Your inbox says someone “discovered” your book and wants to make you a bestseller. The flattery feels good, the promise feels big, and the risk is real. We sit down with publishing consultant and community builder Alexa Bigwarfe, founder of Write|Publish|Sell and the Women in Publishing Summit, to talk straight about what authors actually face right now in self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and book marketing.

We start where most people skip ahead: defining your why. Whether you are writing for healing, impact, credibility, income, or pure joy, your goal determines the publishing path, the timeline, and how much you should invest. From there we unpack the gray areas that trip writers up, including the difference between legitimate hybrid presses, boutique partners, and vanity press traps, plus the wave of AI-generated DMs and emails that target authors with generic praise and expensive offers. The throughline is simple: education beats hype, and community makes it easier to spot what is real.

Then we get practical about what is working: authentic connection with readers, email lists, word of mouth, strategic review-building, and the power of a backlist for authors who want to earn a living. We also get blunt about quality, because you cannot market a book that is not professionally edited, properly designed, and aligned with reader expectations.

If this helped, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a writer friend. 

About Alexa Bigwarfe

Alexa Bigwarfe is a USA Today best-selling author, publishing coach, and founder of Write|Publish|Sell. She helps women and underrepresented voices publish professional books, build platforms, and grow businesses around their expertise. As the creator of the Women in Publishing Summit, Alexa brings together thousands of authors and publishing professionals each year to learn, connect, and amplify diverse voices in publishing. Whether guiding authors through powerful book launches or helping them turn their stories into tools for impact, Alexa is passionate about helping women use their words to inspire change. 

Learn more about Alexa: https://alexabigwarfe.com/

Full Transcript

Meet Alexa Bigwarfe

Joel 0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to If I’m Being Honest, straight talk about book book publishing and promotion. My name is Joel Pitney, and today I am thrilled to have Alexa Bigwarfe. Welcome, Alexa.

Alexa 0:22

Hello, thanks so much for having me.

Joel 0:24

So Alexa is a publishing consultant and a community builder. She’s the founder of Write, Publish, Sell, and also the Women in Publishing Summit. Um, and a writer yourself, is that right?

Alexa 0:35

Oh, yeah. Those are all my books.

Joel 0:38

So many books, I love it.

Alexa 0:40

So many copies of the same several books, but yes.

Joel 0:45

Very cool. And Alexa and I actually met in line at the uh independent book publishers association conference in Denver a couple years ago. We were in line for uh getting our free drink that came with uh conference admission. Um and we kind of struck up a conversation.

Alexa 1:02

Exactly. I do love wine and conversing. They go well together. It’s been it’s been a fun ride since then.

Joel 1:12

Nice. So I, you know, I think the thing that uh Lex and I bonded over immediately is that we both spent a lot of time in the world of self-published writers. People who are indie publishing, self-publishing, whatever you want to call it, trying to either start a second career as a writer or uh a fulfilling side hustle, um, trying to make their dreams of being a writer or publishing a book come true. And we both do a lot of work to help people make those dreams come true, right? Um, whether that, you know, Alexa focuses a lot on helping people build a business, you know, an actual business out of their publishing and their writing. And um, her Women in Publishing Summit, which my company and and myself and Sadie Walker, who’s the other host of this podcast, have appeared on as guests. Um, they’re all about educating people and empowering people. Um, and so we bonded over that.

Alexa 2:06

Yes, we did. I wasn’t sure if that was a question or just a pause.

Joel 2:11

I don’t know. I don’t know either. I’m you know, I I’m kind of like fine.

Alexa 2:14

If I’m being honest, you know.

Start With Your Real Why

Joel 2:18

So I I wanted to talk to you today, Alexa. I thought, you know, I I wanted to kind of focus on in your role, you know, working with all these people. What do you find for people uh is I guess the best first piece of advice that you end up giving people when someone wow comes to you or shows up on one of your what is way to just like hit it off with like the Powerball question.

Alexa 2:40

Um, no, I mean I think anybody who’s in this business uh would agree that the first thing we have to know when talking to authors or publishing professionals is what you’re trying to achieve. Because nothing else can be built off of that if you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing or where you’re trying to go. And you may not know exactly specifically, like on, you know, February 17th, 2027, I’m going to publish a book that’s going to sell 3.2 million copies and like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but but you know why, why you’re coming to do this. It’s a long, hard road to be an author. So there’s got to be something that’s guiding you for it. It’s okay if that answer is just because I’ve always dreamed of writing this book, or because I want to have a bigger impact in the world, or because I’m literally trying to conquer the entire universe with my writing. Whatever it is, you have to have some kind of idea so that you can set up everything else to help you get there, you know?

