Tom Corson-Knowles started his first business at the age of 13. I’ll let that sink in for a bit, while you think about what you were doing at age 13. I think I was probably playing my NES…anyway, while we can’t all be so committed at such an early age, we can learn from Tom’s many years of experience in the self-publishing world by listening to this week’s episode!
Some highlights:
- At around 2.20 Tom explains how he got started in business with his dad.
- At around 6.00 he graduates from working with dad to selling his own books, almost by accident at first.
- At around 9.00: “a book is the only marketing tool that will actually pay you at the same time as being marketing for your other products.”
- At around 10.00 Tom explains why the publishing world can never truly be a saturated marketplace, no matter how many people are able to get their work out there these days.
- At around 14.50, Tom explains how his ‘thinking time’ works – how he makes his books logically structured to help solve a problem for the reader and add value to their lives.
- At around 16.35, “understanding your reader and what they want, that’s how to write a great book.”
- At 17.00 Tom provides an extremely valuable lesson – he runs through his intensive technique for working out what readers want from certain kinds of books, allowing him to provide it to them. If you listen to nothing else this week, make sure you listen to this!
- At around 22.20, Tom explains how the game has changed for publishing, with more than 50% of the top 100 books on Amazon being self-published – and more importantly, he explains why it’s changed.
- From 28.10 onwards Tom talks about his own publishing house, TCK Publishing – they can help you take you from idea to publication in a few simple steps and in as little as 90 days!
- Tom also mentions that when you want to push your books into airport shops, Amy Collins is the person to talk to – you can find her at New Shelves.
So what are you waiting for? Don’t just sit there with a great idea for a bestseller – listen to Tom talk in this week’s Hardcore MBA, and then get to work! Tom has four free training videos available at his Ebook Publishing School, chats with industry influencers about the latest trends in his Publishing Profits podcast, and, of course, publishes books through TCK Publishing.
Did you enjoy this week’s show? Did you take anything particularly useful away from it? Do you have ideas for things you’d like to see or people you’d like to hear from in future shows? Let us know in the comments!
