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Episode 330: A Play-by-Play Breakdown of How Tim Ferriss Launches a Book

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Tim Ferriss needs no introduction. He not only hosts one of the world's most successful podcasts and maintains one of the world's most successful blogs but he was also an early investor in companies like Uber and Shopify and is the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers. 

Since there's no one alive who's better at launching books, I decided to do something new for this episode: break down exactly what he does and how he does it. His tactics include reading 50 different books on his book's topic before he even starts writing, offering spectacular launch bonuses for those who buy his books in bulk, attending conferences in order to chat with bloggers and influencers and way too many others to list in this post—so many that you'll soon learn why this required its own episode.

If you like this sort of episode, I'd be excited to do more on other people who are brilliant at launching books but would be hard to land on the show. It's fun to research and talk about how someone like Ferriss manages to do what he does (spoiler alert: it doesn't involve just getting lucky). Please let me know in the form of an Itunes review if you want me to do more of these. In the meantime, enjoy this breakdown!

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Okay, welcome to Launch Pad. It's a podcast hosted by me, Anna David. And normally it's a podcast where I interview the world's most successful entrepreneurs and bestselling authors to talk about how they launch their books. And I wanted to try something different, which if it's, if it works, then I'm going to keep doing it. And you're going to have to tell me by reviewing the podcast on iTunes, if it works or not today, I am basically going to take apart the launch strategies of some of the most successful books of all time, not interviewing the guest the author who did it, but basically calling together from everything I can find online about it, to see what they did, which I actually think will be more valuable than if I could get the guests on my podcast, because we don't have to waste time with questions.

And I've already distilled down to what I think is the most successful. However, Tim Ferriss, if you're listening, I would love to have you on this show. So you guys did today. We are going to break down the brilliant and incredibly successful Tim Ferrisss, various strategies that have made him a multiple bestselling author on every list known to man, including Amazon. So if you are a rock dweller, Tim Ferriss he was an early stage technology investor and advisor just, you know, companies you've possibly heard of called Uber Facebook, things like that. Ali Ali Baba. And as I mentioned, the author of five number one New York Times and Wall Street Journal, best sellers. And these include the Four Hour Workweek, the Four Hour Body, the Four Hour Chef and also Tools of Titans, which I highly recommend because it is a collection of tips from all these huge people that have been on his podcast and he compiles all their tools.

And he's got a podcast which I think is the most popular podcast of all time. It has exceeded 500 million downloads, like a few more than this show, but like not many. And if you ever said to yourself, well, Tim Ferriss, maybe he just got lucky. This episode will convince you otherwise because I work harder than anyone I know. And I'm glad that I don't know Tim Ferriss, because I would not be able to say that. And the irony that this guy got well known, releasing a book called the Four Hour Workweek. This guy must work 400 hour work weeks to get what he has accomplished done. So his first book, the Four Hour Workweek, let's talk about it came out in 2007. And as of today, it has about 8,700 Amazon reviews. Now it's interesting to look at the Amazon page because he's got dozens of blurbs, but one is from Jack Canfield.

And then there's a bunch from a bunch of people I had never heard of. And I've heard of people in this world. So if we're studying what he does perhaps just having one blurb from a person that people are gonna recognize, and then a whole bunch of people, they had good credentials, but, but I would think, Oh my God, it's Tim Ferriss's book. Every single blurber is going to be super world famous. Anyway, as legend has it, when the four hour work week was going to come out, he didn't have, he wasn't a big name. He knew his publisher. Wasn't going to go all out. So what he did is he went to the consumer electronics show, which is a show in Vegas, which for the record, I've known about my whole life because dad used to have a TV stereo store in the Bay area, in the seventies and eighties.

And he would always go to the consumer electronics show, which was always on my birthday, which is June 6. So I know that this takes place in June. And it's when I was growing up because I was like, this is like a nerd factory. I mean, what is this thing? Apparently it's like now the coolest place ever. So Tim Ferriss, allegedly didn't even go into the electronics conference. He sat in the blogger lounge. And when people came in, he chatted with them and he'd say, what are you doing here? And they'd say, this is what I'm doing. What are you doing here? And he'd say, well, I have this book coming out. It's called the Four Hour Workweek. And the person would say, Oh, what's that about? And they would have a whole conversation. And then he would say to them, you know, I have a bunch of copies with me and I probably don't want to read the whole thing, but I, but maybe there's 20 pages or so that you would want to read.

And he gave them copies of the book, but in, but that was so smart, not putting the pressure to read an entire book, but sort of crafting based on what he knew about this person from talking to them, which would be the pages they would respond to the most. Now, before he do that, before he could even have this it's title, the Four Hour Workweek, he decided to test titles. Now this is something that most people do buy. If they do it at all, they go to Facebook and they put a post and they say, Hey guys, do you like this title or this title better? And maybe they'll have an actual vote. Well. they'll put four titles. And then someone will, there's an open space for other people, by the way, I've done this. So I thought I was being really thorough. Then I heard what he did. 

So he had these different titles and among them were Broad Band and White Sand, which is kind of catchy. Also Millionaire Chameleon. I would have never voted for that one and Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit. And he also had the Four Hour Work week. So he bought Google ads to see which of those titles perform better, but even more insane, he created mock covers, got these covers printed up, went to the Palo Alto Borders. May it rest in peace, all borders stores are gone now. And he slipped these mock covers on these books that were already there and took a seat and just watched people. What did they pick up? What did they read? I mean, that's kind of crazy. He could have gotten in a lot of trouble. I mean, I don't know how much trouble you get in, in the Palo Alto Borders for slipping book covers on, but you know it's, it's a ballsy move. 

I don't think I, I, I would have the balls to do that. So that's how he came up with this title that really I just don't think had it been called Millionaire Chameleon, it would have caused the crazy sensation that it did now. Here's another thing he did. And he calls it the land rush. And this is what the rest of us call bulk orders. How do you motivate people to buy more than one copy? How do you motivate them to buy a copy? And then other people who say have companies or facilities or some reason that they would want to buy bulk copies, how do you really incentivize them? So for one copy, if you bought one copy, you got this private Q and a with him, you know, with a group and him. And then if you ordered four copies, you would get an advanced copy of his next book, which was the Four Hour Body, but it had a different fake title at the time. 

