On Owning the Spotlight: A Guide to Confident, Authentic Book Promotion with Kim Dower

In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, hosts Kathleen and Adanna sit down with one of the industry’s most respected voices in author publicity and media coaching: Kim Dower. As the founder of Kim-from-L.A. Literary & Media Services, Kim has spent over 40 years helping writers become not just authors, but compelling public speakers. She’s also an award-winning poet and co-author of Life is a Series of Presentations, the book that introduced the 8 Presentation Practices—essential tools for anyone looking to connect with an audience.

Kim dives deep into the heart of media training, sharing why authors must separate the book from how they speak about it. She discusses the power of storytelling, how to overcome the fear of public speaking, and why humor and vulnerability are crucial in every author’s toolkit. Whether you're preparing for a book tour, podcast appearance, or public reading, this episode offers invaluable insight for turning your message into a magnetic presentation.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:01 SPEAKER_02
Hello, welcome to Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser, your co -host, along with Adanna Moriarty. And today we have someone I've wanted to have on the show for a while, Kim Dower from Kim from LA. And she is a book marketer, a poet. She just had a book come out at the beginning of the year, another volume. And she is a media trainer. And I've sent people to her over the years, and it has been incredible results. I want to talk a little bit about it, but welcome, Kim.

00:00:34 SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much, Kathleen. I'm delighted to be here and talk with you and talk about book publishing and all the secrets involved in success.

00:00:47 SPEAKER_02
Well, you've been doing this a while. I think it was easily 10, 12 years ago that I first met you. I think it was an IWASC meeting you did, and that's when I asked you to be part of the 805 Writers Conference, and you were gracious to be a part of that. Great.

00:01:04 SPEAKER_02
Why don't we give everybody, because we all have different paths. Very few people have spent their entire life in book publishing. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you came here, and also how you got into media training, because I really want to focus on that.

00:01:19 SPEAKER_01
All right, sure. I have spent my whole life in book publishing. What a horrible, not horrible, but it is kind of scary to be. The thing of it is because the books keep changing, the clients change, the people change, the players, it feels like it's moving, keeps moving all the time. So it's never exactly the same. And the job also has changed so much over the years, as we all know. What we do has changed because the way we do it. has has changed but you know i started i grew up on the east coast i started as a poet in college i was a very serious poet i went to emerson college i and when i graduated you know i could have gone to iowa to the workshop and the head of the english department said why don't you stay here and teach introduction to creative writing for me i mean she changed my life because i probably would have gone to iowa I probably would have started writing poems like everybody else at the Iowa workshop. I would have had a whole different direction, but I stayed. I taught. I loved teaching. I was very young. It was so much fun. But I just was tired of Boston and the freezing cold winters and the depressing, you know, back then. It was sort of depressing to be a poet. And there weren't a lot of women poets to identify with. It was a very different world. And I came to LA where everything's fun and it's sunny and there's no humidity.

00:02:57 SPEAKER_01
And I started a new life. Anyway,

00:03:02 SPEAKER_01
one of the first jobs that I got was working for a publisher named Jeremy Tarcher. who some of you may remember, I don't know, but he did new age alternative lifestyle books before they were popular, before anyone really read those kinds of books. Homeopathic Medicine at Home. Well, if you can promote that, you can promote anything in 1980, you know, because people would go, what's homeopathic? So I really learned how... to talk about books and how to promote them. And I loved doing it. But those were also the days where you could get on the phone and you could talk someone into doing something. It was before email. You had to do handwritten notes and press kits. It was like a whole other time, right? But I learned how to do it. And then I did a book called Women Who Love Too Much, which some people may recall. And it... That changed my life because it was the first book that I promoted that I cared about deeply and learned that when I cared about something and knew how to speak about it, I could get the author booked. I could make things happen. And I did. And the book was the bestseller. And she was an unknown author, Robin Norwood. She was amazing. The book was amazing. After that, I decided to start my own company. So that's the long answer. I started my own company, called it Kim from LA, and was able to take on books that I really cared about rather than just be given books that I had to promote.