Joel 3:41

Yeah, no, I think that’s awesome. And there’s so many different reasons why people do this. Um, do you find when you’re working with people that, you know, because I uh oftentimes people will be like, well, I don’t really know why. Um do you find that everyone does have a why sort of under there once you unpack it a little bit and get it?

Choosing a Path and Budget

Alexa 3:58

I do. In fact, I’ve never found anyone who hasn’t been able to tell now, okay. Some people aren’t able to specifically say what their goal is financially, right? They don’t really know how to figure that piece of it out. But almost everybody knows. For me, when I started writing, it was healing, it was purely to heal. I’d suffered a terrible tragedy. Yeah. Yes. And I literally was writing to heal and then put together a resource book for other people who were suffering in the same way and created that book and resource for them. For some people, it’s purely entertaining. I mean, how many of us were bookworms as kids? And like I often share the story of how I would save up my allowance. And when those weekly readers came home, that’s what I spent all my money on. And like I’ve always just wanted to read, just wanted to have those books. For some people, they’re launching a business and or they need some credibility builder for speaking events or for their clients or for their for their businesses. For some people, they want to share their grandma’s favorite recipes, or they have a knowledge piece that they want to educate children on. Or most people that I have come across have some reason why they’re writing, either because it’s a a joy, a dream, a fulfillment of something that they want to do, or because they’re trying to have a bigger impact in on the world, in the world in some way, shape, or form. And so then the next piece of that is okay, now we know that part of it. So how do you want to get there? What kind of roadmap? Do you want to do all the work by yourself? Do you want to hire people to help you? Do you want to try to have an agent and pitch to, you know, a bigger publication? What’s your budget? What’s your like how let’s realistically frame how you’re going to get there so that you don’t wind up, you know, a big puddle of tears in the corner because you had no idea that it would cost $10,000 to write, publish, and sell a really good book. So all those things.

Joel 6:01

Well, no, that that’s really cool, you know. And I I what I’m what I’m hearing from you is uh something I’ve encountered a lot, which is that there’s no there’s no right way to do this, right? And everybody’s goal is different, and you’re gonna go out there online and there’s gonna be all kinds of articles and courses and companies that are gonna tell you that this is the way to do it, this is the way to do it. Come sign up for our tried and true approach. But what you have to remember is that not everybody has the same goal. And if your goal differs, then your strategy is gonna be different. Everything from how you write to how you publish, right?

Alexa 6:34

I mean Yeah. And I’d be very wary of anyone who tries to tell you that this is the only way to have success or to do it well, because I’ve worked with tons of different people across all spectrums, and the only right way is the one that gets a good, professionally edited, professionally designed, well-written book into the marketplace. That’s the only right way.

Hybrid Confusion and AI Scams

Joel 6:56

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That’s interesting. So um Well, wouldn’t you agree? Of course I do. Yeah, no, no, I I’m sorry. I I agree, I agree a hundred percent. I um yeah, you want you want to have the you want to put the best product forward, and you definitely want to beware of anybody who who’s offering the the the perfect silver bullet solution because it just doesn’t exist. Everybody’s different, everybody’s goals different. Um I think one question that I’m I’m curious about, and this is you know, this is where the if I’m being honest theme starts to come in, which I know you love, um, as do I, obviously. Uh is what are you what right now, because you I kind of feel like you’re on the pulse. You know, you’re really on the pulse. You talk to so many. What do you what are you hearing right now? What do you think is one of the biggest and most confusing pieces that people are confronting?

