Anna David's Blog

86% of Clients Prefer Authors Over Identical Non-Author Competitors

If you’ve read even just one of my posts, you know I tend to go on a bit about how the goal of a book should be to attract clients and not to sell books.

Well, now I’ve got some data to back me up.

Numbers! And I’m not even a numbers person!

Despite the fact that I believe I’m borderline math dyslexic, I helped create a study for an organization called The Evolution of Publishing Institute that surveyed 100 Los Angeles residents about how authorship affects their hiring decisions and willingness to pay for professional services.

And I’ll tell you up front: the results are so dramatic they almost seem fake.

The Author Premium Is Real (And Massive)

Here's what we found: 82-86% of people prefer hiring professionals who are published authors over those with identical qualifications who haven't written books.

Yes, identical qualifications. Same experience, same credentials, same everything. The only difference? One person wrote a book.

But it gets better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.

Published authors can charge 40-65% higher consultation fees. In some cases, potential clients are willing to pay double.

Double. For the same service. Because that person wrote a book.

The Trust Multiplier That Changes Everything

The study found something even more striking: 86% of people trust content more when it's created by book authors.

We tested this specifically. Same blog post, same expertise level, same everything. When we told people the author had written a book, trust shot up by 6.1x.

Six times more trustworthy. Because of a book.

This isn't about the quality of the content. It's about cognitive bias. It's about how our brains are wired to associate published expertise with authority.

Does the traditional publishing industry know this? I think? But it’s not a focus for them since they’re invested in you selling books and not making more money in your business.

Where It Gets Ridiculous

We tested LinkedIn headlines. Two business consultants with identical descriptions:

"Business Consultant | Helping Companies Scale": 28% preference

"Business Consultant | Bestselling Author | Helping Companies Scale": 72% preference

Adding "bestselling author" to your LinkedIn headline creates a 44 percentage point boost in professional appeal.

For conference speaking? 83% prefer a CEO who also authored a business book over a CEO of an equally successful company who hasn't.

For thought leadership credibility? An executive with a strong LinkedIn presence gets 32% preference. Add "authored a book" and it jumps to 68%.

The Marketing Consulting Gold Mine

The biggest surprise in the data: marketing consultants who are published authors have a 72 percent point advantage over non-author consultants with identical qualifications.

This makes sense when you think about it. If you're hiring someone to help with marketing and they can't even market themselves enough to get a book published, what does that say about their abilities?

But the same pattern holds across all professional services. Business consulting: 64 percentage point advantage. Financial advising: 38 percentage point advantage.

Even in the most conservative field we tested, published authors have a massive edge.

Why Traditional Publishing Hates This Data

This study proves something the traditional publishing industry doesn't want you to understand: the value of your book has nothing to do with your publisher or your advance.

The study didn't ask about Big Five publishers versus indie presses. The people surveyed didn't care about advance sizes or bestseller lists. They just thought: "Is this person a published author?"

The traditional publishing industry wants you focused on their metrics—advance sizes, sales figures, bestseller lists—because it keeps you dependent on their approval. But the real value happens in your business, your career, your professional life.

The Cognitive Bias We Can't Ignore

Before you get too excited, let's acknowledge what this data really shows: people make irrational decisions based on credentials that may have nothing to do with actual competence.

A book doesn't automatically make you better at your job. Publishing a memoir about addiction recovery doesn't make you a better marketing consultant. Writing a business book doesn't guarantee you can actually run a business.

But human psychology doesn't care about logic. We use shortcuts to make decisions. "Published author" is a powerful shortcut that signals expertise, authority and credibility.

Is this fair? No. Is this reality? Absolutely.

 The Real ROI of Book Writing

The study concludes that writing a book may be one of the highest-ROI professional development investments you can make.

Think about it: what else can you do that creates a 40-65% pricing premium? That gives you a 6x trust multiplier? That makes 80% of potential clients prefer you over equally qualified competitors?

An MBA? Maybe, if you're lucky and in the right field. Professional certifications? They help, but nothing like these numbers.

A book doesn't just make you money through sales. It makes you money through everything else you do for the rest of your career.

The Limitation They Don't Want You to See

The study has one important limitation: it assumes "generic published author" without considering book quality, publisher or sales success.

This is actually great news for you.

It means the benefit comes from being published, period. Not from being published well. Not from having a Big Five publisher. Not from selling thousands of copies.

Just from being able to say, "I published a book."

The traditional publishing industry has spent decades convincing you that only their approval counts. That without their stamp of validation, your book doesn't matter.

This data suggests otherwise. The credibility boost comes from authorship itself, not from jumping through their hoops.

What This Means for You

If you're an entrepreneur—consultant, coach, advisor, speaker, freelancer—and you haven't written a book yet, you're leaving money on the table.

Serious money.

If you have written a book but aren’t leveraging it in your professional branding, you're missing out on measurable competitive advantages.

And if you're still waiting for traditional publishing's permission to call yourself an author, you're playing a game where the house always wins.

The Evolution of Publishing Institute's "Author Credibility in Business" study surveyed 100 Los Angeles residents about hiring preferences across professional services. Full disclosure: I serve on the Institute's advisory board and helped design this research to understand the real business value of authorship. To download the study, click here .

The System is Rigged Against You (But for Amy Griffin)

Oy was there an explosive NYT story this week for anyone interested in how book publishing works.

You could argue that with that sentence alone, I completely missed the point of the story.

See, it’s about a billionaire named Amy Griffin who wrote a memoir about her recovered memory of being sexually abused by one of her teachers. This memory surfaced while she was under the influence of psychedelics and there’s ample evidence that it is a false memory.

Caveat, of course: Never doubt a woman’s story, etc etc etc. I get it. But the reality is that not all stories from all women are true and these stories ruin people’s lives. Caveat on top of caveat: I have no idea if Amy Griffin’s memory is true; I’d never heard of her until yesterday!

So there’s a great deal in this story that could incite a lot of conversation around drugs, false memories, allegations of abuse and more.

But what fascinated me the most was her publishing experience. Amy Griffin was the first author ever to be heralded by all three kweens of the book world—Oprah, Jenna and Reese. She was also touted by Gwyneth, who never revealed that Griffin was her company Goop’s primary investor. With that kind of support from the most influential of people (when it comes to book sales), how could Griffin NOT sell over 100,000 copies?

It’s perhaps overly simplistic to say that Harris bought her way onto the New York Times list. But perhaps it’s not? Accepting favors from the rainmakers when it comes to book success is just a more elevated version of the game that was considered so pathetic just a few years ago, no?

To be clear, I would happily accept all the favors from the people Griffin did, and probably, like her, then accept all my accolades without ever saying that the people who helped me might have had ulterior motives so my admission into the bestselling author club was perhaps not achieved by my own merit.

But my point is this: Griffin is the sort of person who achieves traditional publishing success. Not the 99.9% of other authors out there.1 The situation reminds me a bit of when I worked in the celebrity journalism world and was a first-hand witness to the sheer number of free sh*t celebrities receive. But the people who need these gifts the least are the ones receiving them, I marveled. I knew better than to say out loud because…duh.

