How to Best Unlock the Power of a Perfect Virtual Book Tour - BM372

Susan Friedmann

00:13

Welcome to book marketing mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master. Who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.

Susan Friedmann

00:51

Have you ever thought that your digital marketing might actually be hurting you? Because if you're not breaking through the noise, then you're probably adding to it. Maybe you're social media presence isn't making you look like an expert. Well, today's special guest has a refreshingly new view on all of this. Tom Schwab, chief evangelist officer at Interview Valet, wants you to consider that you're just 1 conversation away because that's been his experience, and he has the data to prove it.

Susan Friedmann

01:12

Working with over 250 leading authors at interview valet. Tom believes that you are just 1 conversation away if you want a rich life and a profitable business. Well, Tom, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show. And thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.

Tom Schwab

01:18

Susan, I am thrilled to be here and excited to have this conversation. Appreciate you letting the world listen in.

Susan Friedmann

01:38

Yes. It is. I love this format. This is my all favorite format. Tom, you've worked with hundreds of authors to use targeted podcast interviews as powerful marketing strategy for virtual book tours.

Susan Friedmann

01:49

And your mantra seems to be 1 conversation away, so let's dig in and tell us more about what exactly you mean by that.

Tom Schwab

02:12

In marketing, there's a phrase that keeps getting used. 1 funnel away. And it's a great marketing ploy and I'm all for automation. But in my experience, the best things in life have not come through a funnel. I think the more discerning people are the less open they are to a funnel.

Tom Schwab

02:40

The person is gonna be the promoter of the book, that person is gonna be the Uber fan to buy other ones, they're probably not gonna be moved because they, you know, saw a dance on TikTok or a quick ad on paid social media. They probably want to know who the author is They wanna know what the story is behind it. What's the burning desire? At the end of the day, they wanna know, like, and trust you. And I think it's really, really hard to do that on the noise of social media.

Tom Schwab

03:08

And we've seen over the last 9 years that getting out on targeted podcast interviews, talking to your ideal readers and your ideal listeners because Often people will just listen to audiobooks. It's a great way for them to try before they buy to focus on different areas of the book and just entice them enough so that they want to come back and either read the book or recommend the book to someone else.

Susan Friedmann

03:24

Yes. I mean, isn't that what we all want with our books? Is that you rightly say that somebody says, hey, You've gotta read this book. It's the best thing since sliced bread, so, yes. Tom, we're talking about virtual book tours.

Susan Friedmann

03:47

And you're using targeted podcasts as that strategy so that our listeners really understand what exactly is a virtual book tour. I mean, this phrase has been banded around. I just want everybody to understand so that we can really focus then on that podcast aspect.

Tom Schwab

04:01

Yeah. The old book tour, it's very similar to that. Right? Go to a place where your audience is. Have them come there to learn about you and, unfortunately, there's not a lot of great bookstores around anymore.

Tom Schwab

04:46

And even if there are, not everyone has the time to go there or the book launch that time, that day. So a podcast book tour or a virtual book tour is a way that you can go to audiences that are already there, already looking for new books in your genre and be able to talk about it, be able to launch it. And 1 of the neat things about it is that It's not time sensitive. You can time shift it. So what often we see people doing with virtual book tours is they'll do a lot of the recorded ones maybe 3 months before the book comes out and say to the host, hey, my book is gonna launch at this date, could you, you know, release it plus or minus a week?

Tom Schwab

05:22

That allows them to front end load the work, the conversations, and then it frees them up for other things that might be more live, which could be virtual, right, could be talking to different summits or different live events or even doing things like live television. But the podcasts by and large are recorded so you can get those done early. We've even had some clients that have done them while the book is in the final publishing. Because if you're an author, you know exactly what the book is about. You can speak about it before the editing is even done.

Tom Schwab

05:39

And it's a way for them to get out there. And some of them have said they'd liked the practice almost of going out on podcasts to talk about their book so that they could get the message down. They could get confidence there before it actually launched and then they were doing in person events.

