The 99 Authors Project – Season 3 – Episode 5 with Kari Petruch18 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello and welcome to the show. I’m Janine Bolon your host and something you may or may not know about the Janine Bolon show is that it is a syndicated program of four podcast shows that were combined. When our podcast programming got syndicated in October of 2021, my team and I merged all four podcasts into one program just for you. Up to that point, we had been running four separate programs called Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations, and The Practical Mystic Show, and today, we will be highlighting one of the 99 authors that I am interviewing this year to receive their guidance, their ideas and their perspectives on the best way to market and promote your book to get your message, your story your memoir, out to the world. Now many of you have been told you should write a book about your life experience. I mean, I know that’s happened for you. Well, these 99 authors that I will be interviewing over the course of the next year were prompted to write their stories as well. Now each one will tell you what got them going writing, but then each one will share what worked when selling their books, what didn’t work, things they wish they had known before they became the prolific published authors that they are today you’ll gain a unique book marketing ideas, you’ll get selling strategies and promotional plans that will effectively market your novel and become if you wish, a best selling author in the real world and online. And so it just so happens that today we are lucky enough to have with us master relationship coach, strategic interventionist, author of Get Out of the Box, and into Play the Secret to a Lasting Relationship, and owner of The Highest Intent Life Coaching, Kari Petruch, who has been helping people all over the world for a lifetime. She is the mother of three, a grandmother of eight and married to the man of her dreams. Kari helps couples find even more joy and excitement in their relationships using her amazing six week ultimate relationship program. Kari is happy to announce the development of a couple’s retreat that is coming soon, and we are lucky because we have her with us today. Welcome to the show, Kari.

Kari Petruch
Hi. Thank you glad to be here.

Janine Bolon
So and it’s Kari and I do that. So just be patient with me listeners as I butcher this poor woman’s name. Kari, would you please say your name for me?

Kari Petruch
Kari Petruch.

Janine Bolon
Kari Petruch, and we went over this in the green room two or three times. And so anyway, just be patient with me listeners, you know how it is sometimes, and I love these people so much I want to make sure we get their name right. Now, is that your real name? Or is that a pen name as an author?

Kari Petruch
That is my real name.

Janine Bolon
Okay, well, sometimes we have authors with pen names, what made you decide to write under your real name?

Kari Petruch
Well, I love my real name. I’m married to the man of my dreams, and that’s his last name. And by the way, there is something specific about Kari. I’m named after a great aunt Caroline, and it’s a shortened version of her name, and she was just a wonderful, wonderful woman. So I would never give that up.

Janine Bolon
Right. Right. It’s always nice to meet people that really like their name, you know, because you hear so much about the others. And so when you really like your name, I always like asking authors, because there’s always that first decision you have to make right? First, I’m going to write the book and then oh, am I going to be myself? Or am I going to hide behind a pen name? There’s that decision that has to happen. So I love listening to that story on what’s going on. So out of curiosity, did you have a marketing background before you started writing your book?

Janine Bolon
No. Well, not at all.

Janine Bolon
Neither did I don’t worry. I love asking that question. You’ll see people kind of get that deer in the headlights look like dong, no. Tell us a little bit about what kind of life were you leading when you wrote Get Out of the Box and into Play?

Kari Petruch
Being a relationship coach, I had a brick and mortar or my own office and I saw couples in my office. And then I decided to step out of that and start creating courses online, and from that I met the woman who helped me to publish my book, and I went from there. So yeah, so I no longer see couples in a brick and mortar.

Janine Bolon
Right. Yeah. 2020 did a lot of things. And that was one of them. We went online. So talk to me a little bit about what most surprised you about the book marketing process and publishing a book?

Kari Petruch
Well, growing up, publishing a book was much, much more difficult. And I was well aware that I’ve been writing since I was six years old. But it was daunting that just the thought of having to submit it, and see if a publishing company was going to publish it, and it was really, really complicated. What surprised me was that I could self publish, you know, I did get a publishing coach, but I could do it myself. And it’s just amazing to be able to do that. Now anybody can write a book and publish a book today.

Janine Bolon
Right. And a lot of people still have that old paradigm in their head, I don’t think a lot of people realize there was a massive sea change in the publishing industry, from 2000 to 2005, there was a huge sea change. And because of that, that’s why I’m interviewing all 99 of you guys, because we need your advice on this new world that we’re all publishing in. So, talk to me a little bit about what worked best for you? And how did you sell the most books? So, what was a thing that worked best for you in the marketing? And then how did you sell most of your books?

