. The publisher did wanna keep wanting to put hearts around the word love.
[00:21:12] Jill Sirianni: We're like, like, no, that's not what we're trying to highlight. We're trying to highlight that you're not gonna go broke.
[00:21:19] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Yeah. So it's really good because it has that counterintuitive. It's intriguing. It's got a promise. And the subtitle, it certainly doesn't detract, but I know what you mean, Fran, it's, it's, you know, as far as like our formula goes, you don't need it.
[00:21:36] Fran Hauser: Yeah, it's really interesting. So my first book, the title is The Myth of The Nice Girl and the subtitle os achieving a career you love without becoming a person you hate? Ooh, my agent was really pushing for the subtitle to be the title. Oh, really?
[00:21:54] Jill Sirianni: I didn't know that.
[00:21:55] Fran Hauser: Yep. I don't think I ever told you that, but it just, it reminds me of this Buy What You Love Without Going Broke.
[00:22:00] Fran Hauser: Right. Achieve a, achieving a career you love without becoming a person. You hate this whole idea of just being yourself, being authentic. Right, right. And there was a lot of conversation around. Should that just be the title? I think at, at the end of the day, the publisher just felt like it was too long.
[00:22:17] Fran Hauser: This is shorter Buy What You Love Without Going Broke is shorter than achieving a career you love without becoming a person you hate. These are the conversations, right? These are, these are the conversations, and then of course they talk to the sales, the publisher, talk to the salespeople and got their input.
[00:22:31] Fran Hauser: And there are so many different people at the publisher who weigh in on the title. Right. Yeah. It's, it's not just the editor and the mark and the marketers. It's also the sales team.
[00:22:42] Jill Sirianni: Right.
[00:22:43] Fran Hauser: So yeah. It's, it's, well, it's exciting.
[00:22:46] Jill Sirianni: Yeah. Ex exactly what you're, to your point, we were warned in the beginning, don't become too married to your title.
[00:22:53] Jill Sirianni: It. Most likely will change. It usually changes. It's usually something that the publisher pushes for the sales team or the marketing. Somebody there is gonna want this to change. And we were just fortunate enough that, that nobody pushed for that and we got to land with the title. We really loved. Yeah.
[00:23:12] Bethany Saltman: And I, I just wanna point our listeners to that, you know, like we're saying, it's these opposing forces, these dualities. Mm-hmm. Yeah. When you're playing with opposites and dualities, you're in a good zone. That's where things get sticky. It's so interesting, friend. Your subtitle is like, formulaically, structurally the same.
[00:23:30] Bethany Saltman: Yeah, do this without
[00:23:32] Fran Hauser: that. Right. It's the opposing forces, right? Yeah.
[00:23:35] Bethany Saltman: Oh my God, this is so good. It's so good. And it's not just a title. It's the whole book.
[00:23:40] Fran Hauser: It's the whole book, right? It's the whole book, right? It's so, yeah. It's just amazing. Oh my gosh, this is incredible. I think this might be like the best title conversation we've ever had.
[00:23:50] Fran Hauser: No,
[00:23:51] Bethany Saltman: it definitely is. Is. And also just this whole idea of the counterintuitive and like, you know, my mind is just going, it's like, why is it so important to have this, these opposing forces? It's because it's, it's giving us something new to consider how to Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. It's a very different, much more subtle, it's a new way of thinking about saving money and having what you want.
[00:24:14] Bethany Saltman: Mm-hmm. So. The only way you could have done that is by having such a body of work. Mm. And so you are really in your field, and that's why there's so much wisdom in your title in your book. You're not just harping on an idea and hoping to write a book. You are in it and you know what you're talking about.
[00:24:39] Fran Hauser: I mean, I just, I go, yes. And I go back to Jill, the original idea of like the nine ways to, you talked about that, like this is so much stronger. Yeah. This is so much stronger because it, it also, this taps into psychology. It taps into your. Your experience as a social worker, right? Yeah.
[00:24:58] Jill Sirianni: Yeah. There's a reason for the saying, I wanna have my cake and I wanna eat it too, right?
[00:25:02] Jill Sirianni: So it's like when we're thinking about what do we wanna present to people, whether it's personal finance or any other kind of genre, I think that's an important question to be asking. What do we all want to have while not letting go of. X, Y, Z, and how can I help my readers, my listeners, solve for that problem?