Alexa 7:54

So I think we’re finally starting to shift out of this idea that um paying professionals is icky. Because for a long time that was the big battle. Oh no, you shouldn’t have to pay a cent to have your book published. And so for a long time, that’s where I was spending my efforts trying to correct people. I’m like, come on, how silly is that? Even Stephen King pays an agent, pays an editor, like, or like I don’t know if he pays the editor, but somebody pays the editor, right? The traditional publisher goes through all of these things. So why on earth would you think that first-time writer with no experience just is just gonna write this incredible book that Simon and Schuster is gonna want to publish tomorrow? Like it just doesn’t happen that way. So I think we finally moved past this idea that only traditionally published authors are are winning in the space and that um and that you shouldn’t ever work with people. Then we came in uh or pay people to help you along in the process. Then we came into the whole hybrid discussion. This is still pretty uh murky waters because as you and I have discussed, there is no standard. There is a standard, but whether or not it’s not regulated, right? So people can choose to follow the standard or not. And basically anyone can call themselves a hybrid press and they can deliver a variety of different things. So that’s still a big question that people have, and this confusion between vanity presses and hybrid versus boutique publishers and self-publishing assist. Um, so there’s still a lot of with good reason questions around that because that seems to be the gray area where people get scammed the most. So that’s that’s still a big place where we’re navigating through. But now the big thing that’s out there is people are just getting bombarded by AI-generated messages, DMs, emails, phone calls about how they stumbled across their book and they just think it’s amazing and they want to promote it and they’re gonna take them to the next, you know, amazing thing. And the question I must get five times a day through email, social media, or our community is how do I know if this is real? Is this real? Should I trust these people? Should I call back? And the answer is no, it’s never real. It’s no, it’s always, it’s always a scam because the people who have who are really doing a good job don’t have time to track you down. And also, if your book’s only call sold two copies, it’s probably, yeah, right. Okay. So boiling all of that together, Joel, I think the real answer is it’s knowledge. It’s knowledge and education and knowing how to make the best choices. And how do you know what’s real and what’s not real? How do you know who’s going to be a good partner and who’s gonna take your money and run? And those fears are still very prevalent across the board. Uh, and that’s why conferences, communities, podcasts, all of these types of things.

Joel 10:55

The women in publishing summit.

Alexa 10:57

Amen.

Joel 10:58

Mm-hmm.

Alexa 10:58

We accept men too.

Joel 11:00

I’ve I’ve learned this. I’ve learned this.

Alexa 11:03

Yes.

Joel 11:04

So that’s awesome. And um I this is why, I mean, I think you and I have talked about this just in our passing conversations in lines at conferences and other things. But um, there’s something about the book publishing industry, it you know, it reminds me a little bit of the tiny amount of experience I had dabbling with kind of TV film Hollywood stuff. There’s a lot of inflated expectations, and there’s a whole cottage industry of companies and professionals who prey on inflated expectations. Um, so if you’re getting, you know, for example, like the AI queries that you’re talking about, people, I hear them too. Um, people have been, you know, they’re made to feel as if they were special. You’re made to feel as if someone reached out to them and said, Your, your, your movie, your book would make a great movie. I’m gonna, if you pay me $5,000, I’m gonna turn it into a Hollywood treatment and pitch it to my close contacts in the film industry, right? Or um, or even that conversation you talked about with hybrids. There’s a lot of the hybrid publishers who make it sound as if what they’re gonna offer you is much more like a traditional publisher would than is actually true. And so um the best, like you said, the best medicine against inflated expectations is knowledge.

Alexa 12:20

Yeah.

Joel 12:20

And a healthy dose of skepticism.

Alexa 12:22

And a healthy dose of dose of skepticism, but also just recognizing that even the even that what we learned through the whole um court trial and all the things that were happening a couple years ago with the um uh when when uh I can’t remember who was trying to merge and acquire who, but we went through that whole thing. What we learned through through those processes and trials and and and um testimonies, that’s the word I’m looking for, is that even the people at the top of the biggest book companies can’t tell you necessarily what’s gonna be a hit and what’s gonna be a flop. So anybody who guarantees you that you can, your book is gonna be the number one anything, that I would always be wary of that. Now, there’s a lot of ways to help people publish those books and market them and guarantee that they will be some level of success, sure, because there are good uh best practices and and ways to promote and market that can get it out there. But um, I mean, my favorite example is recently every year with the Women in Publishing Summit, we take our um we take our workbook and we turn it into a nice workbook that people can actually just buy off of Amazon because it’s over a hundred pages and people don’t want to blow through their print entire print supply on this. So it’s an option for people. We don’t, we don’t um make the price crazy or anything. It’s just it’s just a a resource for them. Well, this year when we published our book, because it’s gets a lot of traction because we have a number of people in our community, it immediately shot to the top of writing resource books and women in business books, right? I started getting message after message on voicemails. Hey, this is so-and-so from so-and-so place, and we are just so thrilled with how your book is performing. And we think the Women in Publishing Summit book can just be top of the top at the top. And I’m like, okay, if there was any better proof, because who outside of attendees to our conference are going is going to want to buy this book that’s taking notes from the presentations in the conference, right? So I think it’s a perfect example of how people are just out there. They’re not even taking the time to read the description of the book. They’re just seeing books that are out there on Amazon. I think some of them that are doing well, and also probably books that aren’t doing so well, and just going after after those authors to try and make some money off of them.

