Author Interview: Josh Summers

How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?

My book falls into an odd category I would term “personal travel guide”. It’s part impersonal Lonely Planet genre with a more personal, humorous twist. I prefer giving opinions, telling stories and making jokes to inspire travel as opposed to just giving straight facts.

What motivated you to start writing?

Originally, writing a book wasn’t my goal. I had set up a personal website to detail my travels through China’s remote western region of Xinjiang, but I quickly learned that I was in a very remote, unknown part of the world. Very little information was available about where to go and what to do.

As the years went on, I spent countless hours each week responding to emails from readers who had specific questions about traveling around this unique region. At first it was fun, but then it became a chore. I found myself answer the same, exact questions each day and I wasn’t getting paid for this time.

So one day I sat down and decided to compile all of my knowledge and experience about the region into a travel guide that I could publish and recommend to people who email me asking for help.

Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)

I knew from the start that I was dealing with a very niche subject. I also knew that I wanted to take advantage of not only the power of Google search (which is how my website gets most of its traffic) but also the power of Amazon search.

So instead of reaching out to traditional publishers, I decided to test the market with a self-published digital guide. I remember sitting down at the kitchen table during a vacation in Bangkok, Thailand with a pad of 3M sticky notes and I organized a basic table of contents that would guide my writing for the next few months.

Using Scrivener, I wrote out the first draft of the guide and then went through a painful amount of trial and error to export the final file to the appropriate digital formats.

At the moment, the guide is currently available as a digital version on Amazon, Kobo, Nook and as a direct PDF download on my website (served through Gumroad).

What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)

The writing was tedious but fun. I was definitely glad to have that over with. I also enjoyed getting the design for the maps and the cover done, mostly because I hired somebody else to do it! I knew that the cover was a critical part to the success of the book (people do judge the quality of a self-published book on Amazon by its cover!), so I decided to invest heavily in making that happen.

The part that I didn’t enjoy was formatting the book for export. It was difficult and time consuming, not only because I had never done it before but also because I was formatting for multiple formats: epub, mobi, PDF, etc. Each format required slightly different formatting.

Initially, I had hoped to format for print on demand, but I quickly realized that for a travel guide, I would need a professional to help me out. I shelved that idea pretty quickly.

With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?

My biggest challenge was perceived value. Before publishing, I didn’t realize that Amazon changes its fee for any Kindle books priced higher than US$9.99. My plan was to sell the guide for about $20, which was on par with similar guides published by Lonely Planet and Odyssey. I thought this was only fair since my guide presented at least 3x’s better information than those guides did.

However, Amazon informed me that if I sold the guide for $19.99, I would receive the exact same royalties as if I sold the guide for $9.99. I wouldn’t benefit and my readers would pay twice as much. The only party that would benefit would be Amazon, and I didn’t like that.

So I priced at $9.99 and had to deal with the issue of perceived value. People would see my guide for $10 and then a Lonely Planet guide for $20 and automatically assume that the Lonely Planet guide was better. But it wasn’t!

My plan was to combat this with tons of great reviews, which overall has worked. People see my guide as being 50% cheaper than the major publishers, but then they see that mine has 5x’s as many good reviews.

What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?

Build a team. I’m not just talking about a team of designers and proof-readers, although that was certainly important to me.

I’m talking about a team of friends, family and fans that want to see you succeed and are willing to help you in your grassroots marketing. This is the advantage that we have over major publishers.

For my guide, I used a group of faithful fans to help me decide which cover art was best, how the pricing should go and to share once the book was published. They gave me honest feedback and in the end many of them left excellent reviews on Amazon (which wasn’t a requirement).

What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?

My absolute favorite tools is email drip campaigns.

I give away a planning chapter of my book in exchange for an email address. Many of these subscribers come from my website but I’ve also done advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Google. Once somebody subscribes, I send them a series of pre-written emails that provides additional value for those who are planning to travel to my region and then end with a sales pitch for the book. It converts well, but that’s not my favorite use for email.

My favorite use is on the backend. I offer bonus materials within the book that readers have to “register” their book to receive (this essentially means giving me their email address). This is important because places like Amazon and Kobo don’t give me any information on who buys my book.

Once I have their information, I send them the bonus materials and then I wait. I think the automated sequence waits for a few weeks.

That’s when I send them an email asking how their experience has been with the book and personally asking them to leave a review. I know that Amazon often asks for reviews, but I’ve noticed that a personal email often pushes people over the edge to write the review, since they see that I’m just a simple indie-author whose book lives and dies by their reviews.

What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?

My entire goal is to allow people to experience the land and people that I have come to love out here in western China. It’s a unique place with a lot of amazing scenery and culture, but it often gets overlooked by the rest of the world. When people email me saying how useful the guide was to get them around the region, it makes it worth all the effort.

What’s next on your writing journey?

I’ve just started my next project, which is a guide for people traveling to China as a whole. It’s part of another website that I’ve been building for a number of years and I finally have the readership to justify spending the time and money to make this happen. I’m looking forward to helping a whole new set of travelers fulfill their dreams of traveling to a foreign place!

About the Author

Author Bio: Josh Summers is a writer and photographer who has lived with his wife in Xinjiang, China since 2006.

He writes about his experiences there on his website, FarWestChina.com but you can also follow along with his adventures on YouTube or on Instagram.