ExpertsAcademy-Bonus-HoffmanTranscripts.pdf

Scott Hoffman

agent and it’s my business, there are certain

instances, in which, that’s not the right thing to do.

Thank you. I’m going to tell you a little bit about

myself. Brendon might have told you that I talk a

little fast. I’m from New York and it’s what we do

over there.

Four things that every successful author

needs.

I’ve been in the business for almost eight years. I

started a company called Folio Literary Management

about three and a half years ago with two other

partners. Folio has eight full time agents.

The one biggest mistake first time authors

make.

This will save you time, money and make your life a

lot better.

This is a little bit behind times but has sold close to

400 books; we’ve had 15 New York Times

bestsellers, Harper Collins best novel last year, and

a little book called The Art of Racing in the Rain by

Garth Stein.

Building the triangle the three essential

components of book promotion.

How to tell a story, the eight elements of a

perfect nonfiction book proposal.

Some of you may have seen it. It came out on May

13, 2008 and has been on some best seller list

somewhere all around the world. Best summer

Starbuck’s pick, we’ve represented Roberts Hicks

and some of the best general, fiction and nonfiction

authors in the business.

I imagine most of you are writing nonfiction and in

some cases equally applicable to fiction a memoir as

well, but that’s what we're going to do.

Before we get to all of this stuff we're going to talk

about what a book is. It’s a bunch of paper, some

covers, some pretty artwork, a bunch of numbers,

but more than that it is a tangible example of

expertise.

The first book that I sold after I started Folio called

Life's Golden Ticket . What am I here to talk about?

What are we going to learn?

We are going to learn the benefits and

drawbacks of self-publishing versus the

traditional model.

Brendon has been telling you about this all day. You

can be some guy from Omaha but when you’re the

person who has written the book on a subject, it

differentiates you from all the other people out there;

it’s a tangible example of your expertise.

When to work with an agent and when to go

it alone.

It gives you something to hold up, to waive around; it

gives you a tag line. You are no longer just some

person talking about self-improvement or plumbing,

you are the author of the book, the best selling book,

There are some times you should use an agent and

sometimes you shouldn't. Even though I am an

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the critically acclaimed book, the book about

whatever subject you're an expert on.

everybody to decide whether or not they want to

publish their book.

It is also, and more important it is a suggestion of

unlimited promise. How many people have had their

lives changed by a book, a blog?

They're already overwhelmed with submissions from

agents and folks like me they know and trust.

Agents in this case are the gatekeepers and this is a

relationship business.

Before you open a book, there is an entire world

ahead of you. There is something waiting for you to

explore. It can be anything; it can take you

anywhere and make you anything you want to be.

It’s an emotional experience for people that you

cannot replicate in any other medium.

When an editor gets a package from somebody

they’ve never heard of it goes into the slush pile, to

their assistant or back to the sender.

When they get something from somebody they have

an already established relationship with, when

Roger Freet who is Brendon’s editor at Harper One,

gets a package from me, he says the last package

this guy sent to me was Brendon Burchard. Maybe

this is the next Brendon Burchard. It’s about

relationships.

A book is also the most efficient way to

communicate a large volume of information to a

huge number of people over a long amount of time.

There is nothing as efficient as this medium for

telling your audience everything they want to hear

and putting it in a package that they can take to the

bathtub, to the beach, on an airplane, anywhere they

want, they can get your expertise.

The traditional book business is about

expertise.

For a lot of people and I hope a lot of people in this

room, a book can be a dream come true. I want you

to think about that. Think about all of your dreams,

what is going to get you from here to there and if

one of these can be part of that equation.

Hopefully all of you are an expert in something or

other. I’m an expert in finding traditional publishers

for authors who have commercial potential to sell

large volumes of books. It’s what I do every day and

what’ I’ve devoted my life to.

Let’s talk about the traditional book business and the

three things it’s about. That’s what I do. I work

mostly with the big New York City publishers, big

platform authors. I do large hard cover books,

mostly for six figure advances. This model is not for

everybody.

I’ve spent those ten thousand hours that Malcolm

Gladwell talks about figuring out how to package

you, work with you, how to develop that book

proposal, how to talk to you and convince a

publisher that you are right for their list.

Expertise is something you can’t develop on your

own, but it’s certainly something you can buy or

borrow.

It may be for some and we’ll talk about whether it’s

right or not, but the traditional publishing business is

about three things.

Conventions. The book business is a very

clubby industry.

It’s about relationships. Having those

insider relationships are absolutely key.

Most of the big publishers in the world do

not accept submissions except from literary

agents that they know and like.