We all know that money doesn’t buy happiness and that resenting someone for being a billionaire who didn’t earn those billions herself is pointless. I’m sure Griffin suffers, because that’s what her actions suggest.

But it’s worth pointing out that the publishing world is just as unfair as a world that allows someone with Griffin’s power to go against someone with her former teacher’s. Again: duh. Still, people aren’t rational when it comes to anything creative. We think things like, My idea is so important and talent so great that Oprah/Reese/Gwyneth/fill-in-the-blank will discover me even though I have no way of reaching them. And then we’re devastated when it doesn’t happen.

We do this because creative work is irrational—God-inspired, as Elizabeth Gilbert2 talked about in her iconic TED talk. Also, I know the “it will be different for me” delusion all too well since it happened to me six times before I woke up.

This is one of the reasons I argue so vehemently against the traditional publishing route, which sets you up for failure. It’s why I argue for the authority-building route, which sets you up for success if you approach it correctly. You don’t need to be a billionaire to have the second route change your life; you just need to go in with open eyes and a plan. And by doing that, it could actually make you millions.

1

YES of course there are exceptions. But not one of those exceptions got the sort of support that Griffin did from power players.

2

I am totally obsessed with her new book, as evidenced by this rave I gave it on KATU this week.

Podcasts Don't Sell Books (And That Shouldn't Matter to You)

A few months ago, an author named Amie McNee got the golden ticket: Jay Shetty invited her on his podcast. After the experience, she expected what anyone would: a major jump in sales. What happened instead?

Nothing. (And she was cool enough to write about it.)

Now, to be clear, “nothing” is all relative. As Jane Friedman broke down, McNee sold 3,487 copies in her first week of release and about 12,000 copies over the first three months. Her Instagram following is about half a million; she has a Substack with 26,000 subscribers.

In other words, “nothing” to her is not what “nothing” is to many writers (she sold around 300 copies the week of the podcast’s release, but had sold that same number [actually a few more] the week before.)

That being said, the likelihood of tons of listeners buying an author’s book when they’re on a massive podcast is not great. Jay Shetty listeners are fans of Jay Shetty, not of Jay Shetty’s guests. It is a misconception to believe that we can step into an influencer’s orbit and automatically be able to borrow their audience.

There are exceptions of course: last year, on a flight to Austin, I was sitting next to a comedian named Ron White. I didn’t know who he was but when he told me he was flying to Austin to open for Joe Rogan, I asked a bunch of questions and he was super cool and answered them all.

One thing he told me is that he’d talked on Rogan’s podcast about doing ayahuasca at a place called Rythmia Life Advancement Center in Costa Rica and that Rythmia later told him that his mention on the show transformed their business.

Now, White isn’t an author (he actually has written a book but it’s safe to say he doesn’t introduce himself as an author first). Still, he was on the world’s biggest podcast talking about something and tons of people who heard him went and spent a lot of money on that something.

So why did it “work” in this case? Well, White is something of a regular on Rogan (he’s been on the show at least five times). He performs with Rogan and seems to be in the inner circle. Also, he was talking about something many Rogan fans would be into: alternative treatments. Plus, he didn’t personally benefit from his recommendation so it meant a lot more. Finally, there are people who think going to a tropical location to do ayahuasca is a lot more appealing than reading a book1.

All of this means that the audience was primed for White’s recommendation and trusted him more than they would the average Rogan guest. I have to imagine that if White promoted a new book on Rogan, that would very much move the Amazon needle.

So if going on podcasts is so useless for most of us when it comes to selling books, why do I tell all our clients to go on podcasts?

Because you shouldn’t approach publishing a book with a goal of selling a boatload of copies. You should approach it with the goal of attracting the right people to you—and to your business. When I went on Good Morning America for Make Your Mess Your Memoir, my Amazon number didn’t budge. But, over time, the appearance brought in probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business.

As I often say, I’d rather sell 100 books to my ideal readers and clients than 10,000 to people who will be mostly indifferent.

My second client ever was someone who heard me on Joe Polish’s I Love Marketing podcast and reached out to see if I could write and publish his book. I barely even had a company then.

I discovered Alan Weiss when I heard him on Noah Kagan’s podcast. I then bought his book and when I finished it, bought a ticket to his next event in New York. In other words, that one interview he did converted me into someone willing to fly herself to another city and buy a not inexpensive ticket to his event.

(BTW, at that event, Alan went around the room and asked each of us how we’d heard about the event—that is, what “converted” us into paying customers. Then he marked down what everyone said. He was trying to make the point that a book is the best marketing tool that exists—and he did. And I have proof because I took a picture!)

That’s not to say that a podcast interview can’t generate a lot of book sales. Alex Sanfilippo told me about someone he knew who went on a podcast a year after his book came out and sold 1000 copies.

But if selling books is your goal, you’re setting yourself up for at the very most failure and at the very least an uphill battle.

Just think about it like this: have you ever been in a situation where you had to work really hard to make someone like you? You’re basically tap dancing for approval? And then you’re suddenly around people who like or love you and you realize it doesn’t have to be that hard?

That’s what trying to sell the world versus trying to sell the people who will love and appreciate and buy from you feels like.

The numbers may follow. Ryan Holiday talks about trying to attract the smallest niche possible because, he says, when you write a book that people feel is so specifically for them, they feel seen and then start telling everyone else to buy your book. You basically convert readers into mini publicists.

That’s why the expression “when it’s for everyone, it’s for no one” exists.

Sure, converting the masses would be great. But I strongly suggest creating a book that does so much for you that the masses would only be frosting on an already delicious cake.

Writers on Life After the Book Deal

The best part of getting a traditional book deal is hearing you that you got the book deal.

That’s when hope springs eternal.

Your future as the next Mel Robbins or James Clear—your appearances on TV and in the New York Times and signing at sold-out events—awaits.

You allow yourself to daydream about potential outcomes. Visiting Italy would be nice in the summer and surely the country will want you there when the Italian translation takes off?

You may envision yourself on set when the inevitable movie is made from your book. Will you ask for a director’s chair?

You try to temper all of these thoughts. You know they’re long shots. But getting a book deal in the first place was a long shot—you’ve heard that something like one in 10,000 proposals sell to Big Five publishers. You defied the odds once. Why not again?

Inevitably, you don’t. Unless Mel Robbins or James Clear or Glennon D. is reading this, in which case I say hi and btw I don’t think you’ll relate to this post.

I recently stumbled across a post by an author named Charlotte Shane who spoke to 10 tradionally published authors about their experience and it’s such a service that they all shared the raw, unfiltered truth. Because your book publisher won’t! You can see the post here but I’ll summarize below with some thoughts about how I believe you can avoid this fate.

Case Study 1: Charlotte herself first confessed that she like "a flop for months" after her book came out, despite the fact that her book sold nearly 13,000 copies. 13,000 copies—as in, 43 times more than the average book sells! She explained that she kept waiting for some undefined validation that never materialized.

She writes about her feelings with such nuance and brilliance that it would be a disservice to her if I tried to summarize them. But the truth is that even selling 43 times the average isn’t enough to get validation from your publisher. That’s reserved for that rarefied community of authors whose books break through to non-readers (something I described in this video that I never link to despite its massive number of views because I hate how I look in it and vanity trumps all I guess).

