Melanie Trela Johnson, the visionary founder of Elite Online Publishing, has taken over 3000 authors to number one bestseller status and is herself an 18-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author.

Melanie explains how Elite Online Publishing differs from traditional publishers by providing high-level service throughout the entire publishing journey, handling the publishing triathlon of writing, publishing, and marketing so authors can use their books as credibility and marketing tools. She emphasizes that finishing your book isn't the finish line; you’ll need to promote your book.

Book awards involve applying to specific competitions where groups of readers evaluate your book alongside others in the category and decide if your work merits gold, silver, or bronze recognition, with even silver awards meaning you're above everyone else in that category just like Olympic medalists. The key is researching thousands of available awards to find ones with categories matching your book's niche, then applying to multiple categories within each award to maximize chances.

Most awards charge fees and require physical books since evaluators spend time reading submissions. Awards provide lifelong credibility since this title further distinguishes you from authors without awards.

Books are never too old for awards as long as content remains current, so authors can use awards for a new announcement, which reignites interest. Awards don't happen immediately, like bestseller launches, since many competitions announce results five to six months later, creating natural promotional opportunities.

Basic requirements include quality professionally edited content, beautiful covers, proper titles and subtitles, professional formatting, established sales and reviews. Elite Online Publishing works with authors to provide book awards services, bestseller launches.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born!

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Visit Melanie at Elite Online Publishing

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The opinions expressed on the show by the host or guests are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unicorn Publishing Company. Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, guests, and affiliates are not responsible or liable for any decisions made by listeners or actions taken hereto based on the information discussed in this podcast. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge and agree to release Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, affiliates, and guests from any liability.

Hey friends and future authors, this is Lynn, a Liquidy Smart, just ghostwriter and book editor here at Write For You. Thanks for listening to today's guest expert interview. And I'm super excited about our guests today. But before we jump into today's show, I want to give a big welcome back to my returning listeners. Thanks again for joining me for another week of publishing for professionals and a welcome to my new listeners. Please make sure that you hit that subscribe button. I'm so glad you stopped by to check out my podcast.

If you hit the follow and subscribe button, you'll get a weekly episode of publishing for professionals dropped right to your podcast player or the YouTube channel that you're watching it on. So today I have an incredible conversation lined up for you, my friends, at just in time for summer. I'm joined by Melanie Trela Johnson.

She is a visionary founder of Elite Online Publishing. She's a trailblazing media mogul. And if that's not enough, she's also an AI authority strategist and the visionary founder of Elite Online Publishing, which has taken over 3,000 authors to number one bestseller status. That is an amazing and impressive statistic. She's a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author 18 times over. And if that's not enough, she's also a renowned TEDx speaker.

The co-author of Be Recognized, the AI Authority Engine, which is the definitive guide for experts who want to dominate their industry using AI, strategic publishing, and personal branding. She's formerly the owner of two $100 million plus TV stations, and she now leads the charge in helping entrepreneurs, executives, and thought leaders build legacy brands that scale. She's the host of the two top ranked podcasts and a nationally sought after expert on visibility, automation,

and the future of thought leadership. Melanie is here with us today and she's gonna share her expertise on how to win book awards and how to use them to benefit your book marketing. Melanie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you. was a lot. Holy cow. That's a lot.

I know it's always like, like when you read, I read someone's bio, it's like, it's like reading and hearing it out loud is always like so. okay. Yeah. Checked off all these boxes. So for our listeners who are here today, just tell a little bit about like who is elite online publishing and how a hybrid publisher like yourself differs from a traditional publisher.

Did I do?