Trying to navigate the waters of the book business is

like trying to do business in a foreign country. If

you’ve ever tried to do business in a country where

you don’t speak the language, what is the first thing

you need?

If you want to get into Random House, Harper

Collins or Simon & Schuster or McMillan and you

send a package in the mail, they're going to mark it

return to send and send it back. They do not have

the capacity to be the filter, to get packages from

A guide, somebody who’s going to be there on the

ground, interpret, know how to talk the talk, walk the

walk and how to make things happen for you.

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When Brendon’s money thing happened with Harper

Collins we're talking about vast sums of money.

There was a lot of stuff going on at that point.

Brendon’s is a business guy, came from the

Accenture world of high charging corporate

executives. They have our money. Let’s sue them.

If I do a book deal for you today, chances are the

book isn’t getting on the shelf until September 2010.

There is a price you must pay. For some people

that’s the right way to do it but that happens for a

reason.

It happens because publishers still do printed

catalogs that they mail to booksellers six months

ahead of time so they know which books they want

to take into stock.

We could have done that and if we had sued them I

guarantee you we would have won, but I also

guarantee that the lawsuit would still be going on

today and Brendon wouldn’t have his money.

In order to do that you must have a finished

manuscript so that you're not selling a bookseller

something that’s going to have the most nonfiction,

as we’ll talk about later, sales on a book proposal.

From the time that you put in that book proposal

which is not for a finished book, it’s probably going

to take you a year to write the darn thing.

When I talked to the editor and publisher, because I

know what the conventions of the book business are

like, I didn't pitch it that way. I didn't say, “Give us

our money or we're going to sue you.” I asked,

“How can we solve this problem?”

You can’t do what we want you to do because

you’ve never done it before. The book business is

remarkably slow. It’s like the best run industry of

1850.

In order for them to do the catalogs, get it to the

sales force, to get their sales force out to Peoria and

get into that independent bookstore where they're

going to take ten copies of your book, you need that

long lead time.

The answer to why they can’t do things is often

because we’ve never done it that way before.

Rather than saying change the way you do things.

Come on, this is not that hard to do, I said, well. I

know that you’ve done this before. How about if we

structure it that way?

If you need a book on the shelf a month from now,

the traditional publishing model is not for you.

Control freaks

It was total B.S. and there was no way that this was

the actual way this was going to do or that it was

going to happen but they said, “Yes, if we call it that

instead of calling it the other thing we can get you

your money now.” Surprise, a six figure check later,

everybody’s happy.

Believe me; I know this being one myself. When

you work with a traditional publisher, for better or

worse you give up large elements of control.

You’ll have input and if you have a good agent you’ll

have more input than if you don’t have a good agent

but there are certain things, unless you are major

New York Times bestselling author are not going to

have very much insight into the design of your book.

Now we need to know, is the traditional book

business for you? Should you go this route, should

you self-publish, should you use a mid tier publisher,

one of the new publishing models? That is what

we're going to talk about today.

You’ll not have much input as to the cover and in

most cases you're not even going to be able to pick

the title of your own book. Publishers demand that

control. They’ve been in the business a long time

and know their models.

The first thing we need to know is who should self-

publish.

Speed freaks

When they talk to the account they want the

flexibility to change things to give you what’s going

to be the best shot at succeeding in them

marketplace.

I know there are some of you out there, folks that

need stuff done now. The traditional book business

is slow. It operates at a snail’s pace but there is a

method for the madness for all of these people.

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If you're a speed freak maybe you should consider

doing things another way. If you're a control freak

and you're not willing to give up that level of control,

maybe you should self-publish.

and already have relationships with retailers, you

may not want to go through a publisher. You may

want to deal directly with the people you have

established relationships with.



Somebody who’s expertise is in a highly

esoteric subject that it doesn't pay to charge

$24.95 for it.

Remember, the book business is also about

relationships and if you have stronger relationship

with big retailers than your publisher you might want

to go it alone.

Me, for instance, I am never going to write a book

because authors make about $3 on a hard cover.

For me to give away what I know for $3 a pop

doesn't make sense.



Maybe one-percenters.

What’s a one-percenter? A one-percenter is

somebody that is so far ahead of their time, whose

ideas are so brilliant and out there that there is no

way you can explain them to a committee. A

traditional publisher is not going to publish your book

unless they get it through committee.

Your business model might be that too. If you are

the world’s foremost expert on horse hoof repair for

instance, a book is probably not right for you, at

least a traditional publishing model.

If you're the world’s biggest expert on raising gobs of

money on hedge funds and taking a commission on

that and making millions of dollars doing that, a

traditional book publishing model is not for you.