When 85% of authors don’t earn out their advances and 58% of publisher revenue comes from backlist titles1, you have to sell a lot better than 43 times the average to be treated like a success by your publisher.

Which leads me to…

Prescription 1: Tell yourself throughout the writing and launch that just doing the book at all is making it. Create a book that showcases your expertise (this is much easier when your book is non-fiction but I accidentally did it with my first novel). Your external validation can come from the steady stream of clients you attract because of your authority.2

Case Study 2: Lydia Kiesling described being in a "horrible state" after her first book—anxious, agitated and desperate to sell her next book too quickly.

That’s something I’ve seen probably hundreds of first-time authors go through, since you’re only as good as your last book, which means your success is fading with every day that passes.

Prescription 2: Make that first book do so much for you that you can approach the second one, if there is a second one, with excitement and not fear.

Case Study 3: Mattie Lubchansky called herself "sort of a wreck" and "completely bugnuts insane" around her latest release. She noted it's simultaneously the same stressful experience and somehow worse each release.

This was 100% my experience doing my six books for HarperCollins. Each launch extracted a bit more of my soul and when I got to the sixth, that soul seemed long gone and I decided I hated writing.

It took me years to discover that I didn’t hate writing at all. I just hated the writing business.

Prescription 3: Set yourself up for success by only hinging your hopes on things you can control—like doing the best book you can to attract clients and asking for Amazon reviews and having a super fun party that you know won’t help with book sales but will for sure help you make the launch into the sort of celebration you deserve.

Case Study 4: Daniel Lavery described feeling disappointed when his expectations weren’t met.

Oh, do I get this one. As the saying goes, expectations are resentments under construction and I may as well have been wearing a brick layer’s uniform for the decade I was being published traditionally.

The antidote is to keep the expectations to those things you can control (see Prescription 3) but also to take the wide view. The life of a book is long; it’s just that traditional publishers don’t see it that way. They focus on the book’s launch week because that’s how they can decide which authors to support. This means that if you don’t have success right out of the gate, you’re on your way to being ghosted by them.

When Party Girl came out in the aftermath of the Judith Regan debacle, my expectations were, to put it mildly, not met.

But the truth is that first book of mine is the gift that keeps on giving.

When I released the audiobook a decade after the print book came out, an incredibly successful musician listened to it and then reached out to me and asked if I’d be his sober coach. I explained that I wasn’t a sober coach. He told me he’d been to every sober coach, every MD, every PhD, and none of them could help him with his addiction. He wanted the author of Party Girl to be his coach. Would I consider doing it for $1000 an hour?

I ended up working with him for years, though I talked him down from $1000 an hour. I think I really helped him.

Just yesterday, I talked to the producer who most recently optioned the rights to Party Girl about another producer he wants to attach to the movie based on it.

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about me releasing a PG version of the book.

And that’s certainly not the end of the Party Girl story. I have every belief the movie will get made. In other words, thanks to direct actions I have taken, my expectations have more than been met; it just took a lot longer than I expected.

Prescription 4: Remind yourself that you deserve to have more than a week to benefit from something you put your heart and soul and time into. Your heart and soul deserve some time before you get out the calculator and start assessing. Remain open to the fact that your expectations just haven’t been met…yet.

Case Study 5: Jaya Saxena felt "screwed over" by her December 2020 release date and spent time "stewing in misfortune."

One of the more frustrating aspects of traditional publishing is the fact that you often don’t have control over your writing, title, cover or release date. But I’m of the firm belief that there’s no such thing as a bad release date—provided you approach it correctly.

The problem is that traditional publishers don’t think that way. They’re thinking about setting up their “sure thing” authors for success with certain release dates and then dumping the other ones other days. What if, instead, they brainstormed with their non sure thing authors about how to make any launch date a great one?

I released my book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir, in July of 2020—that is, a few months into lockdown and one month into Black Lives Matter protests. I think it’s safe to say that the last thing anyone cared about right then was a book on writing. This bad timing was at least in part intentional: I wanted to put my “there’s no such thing as a bad release date” philosophy to the test (most of the publishing I do for myself is experimental so I can test out what could work for clients).

I decided to pitch Good Morning America a story on how writing could be used a tool to help with pandemic-related depression. Was there anything in my book about using writing as a tool for depression? Not a thing. But because I framed the book around what was going on at the moment, rather than just trying to get publicity for my book, I scored a five-minute segment on the biggest morning show in the world. It brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in new business and I think helped a lot of people who were dealing with pandemic-related depression.

That’s not to say that a writer who feels screwed over by their publisher’s release date is wrong. They are being screwed over. It’s just not the date that’s the problem; it’s that their publisher isn’t effectively strategizing with them about how to make their release date work for them.

Prescription 5: There are 365 potential days to release your book. If you can control your release date, pick the one you want. If you have no say over your launch date, find a way to make it work for you. Get creative. Strategize. And then remember your launch isn’t the end but the beginning (see Prescription 4).

Again, you can see the amazing post all these anecdotes came from here.

Oh and please remember when I paint publishers as ogres who don’t care about anyone but Glennon, I’m not saying they’re bad people—just business people. In other words, I may be making it sound like I hate the player but really I only hate the game.

Which is why I started a new one. If you want to know more about it, you can always click here.

Stop Saying "AI is Coming for Our Jobs"

When I lived in San Francisco, all the women said, “Dating in San Francisco sucks.”

When I moved to LA, all the women said, “Dating in LA sucks.”

When I moved to New York, all the women said, “Dating in New York sucks.”

I believed them every time, as I bounced between those three cities, trying to determine which one sucked the least when it came to dating.

Eventually I discovered that the Erewohn smoothie drinkers were right: reality truly is what we make it. Since we’re the ones with the narrator in our head telling us what’s going on, it’s up to us to determine whether our life is a rom-com, horror movie or some other genre entirely.

Once I realized this (and was back living in LA, where people said dating sucked with even more vehemence than they said it in San Francisco and New York), I came up with a response to anyone who started talking about dating with that familiar “oh, it sucks” sigh. My response became a bit of a mantra. It went like this:

Dating is fun.

Did I think dating was fun? God, no. It was mostly horrific with a smattering of fun. But I knew that if I told myself that dating was fun, it would keep me from misery bonding with the rest of my single friends. I thought this attitude would eventually help bring about the result I wanted: to not have to date.

This means when I went out with the guy who claimed to be 47 and revealed at dinner he was 60 but it was okay because he “looked” 471, I told myself, “Dating is fun.”

When I went out with the guy who sat in silence for so long that I eventually felt compelled to tell him that it was his responsibility to at least try to contribute to the conversation: dating is fun.

When I went out with the guy who accidentally revealed he had a date later that night with a friend of mine: dating is fun.

(Every now and then it was fun but…well, you know that expression about stopped clocks isn’t just true when it comes to stopped clocks.)

My point—almost seven years into my relationship, when all those years of horrific and occasionally glorious dating seem like a bit of a fever dream—is that we get the results we tell ourselves we will. I firmly believe I got what I wanted in the end because I refused to believe what could have been my point of view: dating sucked and I’d be stuck in sucky land forever. I told myself a different story and by doing that, I created a different story.

