Episode 23
===
[00:00:00] Transcription by ESO. Translation by
Welcome back to the Women in Writing podcast. This week, I have Lindsay on my podcast. She works for HCI Books. She's a PR and marketing coordinator. And if you want to get published the traditional route, you should definitely listen to this podcast episode.
All right. Welcome to another wonderful podcast episode of women in writing. And today we have the wonderful Lindsay talking to me. Hello, Lindsay. How are you today? I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Christina. I'm excited to have you on. We chatted we started chatting a couple of weeks ago and I think it's really exciting what you're doing.
Do you want to share with everyone what your position is and what you're doing exactly? Sure. I am the [00:01:00] PR and marketing coordinator for HCI Books, which is also known as Health Communications, Inc. And in my role, I plan and manage all of the marketing and publicity campaigns for HCI Books. So this involves, helping authors with securing media interviews with their social media doing things like advertising.
working on Amazon A plus content. So a variety of different things related to all the books that HCI publishes. I'm the primary contact for all the authors who are working with HCI for, marketing and publicity purposes. And yeah, I really enjoy working with all the authors and learning about all the new topics that they're writing about.
So basically you are you have a marketing background, sorry. And You don't do the marketing for the company itself. It's really the authors that you focus in, right? So we do [00:02:00] some marketing for HCI as a whole but as far as my day to day, it's more, promoting the individual books that we have that we're publishing.
So if an author is publishing through HCI Books, they'll get to work with me on marketing and publicity. And some of the things I'm doing are things that HCI does for the books. And then other things are, working with authors that have different platforms like social media, or maybe they have an email mailing list, or they're doing a lot of speaking engagements.
Just helping them utilize their platforms as well. So it's basically a lot of digital marketing, I would say. We do digital marketing. We do traditional publicity. So like setting up author interviews we have authors who are on radio, TV, podcasts like your podcast here.
We have we do things like Amazon ads. So it's a variety of different things. Also we have a lot of authors that utilize social media, so helping them get graphics and different things that they can [00:03:00] use to promote their book online. That's really interesting. You can send them all my way. I can interview all of them, but is it question, do they also do their own copywriting?
Because I would see, or like what I see a lot in the market is. First of all, it's difficult to do copywriting for yourself. And obviously copywriting is so much different from writing the book, right? Or do you have people that do that for them? Great question. So as far as the copywriting goes what usually happens is we have two editors on staff that they actually write the marketing copy that goes along with the book.
And I know that they utilize things like, if the author has like a book proposal or a manuscript that comes in, so I know they, they utilize tools from the author. But that actually like that first draft gets written by the editorial department. Although the authors obviously review it and, provide their feedback as well.[00:04:00]
That makes so much sense. So you have like editors that like in house or do they work on a freelance basis or how is that? Yeah, the the two edit, we have a editorial director and then we have an editor. Both are in house full time employees of Health Communications, Inc., HCI Books.
And I don't know too much about the editorial process just because I'm not in editorial. But I do know that they use, freelancers for things like copy editing, proofreading. But the editors themselves are actually doing a lot of editing of the book. And then they're also as I mentioned, writing the marketing copy.
That's really interesting because some of my clients, they're also working now with some of the people that were on my podcast, which is like interesting, like how like the network comes together. And it's just so beneficial. Because, it's great to have in house people, but I feel like for a lot of companies, it's also beneficial kind of like from an, cost point of view to [00:05:00] have like freelancers on their team.
Yeah. I know that a lot of and I'm not sure like HCI is a small company, so I don't know what, other publishers do. There might be other publishers hire, freelance copywriters. I'm just talking about HCI's process. But HCI is a small publisher. But I do know that a lot of companies utilize freelancers for things like marketing copy.
Absolutely. Nice. That's really cool. So what is the company basically all offering? Is it like a package or is it like different for every author or how is it? So HCI Books is a traditional book publisher. We focus on self help books and then also other kinds of like lifestyle books.
Nice. So authors submit proposals to the publisher directly through a submissions process, which is actually detailed. on hcibooks. com, which is our website. Nice. So if an author is interested in being published through HCI they could [00:06:00] submit their proposal through that process. Or if they have a literary agent, which we do get a lot of projects that come in through literary agent then the literary agent would be submitting the process proposal to be considered.
on the author's behalf. So HCI typically publishes around 17 books per year. As I mentioned, it's a small publisher based out of Boca Raton, Florida. We have a distribution arrangement with Simon Schuster. And when an author so if an author's proposal gets accepted, By HCI books to be published, then they would go work with one of the editors I mentioned, and that person would, work with them on the editorial process.