Sure. So we started 10 y as a little whim, we just retreat that turned into a authors and we were kind of that all of a you did a Now everyone was asking m my book. So that spawned with Jen Foster and I an we differ that were really We love that really one o

And since we've been doing it so wrong, as you know, Lynn, there are so many things that can go wrong when you're publishing a book. And there's so many things that you don't know, right? You can only Google so much and then, you know, Amazon may kick your book back. So we know how to handle all those ins and outs and we want to make it fun and enjoyable, but we're really that high level. I always say it's like,

Well, you can ride in a Kia, right, to get there, or you can ride in a beautiful Mercedes with the heated and air conditioned seats. And so we pride ourselves on doing that, on giving that high level service and touch. But it's not just about publishing the book, as you know, there's that other phase. It's like a triathlon. There's the writing the book that you helped so beautifully with and getting it so it's a really fabulous book. Then there's the publishing part that you toss off to us. And then there's the marketing part that we help as well.

really to market that book to number one bestseller, to have book awards, and then to get you on podcasts and set up your social media and make sure your emails are going out. You know, there's so many different things because now you have a product that you have to promote. So it's not just, I got the book. I'm at the finish line. I'm done. We'll let Amazon do their thing. It's like, you know, now you have something that you can really utilize for your business in so many different ways. I mean, it can give you credibility and trustworthiness.

but you can also use it as an advertising and marketing tool, which I know a lot about because I was in the television business.

Right, no, that totally makes sense. And to your point too, I'm sure you know the industry saying is like, now that you finished writing your book, now you've got the hard part, which is marketing.

Yes, yes. And then most people are lost. like, I have no idea how to mark this book. Like, what should I be doing? You know, that's another conversation, really. And I

literally never heard anybody say, I love book marketing.

And you know, I think I can break it down this way. Like you need to start with, say, if you only start with one thing, start with your email list, start building an email list. If you don't have it already and make sure you have an automated system, whether it's, were talking about go high level before we got on here, which is a more advanced system. But you know, there's MailChimp, Constant Contact. There's a bunch of them that you can use, but start with that. But then you should also be talking about it on social media. You should be making videos about it, right? You should be talking about it at events.

sending your book out, mailing it out. There's just so many different ways you should be really promoting and marketing the book.

Right, right. we're today, we're today, I'm super excited to talk about book awards because book awards have seemed to be a really hot topic lately in the publishing industry. So first of all, Melanie, let's talk about for people who are maybe unaware or not sure or not heard about what is like a book award and what are like maybe some of the more like popular ones people typically have heard of or maybe have applied for.

Yeah, so you know, a book award is something where, like people ask me that, well, how do I get the award? What is it about? So you're applying to, say, a specific award, and then they have their group of people that are going to read your book, along with all these other books in that category, and they're going to decide if your book is worthy of any of their awards. And some of these awards have gold, silver, bronze, you know, they have different levels. And we've had our last one just got a silver award, and we were so proud of them.

And you think, well, they're like, well, is it silver? mean, if it's only a gold, is it worth it? I'm like, well, if you were in the Olympics and you got a silver medal, you would still be talking about that. You're above everybody else that was in that category. So and I wish I knew some of generally handles the book awards more than I do. So I don't know them by name. But the key is, is to research them because there are thousands of book awards. So you don't want to be in a book award, you know, apply for a book award that really doesn't have anything to do with your books.

Right? They need to have categories that apply to your book and your niche and your topic. So what we like to do is find that, do all the research and find the best ones and then apply to those. And then we pick a couple of categories for each of those awards. So you get more than one chance. I think that's really important. You know, and if you do it on your own, you can apply to more categories and more subcategories, right? To do that, to give you more chances.

Nice, that's awesome. And so I know there's some book awards you have to pay for and some that are not paid for. So what is your take on that, Melanie?

So, you there's a lot of them that you have to supply the book or books that you're going to give. And usually they want a physical book. So you have to pay for the physical books and then they are going to charge. Most of them charge a fee. So part of it is kind of, I don't know if you want to say salesy spammy scammy, whatever one of the S words you want to use on that, that they're going to target. But I get that because they're spending their time to read your book, right? You're getting all these people and they're having to do the process. And then they've got

all of their systems behi to do to um to make the w they just don't want anybo about it. So you know, wh for too much, then y people that really want i free. But what we have f that we apply for, there applying for because those credibility. So don't let

when the two things that you should have when you're an author, you put so much work into your book that you should do a great book launch and make it a number one bestseller. That to me, you really need that. And then you should also, you've again, you spent all this time, you paid all this money with Lynn and done all these things to make sure the book is right, that you should apply it for book awards. Now, one of the number one reasons I say to do that is because you're gonna have that title for the rest of your life.