And that’s what I’m doing with AI now. I simply refuse to buy into the “AI is coming for all of our jobs” fear-mongering. Yes, I know there are AI-written books being released as I write this. And yes, I have witnessed firsthand how much more time and money I can save by having AI do something I used to ask another human (or myself) to do. Yes, AI’s ability to produce is astounding and occasionally terrifying. But I also believe that if I tell myself AI is coming for my job, I can bring about that reality.

I’m not saying that AI isn’t coming for a lot of our jobs. It already has. But you want to know whose jobs it’s coming for now? The ones held by people who have been setting themselves up for it by constantly proclaiming that it will happen.

You know who will be last victims (if indeed they end up up being victims at all)? The people who didn’t drink the misery Kool Aid, who decided once they saw how mammoth AI was that they were going to use it rather than be used by it. The people who set out to master these new tools rather than spend all their energy fighting them, or just yelling about how bad they are.

I understand how Polyanna-ish or out of touch this point of view may seem when there’s already so much proof that AI is taking away people’s jobs. But new developments are always taking away people’s jobs. In the early 2000s, I got very comfortable making $2 a word writing for magazines when the Huffington Post came along and showed that lots of people were writing for free. Then places like Forbes and Fast Company one-upped that and started inviting people to pay to write for them.

The entire industry I’d built my career around was gone. So I had to starve or figure something else out and my biggest regret is that I didn’t wake up and start finding my new path sooner. I spent years pitching articles to make a few hundred dollars and trying to make a living off of running websites when dynamic ads had decimated the web business, rather than looking at the new options out there.

That means that if you’ve been pounding the drum of AI despair, it’s time to stop. You don’t need to become a big fan of it but you do need to learn about it before you become the parent who needs their kid to show them how to text.

Maybe today is the day you…

Revise your website so that it’s more AI-friendly. Or upload your book to an LLM to have it select the most compelling quotes for you to use to promote your book on social media. Or ask AI to proofread the copy on your site. Or use it to help you brainstorm titles for your next book.

But don’t confuse educating yourself with surrendering to the lowest common denominator. Don’t go and have AI write your book or use a schlocky AI book publishing company to publish your book. Don’t let an AI bot sell you on bogus book marketing services.2

But most of all, don’t freak out about AI stealing your work. Instead start focusing on not being left behind. 

 

How I Got Over Being Jealous of Other Writers

I was reared to be competitive.

From the moment I was born, I was taught to compete with my brother, who was 2.5 years older—that is, someone with not only a head start but also a gender advantage, especially by 70s standards.

I was also told I could never measure up to him (see: age and gender advantage; also being the Black Sheep to his Golden Child).

I was taught to ski by being dragged to the top of black diamond runs and then having to listen to my dad cackle when I would instead throw my poles down and cry.

I did not, to put it mildly, develop a healthy form of competitiveness—if such a thing even exists.

When I first became a professional writer…

I had insane success right out of the gate. Of course, it didn’t seem insane at the time. It just seemed like I could finally declare my family wrong and relish in the fact that the world now saw my greatness.

I was wooed by multiple agents.

My first book, Party Girl, sold in a bidding war.

My agent submitted an essay I’d dashed off in a half hour to the New York Times and it was accepted as a “Modern Love.” I didn’t even know what the column was at the time.

But, rather suddenly, everyone seemed to catch up—and veer ahead.

A year before Party Girl came out, a friend of a friend asked me if I wanted to join a group blog. It was called The Debutante Ball1 and it was written by women who were all releasing their first books that year.

In my delusion, I felt massively superior to the rest of the Debs. Their books weren’t being released by famed publisher Judith Regan or already getting press or attracting movie offers, like mine.

Then the Deb dynamic started to shift.

One of them would email the group that Barnes & Noble had just placed a massive order for her book and another would reply that B&N had just placed an order that size for her book, too!

I reached out to my publisher to ask about book orders but never heard back.

In their emails, the Debs talked about a woman named Sessalee Hensley2 as if she were God. A former Barnes & Noble clerk who had worked her way up to being the person who decided which novels B&N would order (and how many), she had the sort of power I could barely comprehend at the time.

And apparently Sessalee loved a few of the books in our Debutante group.

Mine was not one of them. I didn’t think? I seemed to be having trouble reaching anyone at Regan Books.

I imagined Sessalee as a stern woman in a pinafore who would most definitely not be drawn to a book that featured a threesome as an opening scene. I assumed that because my fellow Debs were attracting her attention and I was not, my book was DOA.

As it turned out, I was right—Party Girl was DOA but for reasons that had nothing to do with Sessalee. I hadn’t been able to find out about book orders or anything else because a few months before my launch date, my famous publisher Judith Regan was fired in the biggest scandal to hit publishing and her entire imprint dissolved in a day. My book that had all the hype in the world was launched under a fake imprint HarperCollins made up a few months later. How could I ask anyone if Sessalee liked my book when there was no one to ask?

My fellow Debs, meanwhile, all seemed giddy about their launches.

We stayed on a group email chain post-release and when one would share about the multi-thousand order a bookstore had placed for her book, the others would chime in about how happy they were for her.

Whoever she was, I was not happy for her. Were the other Debs better people or just better at pretending? I don’t know. I don’t even remember the names of any of those women or their books.

But my experience with them was definitely a precursor to the sort of jealousy I’d experience the whole time I was in the traditional publishing world.

To be fair, traditional publishing is a breeding ground for jealousy.

The pie is so very small, the pieces even smaller and the successes so rare that one person’s book getting a New York Times feature or a big order from a bookstore means there isn’t room for that to happen to you.

I didn’t care that the odds of success were bad. I thought I should defy the odds. Unfortunately, every traditionally published author feels the same, or else they’d never sell a book to a traditional publisher.

My jealousy grew with each book deal I got.

The main reason for this was basic math: as a published author, I met more published authors.

If you buy into Freud’s theory about the narcissism of small differences, we are only jealous of people who achieve something we feel we could. So as my world of colleagues grew beyond my fellow debs, the more women I had to be jealous of.

And then my jealousy abated.

It happened when I created and then began producing a live storytelling show called True Tales of Lust and Love3. I started the show because I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to promote my second book, Bought. But when it became surprisingly popular, I had to start inviting other authors to read from their books and tell their stories.

I had to, in other words, invite women I’d been jealous of to walk onto a stage—and then watch them shine.

In the act of doing that, I saw that they weren’t glittery lottery winners who were joyous all the time because of their great luck but real, complicated and talented women who were, like me, trying to carve out creative careers.

But then that show ended and a few years passed. My jealousy kicked in again when, out of nowhere, recovering from addiction became trendy and a few women who’d never written anything other than Instagram captions started releasing memoirs about their recovery from addiction.

They were heralded for launching the “Quit Lit” movement.

Um? Hadn’t my book come out more than a decade earlier? And hadn’t I waited until I was over five years sober to write it, while these women seemed to be about 30 seconds sober but were somehow being considered recovery role models? Also, hadn’t I been a professional writer since college while these were just people who were good at coming up with Instagram captions?