Then it would go up. If you got a hundred copies, you would get some stuff and an invitation to a private party with him and his friends in San Francisco, like cool tech friends, that's pretty great. And then a thousand copies, you would get a full day of consulting with him. Plus he would fly you in from wherever you were to San Francisco. Plus he would pay for food and entertainment. God knows what the entertainment could be. So what would he said is the goal is to deliver two to 10 times more value in that bonus. Then the amount that the person paid for the books. And he has been able just through asking friends and obviously putting up some of his own dough. But, but he's been able to offer $4 million worth of free bonuses. Whoa. I created bonuses for my most recent book and it really makes me see that giving away my courses and a bookmark.

And t-shirt was really just not as, not as impressive as what Tim Ferriss does. So let's talk about his next book, the Four Hour Body and the subtitle is An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman. So let's talk about that as a subtitle, look how many things he was able to work in there, uncommon. So you're already going to go, okay, I've never seen this before. Rapid fat loss, not weight loss, fat loss, you know that he had logic behind all of these. Like maybe more people there's, it's less competitive to you to rank high for a keyword like fat loss rather than weight loss, who knows incredible sex. I mean, that doesn't even, that wouldn't even belong in the title you would think and becoming super human. So he has found three things that a lot of people would want.

And he has told you that it's stuff you've never heard before because it's uncommon. So, you know, people will say they don't want to have subtitles on their books because they feel that it will weigh a down. He really proves  that a subtitle, which no one's gonna see because nobody says, Hey, did you read The Four-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and becoming Superhuman? No, they just say, have you read the Four Hour Body? You know, the way you can lure people in with this subtitle and also have them be amazing keywords that people may be searching for. I don't know if they go to Amazon and search incredible sex, I'm sure people do it.

The other thing that's notable is obviously he is not just meticulous about his marketing. He is also meticulous and endlessly hardworking when it comes to the actual writing. 

So the Four Hour Body supposedly went through six rounds of edits. Now, obviously it can get confusing. What is around of edits? You know, I know for my books, once I print, I print them and, and then go over, you know, do line edits probably five or six times before I even consider it a draft. But what I'm assuming that six rounds of edits means when, when you're Tim Ferriss, it means that you did all of that. You got your draft, you gave it to your editor and then you gave it to your editor five more times. That's what, I'm pretty sure I meant. But when he was writing, he was all already thinking about the marketing, which is something I always, always recommend. So it's, he said that even when he was coming up with the table of contents, when he was coming up with chapter titles, he thought about what would make great eight guest blog posts for his friends, with these super popular blogs. 

And he asks himself, will this be the defining book in its category? And will it be just as five years from now, which I think is a goal everybody should have. Why bother putting all this work into a book if it's just going to be the flavor of the month. So we've talked, or I don't know if I've talked to on this podcast about it. I'm sure I have. I talk about it a lot. This concept that Kevin Kelly, the co founder of Wired coined called a 1000 true fans. And the theory goes that you do not need to be world famous in order to make it as an artist. All you need is a thousand people who will buy anything you create, who will drive to the next town. If you're hosting an event who will do everything I am lucky to have about six of those people, maybe you listening.

Well, you are, if you're listening, you're definitely one of them. I'm far from a thousand, but, but Tim Ferrisss is a big fan of the 1000 true fans concept. And so he would ask himself while writing his book will this appeal to a thousand diehard fans who will likely be in my demographic. And his demographic is for thirties, forties tech, savvy men in different verticals, whether that's for sports, food, marketing, PR, whatever it may be. So he's not just targeting a thousand true fans. He's targeting a thousand true fans for each section of the book. That is a lot more than a thousand people. So when he says, which I think is fascinating, the marketing for me is 80% focused on creating the book and 20% focused on getting that into the market and influencing those markets. So marketers are big on the 80 20 rule.

It usually one way it applies to my life is that in terms of my clients at Launch Pad. 80% may be not so easy to deal with. And then I'm going to have the 20%, that are a dream. And there's a bit there better ways to talk about the 80 20 rule, but you'll hear a lot of marketers talk about that. Okay. And so this is what he did with The Four Hour Body. He announced it in September on his super popular blog, even though the book wasn't coming out for another two months, he announced it. And then he focused on writing these super high quality blog posts for the time in between when he announced it and his book release. And he made sure he, he only talked about his book, like every four posts. So he wasn't slamming his audience with like buy my book, buy my book. 

He said my book is coming out, but he just sort of layered it in between these other super high quality blog posts. Then about December 15th now, a glut of health-related books come out in January and that's to take advantage of the fact that we all have delusional new year's day, New Year's resolutions, where we sat, Oh, you know what? I am going to go to the gym every day, meditate four times a week, whatever it is we say, so those books are very popular, but knowing that those books were popular, he said, I want to beat the rush. So I want my book to come out December 15th. And he actually had to convince his publisher to let him do that. And he did. And so then what he did is before then in between September and December, he sent out a thousand advanced copies to friends, influencers, people who had had him speak at events sent it out. 

And then at 5:00 AM on the day of the launch, send an email to them and put as the subject line URGENT, that might be the most brilliant part of this whole thing. That is an email everyone's going to open, open it. And he says, it'll take you 30 seconds. Could you please write a review? He didn't sprays it like that, but that's my summary. I was not one of those thousand people. So I did not receive that email, but Tim, I just want you to know that for your next book. I will totally be one. He also, you know, a lot of us do video trailers and I will say that back in the day, the publishers that I worked with were very fond of going create a viral video. We were also clueless that we would then go try to create a quote viral video, which is like saying, create a, just go out and create a sensation. 

Like you can't decide that something's a viral video, but we didn't know. And, and so I, with my first two books, I did create kind of cool trailers, but it was, the one for Party Girl was really funny. Actually it was these two people but it was focused on a girl in a bed.  I hired an actress. It wasn't me. And then you pan out and you see she's in bed with a guy and then you pan out further and you see she's in bed with two guys. For my second book, I actually got Harper Collins to give me thousands of dollars for a trailer. And I hired a director, a real director, and we did castings. And I remember we made it like one of those ads, you know, those like Christian mingle ads, whatever those, those ads are on TV for dating. 