00:04:39 SPEAKER_01
able to take on books that I really cared about rather than just be given books that I had to promote. The media training came a few years into it, Kathleen, because I would watch my authors do their radio shows or their TV shows, and they were really stumbling. They were not having an easy time talking about the book because, as any of us know, when you write a book and then have to talk about it, your mind goes, I don't know where to start. I don't know what's important. I don't know what to lead with. And I would watch that, and I would think, well, I had to pitch them to get the interview. And here they are talking about things that have nothing to do with the way I pitched it or what might sell the book. And then I found this media trainer. And again, this was back in the, you know, probably mid nineties and she will remain nameless, but she had a big studio and a camera and you had to go on a stage and do a whole thing. I brought a client there and she absolutely terrified this poor client. She was like, sit up straight and you're mumbling and wear socks. And it was just all these things. I thought, oh my, this is worse than anything. This poor person's never going to be able to do a show now. And as she was doing what she was doing, I thought, my goodness, you can do this better than that. And that's what kind of launched me. And for about 15 years, I had another company called Perfect Pitch Productions, which I did with someone else. And we exclusively did media training where we would put the person on camera and do all this until I decided I don't need all that. I just need to sit with the person. I can do it on Zoom. I can do it on the phone. I can do it in person and help them. get to the place where they can talk about their book in the most interesting way, the most dynamic way. And somewhere along the line, I guess it was around 2000, I met someone named Tony Giri at a bookseller's convention. And he called himself Mr. Presentation. And he said, so all I do is presentations and I help people with presentations. And he's a very charismatic guy. He said, I've heard you're really good. Oh, no, no, you know what? He won a drawing to have media training with me.

00:07:24 SPEAKER_01
And he came to my office from Texas. And he said, you know, this is really fascinating to me because this is what I do with big corporate clients. And I said, well, you know, Tony, life is a series of presentations. And he said, Kim, we're going to write that book together. And we did. I mean, mainly it's his book. I wrote it along with someone named Joel Fishman, and it's still in print. It's called Life is a Series of Presentations because it was my belief that whatever we do, whether it's try to get our kid into a good preschool or get our dry cleaning out a day early, it's a presentation. You have to present. what you're trying to get and what you're trying to do. And anyway, it's a very, very long answer. Forgive me for that. I would tell my clients, don't go on too long because you'll start to bore everyone to death. But that's my story of how I started, became a media trainer. And that's, there you have it.

00:08:30 SPEAKER_00
it. I think it's fascinating. I don't think you talk too long.

00:08:37 SPEAKER_00
Okay, good.

00:08:41 SPEAKER_00
presented with a new person who has never done any public speaking at all what is like where do you start with that what is the first thing that goes oh you know if you can tackle this you'll be okay well for someone who has never done any public speaking at all and has written a book and of course if you've written a book you've been in a room by yourself for months and years you know

00:08:55 SPEAKER_01
for someone who has never done any public speaking at all and has written a book and of course if you've written a book you've been in a room by yourself for months and years you know luck lucky if you are to get the food like put under the door on a tray but you might have not even you know bought a new outfit in a year so there's a lot to talk about there's two separate things there's the way you present and what you present how you say it and how you look when you say it and how you speak when you say it so the first thing that I would do with someone who's never had any public speaking and has a new book is it's a lot of interviewing. You know, what concerns you? What are you worried about? I need to listen to them and hear what they say. People will always or usually say, I am scared to death of public speaking because you may know other than the fear of death, it's the next great fear for all of us. getting in front of people. It was Tony who taught me why that is. But from us, from being animals, when you're in the forest, if all the animals' eyes are on you, it's a death sentence. And the fear comes from being watched and being looked at, which I find that really interesting. Is that? I never knew. I've never heard that. Yeah. He told me that years ago. And it is a visceral fear of being. you know, being looked at and feeling like you're in jeopardy. So the number one most important thing that I tell people is to believe that you're on a mission, that it's not about you necessarily, it's not about you to be self -conscious, but if you can see what part of your book

00:10:38 SPEAKER_01
number one most important thing that I tell people is to

00:10:46 SPEAKER_01
you're on a mission, that it's not about you necessarily, it's not about you to be self -conscious, but if you can see what part of your book will either help people. It's much easier with nonfiction, health books, all kinds of books where you can believe that you're on a mission. You're there to help someone else and it's not about you. So all eyes aren't on you. And if it's fiction, it's how can you connect with your audience? And that's the best antidote to fear of public speaking, to feel like you're connecting, you're doing a service. It's not about you. And you have good information to impart. So I take it out of the person and the self -consciousness and put it more about what's going to help others. And then the number one thing that I do is help people get to that beginning moment, why they wanted to write the book.