Yes, yes and yes. See, these women had understood early on how important Instagram was while I had dismissed it as something for shallow people. It somehow hadn’t occurred to me when Instagram popped up in 2010 that followers could turn into readers.

I’d love to say that it was amazing spiritual growth that led to me getting over my jealousy.

But that would be a lie. I got over my jealousy by exiting the traditional publishing game.

Chasing sales metrics as a writer, no matter who you are or how successful your first book, is a battle you’ll lose. If your first book sells a boatload of copies, your second book will look like a failure in comparison. So you do a third and a fourth or maybe you don’t but you are still caught on a treadmill that seems to go in a circle.

There is no winning.

There is only stepping off.

Or becoming so spiritually healthy that you don’t care about playing a game you can’t win.

Instead of going the spiritual route, I stepped off the traditional publishing merry-go-round.

I decided to approach book publishing differently.

I realized that if I sold a book to a traditional publisher, I would lose all control. I saw that I could do everything they could—and do it better because I’d seen the business from the other side.

I started looking at publishing strategically: I decided that I’d write some books for authority-building (showcasing all that I know about book publishing and thus inspiring readers to want to work with my company) and others for fun. If I did the authority-building books effectively, I’d be more than able to support my habit of writing books for fun.

Is that selling out?

It doesn’t feel like it to me. I love writing books about book publishing—shattering delusions so that others don’t have to get on that circular treadmill and wonder why they feel like a failure.

And I love to write for sheer love of the sport, which is why I’ve been working on a novel over the past year.

When I’m done with the novel, I won’t need to have my agent submit it to a bunch of publishing houses in the hopes that someone who can’t do what I can will deem it worthy. I can publish it myself and not care about how it does, instead focusing on who it pleases.

Honestly, this approach has been a game changer. Aside from the Glennon-sized thorn in my side, I almost never feel jealous of other writers these days.

Usually I just hope that they can learn what I have without needing to go through all those crushing years of trying and resenting. I hope that I can save them from wanting to create voodoo dolls of a woman named Sessalee who they don’t even know.

And OMG guess what I learned just now when I Googled her?

Good old Sessalee was ultimately fired. Even Gods have to learn, I guess, that publishing is a fickle mistress.

Your Energy Budget Matters More Than Your Marketing Budget

Now that those of us who celebrate Traylor-related holidays have wound down from The Interview and absorbed the various sub-Reddit Swiftie theories1, I find myself thinking about one of her much-discussed pearls dropped during the interview more than any of the others. No, not one of the pearls about bread or otters or sparkles but this one:

You should think of your energy as if it's expensive, as if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it.

Of course, we’ve all experienced giving our energy to those not deserving of it, probably even in the last day. I’m not just talking about those people who live rent-free in ours brains because we’re convinced they did something terrible days or weeks or years ago but also the woman who doesn’t thank you when you let her in front of you in the security line or the TSA person who treats you like you’re a criminal because you haven’t gotten your Real ID yet.

When you’re writing and then publishing a book, the opportunities you have to give your energy away are endless. Here are just a few of the energy vampires I’ve fed that I’d urge you to avoid:

Other authors releasing books at the same time. This topic comes up at LLP whenever we’re discussing a client’s book launch release date. We’ll say something like, “We think January (or May or December or fill in the blank) is the best time to release your book.” They will come back with, “But I’ve heard that January (or May or December or fill in the blank) is the worst time to launch a book” or “I heard James Clear (or Tim Ferriss or fill in the blank) is releasing their book then.” I always go through the same spiel, explaining that the month you release doesn’t matter—that the reason traditional publishers are so focused on launch timing is that their entire business model is based on the success of a launch. In other words, if a book is successful the day it launches, they know that they should invest more of their energy or resources in it. If not (and most are not), they know not to think about it again. But Legacy Launch Pad’s model isn’t at all focused on the launch. To us, the launch is just another day in what will be the full life of your book. I released a book on writing in July of 2020—aka the worst time ever in that the world was coming to grips with being in the midst of a global pandemic and not remotely interested in learning about how to make their mess their memoir. And yet I got a five-minute segment on Good Morning America promoting the book. My point is: don’t worry about when your book is coming out, what other books will be competing against it and whether the attention given to those books will take away from the attention that may be given to yours. There’s enough pieces of pie for all of us.

Feedback from people who are not your ideal readers. This also comes up with clients; we will work with them on crafting the most exquisite book for their perfect reader. We will all agree we love it. Then they will give it to their friend from college who, despite not really being a reader, knows “what works”—and this doesn’t. You can’t imagine the number of people out there who, when presented with a book in progress, suddenly fancy themselves an editor. It is your job to ignore them, or not to share your book with them in the first place. When I was working on On Good Authority, I joined this group for aspiring writers who could all use a software the group leader had created to give feedback on each other’s books in progress. Now, this was not a good group for me since I wasn’t an aspiring writer—I was working on my eighth book and had been in publishing for decades—but I wanted to use the software and I figured (naively) that the people in this group would appreciate the work of a wizened elder. Oh my God you guys, their feedback was so mean. This one woman told me that my book was trite and her opinions only got worse from there. I was deeply discouraged and may have even cried. Then I looked at her profile on the aspiring author site and learned she was a British graphic designer who was convinced that she’d sell her book on graphic design to a top publisher who would then launch her career as a speaker, despite the fact that she didn’t have a following or compelling topic. The book I was writing was for successful entrepreneurs who were looking to forgo traditional publishing and choose themselves because traditional publishing wasn’t available to them and besides, would only break their heart. No wonder my book inspired vitriol—it was basically telling her that she was delusional. I vowed from that moment on to never go to the hardware store for milk again3. Now, if I get feedback while writing, I only get it from my ideal reader—or from other professionals.

Nasty Amazon and Goodreads reviewers. I’m not going to lie; nasty reviews hurt. While sometimes I’ve found the hostility amusing enough to compile a video of the meanest reviews, other times it’s felt like a punch in the gut. When I wrote a children’s book for my son, I thought it was the sweetest little love letter I could have come up with. An Amazon customer named Alisa Robin did not. Her review made clear that she would passionately “not recommend this book to anyone.” I’m not going to lie: Alisa Robin definitely made me cry. Whether that was new mom sensitivity or the fact that it practically felt like she attacking my son, I have no idea. But I now understand that Alisa was not a luxury worth splurging on.

Friends and family who don’t care. Releasing your first book is so exciting that it can be confusing when the people closest to you don’t care. While my family has always been fairly indifferent to what I do, I’m lucky enough to have a slew of friends that really showed up for me on my first book. You should have seen the crowd we gathered at events for Party Girl! Book number two—well, it was less exciting. Half the crowd. On books three, four and five, I felt lucky if I could even get a friend to acknowledge anything was happening in my life at all. My best advice is to keep your expectations in this area very low. Your family may not care. Your friends who say they’ll review your book on Amazon may not. The truth is they don’t get how important it is because they’re probably not creatives who understand what a difference their one Amazon review would make. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people or don’t love you the way you deserve to be loved. They just don’t get it. Rather than resenting them, shower the ones who do come through with gratitude.

