The Publishing Performance Show

Ellen Erikson - How to Make Money from Classic, Public Domain Books

• Teddy Smith • Episode 58

Share episode

Ellen Erikson is a publisher of over 30 books, combining self-authored works and public domain publications. Her expertise lies in identifying, updating, and successfully marketing classic works for modern audiences.


In this episode:

  • Understanding public domain books and copyright laws
  • Guidelines for publishing on Amazon KDP
  • Strategies for standing out in the market
  • Finding and selecting profitable titles
  • Formatting and production considerations
  • Marketing and advertising approaches
  • Common pitfalls and how to avoid them


Resources mentioned:

  • Project Gutenberg
  • Many Books
  • Wikipedia copyright tables
  • KDP publishing guidelines


Connect with Ellen:


Connect with Teddy Smith:




Support the show

[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Works are in the public domain have been re released for a long time. A lot of the reason is because obviously it's a lot cheaper than writing something from scratch. It's one of the reasons why you see things like Charles Dickens plays and William Shakespeare plays quite a lot because people aren't paying for that fee for people who are still living and writing this stuff.

[00:00:23] Teddy Smith: And it works exactly the same with books. And the good thing about public domain books is you can get started with publishing even if you've got quite a low budget. It's all about finding the right Little niches and the right little ideas for books that you want to release. So in this episode, we speak to Ellen, who is really amazing.

[00:00:38] Teddy Smith: She's someone I've known for a long time, and I've actually worked with quite a bit as well. And she's going to go through the exact process for you to start publishing public domain books all by yourself. Hi everyone, and welcome to Publish Informant Show. I'm here with Ellen Erickson, who's a publisher of over 30 books, both self authored and also in the public domain.

[00:00:55] Teddy Smith: So thank you for joining us, Ellen. 

[00:00:57] Ellen Erikson: No problem. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:00] Teddy Smith: So today we're going to be talking mostly about public domain books. So could you just tell us a bit about what public domain books are? 

[00:01:07] Ellen Erikson: Yeah public domain books are books where they are so old that the copyright has expired. So it means that they are free for us to use.

[00:01:18] Ellen Erikson: however we want. And you can see this by, for instance theater groups putting up Shakespeare plays, for instance, because those are in the public domain. And the same way as publishers, yeah, we can actually take these old manuscripts and we can update the formatting, uh, have a fresh front cover and then publish them as a new edition so that they, so that we keep them alive.

[00:01:42] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. I didn't know that about theaters. That makes sense. Cause my brother's an actor and he was always complaining about how much it costs to put on performances. And I was like, what was the cost? But obviously it was paying the writers. I didn't really think about that. 

[00:01:54] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you see like Francis, Romeo and Juliet, there's so many different films based on that story as well.

[00:02:01] Ellen Erikson: Right. So films also made based on these stories and characters that are now in the public domain. 

[00:02:07] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. So this, so a lot of this is this things like Charles Dickens and things like that, or is it even, is it newer or older than that? 

[00:02:15] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So, it depends on the country. So every country has copyright laws and and they vary between countries.

[00:02:22] Ellen Erikson: So it could be a life plus 70. So 70 years after the author dies, or it could be 95 years after publications. So basically if it's more than a hundred years old most likely it will be in the public domain. 

[00:02:36] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. And that, that's the sort of, that's the benchmark you really look for when you're trying to find these titles, the sort of hundred year rule.

[00:02:42] Teddy Smith: Is that the main one you look for? 

[00:02:44] Ellen Erikson: Yes. Yes. So that's really what you're looking for. And to, to be a hundred percent sure you want to be able to, to check the different countries as well that you want to publish this in. And you can just Google it. There's a very nice Wikipedia page that has a big table of all the countries in the world and the copyright terms in these different countries so that you can make sure that you're not infringing in anyone's copyright when you publish these books, 

[00:03:11] Teddy Smith: right?

[00:03:11] Teddy Smith: Okay. So I guess this is kind of like how a lot of companies like penguin and people that make money because they have these really old books, I suppose they're just publishing them and getting printed. 

[00:03:21] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you can see some of these big publishers like Penguin Doverthrift, they, they have this specific look on the public domain books.

[00:03:31] Ellen Erikson: So they design some kind of a look so that you see that this is a classic and then, then it's just a slightly different title, different graphic and design on the cover, but you can kind of recognize them that way. 

