The Ingenium Books Podcast: Author. Publisher. Changemaker.

Mastering Publicity: Elevate Your Writing Career with PR and Media Tactics - Tracy Lamourie

August 03, 2023 Tracy Lamourie Season 2 Episode 13
The Ingenium Books Podcast: Author. Publisher. Changemaker.
Mastering Publicity: Elevate Your Writing Career with PR and Media Tactics - Tracy Lamourie
Show Notes Transcript

Are you struggling to get media coverage to promote your books and grow your author platform? When you do get the coverage, are you frustrated by media interviews that don't generate the traction you want?  

We've brought in internationally recognized,  award winning public relations expert  Tracy Lamourie  to help you crack the media code and establish yourself as a thought leader in your field. 

In this podcast, you'll discover:

  • How to prepare for and maximize every interview opportunity, from written to broadcast 
  • Powerful techniques to control the narrative and redirect lines of questioning in any media situation     
  • Strategies for leveraging your online presence and expertise to attract top media outlets   
  •  And much more to stand out as an authority, build a high-impact author platform and generate the publicity that transforms your writing career.

Tune in now to learn from an expert public relations pro and crack the code to publicity that elevates your writing career.    

The key moments in this episode are:
 00:00:00 - Introduction
 00:01:20 - Tracy Lamourie's Background
 00:03:36 - Difference Between Publicity and PR 
 00:07:41 - The Role of a Publicist 
 00:10:49 - Control in Publicity and PR 
 00:12:57 - Getting Started with Written Interviews 
 00:14:01 - Understanding Media Needs and Goals 
 00:15:25 - Leveraging Your Expertise for Publicity
 00:18:09 - Managing Messages During Interviews
 00:23:46 - Return on Investment (ROI) and Publicity 
 00:25:06 - The Importance of Online Presence
 00:26:06 - Elevating Thought Leadership 
 00:26:46 - The Impact of Media Coverage 
 00:28:31 - Finding the Right Clients 
 00:29:35 - Elevate and Celebrate 
 
 Recommendations:

  • Visit Tracy Lamourie's website to learn more about her PR and publicity services for authors. (https://www.lamouriemedia.com/)  
  •  Share this episode with other authors who may be interested in learning more about PR and publicity for their books.  

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00:00:01 - Boni Wagner-Stafford 

If there's one thing we hear a lot from authors, it's, oh my goodness, I need to figure out how to spend more time or less time and get somebody else to do the marketing of my book for me. Well, one of the things we don't talk about quite as much with respect to books and visibility is around publicity and PR, and that is what we are going to dig into in this episode. Very excited to have a guest with us, Tracy Lamourie, and we're going to dig into publicity for authors.   

00:01:12 - Boni Wagner-Stafford

So, Tracy, thanks for joining us all the way from Ontario, Canada.

00:01:18 - Tracy Lamourie

Hi there. Nice to see you.

00:01:19 - Boni Wagner-Stafford  

Nice to see you too. And thanks for joining us. So, Tracy, I know that you do a fair bit of business working on the publicity and PR campaigns for authors. But before we get into that, I want you to tell us a little bit about how you got started and what it is that you do exactly.

00:01:39 - Tracy Lamourie

So I'm an internationally, globally award winning publicist. And basically what that means, I like to say I elevate and celebrate the amazing word  And that wasn't a PR thing. That literally came to me in a podcast once when I was trying to explain.