00:11:47 SPEAKER_01
people get to that beginning moment, why they wanted to write the book. You know, when you start with someone, you say, why did you write the book? They'll say, well, for the money. Or, you know, I had a story I wanted to tell. Or this is something I've been wanting. It'll be a general answer that anyone could say. So my goal in working with people is to get to that very specific reason. Well,

00:12:18 SPEAKER_01
when I was growing up, I had no friends. And I was always trying to be better. And that's why I became a therapist to learn how to help other people relate more and have more friends. And then I'll say, well, wait, wait, wait. What happened when you were little? What was the thing that happened? So it's like peeling back the onion. And they'll say, well, one day I got up to give an answer at school and everyone laughed at me. Well, what was the answer? And I get deeper and deeper and deeper. And it's from that answer that the person gives me that the interview will grow.

00:13:01 SPEAKER_00
It's fascinating. Like that's fascinating. I mean, okay. I have a question. It's more surface level than that. How do you teach people to ditch like filler words?

00:13:17 SPEAKER_01
Is that just practice? That's practice. It's really practice. I mean, there are people who like, we've all heard that, you know, and all these things. Okay. First of all, they are fillers when you can't think of quickly what to say next. And the best thing to do is do nothing. So if you feel that word about to come out. I just stopped, right? Just don't say anything and give it a little pause. Give it a little pause. There we are. So just say, you know, I don't really know how to answer that question. That's okay. I mean, I was just having a conversation. I would say that, that they'll say that. I don't really know how to say that, how to answer that. But I do know how to answer this. So it's like the exchange. I don't know how to address that, but I can address this.

00:14:20 SPEAKER_02
It seems like when you watch TV, especially I like I watch a lot of news talk shows. Yeah. And they'll be they're really good because they'll go. Now, that was a very good question. And then pause. So, you know, that's instead of saying or, well, yeah, they have it in their head. to say that, and then they've got the answer?

00:14:45 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that's a very good question. Or I need to think about that. Or interesting, no one's ever asked me that before.

00:14:51 SPEAKER_01
no one's ever asked me that before. And it reminds me of this. So there's ways to not answer. There's ways to stall. There's ways to bridge. But I think saying, I'm not sure, but I'm sure about this, because you want to give something and you may not have the answer. And not having an answer is sometimes more useful than having one. In what way? Well, you are connecting with the question and with the people in the audience who are wondering by saying, I don't know. That's something that we still need to think about. Or as long as you give something else. You know, if you're a cook and they're like, what besides oil is the most important ingredient? You're going to say vinegar. But if it's a little more complex, you might say, you know, we've tried a lot of ingredients in that recipe. And the thing that seems to work the most. So you may not have the right or the exact answer, but you want to have some kind of an answer. But, you know, Donna, what you're saying is practice. The most important thing is to practice your answers aloud. Say them aloud. clients to, you know, we all walk now. We all go on these walks. And the greatest thing, and I do this all the time, but if you have headphones plugged into your phone, people think you're talking on the phone. And if I'm practicing something, I'll just walk on the street. I'll walk through the park. I'll do my walk and I'll say what I'm saying. No one thinks I'm crazy because it looks like I'm on the phone, but it's, I will go over what I'm going to say before I say it. And I'll listen to how it sounds. I do this with my poetry all the time. You know, I'll read, you know, because I want to really get the rhythms right, et cetera, before I do a reading. But you can hear the sound of your answer and you can practice that. And it's the best way to get good at it.

00:16:58 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, like I've told people that, you know, clients of mine, use the recording thing on your phone. And then just sit and like, you know, talk to a screen like you're on a Zoom meeting, but be recording it on your phone and then play it back and you'll see what you sound like. And a lot of people, it's the same thing with, you know, read the first five pages of your book. You know, they can listen to it out loud to see how it sounds.

00:17:27 SPEAKER_01
Well, that's a really simple and absolutely profound thing to say. Read the first five pages of your book. You know, the truth is we write these books two years before they come out. You know, you don't. And a lot of people are already finished with a new book and they're about to go promote the book that they handed in three years ago. That is really true. So they forget. They forget even what the book is about. Or what the whole, what the reason. So there's all stages in all, you know, different types of people who are about to go out on a book tour. I mean, there are the people, as we've talked about, we've never done this before. It's their first book. They've never gone in front of a group. And that can be a tough one, you know. But I also find that university professors, teachers, people who are used to being in front of a group. They can go on forever. And it's a wall of sound. And I've had to tell people, you've got to stop. You have to have an internal clock. Because the fact is, the students are paying for your course. They have to be there. If you put them to sleep, that's their problem, not yours. And these professors and a lot of times scientists and doctors want to get it exactly right. And they tell things that we don't need to know. Everyone has a challenge from the person who's never done it before to the person who does it every day and forgets that they have to shut up after a minute.

