2073 – Embracing Self-Publishing in a Digital Age with 1106 Design’s Michele DeFilippo

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments.

0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:05With us right now, it's Michelle DeFilippo. Michelle, you are the founder of 1106 Design. You are found on the web at 1106design.com. That's 1106design.com. We'll be talking about book publishing. Michelle, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, Josh. Well, listen, I'd love to get an overview of the work you do, who you work with, the authors you work with. And then we're going to pick your brain in terms of like the state of the publishing industry as well. I have some questions. But if you could, Michelle, just kind of start with the work you do, who you serve. Well, we serve authors who want to independently publish their book.

1:47And we give them a full suite of services all the way from manuscript editing to cover design, interior design, proofreading, e-book formatting, and the like. And then we help them upload their files to their own print-on-demand accounts so that they always keep control of their book. A lot of authors don't know that you do not have to work with a publisher to self-publish a book. When authors do that, they lose control of their book and they lose a lot of money. So we're here. I'm here to remind people that original self-publishing means that you, the author, are the publisher and that you still can keep control of everything and earn the maximum amount of money every time you sell a book.

2:29Yeah. Well, all right. Tell us what is this is your world. This has been your world for quite some time. Where are we today? We're getting at the very, very end of 2024, looking at 2025. Tell me what has changed or evolved in the book publishing world. And I'm also really curious about demand and consumption as well. I'm really curious about how consumers have adjusted their behavior a little bit. Well, I've been in the publishing business since 1972. My first job was at Crown Publishing in New York. In 2001, I started 1106 Design to meet the demand for self-published books. Amazon changed the publishing world.

3:15It was an earthquake. All of a sudden, authors did not need to work with any publisher. They could distribute their book to Amazon directly. And so that was the greatest freedom that authors had experienced in centuries, really. And so that's when we started. And the company started out small. And it just grew time over time as authors requested more services from us. Now today, we've produced about 4 ,000 books for authors since 2001. and we continue to serve authors. We have a great reputation in the industry and we love, I love helping authors and I want to educate them because the field has become a lot more complicated in the last 20 years.

4:00Yeah. And so, you know, kind of getting to, let's talk a little bit about the future of books. Any ideas? Like what lies ahead in the years ahead? I get this question all the time. Yeah, I'm kind of thinking there's got to be some big changes. I think with the way that I consume content on AI, I still love long form books, but it's kind of a little bit different for me. I'll take your take on this. Well, I don't have a crystal ball, of course. But I think throughout history, every time a new medium comes about, people decide that the old way is going to vanish. And it never does, right? TV was supposed to replace radio.

4:46The internet was supposed to replace radio and TV. And yet we still have all of them. And same thing with books. I think a lot of people still love to read real books. Print books are holding their own because everybody's looking at a screen all day and they need some relief at night. or when they want to relax and they open up a print book for that. So I don't, I, of course, I don't know, but I think reading will always be with us and there will always be a need for a well-designed, well-edited book. Yeah. All right. So what is, tell me about when it comes to now creating a book, what has changed or evolved over the past year or so?

5:29And again, where do you see this going. And again, I would imagine there's no way I would write a book like someone would have written. I'm normally talking for myself, but there's, if I were to start writing a book today, there is no way I would start writing that book in the same way that I would have started writing that book five years ago. Well, there's so many, well, because there are so many great tools for mind mapping and organizing and, and you know, again, that kind of leverage, I don't know, just, you know, again, I would still want to work with an advisor, right? To make sure I'm making all the right choices.

6:05But, you know, when we think of like the sheer volume of content that needs to be created, I would imagine that a lot of your clients are leveraging tools that maybe weren't available five years ago. Well, I think that's true. I think AI is certainly going to make a difference in publishing. My hope, though, is that it's used only for research and it doesn't become a situation where AI is writing books because authors are unique. Every book they write is unique. You bring a unique perspective to the text you're creating. And so I think that's really important. And I hope that doesn't go well. Yeah, it's kind of like imagining that everybody would sing with the same tonality if we, you know, kind of ascribe to this singular AI voice, right?

6:56So I recommend this to leaders, be very careful about that finished product that goes out. Don't ever let that be the voice of AI and not your own voice because we can tell. People can tell. Yeah, of course. And sometimes we've all seen AI messages that are wrong. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, often. Yeah, it's a cheap way out. And again, part of, I think, when we're connecting with an author is those experiences, is the way that they describe it. Like, this is someone who has wisdom that is sharing this experience and emotion tied to that. You know, most of your, you know, I've interviewed over 2 ,000 people on here.

7:44And, you know, the way that that content is shared is human to human, right? And it feels human. And we feel that human experience. And that, I think, is what humans will always appreciate, is that human-to-human connection. Yeah. I just actually came across a copyright page statement in an online update this week where I think it was Random House is starting to put a disclaimer on their copyright page that protects the author. And it says, this content may not be used to train any AI system. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that we're on the bleeding edge of this, you know, but I think every, like you said, every author has a voice.

8:27And I know when I read a book, sometimes the full value of the book can be delivered in just one point that the author makes that's unique that I never heard before. And I hope that never goes away. Okay, so let's talk about what it's like to work with 1106 design. Like, how do you help with that process? Okay, we start with when an author has a completed manuscript, that's where we will begin. First step is usually an editorial evaluation so that we determine which level of editing the manuscript needs. Then we'll edit the manuscript at whatever level it needs. We'll design the cover. We'll design the interior pages.