Someone said, you actually seem really genuine, so I wouldn't think of you as PR. And I said, But I like to elevate and celebrate the awesome things that people are doing that I actually love and appreciate. And one of the things I truly love is books. I've always been a book. I've always been a reader. I'm one of those people that have not just one book, but two in my pocket and a couple of magazines. When I go somewhere, if I have only three things I can fit in a bag, one of them is going to be printed matter. So books are among my favorite things. So authors are also among my favorite things to promote. So I got into PR. I've been doing it professionally for eleven years now before that. But I wrote my first press release 20 years ago as a young activist to get media attention. Ended up getting global media attention. Long story short, it taught me how to play the media game in terms of getting attention for media, how to do it, that missing component that a lot of people don't know. When I say, are you in media? Are you telling media about this? And they're like, how would I do that? Why would they talk to me? Well, I learned how to get heard and seen, and now that's what I do for people and things where I love their projects and I love what they're doing. And that could be film. I do a lot of work in film. The Cannes Film Festival was a recent highlight. Two years in a row. I do a lot of work with startups and entrepreneurs, people who love what they're doing and are putting it out in the world. And again, back to authors, among my favorite, I do probably 40% of my work with authors, sometimes more. And that's fiction authors, and it's nonfiction authors, and especially with nonfiction authors specifically. They're also subject matter experts, which means there are a ton of media opportunities for them, the same as it would be if they were entrepreneurs or business people in whatever space. That's what I do, is I find ways for people's, amazing work to be seen on a bigger level, not just by the people on their street or by their current clients, but on a national, global, local level. And why do people want to do that? It's not just advertising and it's also not just ego or something wanting to see yourself in the media. It has real business implications. Number one, it differentiates you from your competitor or your book, from a competitor. It differentiates you as a knowledge expert, whether that's as a business person or more, pursuant to this conversation, the information that you put in your book, it differentiates you. Why should I listen to you? Well, these things that you can't buy, it's not advertising. You cannot buy your way to be the one interviewed in Time magazine. You can buy an ad in Time or an ad in Rolling Stone, but you can't buy being that expert that's being interviewed. So how do you get in there? You have to introduce yourself to the media. And these days, where it's such a loud, ten years ago was easier to do that, but now media gets so much incoming email from entrepreneurs and from authors and everything. And the problem is a lot of people don't understand the difference between editorial and advertorial, so they don't know what to send in order to get a positive response. So I help them. Right. Perfect.

00:04:53 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Well, that is fascinating. Now, you opened the door to terminology just a second ago, which is where I wanted to go next, which is we often hear PR publicity. And I find it coming out of my mouth, the two phrases kind of meaning one and the same thing. But I'm going to ask you, in your view, are they the same thing? And if they are not the same thing, what is the difference between PR public relations and publicity?

00:05:21 - Tracy Lamourie
 Yeah, I think these days they're more and more used interchangeably, and people definitely use them interchangeably. And I mean, it was an academic difference at one time. And I think it would be more that publicity would be like an event, hey, it's coming here. And then PR would be more like a longer campaign, I would think, where it's more about what we call today thought leadership and that sort of thing. And I guess people also think about PR, usually. They think about it in terms of somebody's done something wrong and now they need some PR. And I guess that would be called I've helped people through challenges that I legitimately saw how they got into in the past, but I don't whitewash anything, for lack of a better word. I'm not into that kind of make up a story, but it's more how did people get themselves into like crisis management is the other term for it, right? Right. Issues management, crisis management, for example, would follow through, which could be anything. Like from some false information has gone out there and you have to now handle it to what it could be anything. Maybe you made a misstep and now you have to account for it. And how do you deal? But generally, in terms of what most authors or most people, business people can have to deal with PR. I would think of it more as a thought leadership campaign and publicity, more as like this burst of which could be a burst of publicity for a book launch, a burst of publicity for whatever. That's what I think of it as a more roast kind of thing. And there'd be publicity within a bigger PR campaign, or it could be a standalone thing, like maybe there's an event coming up and you're just doing media advisories or you're looking at so there's different ways. And of course, in this new world where there's a lot of things that used to be completely separate are now bleeding into each other too. Like, it used to be that the editorial and the advertorial never touched and now you do ever. And now you do see some situations where media entities that are trying to survive have created a lot more things that are what we would have looked at as gray area in the old bit where you can buy. An article, but that's still different from the editorial. And usually it'll say, at the top paid content or something of that nature, but they're selling it and they're kind of helping you make it look like it's an article because they're trying to survive, too, in this new media environment. Too. So basically, what I like to why would you have a publicist well, same reason you might have a lawyer, which is the media landscape is a crazy one and you're not familiar with it, and there's all kinds of things and blah, blah, blah. And we've already done the base work and we already know the players and we already know what's crap and what's good and what you want to focus on what you don't. And so we can do a lot of that that would take anybody else a career the same time that we've done to do it. And you're better off, I always say, if you have the money, get a publicist because then you're better off focusing on your core business, on your book, on the things I send you, where you're the speaker, as opposed to worrying like a squirrel like me at two in the morning looking for the opportunities and pitching yourself. So we find awards opportunities, we find speaking opportunities, we find media opportunities primarily to be on television, radio, newspapers, find things that you wouldn't find unless you knew how to access all these different resources and places and contacts. So it can really open up a whole new world for an author or an entrepreneur. And also, though, like I say, I always say too, if you have more time than money, it's also worth the stuff that you could do yourself to go again, always remembering editorial, which is you're giving them the information, you're not looking for a free ad, even though you'll get that benefit of being seen. You have to think of yourself as an information source, providing real information to their actual audience. So when you think about who you reach out to, you're reaching out to media that a may actually cover that that is actually of interest to their audience. And also it's just the kind of thing they might cover like you wouldn't probably send. Most book launch stories are not going to be on 22 minutes daily news unless there's a real strong hook or reason it might be mentioned if you're lucky to get it in the topical thing. But they're not going to be like, oh, over there, it's a book launch, unless it's Barack Obama or like a major presidential figure or something because they know everybody wants free advertising. They're not in the business of doing that. They'd love to send you, like I always say, to their ad department. So it truly has to be editorial. So understand when you're pitching, that's what your role is. And if you can really get your head around that, then you're an author about a book on pregnancy or something. You can think about stories, hey, women these days should be worried about blah, blah, blah, should be thinking about this, says the author of whatever. Now all of a sudden you're all over 200 newspapers with your book being mentioned there. The story isn't book launched or new book released. The story is the author of whatever says.