I, I don't remember. I just remember being very frustrated that we spent all that money and that like nine people saw the video. So now I will say I create those videos on an app called Clips, which I think is super awesome. I usually spend a few minutes doing it and have the trailer. I am not Tim Ferriss. Now the reason that I don't put all of this money and time into trailers is I don't have his audience. So if I put all that, I may just end up frustrated. Like I was on my first two books, but he hired a big director to do a trailer. And because he's got that audience, he knows a lot of people are going to see it. He also had a bunch of friends with big email lists, email their lists. And so, you know, people like Joe Polish, my mentor, people like Neil Strauss and a whole bunch of people like that who've got, who've got not just big email lists, but they've got people on their email lists that are his Tim Ferriss target reader.

So another thing he did, Tim Ferriss is he layered his press. So starting on the 8th of November. So for you keeping track, if the book came out December 15th, that's you know, about five weeks before he got posts and stories places like Wired, Huffington Post, New York Post, Buzzfeed, Business Insider, then after the release, it got huge. Suddenly that's when he's written about in the New York Times, multiple times, he goes on The View. He goes on Dr. Oz. And it all just blew up, but it didn't all happen at once. You know, he has said that his goal was for his ideal reader to kind of suddenly see that this book is everywhere. 

So the final Tim Ferriss book I want to talk about is the Four Hour Chef. And I want to tell you that before writing it, he read and took notes on about 50 cookbooks. Now I start this by saying, you know, I work harder than anyone. I know. I didn't read 50 books on writing to write my book on writing. I'm going to tell you the truth. I didn't read any books on writing. Didn't occur to me but it occurred to Tim Ferriss. So that's what he did. And then he did a promotion where he released a digital bundle on something called BitTorrent, which I don't even really understand what that is. I sort of always thought of that as like the dark web or something. But anyway, it's a site with 170 million users. And this digital bundle contained a section of The Four Hour Chef. It had deleted chapters, it had bonus video content and BitTorrent decided to promote that bundle. And that means that over 1 million users downloaded it in its first month out there.

So in conclusion, let's just say that, that Tim Ferriss is one of a kind. And I don't know anybody else in the world who, who would, who would do all of this, but, but each of those, each of those tactics has something I believe we can take from it. Even if it's just putting URGENT in your subject line, the day of your release, even if it's asking friends to email for you, they don't have to have 50,000 people on their email list. Even if it's when trying to get press layering. It, even if it's thinking about blog posts, as you write each chapter, and maybe if we ever live in a world again, where we get to go to conferences, it's going to those conferences with your book, but not shoving your book on everyone there, but just chatting and making friends. 

And maybe it's creating blog posts and interspersing promotions for your book throughout those blog posts, or maybe it's these bulk orders, or maybe it's going to bookstores and slapping your book cover on different books. Whatever one day, maybe if bookstores come back.

So that is your special episode on Tim Ferriss and his brilliant marketing efforts that have more than paid off for all of his books. And, yeah, let me know if you like this breakdown. There are many other people who are brilliant at launching and marketing their books, and I would love to be able to break those down. So that's it. And I will see you next time.

Episode 328: Chris Joseph on Publishing a Book About His Recovery From Cancer

In the last 33 years, Chris Joseph has started and managed three environmental consulting businesses, launched two fan-funded music record companies and founded a non-profit charitable foundation. He has also dabbled in philanthropy, songwriting and magazine writing, and he is currently studying for his real estate license. Chris is an LA native who lives in Santa Monica with his two teenage sons and his longtime girlfriend Susie. 

He is also the author of Life is a Ride: My Unconventional Journey to Cancer Recovery which I am very proud to say Launch Pad has just published. The book is about how, after being diagnosed with third-stage pancreatic cancer and discouraged by traditional medical treatment, he embarked on his own path to healing. It's a beautiful, poignant journey that will inspire many and I'm looking forward to seeing what it does for him.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Anna David:                  00:01                So Hey there, Chris Joseph, how fun is this?

Chris Joseph:                00:05                This is fun. It's going to be fun.

Anna David:                  00:08                I'm going to ask you at the end if it's fun, but I think it's fun. So, this is a very special interview for me because we've been working so closely together. And while I have had clients on the show before nobody that I've worked this closely with in so many capacities, and I should say, we're recording this a few weeks before the release, but listener by the time you hear it, this book is out. So, let us talk about how you're feeling right now and how you're planning to launch this book?

Chris Joseph:                00:44                How I'm feeling right now. Well, that's a multifaceted answer. I'm feeling nervous since this is my first podcast. I'm doing my first podcast interview. I am incredibly excited about this book, incredibly excited. I lived this journey for four years, which we'll talk about, I started writing this in March, which doesn't seem like that long ago, but I've been working nonstop on this since March. So, I'm also, I'm nervous, I'm excited and I'm a bit relieved to be honest, that the book is done. Now I'm going to go back to nervous because I'm, you know, whenever you put something out into the world for someone to comment on or read a review or whatever, people are going to have comments, and of course I want them to be good. So yeah, I'm a little nervous about that.

Anna David:                  01:44                They will be good. I mean, what's there to find fault with A, in you. We've never met. So, when I say that, I can't find fault with you, but that's obviously you are a human being, but I can't imagine you know, do you think it could cause some controversy in the cancer community?

Chris Joseph:                02:06                You know, there's a couple parts in the book where I take aim at Western to use Western medicine to heal. I use Western medicine in part to heal. And I, you know, it couldn't see, but I, when I was writing the book, I kept that in mind. I kept my commentary very limited. And I would just want to tell my story because I felt if I told my story, no one can argue with that. They may not like it, they may not like the stories, but, but no one can take issue with it.

Anna David:                  02:42                What about the doctors that you, you use the real names? Yeah?

Chris Joseph:                02:50                The first oncologist that I fired, I changed his name. I have not spoken to him since March of 2017, since I fired him. There's a part of me that wants to send him the book. And I might, I might do that. It sounds a little bit addictive, but I might.