It’s going to start with an acquisitions editor, go to a

marketing person, to a sales person, a publisher and

unless they can get their head around what your

idea is they're not going to publish it. If you're one of

those people who is so far ahead of their time.



maybe if you’ve got a huge speaking

business and your back of the room sales

are going to be vastly larger than your sales

in normal trade channels, the traditional

book publishing model might not be for you

either.

I’m thinking of Gary Wolfram who wrote

Mathematica, this huge 1500 page tome. It didn't

work with a traditional publisher because there is no

way they would have understood what he was

talking about.

If you have a speaking practice where you speak to

50,000 – 200,000 people a year and you're working

with Harper Collins, Random House or Wiley, you're

still going to get $3 a book.

Why you should not self-publish.



Your distribution is never going to be good

as traditional publishers.

If you think you can sell 50,000 copies on your own

and you don’t need Barnes and Noble, Amazon or

that retail distribution, if you do it yourself you can

make $10-$15 a book. Why would you give all that

money to a publisher if you don’t have to?

I don’t care who you are, you're not going to be able

to have the leverage that Random House, Simon &

Schuster, etc., does. You're never going to get your

book into as many places and in front of as many

people as they are.



People whose access to the retail value

chain is better then their publishers.

They have gigantic sales forces, dedicated full time

to getting books into places where they're going to

be sold. If you self-publish you're just not going to

have that breadth of distribution.

Publishers are good at a lot of things and we’ll talk

about what they excel at and what they stink at.

One of the things they're not very good at is getting

books into places other than bookstores.



You will never get the publicity and earned

media that you might be able to get if you

work with a traditional publisher.

If you're a consumer products specialist, if you have

relationships with Wal-Mart or Target, if you sell stuff

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How many know the difference between earned

media and paid media? Paid media is ads. You can

pay for it, get lots of impressions and people are

going to gloss over it because they are bombarded

by ads every single day. Everybody is trying to sell

them something.

I can sell a first author who’s never done a book for

vastly more money than I can sell a first author

who’s done a book that’s only sold 5,000 copies.

That is something you need to think about from the

very beginning of your career and it’s one of the

reasons I’m here. I want you to start planning for

success today even if your success is going to be

ten years down the road.

Earned media is news coverage. If you are the

expert, the woman who wrote the book on

relationships, then you can get quoted in the New

York Times you're going to be much more likely to

have that done if you're publishes through the

traditional publishing model than if you're self-

published.



Foreign sales.

You’ve seen all these copies of Life's Golden Ticket,

the Turkish edition, Indonesian, Hebrew and all of

this. I guarantee you that if Brendon had done this

on his own and hadn’t done it with Harper Collins

there’s no way we would have been able to sell this

book in all of those foreign countries.



You're not going to get the same level of

automatic assumption of credibility that

comes with being published by a household

name.

For most authors, particularly in a nonfiction space,

for most authors foreign sales can be exceedingly

lucrative. In some cases, much more lucrative then

the American book business.

Someone will ask who published your book? You’ll

say, “I published it myself.” Okay. Anyone can do

that now with POD technology. If you say Random

House published my book, or Harper Collins,

immediately you're catapulted to the next level and

people are going to look at your differently than if

you did it on your own.

We have some authors whose books have sold

maybe 5,000 – 10,000 copies in the United States

and have sold 100,000 in Germany, Japan or Korea.

When that money comes in, I guarantee you it

spends just as well whether the book is in English or

in another language.

Also, people make the mistake of self-publishing

their first book when they could in the long run have

a brilliant career with a big publisher. The way self-

publishing is done now, there is a number called an

ISBN number that is going to follow you the rest of

your life.

Try to describe the two people who shouldn't work

with a traditional book agent when selling their book

if they do decide to go with the traditional model,

was always something that I struggle to talk about.

If you want to sell your book through Amazon or

Barnes and Noble you are going to have that

permanent record that will follow you for the rest of

your life. The first thing the publisher is going to ask

me is if the author has a self-published book.

It comes down to two things.

If you're the kind of person who would sell

your house without using a real estate

agent, you might be the kind of person who

wants to deal with a publisher without a

literary agent.

They’ll ask how it did. I’ll tell them whatever I’m

going to tell them. Then they’ll go to a service called

Neilson Book Scan which will show them how many

copies of your book you’ve sold through regular

retail trade channels.

Remember the traditional model by which agents

work is you pay them nothing up front. An agent

who tries to charge you money up front to represent

your book in a traditional way is probably scamming

you. Real agents work on a commission basis.

They don’t get paid until you get paid.

Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Target,

Wal-Mart and unless that number is 10,000 they're

going to say this person doesn't know how to sell

books so we're not going to take a chance on them.

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