00:19:15 SPEAKER_01
They're all a bunch of challenges.

00:19:18 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I find a lot of professors drone on. They're very hard to get to the core because they want to give you all of this other information up front. Yeah. And five minutes later, they're finally telling you something and you're not. You've really tuned out. Exactly. Well, that would work great because I encourage people to contact their local libraries and set up, you know, not just a reading, but a talk about their book and then do a reading. You don't just sit there, read and then think you're going to sign books or take questions. You should talk about the book. And I think the creation story of a book. is also a great story that people want to know. Why or how did this book come about?

00:20:05 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. People want to know whatever is interesting. That's what they want to know. You know, our jobs are to entertain first.

00:20:18 SPEAKER_01
And no matter what, I'm not talking about a book on, you know, tragedy or you know, cancer care, suicide. I mean, these kinds of subjects, it's hard to be entertaining and fun. But even with very sad subjects, the first job is to engage your audience, inspire, engage. And anything, the origin story of a book, look, that can be boring also. You know, so make your stories interesting and fun and make them connect because most people who go to readings, who listen to these kinds of shows, they're writers and they want information. They want to know how does this help me? You know, it's like years ago, I used to book The View. I haven't booked it in a long time, that show with all the gals. And there was a producer. She was hilarious. We were always scared to contact her because she was kind of gruff. And I'd call her up and she'd go, well, how is this going to help my girls? That was her line. How is this going to help my girls? And I thought that was hilarious. And it taught me a lot because they want a guest on the show that's going to give information. And how it's going to help all the girls on The View, but also the audience. And that's what we want. So, yeah, everyone sitting there is going to want to know how this book come about. What gave you the idea? What inspired you? What was the first thing you did? But be funny. If you're not funny, then make it engaging and make it personal.

00:22:04 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And especially, I think, on topics like cancer or something. You got to give people some hope. Yes. Give them a little bit of hope. And that can be in a funny thing or a little aside thing that happened. You catch them and they go, okay, they're a real person. I can listen to them.

00:22:24 SPEAKER_01
Exactly.

00:22:25 SPEAKER_02
Because if they're listening to you on that topic, they're probably going through something tragic.

00:22:31 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. And the hope is very important. You know, it's sort of a cousin of inspiration. You're there to, like, ignite, engage, inspire, feel hopeful. Even if your story is bleak, your personal story is bleak, you can tell it in a funny way, you know. And there are so many examples that are running through my head. I'm trying to think of the writer who said this, and I can't think of her name. She wrote a book about a very dysfunctional family, and there was a lot of unhappiness in this book. When she got up to make a speech, she said, I want to thank my parents because if they didn't bring me up in a dysfunctional family, I wouldn't have this book to write. She got a huge laugh, and that huge laugh immediately brought people in because it was funny. It's a funny statement. And she sort of let a peek of herself out. Exactly. Exactly. And without these terrible stories growing up and her life, she wouldn't have the book to give us to enjoy her tragic stories.

00:23:46 SPEAKER_00
So, yeah. It's also a good way to look at it. I mean, I think a lot of us can identify with...

00:23:57 SPEAKER_00
you've had a tragic story and some people get bitter and other people get funny.

00:24:03 SPEAKER_01
Exactly. And funny wins. I mean, you know, look at David Sedaris, look at anyone who I, you know, they tell their stories, but they're funny. Now look, we're not all comedians. Like people ask me, like even in my poetry, I, a lot of my poems are, they're funny. And they're also dark. They have a little two sides to them. And people in poetry workshops that I teach are like, well, how do you be funny? How do you make your poems funny? Well, if you're funny, they're going to be funny. A lot of people don't think funny. They get the joke. There's people who tell the joke and there's people who get the joke. And you're not always the same person. So if you can't be funny, you at least know what is funny. And you tap into another part of your personality that feels right. Maybe it's just being honest and just saying, listen, I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone. That's another way to bring people in. Or I've been on this book tour for a while and no one ever has asked me this question. Like, did this really happen at the dining room table? And you can get into it. And then people relate to you in a different way. Funny, personal. And also, you know, one thing that's very fun to do, a lot of times we get bad comments on Goodreads or other places that are kind of hilarious. And I got something from my last book on Goodreads that was from someone, and she goes on and on, and she goes, you know, the book, you know, I really like the poems. They're really deep. And they were really dark. And they upset me. And some of them were very upsetting. And she goes on and on. And then at the end, she goes, I totally do not recommend this book. And it was hilarious. When I saw it, I laughed out loud. So I printed it out. And I read it at my readings. And for me,

