Publish & Prosper

Matt Briel & Lauren Vassallo

Where publishing, ecommerce, and marketing collide. Brought to you by Lulu.com.

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Top 10 Publish & Prosper Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Publish & Prosper episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Publish & Prosper for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Publish & Prosper episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

What is Print-on-Demand?

Publish & Prosper

01/10/24 • 44 min

Lulu.com is a print-on-demand self-publishing company. But what exactly is print-on-demand? And why is it such a popular business model?
In this episode, Matt & Lauren explore the environmentally-friendly, budget-conscious benefits of print-on-demand. We also answer a few FAQs about POD, including why it takes a little extra time to receive your book, what you can expect from the book’s production quality, and whether or not print-on-demand is more expensive than offset printing. Listen now to discover why print-on-demand is the future of publishing!
Dive Deeper

💡Watch These Videos

The Life of A Book (our favorite video on how a book is printed, bound, and shipped)
5 Things to Know About Print-on-Demand

💡 Read These Blog Posts

Learn How A Book is Made
See 5 Visual Indicators Your Book is Self-Published
Read More About Print-on-Demand

💡 Visit PrintonDemand.com

💡 Check Our Glossary of Publishing Terms
Sound Bites From This Episode
🎙️ [13:56] “But at the end of the day, when you factor all your costs in, your time spent doing things, what you have to put out upfront versus what you can pay on the back end later, and some of that other math, when you start adding those things up, in most cases, for most people, self-publishing with print on demand is usually the more budget-friendly and cost-conscious way to go.”

🎙️ [22:12] “Most places that utilize a print on demand process, digital printing of some sort, can provide you, upon request in most cases, a lot of the different things they do that contribute to a much better, and much more sustainable carbon footprint...I think when we talk about us as creators making conscious decisions to do certain things on certain processes, we really should think about that.”

🎙️ [32:38] “There is a reversal of that quality spectrum that's been happening over the last eight to ten years...I would definitely say that the quality of print on demand books is lightyears better now than it was ten to fifteen years ago.”

💀 Can’t wait for our next episode? Check out our Resources page for links to our blog,
our YouTube channel, and more.
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Your 7-Step Guide to Building an Online Bookstore

Publish & Prosper

06/26/24 • 52 min

In this episode Lauren & Matt talk through the 7 essential steps to building your own online bookstore. From choosing the right platform to launching your site, we’ll cover everything you need to know to sell your self-published books directly to your readers.
Dive Deeper

💡 Step 1:

Shopify
- Learn More About Selling Your Book With Shopify and Lulu Direct
WooCommerce
- Learn More About Selling Your Book With WooCommerce and Lulu Direct
Wix
- Learn More About Selling Your Book With Wix and Lulu Direct
Squarespace

💡 Step 2:

Shopify | How to Choose the Best Domain Name in 2024

💡 Step 3:

Lulu Blog | What Is an Author Brand and Why Does It Matter?

💡 Step 4:

Lulu Blog | Customer Service and Your Ecommerce Business

💡 Step 6:

Lulu U Playlist | Lulu Direct for Shopify
Lulu U Playlist | Lulu Direct for WooCommerce
Lulu U Playlist | Lulu Direct for Wix
Influencer Marketing Hub | Top 14 eCommerce Plugins to Power Your eCommerce Site in 2024

💡 Step 7:

Lulu Blog | Can’t-Miss Tips for Building a Better Ecommerce Store
Lulu Blog | Optimized for Mobile: The Future of Bookselling

Mastering Book Metadata to Maximize Market Reach

Publish & Prosper

02/19/25 • 45 min

In this episode, Lauren & Matt deep dive into book metadata and how it can better position your book in the market. Maximize your discoverability and reach with tips on choosing bookstore categories and BISAC codes, tools for keyword research, and best practices for making the most of your metadata.

Dive Deeper

💡 Complete BISAC Subject Headings List

💡 Bublish's AI Author Toolkit

💡 Publisher Rocket

💡 Listen to These Episodes

Ep #34 | Hooking New Readers With a Compelling Book Description
Ep #37 | How to Get Your Book Into Indie Bookstores
Ep #51 | Finding Your Niche, Your Ideal Reader, and Your Target Audience

💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Watch These Videos

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [3:02] “Your metadata is relevant to you if you're selling direct, if you're doing distribution, if you're sticking to a single ecommerce solution, whatever it is, no matter what you're doing, your metadata is relevant to your book.”

🎙️ [15:28] “I think you should be marketing to human beings and not to algorithms.”

🎙️ [32:21] “Understanding that to prepare yourself for a future where search looks different than it does now being as concise and specific with your keywords is going to be more important than ever.”