00:10:20 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Right, whatever the piece of advice is. I wanted to tease out the notion of you've mentioned it about the difference between advertorial and editorial, editorial and advertorial rather. And I wanted to get into how an author might know they're ready for a publicity or PR campaign related to their book and what they need to consider and know about themselves. And if we can start talking about the notion of control. And so, for example, when you are purchasing an ad, you have complete control over what is being said in a PR campaign, and you might be mentioned in editorial coverage, but you do not have control over that message, and that might not work for some people. So can you start there and then talk a little bit more about what does an author need to think about and know about themselves before they get into this?

00:11:18 - Tracy Lamourie
 That's a great question in terms of how you said know about themselves. Because mostly what people will ask is, when should I promote the book? When should not promote? When should I do this? And my answer is, it really could be anytime. It could be before you publish a book. It could be right before. I mean, obviously, if you were looking at a marketing campaign of the book, it's ideal to get it just before you publish, and then we can promote it or even three months before, because then we can look for reviews with some of those ones that want, like, a long lead in time, and they want to read the galleys and all that. But in terms of you getting media, which is media want, again, they're not there to talk about the launch of your book. They care about you as a subject matter expert, right. And also they're probably not going to read your book. You'd be lucky if they do. The reporter that we pitch on Tuesdays and they're going to have you on a Friday, they're going to read the back of it. They might read it if you send it to them a couple of pages, they're going to read enough to ask you good questions because they're professional. But they don't have time to sit there and read every single book of everybody they interview. It just doesn't happen. Right. Long story short, you don't necessarily need to have that book there physically. They need to be confident that you are that subject matter expert, which is, here's this book that's coming out. So it could be before, it could be well, for PR camping, could be ten years after, because again, maybe we're going to generate new interest in that book and also in you. And now you're still a subject matter expert, and now we're going to get all this new media, blah, blah, blah. So in terms of the timeline, in terms of book publishing, it doesn't matter in terms of what you're ready for there's what you're better question. And now some people are nervous about getting media. Oh, my God, no, I don't want to be on TV. Radio. Well, it doesn't have to be TV or radio. 80% of the stuff you didn't want to be on that. Okay, so then we get them the written interviews that we get them the written interviews where they're doing. The first thing they get, they get literally the questions from the reporters. They respond to the questions from the reporters, and boom, that's it. And, sorry, guys, I have a dog and my daughter dog in the background. That's okay, dog sitting kids, you got to mix those responsibilities. But yeah, sorry. In a lot of cases, what we get is easy for them to respond to. We'll get, hey, I see this media opportunity the reporter wants to ask you about blah, blah, blah. Here's five questions. You answer the five questions on your own time by email with your publicist help. Whatever it is, you send it to the reporter, and guys talk later, I'm on a podcast. You send it to a reporter, and then you're published. So a lot of times, it doesn't have to be that level of ready to be on television. You don't have to be ready for prime time. You just have to know your stuff, know your subject matter, and also, you're not going to be in a lot of gotcha interviews. I guess it depends on if you have an extremely controversial subject or if you're introducing something new where people haven't heard of it before. They may have somebody else on the other side saying, well, I'm not so sure about that. And you have to be ready for those kind of things. So you should really know what could be thrown at you is the only real thing. You should know what are uncomfortable things that the media might ask me about that I wouldn't want to, and if so, how would I respond to that? If you're comfortable with that, you're pretty much ready to go. And again, like I said, if you're working with someone like me, we find the opportunities you're comfortable with. The guy, for example, had one client, for whatever reason, it's not even about our discomfort. He didn't want to do television, radio. All he wanted to do was podcast in his niche because that's where he got direct business and he wanted speaking engagements. So we got him 14 speaking engagements around the world within three, nine weeks or whatever it was. And then we got him as kind of podcast. That's what he was doing. Other people have different goal. We want the whole thing, so maybe sometimes we're building up to that. Other times, boom, you get a hit on your local TV station in your first go round. So it's a matter of understanding what media wants, which, again, is you as a source and an expert. And sometimes you might have another thing people get stuck on is, oh, well, I don't have any news. There's no news, okay? That's where it's topical and you're a subject matter expert. It because you got to be careful about what you actually send to the media as news. But in another way, you also want them to know if you have something like, you won an award if they don't know you and you don't have a lot of impact in the community, they may not print out the paper, but now the newsroom knows about it. So that's the first thing they know about you. So the next time they see your name, oh yeah, they went into work. So sometimes it's about getting known to the media, even if you don't think that they're necessarily going to pass that on, but sometimes they do, and you never know when they're going to need a filler and just want a little positive story. If you're not letting media know, you can bet your competitor is or your other author is in the other field or whatever, and somebody else is getting those speaking opportunities or is getting those book sales opportunities or whatever it is that you're looking for because they're getting seen. And I always say again, specifically with authors, I always say this analogy when I'm speaking to authors, but it's true. We've spoken about this before. I always say you put so much effort and time and money and everything into getting that book published, right, whether it's money money or whether it's time money or whatever it is, you put so much effort into it. So now it's like, okay, now I just can put it on Amazon and here they're all going to come to me. And then a lot of authors deep emotional dive when they find people aren't running to find the book. But it's not because your book isn't good or because there's no interest. It's because it's just lost in the Amazon and people aren't seeing, you know, you already hear about if you get it reviewed. That's a better way than it gets higher up there in the also, you know, once it's in media, when it gets awards or when it's in media, people see, you know, there's whatever percentage more click through, which I'm sure leads to more buys. When it says in your thing that you have, as seen in this news media and that news media has here and there, this is the thing that, again, differentiates your book and or you as a subject matter expert and author from the next person and makes people want to buy a book. So I always say not doing that is like literally birthing your baby, having your baby, and then putting it on the shelf and not realizing you have to feed the baby to make it live. So you've got to feed that baby.