[00:03:44] Teddy Smith: Yeah, right. Okay. That makes sense. So what are the benefits of doing public domain books compared to doing normal writing yourself, such as getting ghostwriter or even writing a book yourself?

[00:03:55] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So the, the main benefit is of course, it's very, easy to get started because these. These manuscripts are already written and if they have survived a hundred years and they're still being searched for and book, that means they must be quality, uh, manuscripts. So, so that's of course one big benefit.

[00:04:15] Ellen Erikson: It's, it's gonna be quite quick for you to go there and publish it. And at the same time, it's also gonna be quite inexpensive to get it up there if the manuscript has been written. And that's like the big bulk of the time and the money when you are producing books. 

[00:04:31] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. That makes sense. Now, when you're selling these books on Amazon, are there any particular steps you need to go through?

[00:04:37] Teddy Smith: Because I know that Amazon does have a lot of strict rules around all sorts of books. You know, you can't, change people's other people's copyrights. You know, if you do any plagiarism, they're really strict on that. So are there any rules that you need to follow when you're doing public domain books?

[00:04:51] Ellen Erikson: Yes, definitely. So, even though these manuscripts are in the public domain, and you can basically do whatever you want with them, you always have to follow the guidelines of that portal that you're publishing it on. So, if you're publishing through Amazon or KDP, then Kindle Direct Publishing, then you have to follow their guidelines.

[00:05:10] Ellen Erikson: And specifically for KDP, They are saying if the book is already available for free as an e book on their portal, you have to differentiate it. And that's basically the main thing. So they don't want just a lot of the same manuscript available and yeah. So to differentiate it, you have to either include a new translation.

[00:05:33] Ellen Erikson: So, if, if the text is a little bit outdated and old fashioned, you can get a new translation or you can include ten original, illustrations. Or an annotation and yeah, the annotation is probably the easiest one, but for some books like, Alice in Wonderland, for instance, it might be better to have illustrations because, children are more interested in that.

[00:05:55] Teddy Smith: Right. So with the annotations, what are the rules around that? So is that literally like footnotes and things, or is it like a, an introductory chapter? 

[00:06:04] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, so the guidelines is they either want like a biography of the author or they want like a historical context where you can describe time and place where this story took place or, or this, this book was written or you can create a study guide.

[00:06:21] Ellen Erikson: So if the book is commonly read by book clubs or students in school, then that could also be very beneficial to have some summaries and questions. Okay. 

[00:06:31] Teddy Smith: Okay. Yeah. That could be quite nice. You could include sort of study guides for people who are doing exams or things like that. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

[00:06:38] Teddy Smith: Okay. And when you're doing those annotations, are there is there a certain amount of words you need to include in order to make it different enough to the original? 

[00:06:46] Ellen Erikson: No, there is no, for the images, there is a minimum of 10, but for the annotation, there is no guidelines, but. I try, I try to include about 5, 000 words, 20 pages, so that makes it a little bit substantial and then it makes you stand out a little bit from the rest as well, if there, if.

[00:07:05] Ellen Erikson: If it adds a bit of it, a bit to the value of the book, 

[00:07:09] Teddy Smith: of course. Yeah. Are there any challenges that you face when you're doing the public domain books? Cause it sounds like I know Amazon are really strict on rules. You know, if you make a mistake, it's usually shoot first and ask questions later. So obviously one of the main challenges is sticking to the rules, but are there any other things you really need to focus on?

[00:07:27] Teddy Smith: If you were thinking about getting into public domain books? 

[00:07:29] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So, so I would say Make sure you, you really follow the rules. It's you don't want to claim to be the author if you're not. And if you're publishing these public domain books, then, the original author needs to get the credit.

[00:07:42] Ellen Erikson: And also, if there is an original illustration artist that has been working on it, then you also have to give them credit. Also, if the, if it was translated, then you also need to give, give them credit. And don't try to add an additional author. You can have an additional contributor if you wanted to, if you wanted to add like a forward or anything like that.

[00:08:05] Ellen Erikson: But make sure that you're not claiming any rights for something that you haven't done. I think, yeah, so I think that that's definitely the main thing. And another thing, if you commission a translation as well, even if, yeah, 

[00:08:20] Teddy Smith: sorry. I was gonna say, if you commission a translation, would you put the name of the translator in there?