Joel 15:00

Yep. Yep. That’s right. So, like, like like you said, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. Join, join communities of other writers so that you can vet things. You can say, hey, does this sound fishy? Um do your research, you know, look at the company, go and find out what are the other pubs, have they other published other books? Does it seem like they have a bet, you know, if it smells fishy, it probably is, right? It’s it’s just and in my experience, you can usually, your spidey sensors are usually on as long as you don’t let your inflated expectations um drown out your spidey senses.

Alexa 15:37

So I I agree. You know, I will say there are caveats to that though, right? Because I wound up taking down one of my book, well, two of my books actually, my Ditch the Fear books, off of Amazon because I give them away for free to my entire community. So I have this Ditch the Fear and just Market It book out there, and it had like four reviews on Amazon. It’s a book marketing book that had four reviews on it. And I was like, this is embarrassing. You know, if anybody Googles me and is like, okay, she’s a book marketing expert and has four reviews on her book marketing, but I do, I am truly a legit book marketing expert. I just don’t sell that book to my audience. So I was like, okay, we gotta take this offline. Of course, the downside of publishing on Amazon is that it never goes away. It’s always once published, it’s always there, even if it’s not available. So, you know, I I would say that when you’re doing your research, also recognize every company has a bad day and they’re gonna have some bad reviews. Every company is gonna have some bad reviews at some point in time.

Joel 16:46

Right.

Alexa 16:46

Every, you know, and just because a book doesn’t have a ton of reviews on Amazon does not necessarily mean that that book’s not selling because there’s also or or being reviewed or read or or used by people because there’s also a lot of people that sell most of their books at events or are doing other things. So again, the knowledge, you have to know what you know, ask asking people. That will that will definitely get you um a really good return. Asking people if they’ve ever heard of a service, used a service, worked with a company, what their experience was like, and all those kinds of things. So it can never, there’s so much gray. It’s never black or white. The the truth is somewhere in the middle as if I’m just gonna keep throwing cliches in there.

Joel 17:30

Cliches are great. I love I love cliches.

Alexa 17:33

I love a good cliche too.

Joel 17:36

So uh before I move into the next question, I just want to remind everybody if you’re enjoying this uh conversation with Alexa and you enjoy, if I’m being honest, uh, to please subscribe and follow us on whatever channel you’re in tuning in from. Um also you can rate and review or share this with friends. Uh my mission with this show is similar to what Alexa’s doing with the Women in Publishing Summit and all her ventures. We’re trying to inform people and give them information so that they can uh make better choices. Um and you liking and following us helps with that.

Alexa 18:09

Absolutely, it does. We need reviews on podcasts just as much as authors need reviews on books, and I think people forget that.

What Works in Book Marketing

Joel 18:15

Even if it’s a bad, you know, even if you want to give me a bad review, if you want to say, you know, he rambles on and on, and he doesn’t let the in the guests answer questions correctly. I want to hear it. Um so my next question for you, Alexa, would be you know, you’re you were talking about this, you’ve had a lot of success um with book marketing on your own books and also helping other people. And again, this is kind of an on-the-pulse question. What are you finding right now is working? And I know there’s no one size fits all solution. I know there’s no perfect thing, but what are some of the things that you’re finding right now are working for you and your authors?

Alexa 18:51

Connection with readers. Like people love, people love um connecting on a variety of different ways. So um either generating that real connection through a social media platform or through your email list. And um, and those aren’t new tactics, those are consistent, tried and true. Like people want it, but we’re really curious about people right now, very curious about authentic connections and all those kinds of things. But honestly, Joel, nothing beats just a really good book that people love and want to talk about. Word of mouth marketing is hands down, like how you know, it and that comes from getting in front of readers. And so the the I think a thing that authors don’t want to do is they don’t want to give away their book for free and they don’t want to spend the time finding the people that have built audiences and and have a community of people that love their books, but it is so worth the investment. I don’t want people to think about giving away their book for free. I want people to think about the benefit that comes from having people who love books read that book and review it. Because when you’re a newer author, you don’t have that credibility. When you’re a self-published author, you don’t have the credibility of the big name publisher behind you. You don’t have any of those things. All you have is your work. And so get it into the hands of people that will talk about it, that will that will bring their followers along with them for that ride. But you have to make sure that it’s a book that people love and want to talk about. That’s one piece of it. And the second piece is having a backlist. Like one book is not enough, unless you’re nonfiction in this business book and it’s the staple of your business, blah, blah, blah. There’s all kinds of caveats. But for anybody trying to make a living as a writer, one book is not enough. And so I’ve actually changed my marketing uh philosophy a bit over time. I used to want to have, yeah, if I’m being honest, like this is the thing. Like, I don’t you love how I continue dropping in the name of your podcast into your.