00:17:29 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 You have to yeah, exactly. So you and I did a session several weeks ago with a group of our published authors at Ingenium Books Books, and I wanted to bring in some of what we talked about with that group of authors then, which was all around how you manage your messages when you aren't in control of the question. So that may be another area that authors or really anybody who isn't familiar with seeking publicity or being interviewed by news media or editorial media. They're not all necessarily hard news media, but I have a message that I want to get out, and I want to spend my five minutes making sure that I get my message out. But they are asking me a question from left field. What do I do with that? How do you coach your clients through what to do with that?

00:18:27 - Tracy Lamourie
 This is the number one thing is always assume they're going to do that whether it's left field or whether it's relevant or whatever. Just assume that because they have their own agenda, which is not what's in your head. Not that it's a bad agenda, but I mean, they may be on there like, hey, we got this author. We're going to ask her about this. That's not which is great. You're happy to answer, but then all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, time is done. Whether it's 30 seconds, four minutes, and you haven't had a chance to say what you're going to say. So number one, always try you probably heard of an elevator pitch, but always try to have and don't make it all super canned and whatever authentic. But look for the very first opportunity where you can without being crazy obvious about not where you can answer, where you can get your thing in first. So it could be just the way you're answering. It could be while you're answering, but you're saying, but you know what? Like in my book, where the main character blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you bring focus on your book and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so similar to that, I would say in some way find a way to either answer it or like I said, the best way to say it is find the first opportunity because every interaction will be different, right? But if they come up there and like, hey, I'm just really happy have you. Tell us about yourself. Don't miss that chance. If they say tell us about yourself, that might be your moment. Probably at the end, you're going to have another chance. But they might be needing to give you another chance at the end too. And then time is running and all of a sudden they're like cutting. And you got right. So when they say that, tell us about yourself. If you get that intro, say the most important thing. I'm the author of whatever. I'm a global award winning publicist. All you need to know, whatever it is, say your one little thing that's most important, and then you're good with answering whatever. And then in terms of what you don't want to answer, in most cases, you will know if that's going to be an issue. Because if you're just an average author, that's never going to be a problem. Nobody's going to be like, oh, wow, I don't know about that yoga book, though. But told you they're not going to quiz you like that about most feel good stuff, but some things that are we have like a mental health thing or something. You may have another person on the other side who's like, hey, well, no, I think I have a different solution for that. And that could be not like arguing, but it may be something where someone says, well, Boni, what do you say to Tracy who suggests that maybe there's a different know instead of know? And then if you're oh, I don't know. Well, you shouldn't have to do that because you should already know. And if your subject stuff well enough because again, they're not going to be deeply researching, looking for it's not going to be something that you've never heard of. It's probably going to be something that you already know is something people have said to you or whatever. So just be aware of that and think of what you would say in that instance. And most of the time your answer is going to be fine. Most of the time it's not going to be a second 3rd digging at you about it. You're not on 60 Minutes on the hot seat, you know what I mean? So most of the time you just need an answer.