00:26:13 SPEAKER_01
me, I just thought it was a way to, first of all, engage with the audience. Like we don't always get these good reviews on Goodreads. How important is it? This person obviously was drawn into the work and then she doesn't recommend the book. And the whole thing seemed funny to me. The audience laughed and we all live in fear of these reviews and we shouldn't.

00:26:36 SPEAKER_01
all live in fear of these reviews and we shouldn't. And so it kind of made the whole thing funny. Humor opens a lot of doors. Thank you for saying it so concisely. You get an A plus for concise humor opens a lot of doors. That's exactly right.

00:26:56 SPEAKER_02
There's something that with people, just that sharing a little joke, a little laugh, there's an energy that's released between you that you're sharing something. And that's why comedians are... So very, very special because the really good ones understand that energy and can get it back from the audience. And that's when you've got them. I spent two years managing comedians and producing some comedy shows, stage shows. And because I grew up with a family that just told the stupidest jokes. I do not consider myself. I have an odd sense of humor. But working with all these different comedians. And to see how they interacted and what they would do and their ability to bring the audience in. And it's usually the more personal. Yes,

00:27:50 SPEAKER_01
it's usually

00:27:53 SPEAKER_02
always. Yeah, the ones that talk about things that are personal, everybody can find something in there to relate to, especially when you're talking about your family.

00:28:03 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. Personal and specific. It's the same for any kind of writing. It's the same for any kind of writing, certainly true of poetry, specific images,

00:28:17 SPEAKER_01
show, don't tell. Same with fiction. And it is the same with presenting. So that's a really good point to remember what you're talking about here. The more specific, the more personal. And yes, family is a huge connector because we all have a family.

00:28:40 SPEAKER_01
Everybody had one sometime. Yeah.

00:28:44 SPEAKER_01
So, excuse me, I'm just getting my water here, but we're not on camera, right? No.

00:28:52 SPEAKER_02
Well, we have you coming up on September 25th doing a webinar on this. You have your eight points. Can you just mention them right now of what they are?

00:29:06 SPEAKER_01
Oh, my goodness. I don't have my little eight -point page in front of me. Okay. Yeah. No, we'll save them. We'll save them for your webinar. But they are, I promise this, these eight points, whether you're doing it at a bookstore or on a podcast, they work.

00:29:26 SPEAKER_01
They're simple. They work. And they...

00:29:31 SPEAKER_01
They're kind of brilliant. Again, this is from the book, Life is a Series of Presentations. And they are Tony Giri's eight points. I think I gave a couple. I added a couple. But basically, they're his points for the perfect presentation every time. So we'll definitely talk about that. I'm excited. Well, making a presentation, you don't have to memorize stuff.

00:29:55 SPEAKER_02
you don't have to memorize stuff.

00:29:57 SPEAKER_01
No, absolutely not.

00:29:58 SPEAKER_02
absolutely not. If it's a book you've lived, like say it's a memoir. Yeah. Like that. You know, this is your story and you've had the passion about that story to spend time and write it and get it out there. It's your passion that also sells.

00:30:16 SPEAKER_01
Well, Kathleen, you're taking my whole talk away from me. Oh,

00:30:19 SPEAKER_00
sorry. We want people to be intrigued by your talk. The first thing is to inspire.