The people who ask, “How is your book doing?” When your book is published traditionally, hearing this question is torturous since your publisher tells you nothing but gives you the distinct feeling all the time that It Is Not Going Well and It Is Somehow Your Fault. I remember after Party Girl came out, this guy I knew kept asking me “how it was doing.” I’d say, “Well,” and he’d ask me what that meant. And I didn’t know because my publisher had never even told me what “well” would look or smell or feel like. Now that I publish my own books and can focus on the things I can control (like doing the best book possible and getting it in front of my ideal reader), I can finally answer, “It’s doing everything it’s supposed to do and more” and mean it. 

 

Site Unseen

When I first heard and saw that Google results were starting with AI summaries, I was as horrified as everyone else. I giggled and shook my head at the stories about how AI was recommending glue pizza and rock eating. I pitied a civilization that now wouldn’t have the freedom to find what they were seeking online.

And then I thought: when was the last time Google actually showed me what I was looking for? 2001? I’d grown so accustomed to Google not showing me what I was seeking that it had become the equivalent of that bookcase in your house that’s got a kid’s brush, an unused diaper, books on guitars and Winston Churchill, a screen cleaner, a random letter from Chase and a The Joy of Cooking on top of it): you stop noticing it until the day when you do see it and wonder how everything has suddenly gotten to be so messy under your watchful eye.

Then I started looking at the AI results I was getting from the Google machine and realized they were infinitely more helpful than when they were just companies and people that were paying astronomical amounts to come up first. While not a perfect display of democracy, I realized this was at least a step in the direction of not continuing to line Sergei and Larry’s pockets with more cash, not to mention allowing those who spent the most to dominate.

If there’s anything I find more delightful than discovering a More Efficient Way to Do Something, it’s finding a way to personally benefit from discovering that More Efficient Way to Do Something. And that led me down a rabbit hole of figuring out the best way to optimize an author site (or any site) so that it doesn’t get left behind in our AI searching world.

Here are the main things I’ve learned and already applied to both my personal and company website—and IMO you should think about implementing ASAP:

If you’re an author, create an ABOUT page for your book that includes a hi-res cover image, book description, a list of themes, ISBN/publisher/date/country, bio (with image), reviews, discussion questions and a press release. (If we’re talking about the site for your company, make sure your ABOUT page includes the equivalent for your company, including—crucially—success stories.) Why all these things? Because you want your site to be able to “speak” AI—to, in other words, for it to be quickly understood in LLM language. You (or your site designer) were probably already doing at least some of these things but I know very few (if any) people who were listing their ISBN/ASIN and country on their book or author site. As for discussion questions, I remember my editor at HarperCollins having me come up with those for my first few books because, she assured me, “It will help make book clubs want to read it.” I naively believed everything my publisher told me back then so I came up with super unnatural, awkward questions like, “How did the protagonist Amelia change over the course of the book?” I did this even though, in all my (inadvertent) conversations about book clubs over the previous few decades, I’d never once heard someone say, “Well, I would pick this for my book club but it didn’t come with discussion questions so let’s pick another.” I’d also never heard of a book club actually using discussion questions created by the author. Anyway, now there’s finally a reason to create discussion questions and I can guarantee that none of the Big Five publishers are telling their writers to do it since they’re allergic to learning anything new about publishing. Now let’s talk about themes. Themes aren’t keywords or categories—they’re the literal themes of your book. You have to think the way a robot does when looking for the best material to serve people. People type things like “books about mom guilt” or “funny addiction books” and not “contemporary women’s fiction.” That’s why, when we created a site for a client whose book is for new moms who feel overwhelmed, we listed the following themes on her ABOUT page:

Overwhelmed mom

Mom guilt and self-care

Postpartum struggles

Sleep deprivation with babies

Mom comparison and judgment

Toddler tantrums and behavior

Working mom vs stay at home mom

Mom identity crisis

Practical mom survival tips

Honest motherhood experiences

If you want to see an example of an ABOUT page that has all these things, you can check out my Party Girl page.

Create a page specifically for LLMs where the URL actually ends with /llm.text. This is a page that, counter-intuitively, you don’t want people to see; it’s a robots-only club. Here’s a link to ours for Legacy Launch Pad but if you click there, you have to pretend you didn’t see it (or pretend you’re a robot, your choice). You can literally copy every header we have there and create the equivalent for your site. The headers make it so that you can actually control what LLMs will prioritize as well as provide specific instructions and content usage guidelines for them.

Add an FAQs page. Your business site may already have an FAQs page but you probably created it by thinking of, well, the questions you’re asked most frequently. Now you need to add questions and answers to things like: What would inspire someone to hire me or read my book? What makes them need or want this? Or: what objections would someone have? You need to phrase the questions in a way that your ideal client or reader would (and then answer them). You can check out the Legacy Launch Pad FAQs page for an example of a page that does this.

If you have an author site, you need for it to have a BUY page that has links to all retailers that sell your book (and not just Amazon) as well as a MEDIA page with links to all your media appearances. You also should have a chapter or two available for people to read before purchasing.

Whether it’s a business or book site, make sure every page has a CTA, whether that’s to buy your book, sign up for your list or schedule a call. If you’re going to work this hard to get people there, make sure you have something you want them to do! (This was relevant in our pre AI world too, of course.)

Pimp out your 404 page with CTAs as well. LLMs will definitely send people to 404 pages and you might as well take advantage of it. (This was also relevant pre AI revolution.)

Use alt text when uploading images. Alt text could be its own post so if you don’t know what that is, go find out. This is more important than ever!

Add a blog if you don’t already have one, then write posts that include information you want AI to find (say you wrote a book on negotation…you could write a post about how similar you are to Chris Voss so AI can start to associate your name with his when someone types “Who are some authors like Chris Voss?”)

If you, like me, think it’s exciting to be able to take advantage of getting in at the ground floor of AI search, I suggest you implement all of this now. If the thought of it overwhelms you—or, if you panic when you see a sentence like “put all your media appearances here” because you don’t have any media appearances, please write and let me know; Legacy Launch Pad can help with both of these things.

 

 

OMG! I Was Scammed by a Maybe AI Book Marketer

I think of myself as someone who’s tough to scam.

If I get a text from “Apple” or “Amazon” about a “suspicious purchase,” I google the exact phrasing and usually find that people on Reddit who have already written about how it’s a scam. I’ve never been catfished. I delete every email offer to grow my Instagram or buy my business. I can always tell when someone’s trying to send me into their funnel by offering me something too good to be true that I know will result in an aggressive sales campaign if I take them up on it.

But, oh Substack readers, I fell prey. And to a book “specialist,” no less! It’s not quite the NY Mag financial columnist falling for a $50k scam but it’s in the same stratosphere.

It all started with an email with a very savvy subject line: Why Party Girl Still Deserves the Spotlight.

Coming at me with my favorite book I wrote that I felt never got the spotlight it deserved? She had my attention! Plus she offered GoodReads promo, which I know is more important than ever because AI crawlers love it so it’s something I’ve been wanting to add as a service for Legacy Launch Pad clients. (Since I’m lucky to employ a publishing guinea pig—myself—I always try something myself before sharing it with clients.)