Anna David:                  03:11                I so understand that instinct. I had a psychiatrist before I got sober, who, who just did something terrible to me. And that sounds just really weird. He did something that is immoral. He basically gave me enough pills to kill myself and told me he couldn't help me because I was a liar, and never said AA or rehab or anything like that. And then, and so I've written about it extensively using his name. He now runs a rehab. So, I consider that fair warning. But I get that. So, let's, so before March, how long had you been wanting to tell your story?

Chris Joseph:                03:55                So can I tell 30 seconds of my history? In October, 2016, I got diagnosed with third stage pancreatic cancer, which was a complete shock and scary as fuck. I was well aware that pancreatic cancer is a deadly form of cancer for most people. I was so scared that I just did what the doctor told me, what my oncologist told me to do, which was go on chemotherapy and chemotherapy almost killed me. And it wasn't even helping, but it almost, it almost killed me. I forgot your question though.

 

Anna David:                  00:00                So how long had you been wanting to tell your story?

Chris Joseph:                00:08                I actually, when I first got diagnosed, I was really torn about telling anyone, let alone ever having the thought of writing a book. But early on in my cancer journey, I started writing a blog and the blog got really good reactions, good responses. And then about a year into my journey, when I started doing better, I started getting calls from people from cancer patients and also from family members and friends of cancer patients, wanting to know what did I do to survive pancreatic cancer? And I probably got about, I don't know, 50 calls over the two or three years. And so around the first of this year, early in 2020, I thought, well, so many people are asking me about the story and I knew it was a good story. I decided, well, what the heck I'm going to see if I can write a book. I knew nothing about writing a book. Nothing. Never had tried one, never attempted one. I consider myself to be a halfway decent writer, but it's a different kind of writing that I do. I do technical writing. I've never tried writing a memoir. This is a plug for you and your publishing company, but I can't remember who told me about the workshop you did in March, which I joined. And from that I hired you guys to do an outline. And then you created simultaneously when the pandemic hit, then you created the inner circle. And I joined that and from March on that's when I started writing it and going full bore. So this wasn't really a well thought out plan until this year.

Anna David:                  02:01                Well, it's so interesting. Yeah. I don't know how you came to be aware of me, but you, yeah, you just popped up one day and then popped up every day thereafter for every opportunity I presented and I was like, who is this guy? And at first I get overwhelmed when new people come into my circle, literal circle. And I please forgive me, I was getting you mixed up in the beginning with the truck driver guy whose name we won't mention. I just had you two mixed up. And so I was like, okay, that guy, truck driver is writing a book on cancer. And this guy, Chris is writing a book on trucking. And then I figured it out rather quickly. And I will say that, you know, you showed up every day and have shown up every day to write. And the Inner Circle for anyone who doesn't know is this monthly membership program where everybody meets Monday through Friday and writes for an hour and an enrollment will open up again in the spring of 2021. But when you, when you said I'm done with my book, was it, you know, within three months, I would say, you said that?

Chris Joseph:                03:12                Then I was done with it. Yes. I started in March and I finished in June. Yeah.

Anna David:                  03:17                So I was like, okay, here we go. When a non writer writes a book, it's one thing. But when a non-writer writes a book in three months, that's, and I really, and I sort of told you this, I braced myself for what's this going to look like? And I start reading it. And I had just, I hadn't read your book. I didn't know what a good writer you are and I'm not blowing smoke because you can ask most of the clients that I work with, who turn in manuscripts and I'm like, whoa this needs a ton of work. And I, and I saw immediately, not only that I wanted to keep reading, but that, but that it didn't need a lot of work. And I was so impressed, and so important. I was on board before, because I was supportive of the story, but I really got on board once I read what you've done. And it is such a Testament to, just to just saying, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this quickly and I'm going to do this well. You proved to me that it's possible. So that's pretty special, but yes, go ahead.

Chris Joseph:                04:20                First of all, thank you for that. That's very nice to hear. I, like I said, I always knew I had a great story. I always knew that. I didn't know if I could write it. What I learned, one of the many things I've learned in this process is that it's one thing to write the book, but it's quite another thing to go through the editing process, which has been wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. That's a lot of work too. It's a lot of work. I thought when I finished in June, I started to take a deep breath and then I got the first set of comments back from one of your staff. Okay. I got to dig in again. I got to dig it again. So the last three months, it's not like I've been relaxing. It's been a lot of work since I've finished writing.

Anna David:                  05:08                Yeah. I mean, as the expression goes, writing is rewriting and people don't know that, and you've been such a good sport. And I mean, working hard and saying, thank you the whole way. That's not, everybody is so grateful. There are annoyed sometimes, but we have to make it the best, you know, the best quality thing we can or what's the point of releasing it.

Chris Joseph:                05:31                I never got annoyed because first of all, 99.9% of the comments were great. Second of all, I knew that the comments were making the book better and they did make it better. They made it much better. So I never had a problem at all, at all.

Anna David:                  05:49                Well, and so then, as we've discussed many times, the launch is a whole different thing. And frankly, because we get to take as authors, we get to make that as, as hard or as easy as short or as long as we want to. That's the good news. But you know, and I'll tell you with my own book, I'm taking a pause and then I'm going right back into it again, because you know, each book is something that is going to be around for the rest of our lives and after. So why not really go for it? So talk to me about your launch plans.

Chris Joseph:                06:27                Launch plans. Well, let me back up, I've run an environmental consulting company for over 30 years. And so when you're in the consulting business, you sell your services. So I've learned how to sell. I certainly don't know everything, but over 30 years, I've gained a lot of knowledge. I have never looked at launching this book as a, Oh my God, what am I going to do? I mean, I've certainly learned a lot of things from you and from other people about how to launch a book, but it was never a daunting. It's not a daunting task to me to, okay, I've got this, I'm just going to go full bore. I'm going to shamelessly plug myself. I've got from my day job, I've got an email list of about 20,000 people. I'm going to send emails to every one of them. Some of them are going to be personal emails. Some of them will be a form letter or whatever, but everyone's going to hear about my book. I belong to various chat boards. I'm going to post on various chat boards. I'm going to use social media, Instagram LinkedIn, Facebook. I'm thinking, and I probably should ask you about this, but I'm thinking about a Facebook avertude and see how that goes. I'm just starting to look into that. I have about four or five other things I'm doing if you want me to continue, but you look like you wanted to ask me a question.