[00:25:21] Jill Sirianni: How have I done it? And I think that's part of this, right? We've had the experience, we've also been able to hear from others experiences. That was really important to us too, to pull in other stories because we are not representative of all the people who are gonna read the book, nor did we, even in our stories, capture every human experience.
[00:25:41] Jill Sirianni: But I think allowing people to see themselves. In the pages and providing different types of perspectives and nuances was really important to us so that people could see how is this lived out and fleshed out.
[00:25:56] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Yeah. It's deep and accessible, so Good. Thank you.
[00:26:01] Jill Sirianni: So how's it going? So the book is out.
[00:26:03] Jill Sirianni: Yeah. It's been so exciting. I really thought that it was gonna be anti-climactic because we had, it had been a two year journey between writing the proposal, getting the agent, signing with a publisher, and then the writing process itself, and planning the marketing and, and all of it was. Two years, and so by the time it released in January, I was thinking, okay, this is just, it'll be another day.
[00:26:33] Jill Sirianni: Right? We're not, we don't have really any launch parties planned or whatever. It was actually the most climactic day that I have experienced. It was. So fun. And I don't mean to set somebody up for it. It very well could feel anticlimactic depending on who you are. But it truly felt like a, a physical and emotional release, something building, building, building.
[00:26:59] Jill Sirianni: And mostly in the background. And you are talking to people about it, but it's the, wait, wait, not yet. And you can't really share it with the world yet. And finally it felt like here she's, and. And, and there's people beginning to talk about it, and we are starting to hear that suddenly bookstores have it on their shelves and messages are rolling in from people that I'm at the San Diego Airport and your book's here, and I'm at the Atlanta Airport and just saw your book like all.
[00:27:32] Jill Sirianni: I just didn't think it would all happen in that one day. Just all of a sudden here it is popping up everywhere. So it, that's been very exciting. And actually, so we're about, yeah, six, no, uh, seven, eight months out since. Since publishing and I was just in San Diego a couple weeks ago and the book is still in the airport, which was, that's amazing.
[00:27:56] Jill Sirianni: Incredible. I was traveling with my husband and, and as I do now, whenever I'm at the airport, I check like every store. Incredible. Even if they're primarily only selling fiction. I'm like, maybe, maybe we'll be there. I saw it and was shocked because I was not anticipating it this far out from publishing day.
[00:28:17] Fran Hauser: I feel like that's every author's dream to be in an airport bookstore, and the fact that they're still selling it means that it's selling. And by the way, usually you have to pay for placement. In an airport. So the fact that you did not have to pay and it's really expensive. I can't remember the numbers, but I heard it once and I was like, oh, wow, that's really expensive.
[00:28:38] Fran Hauser: But the fact that you don't have to pay. Wow, so exciting.
[00:28:43] Bethany Saltman: Congratulations for, do you guys have a sense, tell us about your marketing and do you have a sense of what you've done that's pushed the needle? I mean, obviously you're selling, you're pushing books. Sure, sure. So yeah, tell us about that.
[00:28:54] Jill Sirianni: Yeah, again, I think having the platform and, and the audience that is bought in was huge for us and we really prepped, we were warned ahead of time that.
[00:29:06] Jill Sirianni: Yeah, we've got an audience and a platform that's great, but it's still not big enough for the publisher to really prioritize us. We will need to. Be doing our own marketing. We need to be doing our own pr. We know a lot of people who hired PR outside of the publisher. We chose not to do that and instead invest in our marketing efforts and no regrets for us on that front.
[00:29:33] Jill Sirianni: It can be a good decision depending on kind of your goals, right? There's a lot of different goals that people will have. In the publishing of a book. And so for us it was primarily numbers, just wanting to get it in front of as many people as possible because we really do believe that it will help people.
[00:29:51] Jill Sirianni: And so we started about two months before publishing, going on an extreme, uh, podcast book tour. So between Jen and I, and that's where the benefit of having a partner in this came in really handy, divided and conquered. We went on over 50 different podcasts in the span of those, about eight weeks, just really talking about the messaging of the books and thank of the book.
[00:30:21] Jill Sirianni: Thankfully, we were able to kind of pull from different sections depending on the podcast that we were on. We really looked for a variety of niches, so not just other personal finance podcasts, but simple living minimalism, organizing mental health podcasts. So really, you know, what is Jen really good at?
[00:30:43] Jill Sirianni: What am I really good at? Allowed us also to kind of get in front of. Various types of podcasts, and I think that was huge for us. I also think that our efforts with our own community, so we created a street team where we sent an arc out to a list of, we got 200 people to sign up, created a Facebook group around it.