In addition to GoodReads promo, she was offering SEO work for the book, as well as efforts to align the book with other Quit Lit memoirs. I wrote her that I was not only in but also, if things worked out, I could potentially hire her to do this for Legacy Launch Pad books.

She said great, she’d send me a detailed breakdown. Which was weird. I mean, hadn’t her email been a detailed breakdown? But I said sure. She broke it down again. I asked for more info. Another email and finally I got the price: between $274-$774, depending on the package I chose. Even though I was recognizing all the tactics of manipulative marketers—namely, get the person to commit a few times before telling them the price so that they’re emotionally involved (and also ending prices in $4 though why that works, I have no idea)—I signed up for the middle package. But I really should have jumped ship after the next email, where she (Traci B. Johnson and yes, Traci with an i, yes) wrote:

Rachael just sent over the Upwork contract for the plan we discussed.

And indeed Rachael had indeed sent it over.

Um, Rachael (with an ae)? Upwork?

I wrote Traci back and said I didn’t want to do this through Upwork and that if I hired her to work for my company, I would never do that. She assured me that we would just do this “first one” through Upwork.

I did not ask who Rachael was; Traci was throwing too much information by me for me to ask. I think that was the point.

I asked Traci if she had a website and she sent me a link to this—a free Wordpress site with a foreign phone number and dorismhert@gmail.com as the email address (ie, neither Traci with an i nor Rachael with an ae).

The Upwork contract stipulated that I pay the entire fee upfront. Because every Upwork contract I’ve had before involved paying through milestones, I wrote Traci back and asked about it. She wrote: Thanks for checking! I usually structure this as full payment upfront so I can prioritize the project fully and focus on delivering high-quality work without delays.

Traci was starting to sound kinda AI-esque. I noticed every email started with a very grateful first line, even if what I was asking was something like, “Why are you asking me to pay you upfront when I don’t even know you?” Instead of confronting her about how weird she was sounding, I asked if she could at least break it into two payments, so she changed the first payment to $350 (three-quarters up front also seemed strange but whatever, I just wanted to get started). I told her I thought this whole thing was weird and she thanked me for my honesty, apologized for any confusion and told me how much she wanted to support my books in a way that “aligned with my values.”

Finally we got to the work and I realized when she sent me the “keyword optimized” book description for Party Girl that she had in no way read the book. I didn’t really care; I’ve been interviewed on the Today show about my books with full awareness that the host hadn’t read it. But I also know a lot about keyword research for books so I tried to get Traci to explain what her keyword research process was and/or the software she’d used to come up with the keywords. I figured if it was good, I could incorporate it into how we do it at LLP. But she was vague in her response so I just figured, whatever, let’s get onto the Goodreads part.

She then wrote me that she needed my “Fiction Flick.” I’d never heard of a Fiction Flick so after googling and finding nothing, I asked her what it was. She explained that it was a 15-second video teaser.

I said I could have my team create one and she thanked me for my “thoughtful response” and said that to “simplify things,” she’d be happy to do it for me.

I thanked her. Then she sent me an email breaking down what she would do—for an additional $521. But, she explained, she wasn’t offering just a basic video—she was offering “a targeted visual marketing asset, crafted specifically for reader engagement, scroll-stopping impact, and conversion-driven promotion.” She talked about how she’d worked with over 55 authors and “if timing or budget is a concern, no worries delays [sic], you’re welcome to pay part of the amount upfront, and I’ll get started right away.”

What’s below is the video she sent me as an example of what she could do. I’m entirely serious.

 

 

I said I’d pass and she wrote me, I’m ready to begin the full fiction flick and thumbnail mockup design without delay. You’ll receive a preview of the creative direction tomorrow so you can see the quality and vision firsthand. Feel free to fund Rachael on Upwork at your earliest convenience so we can officially get started.

I asked if she was reading my emails because I’d explained I didn’t want her to do a Fiction Flick for me. She responded of course but she’d already started working on my Fiction Flick since the category and keyword research for my book was so “time-sensitive and crucial to its visibility.”

I asked her what was so time-sensitive about category and keyword research. She responded with some nonsense about “key timing windows.”

Finally I’d had it. I told her that all I’d really wanted was the GoodReads promo. I also said that I found her emails confusing and I was wondering if we could jump on Zoom. That way, I added, we could discuss how she could work with my company. (Yes, I hate Zoom but I knew she would dodge it.) She responded with a lot of gratitude for my request but explained that she was “unable to accommodate Zoom calls due to my current location and project commitments.” She added that she stays focused on “delivering in-depth, strategic work through written communication so as to maintain quality and consistency across all active campaigns.”

That’s when I straight out asked her if she was AI. Seeming offended, she said no, she was a “real publishing professional.” I told her that one minute on Zoom would make me believe her and she responded that we could schedule one for the next day.

I wrote back to schedule a time and she responded: I’m currently in a meeting with an authors am [sic] working with and won’t be able to talk just yet. I truly appreciate your patience and understanding. I’ll be giving you a call in the next 1 hour as scheduled. Looking forward to speaking with you then!

“As scheduled”? Also, um, how was she going to call someone whose number she didn’t have? Plus, as someone who stays focused on “written communication,” how could she be in a meeting with “an authors” she was working with?

Only THEN did I look at her/Rachael’s Upwork reviews. Four reviews total and one says “1 star: I di [sic] not know the relationship between Rachael and my main contact "Debra" but one or both of them are not who they say they are.

I told her I was done wasting time, that she could just refund me for everything but the book description and she responded that she’d done three weeks of “consistent work, including my time, energy, and personal investment,” working “day and night to deliver value” and what’s more, she’d “already completed key deliverables.”

She went on: Requesting a refund at this point disregards the substantial time, effort, and money I’ve put into your project.

It went on from there. Then she sent another email that said in addition to the description, she had also completed:

10 targeted and curated Goodreads Listopia listings to increase your book’s discoverability

Comprehensive keyword research and analysis tailored to your genre and audience

Ongoing work on category optimization to improve your book’s visibility on Amazon

She went on…

I was also preparing to secure around 10 reader reviews on your Goodreads page, hence my request for the manuscript. That part of the work was already underway, though I hadn’t shared it yet as I was still waiting on the file.

She ended with:

Therefore, a refund will not be issued. The work has been delivered in full and with integrity.

I thought about explaining to her that completing work but not delivering it to me meant it didn’t count as “complete” but I was very tired of communicating with her.

Okay so…was she AI or just a scammer who writes like she is? Was doing all this to me worth $350? She certainly spent a lot of time on our communication (even copying and pasting AI prompts, given how much we emailed, would be time consuming.) On con artist podcasts, some expert or witness always says that if the con artist actually used their time and energy on legit things, they’d probably be quite successful. But it’s the thrill of getting away with it that they love.

So: was Traci/Rachael/dorismhert@gmail.com thrilled by this? She/he/they didn’t sound thrilled. She/he/they also didn’t refund my money. I chalk it up to a lesson well learned. It was $350. It could have been $3500. Or more. And the truth is, for all that I am in many ways a savvy publishing professional, I am also inherently gullible. When my brother told me when I was little that there was a guy on That’s Incredible!1 who had never been to the bathroom, I believed him for most of my childhood.

