How Can Authors Create Superfans and Transform Book Sales? With Melanie Herschorn

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Melanie Hirschman wants to make your book and brand shine.

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As a nonfiction and children's

book marketing strategists for

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authors, coaches, consultants,

and speakers worldwide.

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She's on a mission to support and empower

her clients to build a business with

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their book as the foundation, and to help

them share their message with the world.

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Using her unique combination of

entrepreneurship, award-winning

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journalism and PR experience.

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Melanie gets her clients to create

brand awareness, sell books and position

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themselves as subject matter experts.

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So they can make a big

impact with their book.

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Her new book Make A Big Impact

With Your Book is out now.

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Hello, Melanie Hirschen.

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How are you today?

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Welcome to Superfans podcast.

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We're excited to have you here.

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Melanie Herschorn: Thank you.

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I'm so happy to be here.

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Freddy D: So tell me a little bit

about your background, how you got

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yourself started into authoring and

then moving on to basically helping

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authors publish their books, market their

books and become successful authors,

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because it's one thing to write a book.

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It's another thing to actually have it.

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Be marketing, selling

and generating revenue.

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Melanie Herschorn: And if I can

do a plug for your book called

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super fans, that is really great.

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And everybody should read that.

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I'll just say that.

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Freddy D: Thank you.

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Melanie Herschorn: You're welcome.

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Freddy D: Thank you.

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Melanie Herschorn: So, how I got into

it was totally not linear at all.

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I graduated from college and I had no

idea what I wanted to do and a friend

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of mine in Toronto said, you'd be really

good at PR, why don't you try that?

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And I said, okay, that sounds good.

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I'll try that.

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And so I worked as a celebrity publicist

for a couple of years, and then I

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decided to get a master's in journalism.

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And I worked as a radio

journalist for a few years.

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Then I had to move across the country

with my husband and we had a new baby.

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And I thought, well, I can get a job

as a journalist and pay a babysitter

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more than I'm going to make, or I can

do something else that's kind of been

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tapping on my heart, which was to design

and manufacture breastfeeding clothing.

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Freddy D: Oh, wow.

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Melanie Herschorn: It's not linear, right?

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Freddy D: No, that's a

complete left hand turn.

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Melanie Herschorn: It was, and yet it

wasn't at the same time because I've

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always been so interested in fashion

and I didn't feel confident like I

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could ever do haute couture, but I could

help new moms with finding something

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functional and fashionable to wear.

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So I designed and manufactured

clothes for about seven years.

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And my last year of business, I hired

somebody to help me with my marketing.

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And it was a very toxic relationship.

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She was very condescending and just mean

and really belittled me to the point

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where I couldn't even open my office

door anymore and it was my home office.

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So I shortly thereafter closed

the business, sold off what I

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had and said, okay, what now?

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And I realized that.

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Marketing was something that I'd been

doing consistently throughout my career.

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As a publicist, as a journalist,

as a designer of clothes, I

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was always marketing stuff.

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And I realized that I

could help other people.

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Do their marketing in a supportive

way, in a way that would not make

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them feel like they were an inch tall.

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And so I said, all right,

that's what I'm going to do.

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I'm going to try it.

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And when authors started calling

me, I went, oh, okay, I'm onto

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something here because there are,

well, first of all, the boundaries

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that there are none to publish now.

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You can have an idea, write

a book, publish it to Amazon

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KDP tomorrow, and guess what?

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You're a published author.

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It's not like in the, in, the yesteryear

when you had to find somebody, an

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agent, you had to get a publishing

company to, to back you and no, there,

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there are no barriers to entry anymore.

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And what happens is people have

these incredible ideas and they

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put them in books and then They

don't do anything with them.

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They think, okay, well, it's all about the

launch and then the launch comes and it

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goes and then no more books are selling

and they don't know why and instead of

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doing something about it, they just throw

their hands up and say, well, I tried.

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And they move on.

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And so it was sort of a natural

thing for me to say no, you can

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make an impact with your book.

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And I'm going to show you how

you can write it effectively and

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publish it and then market it

so that you can have all these.