9:06A lot of people don't know that's a thing. A book should never be formatted in Word. It should be properly designed and typeset. And so we will do that. We'll proofread after typesetting. We'll make an e-book. And then, like I said, we will upload the files to the author's own print-on-demand accounts. And that's our crucial difference because we don't take any money out of the author's pocket when a book is sold. Publishers do. too. And sometimes I've heard authors making 90 cents every time they sell a book when they should be$6 or$8 a book. So I want authors to know that the original model of self-publishing is still available through companies like mine.

9:52Yeah. And I think most of us, though, I mean, unless you're, again, do you work with fiction or nonfiction? Everything. Fiction, nonfiction, children's books, textbooks, you name it. Yeah. And what about the promotion side of a book? Because, you know, I think it would be really frustrating for me to do all of this work. And then it just kind of launches with a thud. Like that would be so demoralizing. If it's something I put my heart and soul into for six to eight months. And then, you know, it just everyone just kind of shrugs when it comes out. Well, it's there. Like you said, there's so much content out there.

10:29It's hard to break through. But what I do is I introduce my authors to three marketing people that I trust. We also have some do-it-yourself marketing resources on our website for people who want to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves. They can save a lot of money if they do that. But a book has to be marketed because nobody's going to find your book online unless you do. What does marketing look like? What do you see working well? uh social media works well but you have to make sure but you you have to make sure you're talking to your target audience so actually you should identify for non-fiction particularly you should identify your target audience before you even begin writing the book find a problem that a lot of people have solve that problem in your own unique way and now you have a built-in audience that's automatically going to be interested in your book a lot of authors don't do that they just write the book that they think is important and they hope there's a market for it.

11:26And that's kind of putting the card before the horse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a great question. Before we embark on this endeavor, what checklist would you give someone who's considering writing a book? And are there any reasons for writing a book that you might want to maybe have them pause for just a second. Well, I would say that whatever they decide to write, I hope they have a unique take on it because there's thousands and thousands of books on every topic on Amazon. So unless you've got something unique to say, you know, give yourself, in other words, give yourself the best chance by having something unique to say and actually solving a problem.

12:16Yeah. Your website is 1106design.com. To our friend that's been listening to us, can you tell me a little bit about, I don't know if you have any, looks like you have some resources, you know, for folks that are interested in this topic, you've got podcasts, you've got webinars, you've got a blog. To our friend that's been listening, is there any piece of like long form content or resources you'd recommend that they take a look at? Oh, I hope they explore a lot of our site. We believe in complete transparency. I've got all of my prices on my site. There's no bait and switch advertising with us.

12:53You'll see exactly what we charge for every service. We have lots of blog posts. You can download my free book, Publish Like the Pros, which is just a brief outline of how self-publishing originally started and how it can still be done today if you want to explore that. And I give that away for free on my website. You can book a consultation. And unlike some people, we will have a respectful phone conversation with you. We're not going to start spamming your inbox with five or six messages. We don't mark it like that. It's a little bit old-fashioned in that regard. Well, good. I like old-fashioned in that regard.

13:33Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, again, really exciting. What generally happens in a first conversation if someone is pretty serious about this? Like, what questions do you ask? Well, we like to find out about the author and about the book, why they're writing it, so that we can make the best suggestions as to what services they may need. Sometimes we will tell an author you don't need some of our services. We always try. We don't force people into packages. We custom design a list of services based on the author and the author's goals. Yeah. And then, like, do you mind sharing like in terms of like, I mean, because there's a lot of ways that you could produce a book.

14:16And there's certainly ways that, listen, it's possible you could possibly do this at near zero cost and do everything yourself. That's one option. Maybe just watching free YouTube videos or podcasts or something. That's an option. all the way up to full service ghostwriting, you know, and, you know, working with like a big name publisher. Where do you see like investment being that sweet spot for you? Well, I'm not objective, of course, but but yeah, nobody is. Are you? You can produce a book cheaply now, but you're not going to get the same results as people who do it every day, right? And that should go without saying, but I do have to say it now, right?

15:02Yes, you can dump your manuscript into some kind of automated system, or you can format it yourself and hire somebody who charges you$50 to produce a book cover. But we work at the traditional publisher level. And that takes a lot of hours on every aspect of the editing and the design, but the results are worth it. You will wind up with a book that you are proud to market and sell. And you will know that you did everything possible to make that book a success. Now, anybody who promises you a bestseller is lying. We never do that. We can't predict the results any more than a major publisher can.

15:41But if you release the best quality book, then you know, you've done everything you can do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed. All right. So your website, 1106design.com, Michelle DeFilippo. Sorry, I got tongue tied on that one. What do people click on when they're ready for a conversation? There's a button on the website, many buttons that say book a consultation. You can also reply to the chat bot. You can fill out our contact form. Whatever you happen to see first is fine with us. Yeah, excellent. Well, Michelle, again, it's been fantastic. Michelle DeFilippo, you are again the founder of 1106 Design, the website 1106design.com.

16:28Michelle, thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you, Josh. I appreciate it.

16:37Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

17:18I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

18:00I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.