This whole experience only reinforced my belief that people need to work with true publishing professionals—those with credibility, those whose sites showcase that credibility, those who have worked in traditional publishing and, of course, those with one name and not three.

The Best and Worst Ways to Approach People

I recently put out a call for copy editors at Legacy Launch Pad by posting on my LinkedIn that I was looking for them.

I specifically asked people to DM me if they were interested.

Many lovely people did and when they did, I asked for their email addresses so I could have my Project Director email them a copy edit test.

Several people did not DM me on LinkedIn. Roughly five people emailed me on my personal email address which is not listed on LinkedIn; four of them suggested we jump on the phone to talk about the role.

Jump on the phone?!

Now, these people have no way of knowing just how Milenial I am when it comes to the phone.

But here’s the deal: I don’t answer it. Unless in emergencies. Even then I do it begrudgingly.

My outgoing message is to not leave a message because I won’t listen to it.

I’ve told my team members they can’t leave me voice notes because voice notes remind me too much of voicemails.

I’ve had potential clients who I thought might sign $100,000 contracts with us that I haven’t gotten on the phone with because I’d rather give away a huge percentage of that to my Sales Director than have another Zoom (I believe I’ve reached my Zoom Life Limit).

My point is that I’m not going to jump on a call or a Zoom to describe a freelance copy editor position to a stranger when the description is inherent in the name and anyone raising their hand to do it should know that.

Even crazier than the people who emailed me to ask if we could jump on the phone were the three men who texted me on my personal cell to discuss it.

On my number that I thought wasn’t listed.

I get that people want to stand out and that it’s tough out there and AI is replacing editorial jobs and all that but looking up someone’s personal number and texting them isn’t a way to stand out—unless you want to stand out as a creep.

If the goal was to get me to take action, I did: I blocked their numbers, signed up for one of those services that deletes your contact information (to the best of its ability) and updated my LinkedIn post with the PS that people who were interested should, as I stated, DM me.

I still received more emails and texts.

One person sent this seemingly AI-written email:

Beyond just grammar and punctuation, editing is really about clarity, structure, and voice. My goal is not only to polish your manuscript but to help it resonate with your readers in the most meaningful way. Whether it's developmental editing (helping shape the flow and big ideas) or line editing (refining tone, transitions, and language), I approach each project with both technical precision and creative care.

With years of experience across various genres, I’ve had the privilege of working with authors at different stages, from rough first drafts to nearly finished manuscripts. I also offer consultations throughout the editing process, where we can walk through things like:

Strengthening your message and narrative arc

Clarifying your audience and their needs

Ensuring consistency in style, tone, and voice

Navigating publishing options and preparing for launch

My process is collaborative, transparent, and tailored to your goals. Whether you’re looking for a single round of edits or ongoing feedback, I can adapt to what best supports your vision.

I’d love to hear more about your project, its purpose, its message, and where you see it going. Let me know a time that works for a quick call, and I’ll make myself available.

Looking forward to learning more and seeing how we can make this a success together.1

First of all, does this sound AI-written to you?

Secondly, when I didn’t respond, she followed up. Three times. After the third time, I wrote her: Hi - We gave edit tests to the people who followed the instructions by DMing once and hired from there. Thanks.

No response to that but then she wrote me: Just wanted to share a quick heads-up, our team is offering a 25% summer discount on service until EOD July 30th.

Her team? Whaa? Needless to say, I did not take advantage of said discount.

When my Project Director sent out the copy edit tests to the people who applied, we received dozens of responses—some from people who aced the test completely. Without exception, all the people who scored perfectly were gracious, thanked us for the opportunity and sounded thrilled when we reported back that we were adding them to our roster.

Some of the people who made many mistakes on their test did other things: one responded to the test to ask if she could be paid for taking it since it looked quite extensive (we told her no and she thought about it, then decided she would take it anyway) while another said she preferred a higher rate but perhaps we could “meet in the middle” (but then thought about it once we told her our rates were our rates; she also decided she would also take the test anyway). A third only did a third of the test because we “could clearly see her editing skills” from the part of the test she’d done.

So why is it that people who want to get paid to take a voluntary test for a job, balk at comparative rates and only complete a third of a test score badly and people who are lovely and gracious often score perfectly?

And why do people ignore a request for a LinkedIn DM and instead look up someone’s private number or asking them to get on the phone to discuss a job they don’t have yet?

I actually don’t know. Do you?

Here’s what I do know: how you interact with strangers when you want something dictates whether or not you will have success. The approach is more important than skill. It’s more important than experience. It’s more important than talent. It’s an ability to read the proverbial room and remain humble and show your value rather than asking for special treatment or trying to jump to the head of the line. As someone who spent a long time asking for special treatment and trying to jump to the head of the line, I can assure you that this kind of thing almost always backfires.

How does this apply to your book publishing experience? Well, your journey, if you do it right, will involve a lot of asking—asking for blurbs, asking for opinions, asking for Amazon reviews, asking to go on podcasts. And the way you ask is everything. I used to give our clients a document called GOOD AND BAD BLURB REQUESTS but I stopped giving it out because it seemed so obvious. Maybe it’s not?

I’ve had people reach out for blurbs with emails that have said things like “I know you love books so can you blurb this?” or “I think it would be a great opportunity for you to blurb this.” I had a man who pitched himself to be on my podcast who admitted in the pitch that he didn’t know if I interviewed men on my podcast—something he could have determined had he gone to the podcast page (answer: I did; just not him).

I’ve also had people send some of the loveliest blurb requests you can imagine and in every one of those cases, I’ve said yes. No matter how busy I was. No matter what was going on. Because the way they asked was lovely.

So, whether it’s a freelance job or a blurb, ask with all the graciousness you can muster. Remember that people aren’t just there to meet your needs, whether it’s for employment or a blurb. Always think, in the words of my mentor, what’s in it for them. The more you do that, the more you’ll get what you want. Sometimes even when you’re not asking for it.

Case in point: today a teenager rang my doorbell. I was putting my son down for a nap and I’m about as into strangers ringing my doorbell as I am into getting on the phone with aspiring copy editors. And he was the second person to ring the doorbell today; the first was a guy who wanted to know if we needed our roof redone. (We did not.) I was very close to shutting the door on this kid but then he quickly said, “I’m not doing this for a school project. It’s self funding.”

This got my attention: honesty! I asked what he was offering.

“Black and white curb painting,” he said.

What? I pictured a checkered curb.

“The number on your curb is gone,” he said. “I can repaint it for you. It’s $30. I just did it for your neighbor. My name is Isiah and I live one street over.”

I was immediately won over. He was offering something I hadn’t known until that moment that I needed but it was for the right price. He showed me that he was trustworthy when he told me he was from the neighborhood. He even had social proof because my neighbor had already said yes.

A half hour later, the curb was painted, it looked fab and I was asking Isiah what else he was interested in doing. Turns out all kinds of stuff: errand running, gardening, pressure washer cleaning (which we randomly need). I basically hired a new assistant because he came to my door with an awesome offer at the right price and asked in a way that was direct and gracious.

It was inspiring, especially as the mother of a young boy. I want my son to be like that.

All of this is to say: think before you ask. Read the room. And channel Isiah before you make a move.