Cover to Cover: Getting Your Book Design Right

Publish & Prosper

04/17/24 • 49 min

In this episode, Lauren & Matt take a look at best practices for book design. We’ll review key design elements that often get overlooked on book covers, what to include inside your book, and whether or not we think it’s worth the cost to pay for book cover and interior design.
Dive Deeper

💡 Download Lulu’s Free Guides & Templates

💡 Check Out the Professional Designers on Our Hire A Pro Page

💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Watch This Book Formatting Playlist on YouTube

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [10:15] “I do think that if you're a very creative individual and you're using a tool that doesn't have a steep learning curve, you could probably create a cover that's good enough. But again, if this is something that you've put a lot of time and effort into chances are you don't want something that's just good enough.”

🎙️ [26:09] "Something to keep in mind as you're figuring out your cover design and figuring out what you want to do with that, consider how it's going to look with the rest of your books and consider how it's going to look with your own professional branding."

🎙️ [35:27] “I think one of the most important things you can include, especially for those of you who have not been listening to us, or everybody else out there right now, about trying to sell direct. Back matter is the perfect place to try and drive people to your author platform, to sign up for your email newsletters or whatever that might be.”

4 Reasons Creators Don’t Sell Direct (and Why You Should)

Publish & Prosper

11/08/23 • 37 min

In this episode, Lauren & Matt tackle some common myths, misconceptions, and hesitations creators often share about selling direct!

We debunk concerns like, “I don’t know how to build my own website,” “I don’t have what it takes to run a business,” and “I rely on third-party platforms for discoverability.” Learn about tools to help you build your online store, explore ways to automate and streamline your business, and hear a harsh (but realistic) take on digital discoverability. Plus, we share why selling direct is the future of book publishing, and why we think it’s worth investing the time now to help your business flourish long-term.

Dive Deeper

💡 Learn how Lulu Direct can help your business grow.
💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Watch These Videos

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [8:14] “At the end of the day, that's what you are. You're a small business owner. And so finding ways to push through and treat this as a business, it's something you have to do. If this is what you're going to do long-term, if you're in this for the long haul and you're trying to build a sustainable business from your writing or content creation efforts, you have to do this.”

🎙️ [20:52] “As a small business owner, you want to get to a point where the majority of your business [is] happening because of word of mouth, not because you're dumping money into digital discovery or even just dumping effort and time into digital discovery. The more people you can get into your community that have read your content or find value in it and purchase it from you, they are going to tell other people about it.”

🎙️ [34:04] “The work that you put in now to do things like access your customer data by selling direct and being able to remarket to them because you have all that information, that will help you later. That work that you're doing now is going to help you continue to grow your business in hopefully years to come.”

Are Print Books Dead?

Publish & Prosper

01/24/24 • 37 min

In this episode, Matt & Lauren discuss some of the most important questions asked by authors and creators - is it worth it to publish my books in print? Are readers still buying print books, or is print dead?
Dive Deeper

💡Review the Data

Overall book sales & revenue statistics, reported by Words Rated
How print book sales in 2023 compared to previous years, reported by Publishers Weekly
An overview of the state of the book retail market, reported by Statista
Print book sales by year, reported by Statista

💡 Learn More About

How to crowdfund your book with Kickstarter
The 1,000 True Fans Theory
Lorenzo Etherington’s record-breaking crowdfunded book series

💡 Watch These Videos

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [16:35] “I just assumed people really kind of understood the statistics and metrics around print books and the popularity of it. And the fact is that's not true. A lot of people don't realize that print books are still so popular that they consistently outsell ebooks and audiobooks.”

🎙️ [24:39] “Most people when asked would prefer to buy directly from their creator of choice, whether that is an online course or a book, they would prefer to buy directly from the creator and support the creator and their efforts.”

🎙️ [32:46] “At the end of the day, I think as a creator who is creating content for others to consume, that should be your goal. Maximizing not only the channels to which you get your content to market, but you know, really turning followers into fans and then fans into super fans. And the only way to do that is to offer them more of your content, whether that means more content, or more formats of that same content, or special editions.”

Do You Need to Hire Professional Editors for Your Book?

Publish & Prosper

04/10/24 • 46 min

In this episode Matt & Lauren take a look at the different types of editing your manuscript might need, debate which ones they think are most valuable, and share a few of their tips for making sure your book editing is done right.
Dive Deeper

💡 Find Freelance Editors and Hybrid Publishers on Lulu’s Hire A Pro Page
💡 Browse Fiverr for Freelance Editors
💡 Check out the Editorial Freelancers Association and their 2024 Editorial Rates Chart

💡 Read These Blog Posts on Editing

💡 Read These Editorial Software Reviews

💡 Watch These Videos

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [10:14] “I think a hybrid publishing company kind of gives you the best of both worlds between full on self publishing and then, you know, a bit of traditional publishing to a degree. Because for a lot of people these days, you often have more money than time or ability.”

🎙️ [30:42] “Which is another great argument in favor of doing some self-editing before you contract out... If you want to try to keep those costs down as much as possible, the more editing that you do on your own ahead of time, the less professional editing the less professional editing - in theory, hopefully - the less professional editing you'll need to pay for.”

🎙️ [35:34] “A good cover is what's going to sell your book. A good story, a well-written book is what's going to bring them back to buy more from you.”