Susan Friedmann

06:38

Yeah. And that's a very interesting point because so often when authors come to me to publish their book, 1 of the first things I say to them what what's your book about, it's so challenging for them to be concise about what exactly the book is about. They may go on for 5 or 10 minutes, you know, trying to explain every detail of the book, and I don't need to know I just need that overview or the message that the book is delivering. So I think this practice And I know that that's something your team at interview valet works with you on, is to train you as to how to position yourself in your book on these targeted podcast interviews, which I'd like to go into now, and that's talking about targeting a podcast. How do we even look to find which are the right podcasts for us to be on?

Tom Schwab

06:50

And it's interesting you had talked about being concise, what is your book about? I think the follow-up question to that is who is your book for? It's not for everyone. Right? The riches are in the niches.

Tom Schwab

07:16

So trying to figure out who is gonna be the super consumer, who's this gonna be the super advocate of this book? There may be a lot of people that are interested in it But who are the be the ones that are gonna be either the readers or the advocates? And let me give you an example of this. We're working with lady that wrote a book about being a widow and getting beyond being a widow. Right?

Tom Schwab

07:29

So a lot of people could benefit from that book. But as we were talking about it, the people that wanna read that book, widows. Right? Are they just listening to Widow podcasts? Probably not.

Tom Schwab

08:05

So where would they be listening? And even more so, who would influence them? And we started to talk about different things. Would this be a great thing to get on a podcast with feudal directors and talk about, hey, this is a great book that could really help a lot of your people. Boy, if they started recommending that or giving that as a gift, could you do that to financial advisors They may not be widows, but they may know widows or even people that are in the hospice care or cancer She calls them widows and waiting, trying to catch them where they are.

Tom Schwab

08:32

We've also had that with some authors we've worked with that were targeting people that were going through pregnancy. That's a very small window. There's probably about a maybe a 7 month window of time. So you've gotta find them because you don't want to be heard before they hear you or if they say, I wish I would have known that about a year ago. And while not everyone is expecting, there's a lot of people that know someone that is.

Tom Schwab

09:02

And so they could be that referred to the book and on a podcast interview at the end to say, if you know someone that could benefit from knowing about this book. If you could tell them about this podcast interview. It would mean the world to me. Because while they may not invite them and bring them to a live event at a book store. It is so easy in order for someone to share a podcast interview with someone else to say, Susan, I listened to this interview the other day and I thought of you.

Tom Schwab

09:21

I thought you would enjoy it. The chances of that getting listened to? Is so much more powerful. And I think that's that virility that most people look for. Or if you can have people talking about your book and recommending it and referring it, that's better than any bill board or any paid advertisement.

Susan Friedmann

09:42

Without any shadow of doubt. I mean, word-of-mouth advertising is the thing in terms of recommendation. And especially if it comes from somebody who you know a friend, a family member, even a colleague. I get recommendations all the time from people. And if it's from somebody I know trust, respect.

Susan Friedmann

10:05

I'm going to listen to it or I'm gonna watch the interview or recording or whatever or read the book. I was listening to 1 book yesterday, they recommended another book, and I was like, oh, I'm going straight and having a look. Where can I get this book? And it turns out, don't laugh at this, but I already had it in my library. So much for that.

Tom Schwab

10:16

That means it was a good recommendation and you probably like me where it sounded familiar. It sounded interesting, and it's time to go back and either read it again or listen to it again.

Susan Friedmann

10:28

And that's exactly what I did. Or I'm in the process of so yes. Fabulous. Okay. Getting down to actually finding those podcasts now.

Susan Friedmann

11:18

You were speaking words that are music to my ears, the whole idea of riches and niches because that was 1 of my international best selling books. As our listeners know, I'm very much into this whole concept of niche marketing, and going deep into just like you had said with these funeral directors, and who else would be interested and sort of places and people we don't often or automatically think about, but going that exercise of going down that route. Then it's a matter of finding those podcasts, and I know obviously that's a big service that you offer, your clients, and If we were to go and look for ourselves at least in the beginning to get the ball started, how would we do that?

Tom Schwab

11:45

Yes. The data has gotten so much better, and we license dozens of databases. But some of the information is free online. You know, Google is a great So if you wanted to say, what are some best podcasts that are talk to business consultants? Business coaches, whoever you think your target audience is, and start down that rabbit trail and say, are these my ideal podcast.