Anna David:                  08:00                Well, I'll tell you something about Facebook ads and books. Cause this is something I just learned with this. I do not think, I'm sure Facebook Ads will disagree with me with the amount, unless you want to invest an insane amount of money. I do not think financially they pay off. However, I spent plenty on Facebook ads for my recent book because book sales is not my goal, earning back the money I'm spending. It's not my goal. My goal is to spread awareness and I actually have a great Facebook guy. I can give you who specializes in ads for books. And I think it's well worth it. Once the book is out, I'm a big believer in don't do, I mean, do a lot of prep for once it's out, but don't promote before it's out, to me that's like a very old school way of doing things that doesn't work very well anymore. But yes, keep going with your list.

Chris Joseph:                08:55                Podcasts, of which this is one, I've got a couple more lined up and I've got inquiries into about a half a dozen others. And there's, you may know there's a, such a large cancer community, sadly, but there is, there's so many people are afflicted with cancer. So I'm starting to reach out to people who I think would be like-minded with me and might want to interview me for their podcasts. Some different stuff I'm doing. The title of the book is Life Has Arrived. And it's also a song that I co-wrote back in 2017 in which I discussed the story that's in the book. The co-writer of the song is a great musician in New Orleans named Paul Sanchez. And Paul and I are talking about doing a book slash music tour. Once the pandemic eases or ends, we're probably not going to be able to do this till next year, but do maybe 10 house concerts, 12 house concerts around the country. Maybe get 50 to 75 people. I don't have unrealistic expectations, not everyone's going to buy the book or some people will already have the book. But I should tell you one other thing is that I'm not, I didn't write this book to make money. I didn't write this book to build my business. I wrote it because I too. I had to get it out. Yeah, I'm going to get a little overwhelmed now. I had to get it out. And what I realized what people offered me on my cancer journey, I didn't know this at the time, I needed hope. And I was getting hope from certain people early on. And I realized when people started calling me, I thought they wanted to know what I did and they wanted hope. They wanted hope. And that's what I want from the book. I don't want money. I want to provide hope.

Anna David:                  10:54                Right. And I think that shines through throughout, and I told you, I know somebody who has cancer now, and I was sending him parts of the book as I was editing it because I knew it would help him. But so let's talk about this music thing. Let's talk about your history with music and, you know, let's kind of an entrepreneurial, the way you jumped into Jazz Fest and that whole music scene kind of reminds me of how you jumped into writing and Launchpad. It's just like you are the guy who seems to just show up and then like kind of lead the crowd. Is that your vibe?

Chris Joseph:                11:33                Well as someone put it to me a few years ago they called me the idea guy. I have probably a hundred ideas and maybe 99 of them are really bad, but one of them is really, really good. And so the Jazz Fest thing after Katrina hit in 2005, there was a group of people who I had met through Jazz Fest and on the Jazz Fest chat boards we called ourselves threads. And we were trying to figure out a way to help the musicians in New Orleans. And there was a concert in 2007, after Paul Sanchez who I talked about earlier and John Bochay, they were playing a show and playing us up. And after their set ended, I asked him if they were going to make an album and they said they didn't have any money. They were still trying to find housing after Katrina, a year and a half later. And so I just came, it was sort of on the spot. I sort of came up with the idea, well, let's help. Let's help them out. Let's raise money. And that turned into a not for profit record company was fan-funding, crowdfunding, before crowdfunding was even before that there was even a term. We helped maybe there was a group of us, hundreds and hundreds of people we helped make over 60 albums in New Orleans started a separate nonprofit. That's helped give out about three quarters of a million dollars in grant money to New Orleans musicians. So again, I forgot your question, but yeah, I mean, that was how I got started helping out the musicians in New Orleans. And that's how, that's what led to the song. Life has Arrived. And that's what led to calling the book. Of course, Life Has Arrived.

Anna David:                  13:28                And so this idea about your concerts, what do you think of this? What do you think of charging tickets, but the, okay, so what you could, you could do two things. You could say they get free admission. If they buy the book or that like $65, I have no idea. And they get the book, the free admission. I know what you're going to say to me. You're like, I want, I don't want to charge anyone, something like that. I'm just coming to you as a publisher. Maybe you have shirts made that say like, or hats, Life Has Arrived. What do you think of that as like a way, and then it's automatic book sales.

Chris Joseph:                14:05                Just so you know, I'm not going to say don't charge money. But what I am going to say is charge money. Again, I just want to cover my costs with the book. But I want the money, any, you know, let's say we charged $50 or whatever, and they get a book and they get, there's a CD called Life Has Arrived as well. If there's $25 leftover per person, I want that money to go to Paul Sanchez because that's his living. And as you know, music clubs are closed around the country. He can't play beginning to do house concerts right now because people aren't hosting those. So when we do this, I want the money to go to him. But I do want some sort of a package deal. Yeah, absolutely.

Anna David:                  14:56                And so let's talk about your advanced reader team. So listener by the time you see this book, it should have many reviews and be number one in several of its categories. But tell me about who you gathered for that, how you're doing that, all of that stuff.

Chris Joseph:                15:11                So I knew, you know, the tournament advanced reader team was something I had never heard of until a couple of months ago when I became a part of your advanced reader team or make your mess, your memoir. And so I learned what the term meant and what the roles that the advanced review team members would play from that experience. Your team urged me to do it for this book and I was happily willing to do it. I have about 35 people on my advanced review team. They got the book about a week and a half ago. Most of them have already read it and given me their private reviews. And thankfully they're all really good, which is nice. Nice to hear. They're still maybe about a fifth of the people who haven't reviewed it yet, or they haven't told me. They're the ones that are going to purchase copies of the book of the eBooks and write reviews. Write about when the book goes on sale on September 15th. Yeah, it's exciting. It's a great way to create buzz. It's a great way to get really good reviews. I'm not sure if I'm answering the question you asked me, but.