00:30:24 SPEAKER_01
The first thing is to inspire. And absolutely, that's the first thing you want to do is to get people excited and connect with them. So how do you do that? What are the different ways? Absolutely, you don't want to memorize anything. So that is not part of it at all. But what you do want to do beforehand,

00:30:47 SPEAKER_01
and that's what we do in the media training, is if you could only say three things, what are the three things that you would want to say? You know, I used to say, I don't say it anymore. I'm saying it now because. I already opened the door to it because it just doesn't sound right anymore in this world. But if someone put a gun to your head and said, tell me what your book is about, what would you say? But now the possibility of that is so possible that we don't... We don't want to use that example. Yeah, don't give anybody ideas. No, we don't. But it's called all different things. The elevator pitch, we've all heard that. What is the elevator pitch? Which is an adorable term, which I never really understood until someone explained it to me. You literally get in the elevator with someone and you have like two floors to say what your book is about. That's why they call it an elevator pitch. In the publishing business, the sales reps, Call it the down and dirties. You know, what are the down and dirties? So it's what is the line? What is the tagline? So that's interesting to know that, to have that in your head. But also, what are the three things that you want to say? And be ready for that. Because if all you have is five minutes, you're going to want to say that. If you have an hour, you're going to want to say that up front. And you're going to want to have examples. So there is something that I don't even know if it's in my eight presentation practices. It's a little thing I created called a pep talk. And I can give you a little preview here. Pep talk, P -E -P, point, example, point. And it's just like the essays that we used to write in school. Only again, this is for presentation. Make your point, give an example, make your point. family. For example, my uncle used to sit on a chair in the living room and we'd all have to go over and tell him stories and bring him drinks and watch, you know, and give a little uncle story. The example, well, this is why I have such a wonderful book because he's in my book. And so point, example, point. And each one is like a little, I think of it like a flower blossoming. And if you have your point, example, points for the three reasons, You just have that in your head. It's not memorized, but you can pull them up when you need them.

00:33:23 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well, I find, and you probably have too, that many authors have a hard time sort of, you know, like doing a three or four paragraph summary of their book. I mean, I can't think of a harder thing. I know it was hard for me to do. you know, putting together marketing materials like a downer. I would, we'd read the book and then we got to summarize it down into three paragraphs.

00:33:48 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Nobody wants a summary or one, you know, I mean, publicists and marketers and people, freelancers, people at publishing companies, we have to all write those summaries. We have to put that in press releases and the press material. So that the podcast hosts and the radio shows and all have that material. But when you're giving a presentation, nobody cares. First of all, if it's fiction, nobody cares about a book they haven't read. Nothing's more boring than hearing the plot or the details of a book you haven't read. It's just not interesting. What's interesting is who the character is based on or why you wrote about that character. or connecting it to something in real life that just happened. You know, there were all these murders in Griffith Park over a course of five years, and they would find these bodies in different places. I'm making this up. This isn't true. And I remember reading about it in the paper and taking notes and thinking, why this? Why that? And I created this idea that what if, and that's what my book is about. And anyone who's ever walked through Griffith Park, you probably know the area where the trees merge and people have picnics and this and this. Well, this is where one of the bodies was found. Whatever. You bring someone into your book by connecting them with the material, not giving them the plot, but just taking them to that place. Or I woke up once in the middle of the night thinking, what if I had gone? to graduate school instead of starting my own company. And what if I had been in that town? And all the what ifs were adding up like strings of what ifs. And I wrote a book called What If. And we all have what ifs in our lives. You see, then I would connect that because everyone's thinking the road not taken, et cetera, et cetera. It's all cliche, but we all have that book that either we're writing or we want to write. And you're connecting. So what I discovered in writing that book was blank, blank, blank. And there was even a murder in it. I didn't know that was going to happen. And so that's what my book and every morning I would wake up excited to get back to the page. And that's what you want at an event or on a show. You know, not the summary, but.

00:36:17 SPEAKER_00
That's the same advice, basically, that I give, you know, for. I do, I'm, I build websites for websites and social media. I mean, you know, I mean, it's like, how do you create this kind of immersive experience without giving away your actual story? Like, how do you build the parts around it to pull people in and be interested and want to follow you and, you know, want to like travel with you on your book journey and then your book gets published and they want to buy it. It's that same, it's the same thing where you have to. You have to build a story around your book that makes people intrigued by you as well as yourself. Like you have to also sell yourself. You have to sell yourself and your story. And, you know, it has to, in this world, in this digital world, it all needs to be somewhat immersive where people feel like they're taking a deep dive into you and your story and your book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. Like the premise of selling it is the same. Talking about it is the same, whether you're building graphic imagery or actually using your mouth.