We have an art director who helps with getting the book pages formatted, you know how it looks in the actual book, as opposed to in a Word or Google Doc. And then we also have the art director design some cover. And then once the book's, ready for printing, they, they [00:07:00] send it off for printing.
That's so cool. That's so interesting. And it's it doesn't have anything to do with self publishing, right? So you are a traditional publisher then? Yeah, exactly. There are book authors who self publish, but HCI Books is a traditional publisher, we're not self publishing. I will because I have so many people like in my bigger Facebook group and the community and people that love to write about mental health, I will pop your link there and they can go through the editorial process and maybe apply, because I think like that's brilliant and it's brilliant that you have that niche.
I was looking at your Books here as well. And it's so interesting. Like the new. Releases, but like also the classics, like the sleep easy solution. That's perfect. That's exactly what we need for our little one right now. Yeah, they have, there's a lot of great books. HCI is the publisher of a child called it, which a lot of.
People have heard [00:08:00] of yeah, the sleep easy solution. There's all sorts of different books, but a lot of them focus on, self help or lifestyle, things like the sleep easy solution that would help like a new parent. That's so cool. So how did you start your journey then in marketing?
Like, how was it for you to start out from. School to get into, was it like marketing that you went in first or how was that for you? So I was always really interested in reading and book publishing. So like when I was a child, actually my father, he was in business, but he was also a textbook and reference book author.
So I grew up, around him writing his books. So I was always familiar with process and just found it really interesting. So I knew I wanted to work in book publishing when I, became old enough to get a, have a career. So I eventually received a communications degree and a journalism minor from Northeastern university, which is in Boston, [00:09:00] Massachusetts.
And I was able to obtain an editorial assistant position at a book publisher in Boston. So that was a really great experience. And then from there, I was, I gained experience in marketing and publicity in other book publishers. And today I have about 15 years of experience in book publishing. And I really love working on books.
It's always so interesting. You're always learning about new topics and meeting interesting people and just a really good field. That is so cool. But you never published a book yourself, right? No, just my dad. Is he still doing that or? No he hasn't, his last book was 2015. He actually, unfortunately passed away too.
So he's not here anymore. So sorry. Yeah, thank you. But he, I think his last book was in 2015. So it's been a while. But it's like a great legacy that he left, right? Yeah, it was actually interesting he started writing so long [00:10:00] ago that it was before the computer was available so my mom actually typed his first book on a, like a, a typewriter.
Wow, that's so crazy. So he was, like, writing per hand, and she was then typing it, or Exactly, yeah, so my mom typed the first book on a typewriter for him. Oh my god, I remember. I remember. So I grew up in our family business, which my great grandfather founded in 1892 in Germany, which is obviously super long ago.
And when I grew up, like we still had typewriters and stuff around. They didn't use them anymore so much, but I think it was just because my dad can never throw anything away and obviously they're super cool. I wish we would still have them. I think like he threw them all out, but I think it's such a cool like nostalgic item to have.
Yeah, it is. It is interesting to think about how, how far along things have progressed. Exactly. And so quick as well. I just we just talked like in my [00:11:00] coaching group, we just talked about digital marketing because we have a special training now for copywriters. And I just think it's so interesting.
Like I worked in digital marketing a few years ago as well for a company based out of New York. And. It's just so interesting like how it all works like the whole world and everything is changing so fast as well with the copywriting and everything gets shorter and more precise just knowing your audience and stuff.
I think it's just really interesting like how fast everything changes. Absolutely. So what are the changes that you experience over the last couple of years being in that industry for so long. So one thing is I know you brought up self publishing earlier. I definitely, there's the more options for authors, so years ago, traditional publishing was how most, Books were published.
But obviously now authors can self publish too. So there's just a lot more books available, for purchase everywhere. So I'd say that there's [00:12:00] just like a lot of more books. And then also what that does is there's a lot more competition as far as like book sales go. That makes sense. It's easier for an author to.
Publish a book now because, they could decide that they want to self publish, whereas others still do traditional publishing and, traditional publishing is obviously still really big on the forefront of. Book publishing. But I do, I sometimes have the feeling too, that a lot of authors would love to get published traditionally, but they like, cannot get a publisher to publish them, and that's why they go this self-publishing route.
Yeah, there's definitely, it's very challenging to get picked up by a traditional publisher. To your point, it's very competitive and so few books get selected. So there are a lot of people who are self publishing for that reason. But then also I think are a lot of people that like to be in control of their work.