Joel 20:58

I love it. I mean, is it the most clickbaity title? I have no idea, but I sure like it.

Alexa 21:03

But it’s so true. Transparency is so important in our industry as well. But I think it’s also important to realize that if you are in business and you’re in marketing, which we all are, if we’re trying to sell a book, which is a product, you have to recognize that things change and shift and trends change. And we don’t want to be trend chasers, but we do have to know what’s working and what’s not working and recognize if we’re trying to implement a system that’s not producing results, we have to understand why and we have to tweak it until it does work. And so back in the day, I used to think that that it was every author should spend, you know, a year building their platform and doing all the things and building this huge ARC team. And and that is true for authors who are gonna have a one and done, or it’s gonna be years before their next book comes out, or you know, that’s yeah. One and done says it. I don’t need to repeat that again. But totally. That’s true for those types of authors. If you want to have a successful launch where you sell a lot of books, you have to spend the time building that audience. But for everybody else who’s planning, who wants to be a fiction writer and wants to create a living as a writer, I’m more and more on board with the right books one, two, and three, at least get almost done with three before you I wouldn’t necessarily say before you publish one of them, but if you can write so that when you are publishing those, you publish fairly quickly your series and put all your big marketing efforts into the third, fourth, or fifth book. Then when you’re pushing that book, they come back and they find one, two, three, four. And that’s that’s the way that you start making more money as a writer and an author. And um, you know, it’s it is a volume thing. It is totally a volume thing, volume thing when it comes to being it, earning a living as a writer. But then we have to go all the way back to where this conversation started and say, is that what you’re trying to do? Because if you just want to write a really good novel that you’re proud of, spend your time writing a really good novel that you’re proud of. Take the time to build a base and to promote it and to get people to talk about it and advanced readers and reviewers and all those types of things, you have to do it. Because I guarantee you, I guarantee you this will happen. And I know this from 12 years of working with authors, at launch day, if you didn’t do the work and you’re not prepared and you don’t see sales, you’re gonna be sad no matter what you told yourself. No matter what you told yourself, if you said I’m only publishing this because I want to, and blah, blah, blah, you’re gonna be sad that you didn’t sell more than five books.

Joel 23:48

Yeah. No, that’s true. That’s true.

Alexa 23:50

I just went on a really big No, that’s good.

Quality Editing and Letting Go

Joel 23:53

No, but I I like it. And you talked about a lot of things. And and one thing I wanted to kind of pick up on and tell a little story about um is that point about, you know, all you can do all the things you’re saying. You can write the multiple books, you can connect directly with the readers, but please make sure that you don’t uh skip over having a really great book. Yes. And what I love about that is that that puts the that’s something that you can do that’s in your that’s in your hands. And in a way that some of those other things are a little bit not, right? I mean, it’s connecting with readers and writing some of the marketing stuff can feel everybody can do it, but it takes time. Right. Right? It and and it’s a little out of your control, even though you can still grow in it. But writing that book, that’s that’s yours. That’s your baby. That’s you, you get to do that. Um, and you don’t want to cut those corners.

Alexa 24:42

But you have to also let go of the personal connection. And um, my my next book marketing book is actually called It’s Not About You, because it’s it’s not, it’s not about you, it’s about the reader. And you have to be willing to let go of those intense like connections to your words, to all those types of things, and listen to the experts and take the feedback that your beta readers and that your developmental editor and that your copyright editor and all those people, they’re experts and they’re trained and they know they’re not, there’s no skin in the game for being mean to you, right? It’s all about trying to make the book as good as possible. And I’ve seen that with a few authors. They’ve been so connected to their words or taken any kind of feedback so personally that that has that has stopped them from taking a good story and making it a great book. And that’s a shame. I interviewed um JD Barker, who I don’t know if you if you know his name or not. He is a um a thriller horror writer and he co-authors with James Patterson. And um, we were having this conversation about this topic, like whether what is volume more important than quality? And he said he took a very long time writing his first book because you only get one first impression. So there’s kind of two fields of thought out there. There’s the people who are like, you’re gonna get better as a writer, just put out your first book and then you know, get better as a writer and keep going. Eh, that works if you’re a high volume writer, but it doesn’t necessarily work if you’re trying to get out the gate right away with a good book that’s going to build a stable career for you. And his thought process was, I’m gonna put all my eggs in the basket of making this such a good book as it goes out, um, that that there won’t be anybody giving it a negative review because it should have been proofread one more time or whatever. And he was right, and that led to uh a collaboration with Stephen King. So, you know, I mean, take take it. If you want to be an author as a profession, take it seriously. Yeah. You would not try to be a nurse without going to nursing school.

