If you hang in certain circles, you’ll frequently hear that “Publishers have all the money,” which is funny because bookstores get the largest percentage of each sale. But everyone has to pay their staff and operating expenses, and often it’s bewildering to watch even the revenues from your bestsellers dwindle into nothingness.

So this week on the pod, we look at that illustrious pie chart and talk about how it all disappears so quickly! Please feel free to eat pie during this episode.

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Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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The publishing industry invests heavily in the logic that a new book hits hard out of the gate, has a third of its total sales before it’s published, a third of its sales in the following year, and the final third gradually across the lifetime of the book, until it gradually saturates and dead stalls. So this week on the pod, we look at how to make books sell forever.

Prefer an audio experience? Listen to the episode on your favorite podcast app.
Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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You published a book! Congrats! But… now what? How do you get your book in stores and libraries? Smoke signals? Pigeons? The answer is, as always, both simpler and more complex than you would think.

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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Particularly when one comes from a conservative family and has many conversations where their beliefs are challenged, they tend to assume that the publishing landscape works the same way. This week, we answer a reader question about how to publish safely and sustainably despite one’s political opinions.

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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It happens all the time. One of our distributed publishers got in touch, horrified and terrified that MacMillan had just published the same book that she did the week before. She thought it would cannibalize her sales. Many authors and publishers keep this stuff close to the chest. Not us. We follow the Paul Hawken school of being your best, individualized self.

Get the People’s Guide to Publishing here, and the workbook here!
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