[00:08:24] Teddy Smith: Or would you say that that's you? Who's done the translation? Cause you've commissioned it. 

[00:08:29] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So, so there's two sides. If, if for instance, the public domain book was an old Greek philosophy book and it was translated back in way back, and even the translation is in the public domain, then you're, you're publishing a translate, republishing a translation and you have to mention that old translator that translated it.

[00:08:51] Ellen Erikson: You're getting a new translation. Then of course you can either put the translator's name or a pen name for that or for that person. Right. So that's also fine. Another important thing to think about is, even if the book is in a public domain, there might be elements that have been copyrighted and trademarked.

[00:09:15] Ellen Erikson: So, for instance, when thinking about Winnie the Pooh, for instance, it's in the public domain, but the actual character, Winnie the Pooh with that red jumper, it's trademarked and it's owned by Disney. So when you go online and you see those public domain books that has been published, they don't wear that red jumper because the original Winnie the Pooh book, the illustrations didn't have that red jumper.

[00:09:42] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So you really have to think about the, is there something else that might have been trademarked in relation to this story as well? 

[00:09:49] Teddy Smith: I always wonder why Winnie the Pooh wears a top and no trousers.

[00:09:55] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, I have no idea. 

[00:09:58] Teddy Smith: Just walking around all day with his bum out. 

[00:10:02] Ellen Erikson: You would think the opposite would be more convenient. 

[00:10:04] Teddy Smith: So There's, it sounds like there are obviously quite a lot of these public doing books around. So it must be quite difficult for you to stand out. What sort of strategies do you do to try and make your books stand out from the crowd?

[00:10:19] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So first of all, I tried to pick those books that are not too competitive. So I tried to do some research on Amazon before I publish a book and see how's the demand look, look like, and also the competition. And if there's too many of the books already there and all the covers and everything looks great, then I'd rather look for some that are less competitive.

[00:10:44] Ellen Erikson: And, and what's really good is if you find that other books look outdated, the covers don't look great. And if that's the case, then the customer usually thinks that, well, if the cover looks a bit old fashioned and outdated, maybe the formatting, maybe it's difficult to read. Maybe it's the formatting is off.

[00:11:01] Ellen Erikson: So if something looks a little bit homemade, because a lot of people do this and they try it and they do it themselves without really knowing how to do it. So those niches where those public domain books look a little bit homemade can be a really good opportunity for, for professional publishers to go in there and make really nice cover and a good formatting because these are classics and people want to have them in their shelf.

[00:11:26] Ellen Erikson: They, they are, they want to buy them as great gifts. So they, they don't mind paying a little bit more to, to get a really nice cover. And you could also do like some of the big publishers do get a nice cover design going and have that across a lot of classics and kind of make a series of classics.

[00:11:45] Ellen Erikson: And then people would come back to you to buy those other ones because they, They look nice next to each other in the shelf, or especially if they like your your production, that they like your books, they see, oh, they're easy to read, well formatted, they are professional. Then they know that if they come back there they might find some other classics they want to read.

[00:12:06] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Okay. Right. So it's more about sort of that design, making it all stand out, building a series of everything that works together. I can sort of, I can see how that would work. Yeah. If I think about the penguin covers, I love those designs. I really like, if I see a book like that in a secondhand bookshop, I'm much more likely to buy that one than I am to buy.

[00:12:23] Teddy Smith: You know, one of the more modern ones has got a sort of a 17th century painting on the front, you know? 

[00:12:28] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

[00:12:30] Teddy Smith: Okay, nice. When you're doing, obviously Amazon has quite strict rules about doing the marketing and advertising as well. Does it follow? Does it also have strict rules for advertising the public domain books?

[00:12:42] Ellen Erikson: No, you can still publish. Yeah, you can still advertise them. That's not a problem. It's it's probably slightly more difficult to do the brand advertising. Because You don't have control over that pen name, if you know what I mean. So, then you would probably do have your own publisher included, that does the annotation, if you know what I mean.

[00:13:04] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:13:04] Ellen Erikson: But yeah, advertising is fine. The only thing you have to think about is when you choose these public domain books as well, if they are too competitive and over flooded, if there's too many of them, Then you have to look at the price point of the other competitors as well. The other competitors books because you want to make sure there's enough margin that allows you to advertise.