So maybe they'll choose self publishing because they want to have full creative control over. [00:13:00] The book, whether it's, deciding on the cover or, being able to have it come out as soon as they want it to come out as opposed to That makes sense. Waiting to like, the publisher has it in the schedule and different thing, but definitely, that's one thing that's changed a lot.
The other thing that's changed a lot is that like book awareness and sales are generated a lot more now through like through digital discovery and social media, uh, traditional publishers who have budgets or, marketing and publicity resources like myself still do things like, the traditional book publicity, which is, all the TV interviews and the podcasts you, reaching out to news outlets, different things like that.
That's amazing. And then also the classic PR element work as well. Yeah. So what is the percentage of like people that apply? At your company versus the people that get really published through HCI then that's a good [00:14:00] question. I'm not sure just because I'm not in the editorial group.
I'm not sure how many submissions that they get from either an agent or through, just through the education. The application process that I mentioned, which is on the website. As I mentioned, 17 books get picked up per year. So I, I'm sure they get a lot more than that in submissions.
But that is interesting. I would be curious to know that too, but since I'm not in that department, I don't know. Wow. I didn't want to interrupt you earlier. Was there anything you wanted to add? No, I was just saying that as far as digital discovery and social media have become really more important in, the book awareness and sales aspect as far as, traditional things that, publishers obviously still do, like publicity outreach and like setting up author events and advertising but just, the idea of social media has become a lot more important.
Oh, a hundred percent. That's so interesting. And then obviously you have a lot of metrics and data to look at then as [00:15:00] well and tweak the strategy and all of that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Social media when you're doing advertising, like if you're doing like Amazon ads or if you're doing social media ads, absolutely there's more metrics that you can use.
And there's different tools that we have that we use internally to tell if something is working. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Amazing. That's so interesting. So the key question, like, how did AI change the kind of like publishing world as well? So I think it's still really unknown how AI will change the book publishing industry in the future.
For marketing and publicity purposes, I've used it for more like things like brainstorming ideas for publicity and marketing. I've used it if I have a book that's on a specific topic, I might use it to brainstorm some hashtags that we could use on social media. So I've been using it for more a lot of research and ideas.
Yeah. I definitely think it will be [00:16:00] really interesting to see, moving forward, how it will, continue to evolve. Implement itself and change the book publishing industry. I'm, personally exploring more ways that we can use it for marketing and publicity activities. I know that editorial, doesn't really, obviously they're looking for, proposals that are written by the author, not through AI.
And they actually haven't really had too many come in that are. Written by AI, so that is an issue. Because people pick up on that so quickly now I feel like it's just crazy. There's not really such a thing as yet, at least having your text really AI generated and then do well and perform well and, just very generic. I had that conversation with one of my other podcast guests and yeah, it's just really, the human edges like missing. Absolutely. Definitely. So what would be your number one tip for all the writers out there to become successful? [00:17:00] Or you can like also tell them like a couple of tips, like when they want to get published, for you, it's mental health, obviously, but like health in general.
But what would be your tip for them to really get out there and be successful? So for any writers who are looking to, become a published author I think my biggest tip would be to work on building an author platform. Yeah. And the author platform is the idea of like your visibility and a lot of this is online now of, of you as the writer and kind of having expertise in your niche.
So some examples building your author platform could be, developing like a social media following in your niche. Maybe you want to start and grow an email list. You might want to do some type of speaking engagements related to, especially if you're like an expert in a subject, you might want to do some speaking engagements, which would lend itself well to the idea of [00:18:00] if you did have a book come out that you could like.
Potentially sell books at the events. But just the idea of, developing your author platform. It would be my biggest tip for anyone who's interested in becoming a published author. And that makes you more attractive and increases your chances of finding a traditional publisher.
But also is a great tool, like if you did self publish, you then have some marketing avenues already built, where you have places where you can tout your book to try to get feels like you already have a social media following, or you could send out some notices to your email list that you've been working on building.
That would be my biggest tip. So do you think that like the people that come into your world and like work with you, do they have a huge following already, or is it like most people that kind of like start from scratch or it really depends, but most of the. Proposals that HCI publishes do have some kind of a following [00:19:00] on, it might not be a following in all areas so they might not have a social media following plus speaking engagement following but some type of, they do usually have avenues for.
Getting the word out to their list or either a list, or maybe they do a lot of speaking. So they are, HCI does look for that when they're selecting authors. That's amazing. And is there like one platform that performs the best for the authors or is it for some, maybe LinkedIn for some, maybe Instagram or like, how is that, is it like different, like for.