Right? They're going to announce you on stage as a number one international award winning author. That just sounds amazing. When I tell people what I do and I just say, make people international bestselling authors, like, wow. Right? So when you have that, people are going to be like, wow, you did the tell me about your book. Right? Because that doesn't happen to everybody that they can do that. So

you can apply for awards and you might not get them. That's happened to some of our authors too. You know, we apply for six of them, but they only maybe get one or two and the other ones they don't get. So it really does mean something if you can capture that and get that as part of your title. I just think it's part of that journey to keep pushing so you can get those, both of those things. I just think that counts for so much more even than I love getting reviews on books, but I think having those two titles is worth

more for your ROI in the long run.

Yeah, for sure. And then like to your point where you said, like being an author, right? First, you know, separates you from 98 % of other people. But then if you have a book award that even like further separates you from everybody else, because not that many people have one. So Melanie, say somebody's listening to this and they've published a book a year ago and they're or two years ago and they're looking to like, you know, they're writing a new book.

But they're thinking about like, is my book too old to get an award? Like, can I still get an award for my book even though I published it like one, two, three years ago?

Yes, you absolutely can. It's never, I see your book is like timeless, right? You have it, or they have it 20 years from now, still promote it, still apply for awards, still try and make it a best seller. So still use it as a marketing and advertising tool. So I think the book has, as long as it doesn't get dated, right? If you're writing like, if you're writing about AI right now, like 10 years from now, it might be a little outdated, right? Cause everything's going to change. So as long as it's still current and relevant,

I would say absolutely yes. Keep applying for that and promote your book. That's the mistake I think authors make more often than not, is really that they stop promoting their book. They're all excited about it the first couple of months, and then it's just another thing that I did, and then they don't talk about it anymore, and they don't think about it anymore. So I really encourage you to take that time to either hire someone like us to do book awards, or do the research yourself.

or have a VA do all the research for you and really find those awards that are perfect for your book. And you're going to have to make the investment. It might cost you $1,000 or so, or it might cost you $5,000. But it's worth the investment, I think, to be able to get those. And then you can advertise that. You can have that just on social media, that, hey, I won an award. I'm so excited. It gives you a reason to announce something versus not say anything else, right? You want to just say something else about your book.

that totally makes sense. And then one other question that just popped into my head when you said that is that I know like, you know, there's obviously different book categories and there's nonfiction and there's fiction. And do you find that there are like more awards for nonfiction books versus fiction books or is it kind of like across the board sixes?

Well, it's definitely easier to get nonfiction than fiction books because the fiction market is really flooded and it's a little bit harder. I would say it's about equal amounts of awards for each that you can find. And again, it's just really honing in and finding the ones that are right for your book. know, fiction books are just tough. Even when we publish them, the categories are harder to make number one bestseller in. It's just a little bit of a harder road. It's a different strategy than a nonfiction author.

You know, a nonfiction author has a total back end that they can use the book for their business and a marketing tool and credibility in the space. A fiction book is for entertainment. So there isn't necessarily a back end unless you're developing things for characters or, you know, there's different strategies for a fiction book to have other things besides the book that you can sell, but it is just a different, totally different animal.

That totally makes sense. Yeah, that totally makes sense. All right, my friends, we're going to take a quick break right here when we come back. We're going to get some more fabulous information from Melanie, the expert on book awards and how you can use them to promote your book that you have coming up.

Hey friends and future authors. We are back with my friend Melanie from Elite Online Publishing who is a publishing expert, especially when it comes to book awards and book marketing. so Melanie, before the break, we started talking about general things about, I had some general questions about book awards for you, but now let's talk about how you can use those awards to really promote your book. know like Amazon has definitely has some limitations. So I don't know if you can talk about that.

Right. They do have certain limitations. I would add it to your author profile on Amazon that you got the award. That's a great place to put it right there. I would also add it to your book description. You can add it there, which is another great place. If we're just talking about on Amazon, the cover, you know, Amazon doesn't even let you say Amazon bestseller on it. When you hit bestseller, you cannot use the word Amazon.