00:21:23 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 And sometimes it's a matter too of there are techniques, bridging techniques and all of those time fancy things which are.

00:21:33 - Tracy Lamourie
 That Boni yeah, exactly. There's something I really talked to you about, Boni. I'm really glad that you brought up this thing because I think a lot of people have this issue, Boni, of not knowing the difference. Meanwhile, by then I've thought of an exactly.

00:21:47 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Oh, that makes me think know whatever you and in many ways it's just a conversation. Not even in many ways it is a conversation. Of course the person asking the questions has a different goal in mind, the same way you have a different goal in mind, but it is a conversation. And so all those techniques that work in a regular conversation can work during an interview.

00:22:12 - Tracy Lamourie
 Exactly. A good way to put it. You don't want to freeze up and be under. Like I always say, be genuine. Obviously you have a mission while you're there, but you're still you and don't get lost in what should I be doing or how should I act or what color should my hair be? Should I maybe put a wig on or are they going to take me seriously? Or don't worry about all those things, worry about your message. The reason you put pen to paper or to keyboard right. The reason that you started writing is because you have confidence in what you have in those pages. You have confidence which is your knowledge, just what you wrote. So with that same confidence that took you that led you to write a book or to start a business, if you happen to be listening to this and you're not an author or whatever it is that you want to promote with that same confidence or whatever it is that you're building or message that you want to put out, someone has to be the conduit for it. Whether you're a person that's like, oh, I don't like to brag about myself. I don't like people looking at me. Well, you wrote this because you wanted people to hear it. So now it can't talk in the media. It can't go on an interview. Guess what? You're elected. So that's your message. Get out there and do it. So for people who are afraid of it, it's not about the don't want to focus on them. Okay, well, it's not about you, though. It's about your message. You are just the conduit of that. You're the expert in that. So if you're not comfortable talking about yourself, it's not about you, though, is it? Just like your book isn't about you. This is how you get your message heard in the modern world.

00:23:34 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Yeah. So what about ROI return on investment? Many people are understandably concerned how am I going to turn this? And how am I going to be able to report to my CFO or whoever it is, on how this money and time and effort that I'm spending now on publicity and PR is going to turn into whatever book sales, paid speaking gigs, or whatever it is? So sometimes it's not a direct line to ROI. And what we always say at Ingenium Books Books, to our authors is that the publishing game isn't a direct line to an ROI, and there are other ways to measure it. But how do you have those conversations with your clients about ROI?