Like in terms of what they try to do or like the topic or yeah it's definitely based on the topic. I would say so as an example, um, tick tock has been become really in a book talk in particular has become really popular. For, romance fantasy, more like YA topics.
Whereas, [00:20:00] something that's, if you're writing like a reference book for professionals, like LinkedIn obviously would be a better place to build your following. If you're doing like a children's book or some type of like highly visual book, Instagram might be a good place. So definitely as a writer, if you have a expertise or like an area you want to build in, you want to think about like, where's that audience?
Are they on Facebook or are they on Twitter? And you can even just having one social media account that you're you're building, or if you could do a few as we all know, social media takes a long time to manage. I would just try to maybe pick two that you think would be, have the most impact based on where your audience is.
But the idea is really to figure out like where's your audience and then, build a following on that place. That makes so much sense. Like one of the ladies that was on my podcast as well a couple of weeks ago, like she started to stumble upon a really great niche in freelancing and that's like writing wedding [00:21:00] speeches.
And that's amazing. Like a lot of her clients come from TikTok actually, but it's all things you have to discover, because it's so niche. And obviously a lot of young brides and grooms are on TikTok. And then four days before the wedding, they say, Oh, we need a speech. Can we just book your last minute package and something?
And I think it definitely works out wherever you focus on. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great topic. Yeah, that's a good example of somebody like, if she, wedding is her area, she would want to build some type of author platform around the idea of the weddings and the wedding speeches and That would increase her chances of being able to maybe write a wedding book for a traditional publisher, or if not at least, if she gets, if she self publishes, she has those accounts, the TikTok account you're talking about that she has, different places where she can go and, market the book herself.
Yeah, exactly. There's so many. And I think that's what [00:22:00] a lot of people say is that kind of like a book can really elevate what you're doing anyways, right? Or are they like people that just start with a book and then build their career? around that? Or maybe it's just a dream that they always had like they always wanted to publish a book and that's what they're doing with you?
Or is it really to elevate their brand and their career? I'd say that most of the books that I've, I've been with HCI for about three years. I'd say that most of the books that I've worked on at HCI have been books that the author already has the expertise. So like they might have a It's a type of a business or they might have like a, have a doctorate in an area and be like, be a freelance writer and published, widely in different places.
So most of the books that I can think of from HCI the author already had some type of a platform and was, publishing the book as like a next step of. And then [00:23:00] obviously they can sell the book and, through the different things that they're doing. Like maybe they're doing speaking or or they're they have a, some type of a blog online or different ways to work it into what they're doing.
There, there are obviously, especially with self publishing, I would think that there's a lot more authors who are just publishing just to write a book. I think it would depend too on The subject a fiction book somebody might just write a fiction book for fun whereas more of the nonfiction that I'm working with, is more, people who are, in some type of a field where they're sharing expertise.
Yeah, that's so interesting. And that's actually like most people also like that. I talked to on the podcast, like they're focusing on nonfiction as well, especially like from a kind of like company perspective as well, like it makes so much sense or like just building that brand. I also talked to a wonderful lady that published that will publish her third book out of her, fiction series and [00:24:00] that's great as well. I think it's all like where you put your effort and right. Yeah, absolutely. And that's great that she has like a whole series. It's in, a lot of the authors we work with there, they have. The book also ties in with some type of maybe like a business that they're doing or they might have a life mission where they're, as an example, maybe like they are an advocate for something.
And so they're doing the book is related to that. So there's a lot of purpose and heart and what they're publishing. Exactly. I think that's so interesting. But yeah, thank you so much for the wonderful conversation. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed that. And I actually have I will share it in my group and I have also like a lady in mind.
She's in my like she's one of my students and she wrote, she's writing her third children's book now and she will publish it as well, like an amazing series. But she's also like an amazing writer and I [00:25:00] know that she wants to write a self help book. She has a blog as well. So I'll definitely send her your company's link as well.
Oh, great. Thank you so much. Yeah. And I can send you the actual link to the submission guidelines. That would be cool. Yeah. Please do that. And you said you, you can find it on the website as well. So I can pop the link below the podcast, right? Yep. Absolutely. Hcibooks. com is the website. Okay. And where do we find the submission guidelines?
I believe it's right on the homepage, actually. I will check it out. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was such a good conversation. And yeah. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful rest of your day. You too. Thanks so much.
That was such an amazing episode. So many nuggets of wisdom. So definitely, if you want to be one of the writers that gets published, like, and really [00:26:00] grow your career then definitely, definitely check out the links below. And podcast. If you have any questions, just write me an email under hello at with Christina.
com. So excited to hear from you.
Transcription by ESO. Translation by