Tom Schwab

12:12

And I don't think you really need to get a list of thousands of podcasts 1 of my big mantras this year is more is not better. Better is better. Because if you can find the podcast and find a handful and reach out to them, do the interview, do a good job, podcasters, no podcasters. And at the end of the interview, You can say, you know, Susan, I enjoyed this so much. I love sharing about my book.

Tom Schwab

12:26

Do you know any other shows where you think I could bring value? That is powerful. Because, you know, if you just find 5 podcasts at the very beginning and they introduce you to other ones, you can get your the the old dance card filled up very, very quickly.

Susan Friedmann

12:49

Yes. And I often get asked by other podcasters Well, who have you interviewed who you think might be a good match for my show? I'm referring people all the time Yes. What you're saying is absolutely right on because people know people. And you don't know who knows who unless start asking those questions, so that's so important.

Susan Friedmann

13:34

Tom's something else that you mentioned earlier that I want to just go back, and you'd mentioned doing these interviews maybe 4, 5 months or so out from the actual publication of the manuscript. That's something that so often I find that authors sort of don't take into consideration that so much of the marketing needs to go on before the actual publication and you've actually got it in your hands. So many authors feel that they actually have to have something in their hands, something tangible before they can go out and market it. So you're saying 4 to 5 months out.

Tom Schwab

14:07

To start with that, yes, because I say the best podcasts are like doctors offices and restaurants. If there's not a waiting list, there's a reason and probably a reason that you don't wanna be there. Even the meantime that our data shows, it's about 30 days from invitation to recording and then about 42 days from recording to going live. So the best podcast, if you reached out to him and said, Susan, I would love to be on the podcast. I've got a great book and it's coming out next week.

Tom Schwab

14:21

Can you get me on? Probably not. And not everyone listens to the podcast the first day. 80 percent listen in the first 30 days. There's that wide period there.

Tom Schwab

14:32

Sometimes I think of it more like print media than radio. Right? If you're on radio, they invite you for next Tuesday. You get interviewed. It goes live.

Tom Schwab

15:03

Everybody hears it there. But print media is more where they have a content calendar and they're like, oh, yeah. Your book would tie in very well with our fall episode or we could tie this into I can think of 1, international women's day. That's what this author talked about and we were able to reach out Oh, a few months beforehand and say, do you have or what are your plans for your podcast for international women's day? And a lot of the podcasters responded with, when is that again?

Tom Schwab

15:27

And we were able to tell them, here's the date, here's the perfect person for that, or tying something in in the spring to talk about it would be a great episode for Father's Day or Mother's Day veterans day trying to tie things in there. It's a powerful, powerful way to sell the podcast hosts or the content producers problem before they even know it is.

Susan Friedmann

15:55

Yeah. That's so true. I love that approach. It's so funny that you said that and on International Women's Day because my publisher Wylie of the Dummies book that I'd just recently released They came to me, literally, I think it was a week before International Woman Day and said, would you give us a quote that we can put on social media as a female author. And I was like, okay.

Susan Friedmann

16:05

I think this idea just came up quite quickly in response to this. Even though, we I'm assuming no about this well in advance.

Tom Schwab

16:29

And there's multiple bites of the Apple you can have. Peter Metabussy wrote a great book called "Now I am Known." An amazing man that grew up in pretty much abject poverty in Africa had everything against him with a positive attitude and the grace of God and the support of people. Now he lives in the States. 

Tom Schwab

16:38

He's a foster parent. And you wanna talk about a great story? Right? We can tie that into Mother's Day. We can tie it into Father's day.

Tom Schwab

17:04

We can tie it into national foster care month, national adoption month. And so trying to get the long tail out of that, not just when the book launched, but trying to keep that out there. There's all kinds of creative ways you can do that. And another 1 is if you find a book that is similar to yours, say if I've got a negotiating book. It's similar to maybe Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.

Tom Schwab

17:16

Right? I love that book. You could say, oh, okay. What podcast has Chris been on? And if his audience was interested in that, that could also be a nice audience for you.

Tom Schwab

17:21

So it's sort of a way to not only look for the podcast but also look at it from the guests.