00:24:18 - Tracy Lamourie
 First, there was two parts of it I wanted to say I was starting to answer this, and this is not a bridging thing. There was two parts because I wanted to mention okay, first I wanted to talk about what the real ROI is in terms of potentially not, like you said, directly measurable. But I always pulled this one thing, and this one blew me away because I get a lot of accolades. But one client said to me after six weeks of working together and she was an entrepreneur, a solopreneur client who had just gone through her seed funding first, pre funding or whatever, and was going for her seed funding, and she said, You've changed my business in my life after six weeks. And when I was like, how? Right. That's a good accolade. She said, Because you've made investors take us more seriously. In that case, it was investors, but it could have been media, it could have been potential clients, it could have been potential buyers or whatever. Right? But in her case, it changed everything. Because now when she was in a room, like, if you think about it as an investor, even if we're not investors, right now, I have three companies or two companies I'm going to potentially invest in. They both have beautiful decks. They both have great socials. Everything sounds fantastic in both. But I go and Google one of them and I only find what they say about themselves on their socials and their website. I go and Google the other. They're quoted in New York Times. They've got an award. They're being mentioned as a game changer there. So which 01:00 a.m. I and I haven't even given the money yet. Who am I going to be more confident to give my money and who's? Obviously a player answer is clear. And she didn't have that. She was the same person. But until she had someone looking for these opportunities, she knew the landscape. I know where we do this. You should be nominated for this award. And that and all these things that I found, all these things, not just that I knew, but that I found pursuant to her industry and then pushing media, getting her this attention and that attention, which would have been the same as if she was an author. So she because she was going for funding, she saw the direct correlation because she had been going for funding. And then we worked together for six weeks, and then she went for more funding. And the difference in those rooms was 1000%. And we always say it impresses everybody, from your Aunt Edna oh, honey, you're doing really well these days. To your potential clients, to your potential readers, to everybody who's sharing, you get an article. You're not the only one sharing it. All your friends are sharing it. If you're in business, all your clients are sharing it. Hey, this is my hairstylist. This is my whatever. So you're getting that positive. You put that article up in your storefront or whatever. It does what an ad would do. But unlike an ad, this is where we get to the other part of your question. There's not a direct and we're not in the business of sales or marketing. People are like, well, will I sell more books? Probably. It'd be weird if you didn't at some point. But I don't know because they go, what do you mean you don't know? I'm not in the business of sales and marketing. I don't even ask for your numbers. I don't know because it's not like I'm buying an ad. We're buying an ad. Then we're looking to see who bought from that ad. It's not that kind of correlation. It's more the general. Now we've elevated your thought lead, so now you don't even know when it's in your bio. But now you got that speaking engagement because of those three articles. I know for sure because I've done it for myself. Even in COVID, I started spending more time on my own even though I still had clients. For the very beginning of COVID I'd lost like, 70% of it because it was all out, didn't work. That was shut down because of COVID And so then I was like, okay, well, if I can't travel, my voice will still travel. I started doing podcasts, not just for my clients, but I started doing podcast interviews, talking about this kind of thing, my expertise, and not just podcast interviews, but television panels. And got nominated for a couple of awards, which I heard about, that I nominated my clients for. Anyway, I can tell you now that my bio says, as seen in Rolling Stone and in NBC TV, and the winner of whatever and the nominee of that, and the winner of that not only because here's where it gets real too. Not only were you talking like Esoteric, it doesn't matter if you're an author talking about your book, this is also about you as a person and this is your thought leadership. And now when you go to your next job interview or when you go to whatever the heck it is you're doing in life, I tell you the difference with people who've seen my bio and know that bio, the way they treat me, compared to just walking into a room when nobody knows me or whatever like that 100%. Now the difference between is my bio and the confidence that the bio brings because those are two things that go together because you start to see now the difference. I don't apply for jobs. I haven't had a resume in 20 years. But even if we have a client call, somebody wants to talk to potentially hiring me, I'm feeling like I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me. I don't need any client and I'm not like they need me more than it's not like that. It's a matter of I need to find people that I'm good for and that we work well together, that I love their mission, I love what they're doing. And I feel like in here oh, I know because I always say, how do you pick a publicist if they're not excited about what you're doing? That's probably not your publicist, even if they're a good publicist. If I'm like, if you tell me about your coaches, and I'm like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, I could see that, then no, right. It should be like, oh my God. And the people are always like, oh, you're so enthusiastic. Yeah, because I'm legitimately getting excited about the possibilities and I see the potential and all that. So there's real. While it's not as directly correlated, it can't help but elevate you, your reputation, your book. So it's all part of that. Part of it is about book sales. Part of it is about having you just be more impressive. Now when you want to go, say you want to go and speak at the know, Ingenium Books or something, well, they're going to look at you a lot different. Hey, I just wrote a book and it's a really good book, or like, hey, the award winning author who's appeared on Blah Blah.

00:29:51 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Yeah, well, it can be a game changer and as you said right at the very beginning, elevate and celebrate. That's what it is all about. And we are up to our time. We have a self imposed time limit of 30 minutes. We could go longer if we wanted to, but I like to try to give our listeners what they are expecting and what they're used to. So, Tracy, I want to thank you so much for joining us, giving us the insights and your energy and your optimism is absolutely infectious and really appreciate having you join us today.

00:30:26 - Tracy Lamourie
 Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Boni and I love the work that you're doing too, and I look forward to more great stuff from Ingenium Books. Absolutely.

00:30:34 - Boni Wagner-Stafford
 Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Ingenium Books Books, please like, share and subscribe subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, but also consider subscribing to our YouTube channel where you can see these episodes in addition to hearing them.