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all this beautiful success, like

speaking on stages where they require

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a book oftentimes, and, improving

or increasing your consulting fees.

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And, all the great things, the credibility

the awareness that come along with.

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Freddy D: Yeah, when I wrote my

book, it was a combination of

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many years of sales and marketing

experience on a global scale.

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And I did do the book

launch and everything else.

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And it did, you got that

spike and then I did some.

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Amazon, marketing, but when you

and I got together, it really took

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it for a whole different turn.

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I've, redid some things to

improve the messaging of the book.

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And I'm putting, I'm still working on

the things that we've talked about, but

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now the podcast is actually, a reality.

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My community is a reality.

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I've been posting things on social

media and got some tools that help me do

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that, and I'm getting sales every month.

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Am I making, tons of sales?

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No, but every month I see

a steady amount of sales.

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Where before it was very sporadic.

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Now I \\\\\\ count on X amount of

books being sold on a monthly basis.

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So, you're exactly correct.

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And what, helping you've helped me

get a better direction on promoting,

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my book, creating business superfans.

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Melanie Herschorn: Well,

that is such an honor.

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And I appreciate you telling me

that, it's amazing what can happen

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when you're really saying the

right things to the right people.

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And, so much of this is in your book,

it's almost, it's a little meta to

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talk about it, but it's also something

I think important to mention that

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we don't get rich on book sales.

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It's really.

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Freddy D: It's a vehicle.

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Melanie Herschorn: It's a vehicle.

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It's how we leverage it.

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So for you, people picking up your book

and saying, wow, these are really great

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strategies and tools to, to, for client

retention for new clients or customers.

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And then they might call

you up and say, Hey Freddie.

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Can you be a consultant for our company?

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We really need help.

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And then you're not talking

about, a few dollars.

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You're talking several thousand

dollars as a return on your

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investment from this book.

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And that's the magic of it really.

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Freddy D: Well, funny you bring

that up, because that actually

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took place this morning.

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So, I had a 8.

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30 meeting with somebody that I've been

doing some marketing consulting with

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aside of my other opportunity that I

handle, and they're now looking to go

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on a bigger scale, and they're looking

to, we talked about partnership, and

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because of the fact that, The things I

wrote in the book that gave credibility

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to my sales and marketing knowledge.

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And that's the area that they need is they

need help and sales marketing and some

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of the technologies to put it together,

to get things to flow for them because

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they're doing things too much manually.

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So they can't grow their stock.

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And so that's, so yes,

exactly what you said.

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It does manifest itself.

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Melanie Herschorn: And it happened today.

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And that's the best thing ever.

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Yep.

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And that's, oh my gosh,

let's take a moment.

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I love that.

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I and I wish I could say

that never happens, but it

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really happens all the time.

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Freddy D: Yeah, it really happened.

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Melanie Herschorn: Yeah.

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Freddy D: This is, I've been working

with this individual for two years

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and handling some of their digital

marketing stuff on the side.

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And it's not been a big thing, it's

a side gig for me because I still

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have customers that I've been dealing

with for over 10 years on doing some

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of their online marketing things.

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And how many people can say that

they've got customers for over a decade

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still working with them because I

practiced the things are in the book.

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And like I say, they reached out all

last week while I was on vacation,

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and we set it up for early this

morning to talk about possibilities.

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So yeah, absolutely.

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So let me ask a question here

is, how do you encourage authors

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to engage with their readers?

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Melanie Herschorn: So there

are so many ways to do that.

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One of the biggest mistakes is to just

post on social media and walk away.

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Right?

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You have to reach out to your

readers using social media, and

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you can do that if they leave a

comment, reply to their comment.

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If they like a post, Send them a direct

message and say, thanks for liking

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my post and always ask a question

because then they feel compelled

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to keep this conversation going.

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You can do all sorts of things.

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You can reach out through

summits like online summits.

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You can invite your audience over

your email if you have an email

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marketing platform that you use.

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And anytime you're out

anywhere in the world.

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Remember that as an author,

you are your best marketer.

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So it's silly, but I carry a copy of

my new book with me everywhere I go.

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And it's a conversation starter.

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And then people say, Oh, what do you do?