[00:31:09] Jill Sirianni: We would post multiple times a week, blurbs and excerpts. We sent advanced reader copies to. The people in the street team asking them then if they would review us within the timeframe of. Having published the book just to really help with those reviews. Not telling them you know exactly what to say, but here's the copy here, you know, for, for this benefit, would you please leave us a review both on Good Reads and on Amazon?
[00:31:40] Jill Sirianni: So that really helped those numbers and those initial days, those were the two. Big pushes that we did. Yeah. That I think were, were pretty big for us.
[00:31:52] Fran Hauser: And, and the street team, the 200 people, did you. Enlist them through your podcast, correct? Through social, through the podcast, yeah, through the
[00:32:00] Jill Sirianni: podcast. So, and through our podcast, we also have a newsletter that goes out two times a week.
[00:32:06] Jill Sirianni: And so we would let people know in the newsletter, Hey, want a free copy of the book? Join our street team. Here's what we're gonna request from you. And so we, we got the confirmation from them ahead of time before joining the group that they understood what the ask was. What the benefit was to them kind of a thing.
[00:32:24] Jill Sirianni: And so we would only allow people, I, I think we got 500 people applying to do it. So we really whittled it down to those 200 that we felt were gonna be really solid people to actually follow through on the, ask some of our OG listeners kind of a thing. And then of course, on, on our own podcast, telling people to pre-order is.
[00:32:48] Jill Sirianni: Really great. We are able to insert kind of our own ads wherever. At the time, we were also signed with iHeart Media, our podcast, and so we dynamically insert ads across our entire archive of PO of podcasts. So we recorded an ad for our book that we asked iHeart to dynamically insert into every single podcast that we've ever published, so that no matter what podcast somebody listens to, they'll hear it and that ran for
[00:33:20] Fran Hauser: a couple of months.
[00:33:23] Fran Hauser: It's just such a smart way to leverage. Your key platform is your podcast. Right. I mean, we've talked to other authors where it might be that they're a journalist, so they, they have access to media, other authors that might be social, you know, for others it might be their relationships with organizations where they can do bulk buys.
[00:33:42] Fran Hauser: Right, right. Like for you it really, it's your podcast. That's right. That is the key, most critical part of your platform and I think it sounds like you just leveraged it in such a smart. Way. And I, I wonder, Jill, did you do any paid marketing, any adver, any paid advertising? So the paid.
[00:34:01] Jill Sirianni: Things that we did was giving gift certificates to people as they reviewed part of that street team.
[00:34:08] Jill Sirianni: We did, I wanna say like the first 50 people to review, take a screenshot of it, submit it to us. We gave gift cards ranging from five to $20, so that that was a few hundred dollars for us. So that that was a paid portion. We also invested in a. Virtual assistant to be able to kind of help us keep track with all of these marketing efforts.
[00:34:36] Jill Sirianni: It was a lot on top of keeping up with the podcast and the newsletter itself. So we increased those efforts. That's where we chose to really invest some of the
[00:34:45] Fran Hauser: money. So Good. But it's so, it's so intentional, right? It's just so intentional. These are. The choices that we make as authors, where are we going to put our time?
[00:34:56] Fran Hauser: Where are we gonna put our money? Where does it make sense to pull in outside resources? Right. Yeah. And it's, it's really important because especially like the two months before and the couple of months after the book comes out, it's a really busy, busy, busy period. So having that extra support is so hugely helpful.
[00:35:18] Fran Hauser: I love it. So smart.
[00:35:20] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Jill, we are so excited for you. This was an amazing episode. Our listeners are really in for a treat. I just love the way you've talked about platform and about how to take your content and turn it into a really rich, useful, well-written, amazing covered book.
[00:35:39] Fran Hauser: Thank you so much.
[00:35:40] Fran Hauser: You've been so kind. Yeah. Thank you. So, and bye everyone buy the book. Yes. And And listen to Jill's podcast, which is Frugal Friends. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:35:51] Jill Sirianni: Yeah, even ask your library to get the book. Yeah. If you don't wanna spend the money. We love libraries. Libraries. You love libraries.
[00:35:59] Fran Hauser: Yes. Yes. Perfect. Well it was so nice to meet you.
[00:36:03] Fran Hauser: Take care. Thank you. And best of luck. Thanks so much. Bye.
[00:36:11] Fran Hauser: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving 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.
[00:36:30] Fran Hauser: You can also find us on Instagram at Bookbound podcast. Happy writing.