Susan Friedmann

17:34

That's also a dynamite strategy. In order to do that, you would just plug in to do a search on Google and say, hey, what podcast has Chris Boskin on. Is that how you would do that?

Tom Schwab

17:42

Very much so. You could do that a lot of podcasts now or video. Right? And so you could even go to YouTube -- YouTube.

Susan Friedmann

17:42

--

Tom Schwab

17:47

and just put, you know, Chris Voss interview and I'm sure you'll find all kinds there.

Susan Friedmann

17:54

Oh, that's brilliant. Brilliant. Listeners. We've got some dynamite strategies here. I hope you're taking this down.

Susan Friedmann

18:16

If not, A lot of it's going to be in the show notes as well. Tom, when somebody is invited or get invited to be a guest on a podcast. It's not about talking about the book. This I think is a mistake that authors make. Is that they feel that it's only talking about the book.

Susan Friedmann

18:23

If that's not what they're talking about, what would they necessarily be came about.

Tom Schwab

18:41

Yeah. It's interesting that podcast interviews are a great way to get that no like and trust and curiosity. They are an awful place for infomercials. People don't like that. If you're just there to sell your book, it's not gonna work well.

Tom Schwab

18:56

The host won't have you on. They may not promote the episode. Heck, there's even the dirty little secrets in podcast scene is that sometimes files get lost. Right? If you start selling too much, they don't want to expose their audience to that.

Tom Schwab

19:17

The idea is how can I be a guest? How can I give the most value? It could be the inspiration, my story, my challenges in writing the book. The other thing too is that if you spend 30 or 45 minutes, trying to summarize the entire book. Well, why would anybody need to buy the book if you've just given them the summary?

Tom Schwab

19:47

The other thing too is that if you try summarizing an entire book in 30 minutes, it's probably gonna be just such an overview then it won't be interesting. I can think of 1 client we worked with Jeff Madoff, wrote a book called Creative Careers. And so many people would look at the title and go, yeah, I don't have a career podcast. I'm not creative. Well, there was 13 chapters in there and each 1 of them could have been a standalone book.

Tom Schwab

20:30

So on some podcast, he would go and say, let's just talk about the myth of the solo creative or the lone genius. And that would be the entire interview. Then they would reference that this is just 1 of the thoughts in his book, Creative Careers, and come back to learn more about the other ones. There'd be other ones, other podcasts that he would go on and he would talk about entrepreneurship and that entrepreneurship is art, that the creativity, the risk taking, putting things together, bringing a team together, how launching a player or musical is like launching a software as a service company. So all of a sudden, now he can go to technical podcast.

Tom Schwab

20:46

So trying to tie it in there. I remember years ago somebody told me that content is king but context is God. Right? Small g, but you have to tie in what your book is about to what the audience is most interested in.

Susan Friedmann

21:06

And that's really what's most important. I mean, I get pitched all the time by agencies. Would you have our guest on? They've just written a brand new book, and I'm like, I don't feature books per se on the podcast. I'm looking for marketing savvy.

Susan Friedmann

21:30

I'm looking for strategies that my listeners can use when they stop, you know, listening to this episode, they can say I can do this as something that a takeaway that they can use. So for agencies to know and understand that rather than try pitching me on someone who's just written a book, is just pointless. They might as well save the effort.

Tom Schwab

21:46

And I would point out to listen to what Susan just said. That's expertise coming from a podcast host. I have always said that there's 3 types of people every podcast. Host wants to have on. And Susan, you can tell me if I'm right on this.

Tom Schwab

21:55

Their friends their friends of friends and people they want to be their friends. Nowhere odd there does it say a creepy cold pitch?

Susan Friedmann

22:14

Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, I fall back if I need an episode. I've got, you know, a cadre of people I can just call up or text, email, and say, hey, would you be on my podcast? Let's talk about some different aspect of your business or something that would be helpful people to our listeners.

Susan Friedmann

22:40

So, yes, that absolutely people lie, I know or people who've been referred to me. I mean, I get a lot of referrals or ask for referrals as well. And then, of course, somebody who sounds interesting, maybe I've heard them on a summit or maybe I've heard them on somebody else's podcast, and I think, wow. This person would be good fit. Or it's a subject that I've never touched on.