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What?

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Well, here's a copy of my book.

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And, then it's an instant

credibility boost.

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But in terms of getting more

audience members to engage, more

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ideal readers to engage, I really

think it comes down to other than

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all the, strategies we talked about.

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I really think it comes

down to what you say.

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What you're saying, is

it resonating with them?

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Are you speaking about, using like

jargon that isn't really gonna land

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with the people you wanna reach?

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Are you saying let's lose five pounds

when the people that you wanna reach

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are saying, I just wanna tone my arms?

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Those sound like they're the same thing.

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But they're actually very different.

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So I think market research can really

help with that, figuring out, creating

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an avatar, creating a customer

avatar to where you can identify

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the specific person or entity that.

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It would resonate with what

you wrote about exactly.

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And then, you can use chat GPT

to figure out what would be

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the right thing to say, right?

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Or you can also go to

the business superfans.

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com website and pick up the

avatar workbook that we created

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which is second to none.

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And it not only helps you create the

avatar, but also your elevator pitch.

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Freddy D: And a multitude of other things.

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Melanie Herschorn:

That's a great resource.

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Yes.

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Freddy D: The other thing that I've done

in my case, you say carrying the book,

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I've got mine someplace here, I've

carried it to networking events, and I've

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sold it on the spot, and I've had to go

back out to the car and grab another one.

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What I've done, though, is I've

followed up to those people that

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bought it at those events to see what

their thoughts were, and et cetera.

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And that's the way that I've

stayed in contact with the

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people that picked up my book.

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If they sell it online, and they bought

it online, if they bought it from

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Amazon, you don't know who bought it.

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Except if they do comment or give

you a review, that's about the

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extent of it as far as I know.

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Melanie Herschorn: Yeah, there's

no way Amazon's going to give

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up their customer information.

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So I love that you're doing that because

when you are continuing that conversation,

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that's where, the magic happens.

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That's where the consulting

opportunities come in.

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It's.

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It's again, it's about creating that

engagement and sticking with it.

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And I know you mentioned

that in your book.

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I mentioned that in my book.

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It's really about

developing relationships.

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Marketing is about creating relationships.

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It's not about, putting up a billboard

and just hoping that it works for you

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because not everybody's going to be

interested in what's on your billboard.

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Freddy D: Right, so how can authors,

to want to create superfans of

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their book and get those superfans

to promote the book for the author?

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Melanie Herschorn: I like giveaways

and incentives to get that to happen.

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So for example, I would say, think of

it like a Starbucks gift card and do

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a giveaway and say, Hey, anybody who

wants to get a book for themselves and

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get a book for their friend will be

entered to win the Starbucks gift card.

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So any kind of incentivized.

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Giveaway or contest is really going

to allow people to say, Oh, I want

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to be part of this because people

want to belong to things, right?

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They want to be part of something.

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So they want to be a

super fan, for example.

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So they're going to join because it

makes them feel like they're part

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of something bigger than themselves.

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Freddy D: Right.

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Okay.

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So, a little bit about how you work with

an author that's either in a process of

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writing the book or they've written their

book, like in my case, how you and I

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connected up and then kind of, marketing

it, but sort of hop along until they

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get some direction and it transforms

their outlook and outcome of book sales.

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Melanie Herschorn: Sometimes authors

come to me and they are just about to

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publish or they have already published

and they haven't gotten traction.

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And so what we do is we

start from the beginning.

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You have to build your marketing

foundation and that includes everything

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that you put out on the internet.

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It needs to be cohesive and coherent,

and then you can move into the more

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glamorous pieces of, pitching yourself

to podcasts, pitching yourself

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to the media, being on stages.

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So we go through all those

in a very cohesive way.

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It's sort of, well, it's linear and

it's also never overwhelming because

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marketing as a whole can just, people

can be like a deer in headlights.

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They just, it's so overwhelming.

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So what I do is I break it down

step by step so that authors

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always know what's next.

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And then when you take a look back

and you go, wow, I've come so far

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in six months and now I'm getting.

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PR opportunities, and I'm speaking

on a stage next month that I

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wouldn't have been able to if I

hadn't started marketing myself.