Joel 26:54

Yes.

Alexa 26:55

I really hope.

Joel 26:56

No, I agree. I I was recently talking to someone I met at a conference uh who’s who has a book and really exciting, and the book sounded really interesting, and that, you know, it seemed like the kind of thing that, if done correctly, you know, could gain some serious traction. And they came to me and they were talking about all kinds of publishing options, and they needed help with editing and publishing and then also marketing. And and, you know, we kind of had some conversations and I threw some things together, and they decided that they wanted to uh not skip over all the editing. They decided, you know what? I’m gonna save it. The audible gasp.

Alexa 27:30

Yeah, that was a clutch your pearls moment. I know.

Joel 27:33

They said, I’m gonna save money by not doing the editing. It’s it’s pretty good, it’s fine. Even though I had taken a look and I like to be honest, I said, Yeah, this is you’re right, it’s clean, but it definitely needs an edit. Every book needs an edit. And then also, you know, wanted to hire one of these discount companies to do like a McDonald’s version of their publishing. No offense to McDonald’s if you’re a McDonald’s fan, but you know, really cheap, cut and corners, probably, you know, $50 cover design, that kind of thing, right? And then came to me and said, Yeah, but I would love, I would love for you to market this book. Can you market this book? And I remember and I and and I and the conversation went cold. I was I I said, look, I can’t market something if you’re not willing to invest in the product. And you know, I I I just don’t even I didn’t even feel comfortable doing it because it it just was so it just felt like I would be taking some somebody’s money to do something that I perceived to be more or less impossible. Um Yeah.

Alexa 28:34

I just want to say that I don’t say these things based on um some elitist like I’m better than you kind of um it’s based out of my own experience. I am here to tell you. I have taken the shortcuts. Uh and and part of it was because of budget for real. I understand, I totally understand what it’s like to be in that position. When I when I self-published my first book, I had three small children at home. We’d gone from two incomes to one income, but I still paid for, I still paid for an editor in 2020 or 13, when whenever it was, end of 2020 twelve, I figured out how to do a Kickstarter back then. Like it was a different, it wasn’t a Kickstarter, it was a um indie go-go or some kind of some kind of crowdfunding thing. And I raised just enough money to pay for editing. And it was it was not the best edit because I only had twelve hundred dollars. So, but like we moved through really fast. The cover design was a hot mess. Um, it it was bad. And I wound up having to go back and redo all of those things. And, you know, so when we’re talking about like advice on the things, slow down, slow down and figure out how we can all find some money. And here’s the part that’s going to have your audience booing me. If you can’t find the money, then this might not be the right route for you right now.

Joel 30:01

Yep.

Alexa 30:02

But there are inexpensive ways to do it too. It just takes longer. Join a writing critique group and get that feedback, work with really good um beta readers and and just take some. There’s free classes on writing craft and all those kinds of things. You can do it to help yourself get there, but you have to be willing to invest the money again if you’re trying to make a living as an author. So I see lots of people all the time, like, my book’s not selling. What can I do? Well, have you done this, this, and this? And you’ll get this whole laundry list of excuses, or it’s like, you know, um, your cover looks like, you know, not good. I don’t say the thoughts that I’m actually happening, but now I’ve I’ve learned how to, I’m a Gen X Sagittarius. So let me tell you, sometimes it’s really hard for me to I’m also a Gen X Sagittarius. Imagine you are not. When’s your birthday?

Joel 30:55

December 19th.

Alexa 30:56

I thought you were gonna say December 9th, and I was gonna be like, shut up, because I’m December 9th. Yay! Awesome. So anyway, I’ve learned how to say it nicely, and that is, you know, uh, now I’m like, can you just go spend some time looking at other covers that are on books in your genre that are doing really well and tell me what you like about those and how it compares to your book and try to get them to see what I’m talking about. Because if you just come out and you say, Oh my gosh, that looks like a five-year-old did your cover, doesn’t always go over very well. But those types of things you can you can you can do these things, you can learn how to do them, but you’ve you’ve got to. If you want to make a living as an author, you have to put out a good product. And think about it. Like if you went on to Amazon and you wanted to buy a new, I don’t know, what’s something I’ve bought recently, a new shirt. Okay. And all the reviews were, it said it was this size, but it’s way bigger than that, or it’s too small, or the color’s not accurate in the in the picture, or the description didn’t have anything to do with what the book was. That’s what happens when a person goes to buy your book on Amazon and they get something that doesn’t live up to it. Like, you know, the cover looked like it was a thriller, and I wound up reading a you know, sweet romance. This doesn’t make sense. What’s happening, you know?