Kari Petruch
Well, a lot of people don’t know that. I don’t know if I can say the name of the company that published my book or not. Is that okay?

Janine Bolon
Yes, go ahead.

Kari Petruch
Okay. Well, Amazon. So I published through Amazon, and the deal is, is that when you have that you get to leverage their advertising, which is not something that you get to do with every company, and it’s amazing. They help you along the way to do that, they help you to promote your book, they help you to market your book, they make it really delicious, to do it that way, you know, and it’s really helped. And then plus social media, a lot has helped a great deal. So that’s what I used was social media, and the company that published my book.

Janine Bolon
Right. So I’m a bit of a dinosaur, I was in the vanity publishing, I started publishing in 2005. And so I actually have a company that I use, but in the course of time since 2005, I have been with three different types of publishing companies, and Amazon is also one of them. So I’ve had the whole gamut. And I encourage people to, if you want a little bit more hand holding, definitely go with somebody who knows the KDP way of publishing through Amazon so that you don’t get lost. Or you can go with some other self publishing venue. So what worked best for you? And how did you sell the most books? Like how did you really launch your particular book?

Kari Petruch
Well, what I did was, I published it, but I let people know that it was coming through emails, through social media, I let them know that it was about to be published, I had a copy of my book cover, and I let them know this. Friends, family, everyone on social media that I knew. And then the next thing that I did was when it launched, I let everybody know it was there. And the next thing coming up is called the best seller day. And that’s where I just go and really, really let people know, go buy my book, go buy my book, go buy my book, but it’s already a best seller.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, that’s fabulous. So this is my favorite question to ask, because I love focusing on what works for people. But I also know that what doesn’t work can be just as helpful to other authors. So What process did you try that was literally an epic failure in selling your books?

Kari Petruch
Epic failure, so far, is buying books and going and sitting there and having people sign them. I think that once it becomes a book that people want, once you get the word out, and they want it that can be effective. But going to a book signing, and they still don’t have the know, like, and trust yet of you as an author, they walk by, and they look at you, and if it’s out there for a while, and you get that, a little bit of in the public eye, then they’ll line up to come get your book and sign it, but if they don’t know who you are, chances are they’re just going to look at you like okay, what’s that? And that’s about it.

Janine Bolon
I have found that after 2020, there has been another massive sea change in the publishing world. And I like to encourage people to do online, virtual book signings, and that way, you don’t have to leave the comfort of your home, neither do your potential new readers. And that’s one of the things that I’ve watched Kari do very effectively. She is on what they call Speakers Playhouse, she’s on several networking groups, and she’s offering to ship books to people that are personally signed. And she’s talks about that. And honestly, that’s what you can do as an author now. So, I would love to learn from you Kari about what story do you tell about yourself that gets the most laughs from your target audiences?

Kari Petruch
So I like to tell people that I was such a writer, that I would sit there and I would write these little stories out at six and seven years old. And I would make a classroom of stuffed animals, and I would sit there and I would teach the stuffed animals about writing stories, and I would teach them and I would do music class. And my grandmother would come in and she would say, Kari Jane, what are you doing? And and I would say, well, I’m teaching them how to do it. I have to teach all of my pupils how to write stories and how to sing right, and yeah, I was born that way. This just cracked her up. She used to think that, once in a while she would go, do you have a little friend in there? And I’m like, yeah, I have a whole room full of friends.

Janine Bolon
I love that, because we’ve all done that at one time or another where, you know, we felt the need to teach and we felt the need to play in that way. That’s lovely. So what has been the biggest change you’ve seen in yourself since you started marketing your book?

Kari Petruch
I am really surprised that the change in my confidence in what I’m doing. Confidence in writing. I really always was kind of an introvert. And I’m surprised at that I’m able to speak more, and I’m able to engage more with people that really surprised me.

Janine Bolon
You really feel like you came out of your shell in a way?

Kari Petruch
Yes, kind of Yes. Yes, in a way still require quiet time. But yeah, I’m able to do more than I thought I could do. It’s, you know, I have a lot of courage. And I just said, okay, here we go. And it’s been wonderful. It’s been very helpful and blossomy for me.

Janine Bolon
All right. I think that’s wonderful. That’s fabulous. Okay, well, here’s, here’s the other one, I have two favorite questions that I asked you guys, and the first one is what gets, you know, the epic failure. But the other one is, what are the top five tips that you would give authors when selling their books for the new people that are coming up?