Anna David:                  16:30                No. It's good. And just in case listeners don't know what we're even talking about. It's basically a group of people that you gather a month or two before, as Chris was saying, we give them, we'll put the book, a PDF of the book on a site called Book Funnel. You can always also send the PDF, but it's kind of nice. You put it on this site and they can download it. And then you ask them to read it and write up a review and just hold onto it until the book is on Amazon. And then what we do is we price a book at the e-book at 99 cents, just for the release. It depends sometimes we'll do it for the three days before the release. So just your advanced reader team goes in, buys it for 99 cents, paste the review, with make your [inaudible]. I left it at 99 cents for a couple of weeks, cause like I didn't really care. And now I've moved it back down to 99 cents. I'm always just kind of playing around with it, but it's a really good strategy to, as Chris said, get buzz, going, get reviews because it's all that social proof stuff. If you look at a book on Amazon that has two reviews, you're less likely to buy it. Then if you see one with, you know, he's seven reviews, so that's the strategy. And I noticed that you're putting in your emails, you've already, you know, author of the upcoming book, life as a writer. Is that what I saw?

Chris Joseph:                17:54                My email signature. Absolutely mentions it. Yeah. I've been doing that for a few weeks now. And I've had a few people ask me, Oh, you, you have a book. Oh, that's great. Tell me what it's about. You know, some people don't know about my journey, some of my clients and stuff, but yeah, I figure again, what I said a few minutes ago. I don't have a problem promoting myself whatsoever. There's many situations, many social situations where I'm very shy, but from a business standpoint, I figured, well, people are going to either say, Hey, that's great. Or they're going to think it's obnoxious or they're not going to think about it at all. And whatever they think it doesn't bother me.

Anna David:                  18:37                And it really, especially in a book like this, it is doing people a disservice if this book will help them. So I think it's also going, okay, this isn't about me. This is about getting this message to the people who need to hear it so that I think can take the self-consciousness too, away from it. I know I feel self conscious promoting books endlessly.

Chris Joseph:                19:01                I will tell you a very quick story. As recently as yesterday, I got a call, a friend of a friend from a woman who's 46 years old and about five weeks ago, got diagnosed with fourth stage colon cancer. And she'd heard about what I had gone through, about my success. I talked to her for about an hour yesterday. And, you know what it's like, I mean, to be of service to someone else is amazing. You can't put a price on that. You can't, I mean, I gave her some ideas, but more than anything, I think I just heard what she had to say and I understood what she was going through. And so, and again, I know I'm repeating myself, but that's what I want from the book. That's what I want.

Anna David:                  19:49                Yeah. I mean, and that is really what a book does. It's, you know, thousands or hundreds or dozens of conversations because it's not realistic to talk to everybody one-on-one, but that's what it's for to give people hope and to, for them to read it and know that there's someone out there who, even if it's not a successful story, I mean, yours is a massive success story, but just knowing that there are other people out there, because I think when we struggle, we forget one of the ideas of, you know, the symptoms of depression is thinking, you're the only person out there who's got this problem.

Chris Joseph:                20:25                Absolutely. Yes. We can make ourselves feel tremendously alone. Yeah, totally agree.

Anna David:                  20:32                And what else? Oh, I wanted to ask you about this. You know, you have this massive email list, but they're, there are clients for your company. How are you going to, email them once? Are you going to email them a few times are going to, how are you going to handle that? Have you written the emails yet? Because you should.

Chris Joseph:                20:52                I haven't written emails yet, but I probably will soon. I think I will probably pester people. I probably will. And I think, you know, from a 20,000 person email list, you know, I might get, I don't really know how many I would get to buy from that, but maybe a thousand people might buy it. I hope but I think, yeah, to your question to, will I send them repeat emails? Probably. Yeah, probably.

Anna David:                  21:29                Yeah. It's interesting. I sent out a newsletter last week talking about how the only backup I got, cause the week of my release, I sent out three emails and one person wrote me and said, you know like, you know, I guess with the virus, like you're here just for money. And so you're just trying to [inaudible] people by selling, selling, selling, you know, this is someone who signed up for my list and I'm like, Hey buddy, I'm selling my book for 99 cents. So I hope to God, nobody is trying to think of this as a way to make a living. But for the most part, people don't get upset for the most part people are really, you know, cause they also don't read every email. Think of all the emails that you know, you just automatically, so again, you're doing them a service by continuing to tell them about something that could help them.

Chris Joseph:                22:19                Also, I mean, in my day job, I get maybe a hundred emails a day, just work related emails. So I'm going to use in my responses to those emails. Oh, by the way, I don't know if you know, I have a book out that's really, so again, it's a shameless plug. I understand that, but that's fine. I'm okay with it.

Anna David:                  22:45                Speaking of shame, this was something that Emily Redondo and I pulled on my advanced reader team, which I highly recommend. We called it the double shame. It was for people who didn't do the review, who joined the advanced reader team, who didn't do the review, which the bigger your group is going to be, the more people you're going to have like that. So she sent an email saying, Hey, we didn't see your review. And then if they didn't respond to her, I sent the email saying the same thing, double shame. Oh my God, did it work? It was the one, two punch. And suddenly I had 10 more reviews. So I think that's also something, you know, Chris for you to know, and for anyone who's listening, who wants to use the advanced reader team technique, people say they're going to do it and they don't do it. And you just have to stay on top of them. We only had one person in the whole group that said, stop emailing me. I'm done. That's the solution.

Chris Joseph:                23:38                My kids would tell you that I have no, they know I nudge them about just about everything. So I don't have a problem bugging people.

Anna David:                  23:50                Good. It's going to come in handy cause you have such a nice demeanor too. It's never going to feel like bugging.

Chris Joseph:                23:56                I'm not sure. I'm not sure my kids would say that, but.

Anna David:                  24:02                I'll debate it with them. So, okay. We have to get close to wrapping up. What is it you want listeners to most know about your book?