Business Versus Hobby Publishing

Joel 32:13

Right. Yeah, no, you you really, you really can’t, you know, we we call it you can’t steal first base, right? No. That’s the first thing you gotta do. And the and the the good news is that it’s you know it’s under your control. But like you said, that isn’t for everybody. You know, I I think then we even Sadie and I even did a a little video on this at one point because we realized it was important to help people understand this right up front. You either have to approach it like a business, right? If you if you’re gonna if you’re gonna get started on this, if you want to may maybe not make a living, but at least have it be a a a side hustle that doesn’t cost you money, right? In the long run. You gotta treat it like a business, and that takes a tremendous amount of time and effort and investment and all that kind of stuff. If you don’t want to do that, and a lot of people don’t, that’s okay. But then you then it then it becomes a hobby and you just have to decide how much you’re gonna spend on your hobby. And I meet people all the time who decide that they don’t want to spend a lot on their hobby, and they’re fine just to have the book out there. They don’t need it to be super fancy or anything, they just want it to be done and they’re willing to, and they don’t need to pay that much money, right? And there’s some people who have some extra money to spend on something, and even though they don’t want to turn it into a huge success, they do want it to be beautiful and something they’re proud of, and that you know, it might sell a few hundred copies, that kind of thing. And so they’ll they’re willing to invest the money. Um, but you kind of have to think about it one or the other, right? And then that’s gonna help you figure out what kind of investment strategy you might have.

Alexa 33:41

And here’s one thing that a lot of people forget all about. There are so many small and medium-sized traditional publishing companies that don’t require an agent that you can submit directly to those folks. And so if you truly don’t have a budget for all the things or don’t want to do your own self-publishing budget, go out and start looking for those smaller publishers and you can find them on different, I mean, all over the place. There’s lots of ways, uh, publisher, marketplace, all kinds, all kinds of stuff. But um, you know, that is that is an option. But the thing is, it better be polished. So you’re still gonna have to pay for editing because guess what? They get a bajillion submissions. So if your first page doesn’t hook them, these aren’t just gimmicky tactics that agents talk about in the webinars. It is the truth. Like you have to have something that grabs them and is and is clean. Because if it’s not, you get that one page. And if that one page doesn’t impress them, it goes in the slush pile. It goes in the I’ll never look at this again pile. So, I mean, there are options. And you know, again, we circle it all back to the knowledge base. Like you have to be aware of the options and know what you’re trying to do. And then, of course, if you want to be the hobbyist, that’s fantastic. I wrote I that one, this one, Four Days in Paris, my first novel. I wrote not because I really ever was intending on selling a whole bunch of books. I wrote it during COVID. I wrote it when I was going through a divorce, and I really wanted a happily ever after. So I went back to a point in my life that was super happy, and I would just, and I, and I wrote a story about it. And then I started a series because I loved doing it so much. But I did it the right way, even though I wasn’t trying, I it’s got a fantastic cover. It’s formatted professionally, it’s been edited and edited and edited, and we still have mistakes in it that you find that does happen too. Um, but you know, the even as just a hobby, I still wanted it to be as professional as possible because I’m an expert in this industry. Like, you know, I can’t have I can’t, I can’t not do that and then be like, oh, this is what you gotta do. But you know, I don’t know. I guess that’s enough of my soapbox. I at the end of the day, soapboxes are good.

Joel 36:04

This is a soapbox show. But books are we want we want the unfiltered truth based on the experience.

Alexa 36:10

Books are books are so important though. They are such a critical part of everything, of education, of uh, I mean, of knowledge of of all the things, like whether it’s a no matter what the genre, no matter what the reason for writing the book, like they’re really important. And what I want to make sure is that people know how to choose the best path and to make the best choices in getting whatever it is they want from writing and publishing that book. So, you know, that’s at the end of the day, that’s that’s what that’s that’s what it’s about for me. So that’s why I get so passionate about it because I know that writing saved my life twice in two different periods, you know. So it’s it’s very personal to me. My my imprint is literally named after my daughter who passed away. So it’s it’s very personal to me.