Susan Friedmann

23:07

I recently interviewed a couple of ladies on crowdfunding for authors. I'd never talked about that. I'd sort of some guests had mentioned the idea of crowdfunding, but we've not spent a whole episode talking about it which is exactly what we did with Victoria and Charmaine, and that episode will be coming out shortly listeners. So watch out for that 1. But, yes, you're absolutely right.

Susan Friedmann

23:11

It's a bit of an, what do you call it, nepotism in a nice way.

Tom Schwab

23:30

Sometimes I think of forget the word podcast and just focus on the word guest. Right? Who do you wanna invite to be a guest? It's somebody that you already know, trust, would like to know a little bit more. And people will say, well, how do I get that if I don't know the host or the person?

Tom Schwab

23:40

Gary Vaynerchuk has that book. It's called what jab jab jab jab jab, right hook. I missed a couple jabs in there. But I look at it as give give give give give ask. Right?

Tom Schwab

23:51

So listen to the podcast. Give a rating and review. Podcastors listen to that. Mention something on the social media, share it. Give feedback.

Tom Schwab

24:06

Engage there. Keep giving. And then when you reach out, you wanna give So I listened to the podcast. I enjoyed this part. I think I could offer your audience this insight on something that hasn't been talked about before.

Tom Schwab

24:12

You give them that you'll find that they start asking you to be on the podcast.

Susan Friedmann

24:28

Happyless. Now that's so important. I know that our listeners probably chomping at the bit to find out more about Interview Valet, how do they find out what they need to know? So take it away. Let us know that.

Tom Schwab

24:47

Yeah. Interview Valet is a white glove full-service agency. Our mission is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders to millions of people they could serve for the betterment of all. I remember telling my mom that, she's like, what's that have to do about podcast interviews? It's not podcast interviews.

Tom Schwab

25:08

The goal is not just another podcast interview. It's about getting your book out there to the world, getting your ideas out there. Now there's a reason that you wrote that. And there's some resources. If you interested at all, just go back to InterviewValet.com /BMM.

Tom Schwab

25:26

So book marketing mentor. And I'll put a few things there. One's a webinar that we did on how you can do podcast or virtual book tours. A lot of details in there. I also wrote a book called podcast guest profits, how to grow your business with the targeted interview strategy.

Tom Schwab

25:51

You can buy it on Amazon or if you just go to that page, I'm happy to send you a free copy. And then finally, if you'd like to talk about how you could use podcast interviews to launch your book to grow your business to really help people. I'll put the calendar scheduling link there too. So all of that is back at interview. Valet dot com forward slash BMM.

Susan Friedmann

26:09

Beautiful. And that's so generous, so thank you, so talk about give give give, you definitely ticked all those boxes, so thank you. Tom, you know that we always end our interviews with a golden nugget. So what would you like to leave our listeners with?

Tom Schwab

26:27

It's a phrase that's always been on my heart probably since I got out of the Navy decades ago. And it's the fact that what's ordinary to you is amazing to others. Right? What you know, what you have experienced. We all underestimate that.

Tom Schwab

26:32

We all undervalue that. And it's like, well, everybody knows that. No. They don't. Right?

Tom Schwab

26:57

What's ordinary to you is amazing to other people. Most people don't share what they know. And if you have written a book, you've gone through the blood, sweat, and tears to share that what you know. And just never forget that that getting out and talking about your book, talking about your experience, it's ordinary to you, but amazing to other people. So Thank you for sharing what you know, and please continue to do that.

Tom Schwab

27:01

And if we can help you do that on podcast interviews, it would be our honor.

Susan Friedmann

27:14

No. I'm guilty. Guilty of doing that, I know a lot of stuff, and I forget that other people don't thoroughly know what I know. So that reminder is brilliant. Thank you so much.

Susan Friedmann

27:50

And Tom, it's been amazing having you. Thank so much for sharing your wisdom. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, Let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways you can ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to brainstorm with susan dot com to schedule your free call. In the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books.

Susan Friedmann

27:50

So until next week, Here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

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