[00:13:26] Ellen Erikson: And I think in terms of keywords it's public domain books makes it really easy because people are looking for titles and these, these people's names, the author names, because they are famous. So it becomes the keyword and makes the keyword research really easy. So you can focus the advertising on those.

[00:13:44] Ellen Erikson: Main keywords leading straight to the book. So you wouldn't necessarily use a tool like publisher rocket or something like that to find different keywords. It'd be mostly focusing on people searching for the name. Or so for example, with like Oliver twist, people would search for Charles Dickens and all of the twists, but they probably wouldn't search for.

[00:14:03] Teddy Smith: Stories about homeless child. Exactly. The ones that are related to Oliver Twist or Charles Dickens would be the ones converting the best because people are looking for that specific book. But you'd be surprised there are probably some of the famous books that are so many variations of the title, the subtitle, not so title, also name, and then combination of the ones.

[00:14:25] Ellen Erikson: And sometimes people write it incorrectly or they just shorten it if the title is long. So, there could still be quite a few 10, 15 keyword phrases coming up that is, is good. Right. Mm. 

[00:14:39] Teddy Smith: Okay. And when you're doing your advertising, do you use any of the tools like publishing formats, for example, to help you with your advertising?

[00:14:47] Ellen Erikson: So that's one tool that I'm looking into, so I'm going to start using it now for my next few books. Yeah, cause it does, it does take time out of it does take time to do all this advertising. So if, if there's something that can be done passively in the background, then, uh, I definitely interested to, to outsource that.

[00:15:07] Teddy Smith: Yeah. A hundred percent. Now, when you're creating the public domain books are there any like pitfalls that you've seen or have you come across any like mistakes? Like have you ever published a book that's not actually in the public domain, for example, and fallen foul of that a hundred years? 

[00:15:22] Ellen Erikson: I, I haven't done that.

[00:15:24] Ellen Erikson: But I know some of my students have, published something that they thought were in the public domain, but then The translation wasn't right, so, so then the translation was from a newer date, even though the original work was published long time ago. So you really have to make sure that when you check the, the, the publication date for the original manuscript, you have to see that.

[00:15:50] Ellen Erikson: Is that the same version that I'm now trying to publish? So, so that you're not trying to publish then a new version of it, which might not be in a public domain yet. 

[00:15:59] Teddy Smith: So how do you know if the translation was newer? 

[00:16:02] Ellen Erikson: So I usually just go to Wikipedia and look at the author and I can see when the different books were published.

[00:16:10] Ellen Erikson: And sometimes it also then lists different translations when they were published. But if not, then you can also see, look at the place where you download the manuscript from. So a lot of us go to Project Gutenberg to get these free public domain manuscripts and it usually lists, the year that it was actually published.

[00:16:30] Teddy Smith: So that's, I was going to back to us next. So where'd you find your, where'd you find these manuscripts? 

[00:16:34] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So Project Gutenberg is a really good place and there's lots of volunteers that are digitizing these books and they put them out there for us to, us to read or publish. And there's also another one called many books.

[00:16:49] Ellen Erikson: And if you really can't find it, then you can just Google it. Sometimes there are some. Google Drives, some universities or somewhere that is putting it up there. But, um, yeah, most of the time, if it's there on Project Gutenberg, it's a very good chance it's actually in the public domain because they wouldn't put it up there otherwise.

[00:17:07] Ellen Erikson: But I always want to double check anyway. So, um, 

[00:17:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah, of course. So when you go to Project Gutenberg, can you just like search through it to see what's available? 

[00:17:15] Ellen Erikson: Yes, exactly. So there's a search bar and you can just put in the title of the book, the author or the topic, and then it comes up and they have also organized it into.

[00:17:26] Ellen Erikson: if you scroll down a little bit, there are some different bookshelves, so you can check out the crime shelf, or you can check out the history shelf, or yeah, there's lots of different topics as well, so that you can kind of browse them if you're not sure what you're looking for. 

[00:17:42] Teddy Smith: That's amazing.

[00:17:42] Teddy Smith: I, so I didn't realize there's this, I mean, even if you just want to read some books, there's just some amazing stuff, places where you can get some free books, get some inspiration. 