00:37:26 SPEAKER_01
That's exactly, exactly right. You are creating something separate from your book. And I always say there's two things. There's your book and there's you. And there's your book and there's the way you talk about your book. And they are not the same. And everything you said is true. How do you create this immersive experience, which is also immersive because people connect. They want to know you. They want to be inside of your world. I'll never forget this as long as I live. But years ago, I was doing the publicity for J .A. Jantz. Do we all know who J .A. Jantz is? I mean, she sold millions and millions and millions of books and written millions of books. I had to have a bookseller lunch for her. And it was in the days when you would have bookseller lunches and the publisher would spend a lot of money and get a room in a hotel and it would be a banquet room and we would have, and it was quite something everyone wanted to meet, J .A. Chance. And we had, I don't know, I had like 35 booksellers there and it was in the heyday of... Borders and Barnes and Noble and all the independents. You know, I miss those days. Maybe we had 40 booksellers there. It was quite something. Anyway, Jay Jantz, she comes in and everyone was excited to hear about her new book and hear her read some from the book. And the idea was I was to introduce her. Well, you all have read her. I'm so thrilled to introduce Jay Jantz and she's going to talk to you about her book. And she stood up and she sang acapella every stanza of the song At 17, the Janice Ian song.

00:39:21 SPEAKER_01
And everyone was just like, whoa, what is going on? And she, but it was amazing to listen to her and hear all the stanzas and no one. ever will forget that moment. And she said to me later, she said, Kim, no grownup wants to be read to. I mean, who wants to be read to? And I thought, well, I stole that. I use that all the time in media training. No grownup wants to be read to. You cannot read for more than three or five minutes or talk in between. And she said, no one wants to hear what the book is about. They're going to read the book. But what she did was she really gave herself. I mean, this is her personality and her quirkiness. And she loves this song. And this song was really important to her. And we all knew more about her from that than anything she could have done talking about the book, the new book. And to this day, I think I told this story at some publishing. some conference recently. And there were like three or four people in the room who were like, oh my God, she did that when I heard her talk at such and such a place. Like that's the thing she does. But when you think about why she does it, it's brilliant, really. As you said, you create yourself next to the book. And that was her creation. Well, nobody ever forgot it. Nobody ever forgot it.

00:40:57 SPEAKER_00
I love that story because it's, you know, I mean, I talk with authors every day and they're so, they're so immersed in their book. Like they're so my book, my book, my book, my book. And, and they think that everybody else is going to be like your book, your book, your book. And I have to kind of break that all the time and, you know, say like, look, you.

00:41:23 SPEAKER_00
have to make people interested in you like nobody cares about your book until they're interested in you and you know we have this kind of idealized vision of being an author right like you know when you when you take it back 50 60 70 80 years and you know you think about all these reclusive writers and like you know and they would write a book and it would be everybody would read it and nobody knew who they were even where they lived or what they did until after they died And that's not the world we live in. And why would we want to? That was a hundred years ago. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, we, we think about people like Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway and what happened to them? Like they weren't happy people, you know, like, why would we want to live in that super reclusive life instead of trying to connect with our readers and really build. a relationship where they want our next book. They don't just want this book. They know us. They want us. They are like, we become a part of their life. And that's what I want to build for the people I work with anyway.

00:42:29 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting. There was a time when there was no book tour. And you talk about Sylvia Plath. Well, she revealed so much of herself in the bell jar. She didn't need to go on a book tour.

00:42:46 SPEAKER_01
And I would just differ with you with something like that. I mean, in a way, I'm almost glad I didn't hear her in an interview. Although I shouldn't say there are a lot of questions I have for her, but she's a terrible, tragic example. But the book is everything for me. And she did do some articles for for Women's Ladies Home Journal and other magazines where she talked about herself a little bit. But anyway, I know just what you're saying that today it's it's definitely more about the whole the person and the book. I still subscribe to sometimes the book is enough. We don't really need to know about you. But that, as you say, again, that's not the world we live in. So if you're going to go on a book tour. And everyone needs a website. That is the number one thing. I mean, I can't really work with anyone without a website. I don't care about social media because I think social media doesn't do really a thing unless you're already famous. You may gain 25 new readers, maybe. And of course, I mean, I'm on Facebook and I'm on Instagram. So I play the game, but I know what it does and what it doesn't do. But a website. where someone can click on a website and, as you're saying, get this immersive experience, see who you are, your book covers, if you want to say anything, a place for your interviews to live. I just had a client. I signed a client yesterday, and we did a Zoom, and they were like, oh, my God, we love your poetry. I was so honored. And I just said, well, how do you know about my poetry? Because I don't sell, if I want to be your publicist, I'm not going to talk about being. a poet. And they said, well, we looked you up and you're all over the internet and we read all your poems. And I thought, okay, great. You know, that's doing its job. They wanted to know about this, but we can create a persona when we go out to do these interviews, even different from our websites, what you create, you create beautiful websites that tell the whole story where people can really go through and see different things. But again, if you have three to five minutes or even 20 minutes, you have to create that persona. And that's what we're talking about here. How do you create it? How do you do a J chance where they're always going to remember you? Or be able to just talk about your book in a way that connects with other people. And that's one of the first things we always say is don't say in my book, in my book. That's right.