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And also, we are now helping

people who are not yet authors.

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So, professionals, business owners

who say, I want to write a book.

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I should write a book.

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I've been telling myself that I should

write a book, and everybody I know

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tells me I should write a book, but

I just don't know where to start.

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We have a 12 month program that takes you

from writing the book, editing the book,

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self publishing under your own imprint,

and then marketing the book as well so

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that you get all the benefits of the

increased consultant fees and the speaking

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fees and the visibility and awareness.

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One thing that is That I find, and

we can talk about this if you'd be

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open to it, the difference between

traditional publishing and hybrid

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publishing and self publishing.

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Sure, yeah.

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I feel like that's something

that people get confused about.

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What was the way that

you published your book?

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Now I'm turning the tables on

you and asking you questions.

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I apologize.

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Freddy D: It's all good.

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I self published.

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Melanie Herschorn: Okay.

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So did I, and I wouldn't

have done it any other way.

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Freddy D: No, I agree.

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It was a much better experience, I'm

in control, and I keep the majority

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of the revenue, and I can make tweaks,

I can create a version two etc.

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So it's, maintaining the control of

the book is everything in my mind.

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Melanie Herschorn: I feel the same way.

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I had a client once who, she was

adamant that she traditionally

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publish and she wrote, it's like a

35 page proposal that you have to

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shop around to agents and publishers

that are the traditional publishers.

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And she got a, an advance.

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It was not a very significant advance.

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And then she had to wait 14 months

until they published her book.

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And I know for me, if I'd had to

wait another 14 months, I don't

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know that I would have been able to.

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I mean, it's like you have this

drive, you want it out there.

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And so as a self publisher, you

just have so much more control.

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Yes, it can cost money as opposed to not

costing money, but the marketing is never

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covered anyway, no matter how you publish.

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So you're paying to get

marketing advice or to.

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Have it done for you,

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Freddy D: Right.

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And yeah the, that window

is a lot of wasted time.

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I mean, to lack of a better way of wording

it, it's a lot of waste of time because

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a lot can happen in 14 months you could

have been building up the book sales, you

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could have been building up your brand,

you could have landed some consulting

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opportunities, you could have landed a

multitude of different things, and in 14

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months, you're sitting there twiddling

your thumbs, not knowing what direction to

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go, because you're no longer in control.

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Melanie Herschorn: Yes, and I would not

have wanted to wait that kind of time.

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And, in the end she's doing well.

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It's the book is doing well.

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But, I was even thinking, what if

the information in your book has

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changed so drastically in 14 months?

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Maybe you talk about somebody

who was alive, they're not alive

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anymore, or someone like Elon

Musk buys Twitter and changes the

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name and it's not Twitter anymore.

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I mean, those things happen.

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Freddy D: Technology changes.

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You recommend products and they change.

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That's one of the things in my book

is that I had initially listed all

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these tools that I recommended.

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And then I realized.

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You know that wow, they're

gonna be locked in that book.

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And so now I Modified it and if you

recall, I just have a page that tells you

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go to this website and this link and get

the latest and greatest Recommendations

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because they change so absolutely so

share a story Melanie and on Somebody

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that you help besides this guy.

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Getting them direction and getting

them results where before they

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were a boat in a boat with only one

oar and going around in a circle,

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Melanie Herschorn: it's a great visual.

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So what for those of you

just listening, I was.

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Pretending to paddle.

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I have a couple in mind, but I'm going

to start with my client Mike, who had

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written a book for financial advisors.

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He himself is a financial advisor, and

he wrote a book for financial advisors,

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and he was not posting on LinkedIn.

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He was on it every day, but he

was just lurking and so when we

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developed a LinkedIn strategy.

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His connections started reaching out

to him and saying, Hey, we'd like

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for you to come speak at our event.

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We're going to pay you and we'd like to

buy 200 of your books and that continued

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because he was Leveraging the power

of that social media and then also the

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power of relationship marketing which

is something that we teach because it's

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not enough to just Post on LinkedIn.

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You have to do other things.