[00:17:49] Ellen Erikson: Definitely. So you can either read them online or you can download the EPUB and the EPUB you can just send to your Kindle device if you have a Kindle.

[00:17:57] Teddy Smith: Right. 

[00:17:58] Ellen Erikson: So yeah, so it's quite interesting. 

[00:18:00] Teddy Smith: Are you able to do things like audiobooks or anything like that with the public domain? 

[00:18:04] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, you can. You can, but it's, audiobooks can be a bit expensive to produce, especially since some of these public domain books can be really long. it can be a bit expensive to, to invest in that especially knowing that.

[00:18:21] Ellen Erikson: If your audio book does well, then anyone else can just re record the same audio book, and then it might be flooded. So, it's something to consider, especially now that author narration is coming in as well, but it's, it's something to consider to see if it is something that is worth the investment because this, this public domain books, they are, they are great and quick to get into, but it's also not necessarily an evergreen strategy because you don't know, even though it looks good today, you don't know next year is this niche going to be flooded?

[00:18:55] Ellen Erikson: Is there a lot of other publications on the same? That is coming on the market and competing with you. 

[00:19:02] Teddy Smith: Right. so go back to the book. So what are the steps you do in order to get it formatted? Are there, is it the same as formatting a normal book? And do you just outsource that to someone who's really good at formatting or do you do it yourself?

[00:19:13] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, so you can you can do either. So once you have, once you download that old manuscript you just want to combine that. With whatever you're adding, whether that's either translating that old manuscript, adding images, or adding annotation. And those elements, you want to give that to a formatter, and they can format it for you.

[00:19:35] Ellen Erikson: You can also do it yourself, but some of these old books can be quite complicated, depending on the quality of the file that you're downloading from Project Gutenberg. but yeah, you can also do it yourself, but it's it can, can take hours. Some of them have lots of footnotes and some of them are not, yeah, sometimes you have to go into every line and remove and enter because they don't flow almost like a PDF.

[00:20:03] Ellen Erikson: So it's, it's worth getting someone to to do it properly. 

[00:20:07] Teddy Smith: How much does it usually cost to get your formatting done? 

[00:20:09] Ellen Erikson: Again, for public domain books, that depends a little bit. So often they will ask you, the formatter will ask you to see the actual manuscript because the state of it they don't know how easy and quick it will be to do this.

[00:20:22] Ellen Erikson: And also it can be like 800 pages. So, uh, so but yeah, normally it shouldn't be too, too much. Yeah. A hundred maybe, but, but it really does depend on how much work it is. Could be, it could be even from 50. So 

[00:20:36] Teddy Smith: 50. 

[00:20:37] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. From 50. But it could also be up to a few hundred depending on, on the, on, on the quality of it.

[00:20:43] Ellen Erikson: Yes, exactly. 

[00:20:45] Teddy Smith: So if a book is 800 pages long, obviously if you're using KDP, the printing costs are going to be pretty high. It's going to cost like 10 to print it, even black and white or something like that. 

[00:20:54] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. 

[00:20:54] Teddy Smith: So what's the, does public domain books have different royalty rates and how do you factor that pricing in?

[00:21:01] Teddy Smith: Is there any tools you use to do that? 

[00:21:03] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. So public domain books published through KDP, you get 35 percent royalty on the ebook and 60 percent minus print costs on the printed books. So, the printed books are the same as the other books, uh, the non fiction. Yeah, so that's no difference there. But talking about that, print costs I do try to find those books that are short.

[00:21:24] Ellen Erikson: The ones that have a few hundred pages, they are a lot, uh, more difficult to make profitable. You have to make sure that the competitors charge quite a high price point and still then leave a margin for you to make it profitable. There's also another thing a lot of the time people do like to buy hardcover copies of these public domain books.

[00:21:48] Ellen Erikson: And for KDP, I think the maximum page count is then 500, can't go over 500. 

[00:21:54] Teddy Smith: Right. Right. 

[00:21:54] Ellen Erikson: So if you want to have a hard cover, then you do need to make it fit into that. 

[00:22:00] Teddy Smith: Right. Yeah. Great. Wow. That's, that's so much information there. I think there's so many things to take in.

[00:22:09] Teddy Smith: If people do want to start with public domain books, where's the best place to start? Is it Project Gutenberg and just have a browse? 