I would update the interior of the book and I would put it on the interior of the book as another great place. And I wouldn't hide it at the back of the book. I would put it in the beginning, like you are going to have, hopefully you have a call to action in your book. Put it so people can see it in the preview of the book. So if they're looking and they're turning the pages, you want them to see that right away that you have won book awards. Another great thing, like we're talking about fiction books, again, you want to announce it on social media.

I would send an email blast out about it to clients or even somebody that you're trying to make a client. Hey, guess what? My book just won an award. Would love to even share the book with you. Would you like the audio book? I can send you an mp3. I can send you the book. So a lot of different ways that you can leverage having that award. Now, speaking gigs, that's going to help you get speaking gigs for sure. When you have awards and you're an award winning author, right? They're going to look at that and go,

So not even just on Amazon, they're also winning awards. That's like a whole nother level of credibility that you're gonna get that's gonna help you get on stages. So I think that differentiates you. And again, there's not as many people that are getting those book awards. I think it's this silent little secret that people have to become an award-winning author. And I think it's so important and it's a great leverage and credibility tool for sure. Don't you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the other part of that too, Melanie, which I have experienced, I'm sure you probably experienced from clients too, by the time they get it written and marketed and blah, blah, like people are just so exhausted. They're like, my gosh, another thing to do, right? So they're like, well, a book award would be nice, but I don't have to do it. But yeah, to your point, it really does. And even if you don't want to do it like right after you publish it, you can even do it like, you know, six months down the line, nine months down, because it's never too late to get a book award most of the time, depending on obviously like what we talked about before, what your topic is.

And you know what? The timeline is important. So people think, oh, I'm going to apply for this book award and I'm just going to get it just like that. It doesn't happen because sometimes they don't announce like we'll apply for a book award. And then let's say, you know, they'll be five months out. They're not even going to do that award for five months or six months, or they do the award once a year. And so whenever you apply, you've got to wait whatever amount of time that is before you're going to get the award. So it's not this immediate thing. You know, when we do a book launch,

you're doing it right then and you're pushing all of this excitement into the launch to get number one. But the book awards, you have to have time. So you're going to invest the time to do all the research or better yet hire someone to do it. So if you're exhausted, like you said, oh my gosh, I'm so exhausted from my book launch, then just hire us or hire somebody else to do it for you. And then it's just in the works. But then just remember, you're going to have to the money out and you are going to have to wait for that to come in. But it's really nice because people

might have forgotten about your book. And then three months later, you're like, I got an award. got another award another three months later. So that I think is really the beauty of it, that it does time itself out.

So what are, I just had a question pop in my head, Malini. What are some of the basic requirements of like having a book award? Like, do you have to have your book published before you, I'm sure you have to have it published before you apply. And then what are some other kind of like, like I know for grants, there are some basic requirements like a lot of grants have. So what are some basic requirements for like general requirements for book awards that you've seen?

You know, and it's not so much the requirements is that you have to have a good book, number one, which Lynn's going to help you make sure you get an awesome written book and that it's got a great developmental editor with it. So it has to be quality content that has to be in there. Right. And then they're going to look at, can't have a cover like that has a picture of your backyard on it. With this little, I'm sorry. We've had people come in with covers like that, believe it or not. So, I mean, it's got to have a beautiful cover.

the title and the subtitle need to make sense. It's all the things you need to do to make a good book in the first place, right? To have that. It has to look professionally done and professionally published. So I've got an author, not my author. She's like, I got a buddy that's just going to upload the book for me and make the cover for me. And I'm just scared for her because I don't know. Look at the look on your face. I just don't know what she's going to get. Now she will, she won't get bestseller.

for sure because they're or anything for it. And s to get a book award with it to have a publisher behind one the other things t credentials because if you and it just says self pub to get a book award. If yo company behind you, um, wh publishing world, I thin

and it just gives you more credibility because then somebody was there to make sure you dotted all your I's and crossed all your T's on the whole process.

