We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meochia Thompson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Meochia , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with something countless entrepreneurs have had to figure out on the fly – how have you dealt with the rise of remote work?
Products like Zoom, Messenger and FaceTime help us communicate across the globe. The benefits can be less meeting time and more productivity. Pitfalls can include losing track of time and over availability. If you’re not careful, you’ll spend more time on a project than you’ve planned because there is no one looking over your shoulder or no place for you to get to. Plus, you’re more accessible. To prevent this, remember boundaries. So, you must plan your time carefully, set alarms and reminders and remember to include a lunch break and time outs to stand or get fresh air. The benefits include the convenience of not having to dress up, buy gas, or travel far. You are more relaxed and less stressed in a safe and familiar environment.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am the owner of Blessed Pen Ink Publishing, Corp. We are a full-service professional company. We work with authors from beginning to end. Services include everything from concept development, writing consultations, web design, creative writing, social media output, developing marketing strategies to plan implementation. I have decades of experience in writing and communication. I just love to write, any and everything. I’ve done everything from publishing a tabloid, to scriptwriting, to television news writing and radio hosting. Publishing has always been my thing because I love to create with words! In my industry, I am considered a hybrid publisher because most of my services are paid upfront by the author versus a larger, traditional publisher, who may give an advance in which the author gets paid upfront, and the publisher makes money off book sales. With me, the authors invest in themselves and gain more control over their work. What makes my company so unique is my authors pay as they go. My prices are very affordable which allows authors with limited funds to pay at their own pace while still receiving high quality services. In other words, when I edit, I’m not just checking for grammar and punctuation, I’m also looking at sentence structure, rewriting where necessary, researching content, and making sure my author’s thoughts are coming across clearly. It is important for me not to compromise the author’s voice but enhance their vision without taking it over. I build relationships with my authors to ensure I am capturing their message within the pages of their work and not just incorporating what I think will work. I want them to be profitable, but I also want them to be whole for their audience. Also, I understand that every author is not a writer and it’s my job to help them tell their story, correctly and concisely. Most books I publish are inspirational. I want readers to experience change of thoughts, habits, and hearts after reading them. I could publish anything just to make money, but I’m interested in what money can’t buy and that’s peace-of-mind. There’s something about knowing your story has helped others find freedom. I’d say, my company, Blessed Pen Ink Publishing, is in the healing business of words!
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
I helped discover a way for my author to sell a children’s book in a saturated market! My favorite example of this is a young lady who wanted to write a book and had lots of poetry and artwork she created as a child. We discovered a way to incorporate her old paintings, art an drawings into her new book by wrapping a storyline around her work. Then, our Illustrator incorporated everything into the pictures within her new book. It was awesome! To increase book sales, we used a font designed for dyslexia and left space for children to create their own art and poetry in the back pages of the book. It was educationally inclusive with a unique selling point.
People think selling books is easy. It is not because there’s so much competition. However, It can be if you have the time, determination, and creativity. I don’t like to just leave my authors out there by themselves, so from the beginning I come up with strategic tools to help book sales. I’m thinking about branding from the very beginning. I’m taking into consideration what they do, who they are, what skills, resources, and talents they have, and how we can put all of this together to serve them in selling their product. The first thing I let authors know is you are your brand. You cannot be shy in this industry. So, what do we do with a person who has no marketing skills or experience, but they want to write this book that is going to rock the world? We consider their words. I love the challenge of helping authors see their world in a new light by using things they already have to prosper their brand.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I sell my author’s books as well as other publishing services on my company website, blessedpenink.com, which means more profit for them. I also utilize platforms like Amazon, Facebook, etc. for exposure because it gives your product a larger audience. The drawback is you’re not sure if anyone really sees your brand because you’re competing with millions of others. So, you constantly must find new ways to stand out. It’s better to use your own website in partnership with these platforms. Authors get a kick out of telling people their books are on Amazon or most major bookstore sites. They can also go to stores and shop their books themselves so that they can get on shelves. But I always remind them they are their biggest seller. So, if they want to make more money it is better if they sell the books themselves or have more speaking engagements. I stress the importance of promoting the BPI publishing website or their own personal site, blog, or social media pages to be able to bring more awareness about what they are selling and their expertise on a particular subject.
So, utilize the larger company platforms to sell your products and brand but keep in mind that people usually just want to support you. Bring them back to your personal pages and sites, as much as possible. The profit comes instantly and more abundantly.
Contact Info:
- Website: blessedpenink.com
Image Credits
Rhiannon McCalmont