Chris Joseph:                24:12                I guess it's about my book, and also about writing a book, you know, it's repeating a theme of what we've talked about at least a couple of times already on this podcast. But my book is about hope. And it's not even necessarily about cancer. It could be about any kind of serious life threatening disease. That's scary as fuck. I think that one of the things I was taught and I write about it in the book is to be your own CEO, take charge of your own healthcare. So I want people to know, and I think a lot of people already do know this. The doctors don't know everything. They don't, they know a lot, some of them know more than other doctors. But you know, it's talking about nudging people. You have to know your medical professionals. You have to question them, you have to get second opinions. You have to get third opinions. These are all the things I, by the way I didn't do when I first started. So I'm not saying this from a lofty perch, these are things I learned the hard way on my journey. So, you know, I want people to know that there's hope I want people to hopefully learn from mistakes I made and things and good things I learned along the way. What I want to tell people about writing a book is I sort of feel like if I can do it, a lot of people can do it. Because like I said, writing a book six months ago was not on my radar screen whatsoever or eight months ago. It's hard work. It's hard work and it takes a lot of diligence and it takes, I mean, I know I'm talking to someone who has written eight or nine books, but it's really worth it. I got to say I'm really, really happy that I wrote this book. 

How to Launch a Book (and Not Waste Time & Money on What Doesn’t Work)

How the hell do you market a book?

I think, after publishing eight of my own and dozens for other people, I finally know.

Why did it take so long to learn? Two reasons. One, I’m stubborn. Two, publishing is confusing as hell. 

I didn’t really know either of these things when HarperCollins acquired my novel Party Girl In 2005. I also didn’t have a clue that the publishing industry itself didn’t have a clue. I naively assumed that because I was being published by one of the Big Five, my future was made. Fame, fortune, millions of copies. 

It took me five more books to realize that, despite the fact that I got my books featured on shows like The Today Show and The CBS Morning Show and in the pages of Cosmo and Redbook, this was not going to happen. 

Between the years that my agent sold my books to publishers and I started a company where entrepreneurs pay us to write and publish their books, I studied marketing. Then I took what I’d learned in marketing and applied all of it to launch my most recent book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir. I didn’t do this because I wanted to sell a lot of copies (in my experience trying to sell a lot of copies is like trying to sleep well; it’s either going to happen organically or not). I went all out on this book because I wanted to see what worked and what didn’t so I could use the good and disregard the bad for my clients.

Here's what I tried, why I tried it, how much it cost and whether or not it worked: 
1) Created a “sales page” on my website for the book on my site

DETAILS: As opposed to having a standard book page with just a book description and cover image, I created a page that breaks down, in succinct sections, what readers will get out of the book, why they should read it and what others had said about it. The sections include a few brief sentences followed by testimonials followed by a message about why I wrote the book followed by information about why I’m uniquely qualified to do this followed by bullet points about what the reader will get out of the book (scroll to the bottom of this page to see what I mean).

COST: $0 

WHY I DID IT: I read this post about an author named Tom Morkes doing and it sounded like a great idea. 

DID IT WORK? There’s absolutely no way to gage how effective it but it was fun to do and I think really helped me streamline how I could talk about the book long before it came out. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes! And I will recommend my clients do as well. 

2) Compiled lists of media people I knew and reached out to them months ahead of time

DETAILS: Because I spent years working in media—writing for dozens of publications and appearing as a “talking head” on multiple shows—I’ve built up hundreds of contacts over the years. But I also really left that world when I started my company. And I also happen to find pitching myself to people I know to be one of the most uncomfortable experiences in the world. 

In an effort to keep myself motivated to keep going when I felt rejected or got scared, I actually created a vision board for the media I hoped to appear on as a way to get myself to break through the fear. The board featured almost all shows I’d been on before or podcasts hosted by people I know.

COST: Free, aside from the time and mental anguish

WHY I DID IT: Media attention is good. Duh. But not THAT good. Not so duh. More on this in a bit.

DID IT WORK? In a word, here’s what happened: Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Months before the release, I reached out to people I know who write for Forbes and The Daily Beast, bookers I know at The Today Show and Fox News and even people like a former employee who works for Shonda Rimes’ site. For each outlet I had a unique, pandemic related pitch tailor made for that show or site. I also reached out to podcaster Rich Roll, someone I’ve known for decades, who had asked me for help when he was getting ready to launch his first book and has actually discussed me on two of his episodes. For years, I’d been too scared to ask me if he’d ever have me on his show (see paragraph one in this section) but I finally took a deep breath and did it. When I didn’t hear back, I reached out to his ads manager (also an old friend) who forwarded my request to his producer.

In all these cases, I was either ignored or, in the case of one site, told to come up with idea after idea after idea, all of which were rejected. 

BUT THEN: A funny thing happened. As the release got closer, I began reaching out to people I didn’t know very well—including a woman I’d met once who worked at The New York Post. She immediately responded that she’d love to include my book in a column on the best books of the week.

And then, an even funnier thing happened. Good Morning America, a show I’d always assumed was way out of my reach, asked me if I wanted to come on for a five-minute segment to talk about my book and how people could use it to keep their mental health stable during the pandemic. Every step of the way, the producers were so kind and helpful, consistently telling me how grateful they were to me for doing this—as if I was doing them some massive favor. It was an exquisite experience for which I’m incredibly grateful. 

It also reminded me of something I learned when I originally worked in media and was a freelancer for People magazine. When I reached out to Kevin Sorbo’s publicist (Google him, he used to play Hercules on some show), I remember the publicist being verbally abusive and unhelpful. When, the next day, I reached out to Tom Cruise’s publicist, she was lovely and gracious and respectful. Basically, the reality (and irony) is that often the higher you reach, the better you’re going to be treated. The true pros are at the top. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes but I would defy all the suggestions we’re always given and not do it so far ahead of time or reached out to so many people I actually knew. And I would have shot for better outlets at places where I didn’t actually know people, rather than assuming the biggies wouldn’t be interested.

3) Put together an Advanced Reader Team

DETAILS: An Advanced Reader Team is a group of people made up of personal contacts, email subscribers and social media followers who agree to read your book ahead of time and then post a review of the book once it’s out (on Amazon and, for extra credit, on Barnes & Noble, Walmart and GoodReads). 

This means giving the members of it a copy of your book a month or two before the release (the easiest way to do it is to create a BookFunnel account and email them a link. For mine, I had one of my team members stay on top of the team so they purchased the ebook for 99 cents a few days before the “official” release and then posted their review. 