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And then, I have a client named

Lynn, who is a children's book

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author and she just published another

book and she had 800 pre sales.

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800 books in presale because she's

utilizing all the tools that she has as

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an author marketer to get book sales,

to get PR, she's getting PR coverage.

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And so, I mean, all those

pieces are possible.

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When you have a book.

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I was talking to a woman yesterday.

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And she said, Oh, I really

should write a book.

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And I said, Oh, okay.

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She said, Yeah, I've been

thinking about it for a long time.

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She said, I've actually been

turned down from speaking events.

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Because I didn't have a book

and they wanted me to be able to

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sell it at the back of the room.

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And that's just.

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One humongous door that can fly right open

for you when you publish and you market.

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Freddy D: Yeah.

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It's one thing to have it, and

it's another thing to everybody

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know about it and want it.

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Melanie Herschorn: Yeah.

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Freddy D: Because if nobody knows, and you

got the greatest gizmo in the world, and

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nobody knows about it, it's irrelevant.

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Melanie Herschorn: Absolutely.

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And I think that's kind of, so the

publishing industry as a whole.

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I love being part of it, but there

is a lot of predatory crap happening.

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Can I say crap on your podcast?

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Okay.

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There's a lot of predatory stuff

happening and you will find, I'm sure

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you experienced this just like I did.

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As soon as I put the word author on my

social media profiles, I started getting

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all these unsolicited emails from people

promising to make me a star with my book

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: 00:22:16

through podcasts and this, all you need

to do is pay us thousands of dollars.

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: 00:22:20

And I went.

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Whoa, what is this?

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: 00:22:23

This is not okay.

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: 00:22:26

And so one of the things

that I like to do is just.

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Explain that, this is

not how it has to be.

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: 00:22:34

You do not have to pay somebody, or

like a bot basically, a whole lot

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: 00:22:40

of money to get your book out there.

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: 00:22:42

You have the power within you.

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: 00:22:45

To learn how and then to

leverage what you already have.

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: 00:22:49

Freddy D: Right, yep No, you're

absolutely right because I did

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: 00:22:51

once I people I had a podcast and

author and speaker to my profile.

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You know as you had and I had talked

I got solicitations of well we can

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: 00:23:02

you know for several thousand bucks,

we'll get you on podcast shows.

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Well, there's a platform that I use

that I pay 39 a month, and I've been

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: 00:23:11

interviewed on it 10 times so far.

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: 00:23:13

And so, There's a multitude of things.

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I've had people reach out to me on

LinkedIn and invite me on their shows.

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: 00:23:20

So yes, there are predatory

stuff out there, unfortunately.

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: 00:23:25

Melanie Herschorn: It is unfortunate.

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: 00:23:26

And so I feel sometimes like I'm a one

woman, I'm on a one woman mission to try

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to say, you have so much more power than

publishers sometimes are willing to offer.

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: 00:23:36

Like publishers in general don't

offer marketing and what they.

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: 00:23:41

The way they sell to a customer, a client

is your book is going to do all these

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: 00:23:48

things, but they don't explain the how.

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: 00:23:53

They say it's just by virtue of

the fact that you have a book.

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: 00:23:57

I feel like it's incumbent upon me to say,

well, that's not exactly how it works.

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: 00:24:03

Cause just like you said, if a tree falls

in the forest and no one there to hear it.

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So the bottom line is that publishing

a book is not the end of it.

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And I think that there's a lot

of misinformation out there that

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all you need to do is publish.

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No, not exactly.

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All you need to do is publish

and let people know that you've

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published and continue that, I

always call the consistency in

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marketing the granny panties of book

marketing because it's not sexy.

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it does what it's supposed to do.

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: 00:24:37

And going back to the, we talked a

little earlier about, creating superfans.

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I've experienced this, is I've

had people read my book, and in

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my case, it's a business book.

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I've got a picked up the book or

in some cases one of them bought

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10 copies of the book and then

has passed it out to clients.

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They've become my superfan saying

that you need to read the book.

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I got a guy in Michigan.

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: 00:25:05

He's 85 years old.