Kari Petruch
The top five tips. Well, the top five tips would be to leverage every stage possible. Make your book available on social media. Make it so that they can click and go right to it. Leverage press releases. Have a media coach. And ask for that email so that you can give even more value and nurture your readers.

Janine Bolon
Well, okay, that’s quite a hefty list, we’re going to slow that down just a little bit. We’re going to go through number one, leverage every stage you can, okay, educate me, what on earth are you saying with that?

Kari Petruch
So, schedule podcast appearances, get on podcasts, radio, if you can get on TV, get on TV. If you can go to events where there are live stages, and you are able to speak and talk about your book, and a lot of times at live events, they will especially allow authors to have a table in the back and sell their books, without any charge from the event person. You know, authors are given a little bit more leeway when they write a book and need to sell their book because people realize that it’s not a get rich quick thing usually.

Janine Bolon
Right. Yes, they know that. Great. So that’s what you mean by leverage every stage. When you mentioned a media coach, what does that mean to you? Kind of define that a little bit for me.

Kari Petruch
Well, I do have a media coach, and that media coach has helped to teach me how to leverage media in order to promote my book, my speaking, and my coaching. And, so she’s taught me about having podcast appearances, about going on summits, about being on stage, about publishing, about press releases, about magazine articles. So she’s really wonderful about teaching me about all of the options, and helping direct me to where I need to go in order to get that done, because I had absolutely no idea how to do any of that.

Janine Bolon
Right. No, I get it. So tell us, what is the one thing you most misunderstood about being, or about becoming an author? What was one of the things that you were like, wow, I had no idea about this idea, or whatever about being an author?

Kari Petruch
Marketing.

Janine Bolon
Everybody thinks writing the book is hard, right?

Kari Petruch
Well marketing, being a relationship coach is very different than marketing yourself as an author, it is very different.

Janine Bolon
And that is something that the nonfiction authors have, that the fictional authors don’t have. Fictional authors have to really focus on their genre. They have to market their genre, not their books, per se. That’s one of the things they learn. But for nonfiction authors, especially if you have a business that is really supporting the book. That’s where you’re talking, isn’t it?

Kari Petruch
Well, yeah, well, my book is a people book, so it applies to all couples all over. So the the market that I have is really broad. It’s not, you know, I’m not focusing in on couples who are age 60 and older or anything. I’m focusing in on all couples. So it’s a huge audience to try and get different targets. It’s really a lesson in marketing that I never thought I would have.

Janine Bolon
I love that. All right. Well, wrapping up, what is the primary thing that has been the biggest reward to you being an author?

Kari Petruch
Really, I know this is gonna sound maybe a little sentimental, but the biggest reward was to have my father calling me on the phone and say, hey, kiddo, really proud of you. There are a lot of people who say they want to write a book, and you did it. And I’m really proud of you. My father is a secret poet, and never, he has all these poems, but never went to publish them. And someday, maybe I can publish it. But really, that was the biggest thing to have my dad call me and say he’s proud of me.

Janine Bolon
And I have to agree with him. You know, a lot of people will say, oh, there’s so many authors out there and publishing your book, big whoop. But that’s the thing is like many people have been said, oh, your life experiences you really need to write this out in a book for other people. And please listen to those folks. I don’t care how many books are published, your story matters, and that’s what I love about your dad saying that to you. A lot of people say they’re gonna write a book, never do and look at you, kiddo. Good job. Gold star. Well done. And I just have to agree with him. And the same way with people. It’s totally awesome. How can people get a hold of you if they want to learn more about your book, and let’s give them the title again here… Get Out of the Box and Into Play, the Secret to a Lasting Relationship. So where do they get ahold of you?

Kari Petruch
At www.highestintentcoach.com.

Janine Bolon
Okay, that’s fabulous. And thank you so much for taking time out of your Saturday to be with us today.

Kari Petruch
Thank you, Janine.

Janine Bolon
And this is Janine Bolon signing off with you today. All of us here at the 8 gates that produce the Janine Bolon show, wish you a wonderful week and encourage you to utilize the strategies and the plans to get your message, your story, or your knowledge out into the world. Make it a better place just like these authors are doing for the next generation of authors coming along behind them. We’ll see you again next week, and until then, keep sharing what you know with others, keep shining that light that is you, and don’t forget to go out today and do something fun. See you soon.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.