[00:22:14] Ellen Erikson: Yes, definitely. Have a browse. Also check on Amazon and see what's out there, see what people are buying, see what other books are out there. And sometimes if there's too many versions of one book and it just looks too competitive, one thing that I do, I go to Wikipedia and I look up that author.

[00:22:33] Ellen Erikson: Because that might be an author that I really like and I love that book, but it just looks too competitive. So then I might go to Wikipedia and look up that author and I might see, okay, so what other books do that, that author have? And they might have 10 other books. So, so then you can look up those books and see maybe some of them are less competitive.

[00:22:51] Ellen Erikson: Maybe some of them are. The demand might be too low, but there are some in between that will be just right. 

[00:22:58] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. Great. Well, that's really good. That's an amazing tip. It's really practical. You people can go straight away and then start looking at that straight away. Thank you. 

[00:23:06] Ellen Erikson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, another, another thing as well is you can just go and Google classic books, best classic books, best old classics, and you get lots and lots of, blog posts and articles Describing all these old books that are worth looking up.

[00:23:22] Ellen Erikson: So that can also be a good way to, to think about these. If, if you can't think of them on the top of your head. 

[00:23:29] Teddy Smith: Nice. So what are your plans for public domain books now? Have you got any in the pipeline? 

[00:23:34] Ellen Erikson: Yes, I have. I have actually one that I was hoping to publish yesterday, but it's going to be probably this weekend.

[00:23:40] Ellen Erikson: There's still some tweaks. So, yeah, I have a few public domain books coming, so yeah, I do them in between my other books, so I think they are, yeah, I think they're nice and easy and quick to put out there and it's good to also, I don't know, make them available and keep, keep making them available for customers, moving forward.

[00:24:01] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's great to keep those old books alive so that people can then carry on reading them later on. Yeah, 

[00:24:06] Ellen Erikson: exactly. 

[00:24:07] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. That's been really helpful. I think people can basically just take this episode and go and run with it straight away.

[00:24:14] Teddy Smith: It's been a hundred percent practical advice. So thanks for that. 

[00:24:17] Ellen Erikson: No problem. Thanks for having me. 

[00:24:19] Teddy Smith: No problem. So just before we go, we've got one final question. That's what book do you recommend that everyone should be reading at the moment? 

[00:24:25] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, so I'm going to say go to Project Gutenberg and look for some very obscure books.

[00:24:31] Ellen Erikson: And these are not necessarily the books that you want to publish because people don't know about them. But there's so many stories that are there that have been forgotten. And depending on what you are interested in. Just search for your topic and see what's there. I was searching for, I think I was searching for some survival stories or, or personal memoirs.

[00:24:52] Ellen Erikson: Want to hear some, someone's story, something that people had gone through. And I found a book from a woman that had been captured by the Indians and kept captive. And she had written a book about that. There was another one that was on the opposite angle where some Indians had been captured by the colonists.

[00:25:12] Ellen Erikson: I found another one where there was a person from the village that had written a book about when the Vikings came to England. So there's all these obscure books that no one knows about. Yeah. It's my ancestors. Yeah. Very interesting. 

[00:25:29] Teddy Smith: Wow. Amazing. So yeah. So go and find something obscure and just read something new.

[00:25:33] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. These are old stories and yeah, it's just just a new way to learn some history. Just get someone's personal experience of the situation. 

[00:25:44] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Ellen. It was great to chat to you again and we'll see you soon. 

[00:25:49] Ellen Erikson: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. 

[00:25:51] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance podcast.

[00:25:54] Teddy Smith: I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about Publishing Performance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but are not really sure where to start.

[00:26:10] Teddy Smith: Now, this show is all about helping you to sell more books. And if you're looking to boost your publishing game and to maximize your book's potential on Amazon, then Publishing Performance is designed to help authors just like you to grow your readership and to reach a much wider audience. Now, I know that Amazon ads can be slightly complicated, which is why Publishing Performance is like having a personalized ad account manager to create your ad campaigns, to choose your best keywords, and to make adjustments in real time.

[00:26:40] Teddy Smith: Now, if you're investing in ads, you really want to make sure that your investment is being used effectively, and Publishing Performance does just that. It aims to make your budget go further, improve your organic rank, and target keywords more effectively. Just go to publishingperformance. com to get started with Amazon Ads for just 

[00:26:56] 1.