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: 00:25:06

He used to have his own his own radio

show and He called me last night and

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: 00:25:12

talking about the ways of how we can

work together and everything else and

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: 00:25:16

he's my superfan because he wants to

be promoting my book at some of the

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: 00:25:21

rotary clubs and he just joined some

other club and he's 85 and still going.

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: 00:25:26

He's invited me to be

on his radio show again.

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: 00:25:29

So yeah, the book opens up opportunities

provided people know about it,

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because if nobody knows about it,

like I said before, the gizmo, but

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: 00:25:39

here we're, let's talk about books.

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: 00:25:41

If nobody knows about your book

and it could be the best book

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: 00:25:44

ever written, but goes nowhere.

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: 00:25:46

It goes nowhere.

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: 00:25:47

It can't make a difference.

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: 00:25:48

It can't make the impact that you

had initially envisioned for it.

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: 00:25:53

Freddy D: So let's explore another

story that you perhaps can share

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: 00:25:58

of, where someone was floundering

and you turned that around.

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: 00:26:04

They were discouraged because of

the fact that they were floundering

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: 00:26:07

and now they have a whole

different outlook on everything.

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: 00:26:10

Melanie Herschorn: I mean, that's

a lot of people there, Freddie,

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: 00:26:12

so I'm going to have to pick one.

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: 00:26:14

But actually there's one that I

think would be a really good story.

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: 00:26:18

So I had a client who wrote a book and

it was basically a pandemic memoir.

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: 00:26:25

And I don't know about you,

but I don't ever want to talk

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: 00:26:28

about the pandemic again.

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: 00:26:29

Freddy D: No.

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: 00:26:30

Melanie Herschorn: So, this was already

post pandemic, so, he said, what do I do?

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: 00:26:35

What, how do I market this thing?

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: 00:26:36

I wrote it, I, it's based on my blogs

I want to make a big deal out of this

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: 00:26:41

and so I think he was discouraged

because he realized that, people,

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: 00:26:47

once they are out in the world again.

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: 00:26:50

They didn't want to go back.

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: 00:26:51

Freddy D: Right.

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: 00:26:52

Melanie Herschorn: So, even in a book,

so when I read the book and I, we worked

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: 00:26:56

together, I looked at it and I thought,

okay, this is not a pandemic memoir, but

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it's also the story of a father realizing

that he has a child who is neurodivergent.

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: 00:27:11

How that came to be and what lessons

you learned from that and how you can

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: 00:27:18

show other parents, here's what we did,

here's what worked, here's what didn't.

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: 00:27:23

And so.

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When we reframed it, he felt more

inspired and he actually got his

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: 00:27:31

book to be sold at a very prominent

bookstore in Colorado based on the

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: 00:27:37

pitch that we created together.

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: 00:27:39

So, again, that was more spring in his

step because he realized it could make a

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: 00:27:44

difference and it wasn't stuck in 2020.

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: 00:27:46

Freddy D: Right.

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: 00:27:46

Very cool.

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: 00:27:47

Good story.

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: 00:27:48

Good story.

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: 00:27:49

So, as we're wrapping up

here, how can people find you?

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: 00:27:54

Melanie Herschorn: Well, I'm everywhere on

the internet, but also I can be specific.

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: 00:27:58

If you would like to read a copy of my

new book, you can go to VIPBookMarketing.

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: 00:28:05

com and it will take you

right through to Amazon.

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: 00:28:09

You can also get freebies.

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: 00:28:11

A lot of freebies on my website,

including the ultimate book marketing

477

: 00:28:15

checklist, and I'm on LinkedIn.

478

: 00:28:19

I'm on Instagram and Facebook

and yeah, I'm generally here

479

: 00:28:25

to answer and to support.

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: 00:28:27

Freddy D: Okay.

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: 00:28:28

Excellent, thank you very

much for being a guest on a

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: 00:28:31

business super fan podcast show.

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: 00:28:33

Very much appreciate the information

you shared and we look to have

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: 00:28:38

you on another show down the road.

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: 00:28:40

Melanie Herschorn: Thanks

so much for the opportunity.

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: 00:28:42

Freddy D: All right, Melanie.

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: 00:28:42

Thank you.