00:45:28 SPEAKER_02
Right. I get tired of hearing people on TV do that.

00:45:32 SPEAKER_01
It's really terrible. And, you know, back in the day when producers and hosts would actually engage with me and have conversations. Now, of course, it's all email and no one has time for that either. But I heard a lot of times, please tell your client, don't say in my book. We will promote the book. But the worst thing is the in my book, in my book.

00:45:58 SPEAKER_01
You know, change the channel right away. Yeah, click off. Yeah.

00:46:05 SPEAKER_02
It's hard to try and explain that to an author sometimes. Because they're saying, well, I'm talking about my book. I said, tell the story. Don't say, in my book. Then don't say that. Start here. You know?

00:46:21 SPEAKER_01
Right. Or say the book title. Because hopefully you have a good book title. I mean, the title of my last book of poems was What She Wants. And so I could say in What She Wants, I'm getting at, you know, and then people can remember what she wants. And it's not in my book. And I'm very careful not to say, but use the book title because A, it's probably interesting. B, it's what we want people to remember. And your distance. distancing yourself from the material by not saying my book. Because now the book is out in the world. It lives out there. Nobody cares about you.

00:47:05 SPEAKER_00
It's not your book anymore once it's out there. That's what I tell people. Once it's published and other people get to read it, it's no longer your book. It's theirs. That's right.

00:47:13 SPEAKER_01
right. It's gone.

00:47:14 SPEAKER_00
Especially with poetry, to interpret however they need to and however it hits them. It's no longer your... Yours. You're done with it. You sent it out. Exactly. Well, I think this has been wonderful. I agree. Kimfromla .com. Is that your website? Kimfromla .com. When I saw your email, I was like, man, I don't know how she got that email. That was lucky.

00:47:42 SPEAKER_01
With the earth link? I don't know about luck. I'm finally being pushed to the corner. everyone's like, Oh God, just get a normal email. But I like earth link. I like the sound makes me seem like a, you know, I'm an alien or something.

00:48:02 SPEAKER_02
I used to have them years ago, but I just made, I just used my, because I have Kathleen Kaiser .com. Right. And so that just becomes the end of my, my email. You know, it's just like, I bought that name in 98, that main name. And. It took a while. Actually, I was with MindSpring before Earthlink bought them, and then I could use it.

00:48:27 SPEAKER_01
Well, it's interesting. Life is a series of presentations, but at the holiday shopping, I was at Nordstrom, a little plug to Nordstrom, and there was a young man checking me out, and I had to put in my email, and I put my email with Earthlink, and he came in close over the counter. And he was like whispering to me, he goes, what is Earthlink? He says, he goes, I had somebody else today who had Earthlink. He's like, is that some kind of like a club or something? And I just thought, oh, this is hilarious. Yeah. And I said, yeah, it's a club. It's a very special club. And so, yeah, there you go. Some of us old timers know what it was,

00:49:12 SPEAKER_02
of us old timers know what it was, you know, know what it is. Right,

00:49:16 SPEAKER_01
exactly. But I'm in the Earthlink club.

00:49:21 SPEAKER_02
Well, let's wrap that up then. I agree with Adanna. This has been great, Kim.

00:49:26 SPEAKER_00
You've been great. Looking forward to your webinar. You know, if people are listening to this after the September 25th, you can catch the webinar in a replay at writersandpublishersnetwork .com. But yeah, I think it's going to be really interesting. And I think folks are going to learn a lot. And speaking is hard. I mean, I was just having a conversation with someone about public speaking and, you know, how do you get better at it? And then here we are talking about it. Okay,

00:49:57 SPEAKER_01
good. Well, yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me on your lovely show. I appreciate it. Well, thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Great to see you, Kathleen. Great to see you,

00:50:09 SPEAKER_02
to see you, Kim. Bye -bye. Bye.