Yeah, and first of all, like to your point when you said I have a buddy, a look on my face for people that are just listening to the audio was like, no, because like when I hear people say that it never ends well. Like you always get something that's like, my middle schoolers when I taught STEM back like over a decade ago would have done a better job on this book cover.

Yeah. Dad.

said. So, okay, so, but i their book and they have d so forth and so on, with them

We work with, to do the book awards, we've worked with people who have published with traditional publishers, other hybrid publishers, or they've self-published themselves. And we do several things. We can do book awards for them. We can do a best seller launch. We do what's called a book boost for authors, where we guarantee 1,000 sales and 25 reviews and three articles written and submitted for them for different publications.

So that's like a real push and that happens like over a 90 day period. So it keeps that momentum going for somebody, which is nice to see. then, know, book awards want to see that you've got some reviews. They want to see that you're having some sales. Cause if they go in there and your book, you've done this, you've gone in a book's been up for a couple of months and they're not even populated in the categories. You're like, they haven't sold any books. They haven't sold enough books to populate and show the categories that they're ranking in anything.

So I think that's also real important to your point that you made earlier. But yeah, we work with anybody that is publishing their book to help them do that next step. So we don't just publish, we do just the marketing separately as well and work with other publishers and people who have self-published.

Awesome. And so one last for you, Melanie, for anyone who's listening to this, if the summer is coming up, what would you recommend for them if they are currently writing their book, if they are seriously considering a book award? Like what would what would you say they should start setting up now to get that in place, whether they either want to DIY it or they want to work with you to help for you to for you to help them with the book award?

And I know you're overwhelmed. If you're working on your book and you're writing your book, you already feel overwhelmed. And then you got the proofreading process. my gosh, I have to read my whole book again. So I know it's just a lot. And then you're thinking about publishing. So don't overwhelm yourself, but you can do if you have, again, I would say if you're not overwhelmed or you have team members, start to do the research and find out what are those categories and what are those places that you should be getting book awards and do it. honestly, I,

Tony, if you're like in the middle, let's say you've got your rough manuscript done. I would say if you are working with people and you're listening to people and you have all the things in your book that are right, which we talked about the cover, subtitle, the book description, a great edited book, make sure you've got all of the right things. It's formatted beautifully. Formatting is also really important. And you've done all those things. Then.

really worry about the marketing and the launch. Those are the two most important things next. So don't sweat it, I guess is what I'm saying. You have time. Get to the book is finished. When the book is finished, start the publishing process. Then you can even maybe start researching awards then, but don't worry, get the book launched. That's the most important thing that you want to focus on and do that right. And then focus on the awards afterwards.

That makes total sense. Well, Melanie, this has been so fabulous and I know people are going to want to reach out to you to help them with the book awards and marketing. I know you do a fabulous job of marketing as well. So where can people reach you? For people on YouTube, you've got the banner at the bottom, but for people that are on audio, Melanie, can you let them know where to reach you? And I know you have a podcast that people are going to want to listen to. So definitely let us know what your podcast is.

Thanks. Yeah, you can rea publishing dot com. j form and then you'll conne appointment with us. a and then we have a podcast podcast. You can go more th and publishing there and I with authors who have book through what's wrong with and different things. So

And I can attest that your podcast is awesome because I've listened to several episodes of it and I love it and I've got it queued up to drop every week in my podcast player.

Nice. I love that. Thanks, Lynn.

Yeah, absolutely. Melanie, this has been fabulous. I know people listening to it have gotten so much value out of it. Thank you again for coming on today and sharing your knowledge of books and book awards and how to get them. This has been great.

Terrific thanks for having me and everybody keep writing publishing and remember to keep marketing your book

Absolutely, I second that. All right, friends, you know, I love to work with you and repeat authors to get past their mindset writing and publishing hurdles so authors can have a smooth publishing pathway and be confident in self-publishing their nonfiction books. So instead of spinning your wheels and being attached to a cycle of doubt, let's move your book forward together. Then you can work at what you do best, which is being a thought leader. If you don't know what to do next, go to write4u.me, book your complimentary discovery call, because I'm ready to stand by your side and walk you through the process.

Until next week, this is Lynn Aliquity reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born.