The Indie Author’s Guide to Thriving Without Amazon

Publish & Prosper

03/13/24 • 47 min

In this episode, Matt & Lauren explain why indie authors need to stop relying on Amazon as their primary sales channel. Listen now to hear why we feel so strongly about it, what alternatives we suggest, and how to get your readers on the same page.
Dive Deeper

💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Watch our webinar Is Selling On Amazon Enough?Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [9:06] “We talked in the last episode about the thousand true fans theory and this idea of connecting directly with your fans and building these true fans that are gonna buy anything from you. You can't do that if you're exclusively selling to people on Amazon. If your fan base exists on Amazon, you have no way to foster those relationships and connect with those creators and those readers.”

🎙️ [25:18] “How do you convince people that have never heard of you before that are potential new readers and buyers to buy directly from you? ... The easy solution there is to make sure that your website with your bookstore on it is the primary link that you're using at every available opportunity.”

🎙️ [41:24] “All of this is part and parcel of the fact that when you're selling direct, when you're owning kind of that relationship between you and your fans and readers, you are in fact in control of the entire customer journey.”

How to Copyright the Copy That You Wrote

Publish & Prosper

04/02/25 • 48 min

In this episode, Matt & Lauren–who are definitely not lawyers–take on copyright law. We talk through what indie authors need to know about copyrighting their books in the US, why and how authors should register their work for copyright, and how fanfiction and generative AI may impact copyright in the future.

Again: we are not attorneys.

Dive Deeper

💡 Copyright Resources

Creative Commons
Register Your Work → How to Copyright Literary Works
Bowker | Must-Know Copyright Basics & FAQs
CopyrightsNow
What Writers Should Know About Copyright
Write Publish Sell | What Every Author Needs To Know About Copyright, ISBN, PCN and LCCN
Library of Congress | Artificial Intelligence Report

💡 Listen to These Episodes

Ep #18 | How Writers Can Harness the Power of AI
Ep #59 | Mastering Book Metadata to Maximize Market Reach

💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Watch These Videos

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [11:41] “At the very least, we're going to give you the information that you need to look further into because it's hard to know what you don't know.”

🎙️ [20:00] “Which is also–does not mean that you've now copyrighted your work per se. Again, legally, technically, it is copyrighted because you created it, but you should still take the extra steps we're about to get into.”

🎙️ [46:16] “Endorsed by Lauren, who is not an attorney, by the way. But an elder emo. So she does carry some weight in some circles.”

Metrics That Matter: A Guide for Authors & Creators

Publish & Prosper

11/13/24 • 47 min

In this episode, Lauren & Matt review the important metrics you need to be tracking to boost your book sales, grow your brand, and connect with a loyal audience. We take a look at social media, email, website, and customer data and share valuable tools and tips to help you make the most of the data you collect.
Dive Deeper

💡 Check Out These Resources

Shopify | Ecommerce Analytics Tools for Online Store Owners
SparkToro | https://sparktoro.com/
ManyChat | https://manychat.com/creators

💡 Read These Blog Posts

💡 Listen to These Episodes

Episode #11 | Email Marketing for Authors & Creators
Episode #12 | Social Media Marketing for Authors & Creators
Episode #22 | Using Customer Data to Grow Your Business
Episode #31 | Your 7-Step Guide to Building an Online Bookstore

Sound Bites From This Episode

🎙️ [10:38] “A lot of these metrics are interconnected, and that's kind of the whole point in tracking them and in paying attention to them. And I know that's going to sound really overwhelming as we rattle off a bunch of different types of metrics that you should be looking at, but they really do inform each other in a lot of different ways.”

🎙️ [24:03] “If you're sending an email out once a week or once every two weeks or whatever, and you're asking people to buy your book and you're sending them to Amazon, you're not going to have the data as to whether or not they bought a book from that email.”

🎙️ [35:55] “All roads should lead to however you get somebody to purchase a book, wherever they do that. And primarily that should be on your website.”

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FAQ

How many episodes does Publish & Prosper have?

Publish & Prosper currently has 67 episodes available.

What topics does Publish & Prosper cover?

The podcast is about Publishing, Marketing, Author, Content Creator, Podcasts, Books, Arts and Business.

What is the most popular episode on Publish & Prosper?

The episode title '4 Reasons Creators Don’t Sell Direct (and Why You Should)' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Publish & Prosper?

The average episode length on Publish & Prosper is 46 minutes.

How often are episodes of Publish & Prosper released?

Episodes of Publish & Prosper are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Publish & Prosper?

The first episode of Publish & Prosper was released on Nov 1, 2023.

Show more FAQ

Publish & Prosper

Matt Briel & Lauren Vassallo

Top 10 Publish & Prosper Episodes

FAQ

How many episodes does Publish & Prosper have?

What topics does Publish & Prosper cover?

What is the most popular episode on Publish & Prosper?

What is the average episode length on Publish & Prosper?

How often are episodes of Publish & Prosper released?

When was the first episode of Publish & Prosper?

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