Women in Publishing Summit Explained

Joel 37:09

Well, um, so I I I think you know, thank you, Alexa. It’s been a wonderful conversation, as I expected it would be. Um and I think the the last thing I’d like to ask you is just talk a little bit more about the Women in Publishing Summit, um, what it is, who it’s for, what people get out of it, why you s why you did it. I’d just love to for people who don’t know to learn more about it.

Alexa 37:32

Well, thank you. Um so we are going into our 10th year. We just had our ninth annual Women in Publishing Summit. It’s always in March in Women’s History Month. And just a little bit, a tiny bit of background on why I started it back in 2017 was because I was attending a lot of virtual conferences for writers and I wasn’t seeing a lot of women being represented in the panels or the or the um individual presentations. There, and if there, if there was a woman, she was white. And I was like, this is really unfortunate because I’m working with all these very diverse women all the time who are doing these amazing things, and you know, and uh I eventually decided to create an a platform for bringing forth women’s and marginalized voices so that we can celebrate and honor the achievements that are happening in that and at the same time learn from each other and and build networks. So collaboration has always been an important focus for me. But over the years, I realized it wasn’t in the beginning, it started more as a teaching for authors. And what we’ve evolved to in time is a community for authors and publishing professionals. Because when we all come together into the same mixing bowl, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when you get the knowledge because you can ask multiple people, do you know about this type? What have you heard about this? You’re not getting just one person’s specific answer or guidelines. We introduce our community to companies that we know like trust like your company, like launch my book and bring in people and have the opportunity for them to have just conversations about what their company does, who they do it for. So there’s a lot of value in networking and learning from each other, in being able to support each other. But that’s really what it is. It’s this is not an easy, an easy route. Like just writing a book is hard, but then trying to figure out how to publish it and how to market it, how to grow a business in the publishing industry, it’s all very hard isolating things. So the more that we can do to not have people isolated, the better. So um we’re just talking through our intentions for our 10-year anniversary. And I think what we’re going to do is have um bring back all of our favorite presenters from the last nine, 10 years. Um, bring back, hopefully, we’re gonna invite some of the bigger power names that have been part of it from the last time and have a how I made it kind of theme.

Joel 40:08

Oh, I like that.

Alexa 40:09

Yeah, so that people can really see, like now you see this person as, you know, selling all these books and on all these TV, you know, commercials, not commercials, I don’t even know what all these podcasts, all these whatever, but how they got there so that people understand that it’s never an overnight success. There’s a lot that goes into it. And then being able to pair off with other people and and um, you know, work on building those relationships and collaborations. So that’s what it is. That’s super cool. I love that. And we have more than just the annual event, we have monthly webinars. We have um now we have WIP Society, which is a membership program that has every week. We have multiple activities so that you can hop in Zoom and have live interactions with people, get questions answered and support, and really focused around helping people build a product that is very professional when they’re writing those books or when they’re growing their publishing. Um, so you know, editors, graphic designers, you’re all welcome, um, publishers and all of that. And um, and really creating that year-round, day round, because you don’t just go to a conference and then, well, you do a lot of times. You go to a conference and you get a lot of information and then you have to figure out how to make it happen. And that’s what we’re really trying to do is create that environment where it’s not just download of tons of information and then leave and see you next year. You know, how can we, how can we keep working throughout the year? There’s free events, there’s paid events. We just had an in-person conference, which was a freaking blast. Loved every minute of it. Um, there’s a podcast, there’s there’s all kinds of ways on all kinds of budgets to um to learn. And of course, you should always check out our sponsors page because our companies that we have curated specifically because of the good work that they do in the industry um all have uh discounts and um and and and things for our attendees as well.

Joel 42:08

Our community. So, yeah, so I encourage everybody. I I I can vouch for everything that Alexa just said. Uh, everybody go check out the Women in Publishing Summit. It’s free to sign up, right? I mean, you can just isn’t it?

Alexa 42:20

It’s free to sign up for like uh the webinars and uh to get on our newsletter and all that kind of stuff. And you know, I must say thank you so much to Joel and to launch my book because you guys have been two years in a row sponsors, and we really we we appreciate the sponsorship really does help us keep prices low so that people can save their money for all those key things that they need to be doing, like editing and working with professionals, um, and and continue with the free events that we do all year round. So thank you very much for your support through that.

Joel 42:53

Of course, of course. We love it, we love it. Thank and thanks for having us. So, yeah, um, thanks again for a great conversation. Again, this has been uh uh if I’m being honest, and this is uh Alexa Bigwarfe, and uh uh thanks for taking the time today.

Alexa 43:09

Thank you. This was great.