COST: $500 for the team member plus $20/year for a Book Funnel account

WHY I DID IT: Reviews are social currency (do you buy anything that has fewer than 10 reviews?) Reviews also, along with sales, kick Amazon’s algorithm into gear so that the site starts recommending your book to those who bought books like yours.

DID IT WORK? Roughly 150 people joined the team but I knew from previous experience with Advanced Reader Teams that usually only about half of the people in the team—if that—end up coming through. As of this writing, a few weeks after the book’s release, there are over 100 reviews on Amazon. While of course those aren’t all from my team, they definitely got the momentum going. 

BUT. Many people’s reviews were rejected, owing to Amazon’s arbitrary and Byzantine way of trying to prevent fraudulent reviews. In short, Amazon has both humans and bots constantly trying to prevent any author or product creator from filling their item with positive but phony reviews. Yet whom they reject is quite random: I know people who have reviews from their mom on their books but I’ve had people I’ve never even met but whom I follow on social media that have their reviews rejected. Still, there’s a workaround: once a review is rejected, my team member handling the ART asked the person who submitted it to re-send a shorter review with a lower star rating and voila, it was usually approved. 

IN THE END…Despite the annoyance (most of which I didn’t need to deal with firsthand because I had a team member running interference), this was probably the most useful of all the techniques I tried. The book debuted at #1 in all 10 of its categories and has remained there pretty much every day since. While that can’t be attributed solely to the reviews, they make a big difference. (While the book also has dozens of reviews on Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other sites, we all know the behemoth, for better or worse, is the one that matters.)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? In the words of Mr. Big, Abso-f-ing-lutely. 

4) Signed up for a Book Review Targeter account  

DETAILS: Book Review Targeter is a site that reveals who has reviewed books similar to yours on Amazon. Many of those reviewers have websites and the idea is that you then go to each person’s website and, if they have a contact form or email address on their site, you reach out, tell them how much you love the review they did for whatever book it is and ask if they’d like to join your Advanced Reader Team. 

COST: $20/month for the account, plus what I paid the team member to do it

WHY I DID IT: I learned about this from Dave Chesson, who knows more about book marketing than anyone out there. I figured that even though I already had a sizeable group for my ART, it’s never a bad idea to add more.

DID IT WORK? Depends on how much you value one lovely person. I had the same team member who managed the ART try to track down those who’d reviewed other books on writing; most ignored her, one joined the team and then asked to be taken off the emails and still posts weird shit on my social media and one was so utterly lovely that she wrote me several notes telling me how much she loved the book and being one of the first people to post a review. Was it worth all that to find one lovely person? Not entirely. Though almost.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. Way too much trouble for way too small an impact.

5) Created a book made out of a big podcaster’s episodes in the hope of getting on his show

DETAILS: My company has a service where we compile an entrepreneur’s pre-existing content (podcast episodes, newsletters, social media posts or anything else that encompasses the person’s work) and create a full book out of them. Since I did one for my mentor which he absolutely loved, I figured anyone else I went to this sort of effort and expense for would be wowed. 

COST: $8,000 for research, editing, layout, design and printing. 

WHY I DID IT: Rather than go on a dozen tiny podcasts, I decided for this book I was going to make an effort to only go on a few big ones. I targeted Jordan Harbinger, both because I’d interviewed him on my (now long gone) Sirius radio years earlier and also because we’d casually discussed my going on his show. I figured if I surprised him with a book “by” him, painstakingly created by me and my team, he’d be so wowed that we would finally make my appearance on his show happen.

DID IT WORK? Not at all and beyond that, it was totally demoralizing! Admittedly, I didn’t know Jordan well, although he’s sent me Twitter messages that were very complimentary (see below).

So, after months of having my team meticulously go through his episodes, transcribe the best ones, organize them by topic, edit them and compile them into a book, I had a cover designed and the book laid out. Thrilled with the final result, I emailed Jordan—telling him about my surprise and saying I’d love to have copies printed to send him. I realized that the person I thought I knew didn’t exist when he responded that he was moving soon and would probably throw it away. 

BUT. No but. This killed me and cost me a lot of money.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? A million billion trillion times no.

6) Ran excerpts from the audiobook as podcast episodes

DETAILS: I have my own podcast where I interview writers about their best book launch techniques. It has over 800,000 downloads and a fairly devoted audience of writers or aspiring writers so I picked three chapters from the book that I thought would be most helpful to them and ran each as its own podcast episode.

COST: $0 [I would have been paying to have those episodes produced anyway]

WHY I DID IT: Because I could! I may have been slapped down trying to get on other people’s podcasts but no one could reject me on my own. 

DID IT WORK? Hard to say. I offered a bonus to podcast listeners and only a few took me up on the offer. But thousands of those episodes were downloaded. For me, the impact of my podcast can be hard to determine since a podcast is, well, non-interactive. But I know that when I hosted a retreat a few years ago, three-quarters of the people who signed up—some flying in from other countries—knew me from my podcast.        

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Sure. In the end, there seems to be no good reason NOT to do this. I need pod episodes every week anyway. And no one messaged me to say they didn’t like it. 

7) Ran Book Bub and Amazon ads 

DETAILS: BookBub is considered the most important site when it comes to getting readers to buy your book (see #21) and Amazon is, well, Amazon. Whenever I’ve explored the world of advertising on either of those platforms, I’ve become woefully confused and thus run just a few highly ineffective ads. So I found people on Fiverr who specialized in advertising on those platforms and hired them.

COST: In the end, $0 but for a brief time, $200 

WHY I DID IT: Um. Advertising is good.

DID IT WORK? No and it was entirely my fault. First of all, I went to Fiverr—which can be great when you need, say, podcast episodes edited but you really never know what you’re going to get there. Despite being reasonably tech-savvy, I literally couldn’t do the basics that the Amazon ad guy I hired told me to do (which is to say, set up an advertising account on Amazon) so he kindly offered to cancel my order. With the BookBub guy, he ran ads from my BookBub account without showing them to me first and they were, well, terrible. So they performed, well, terribly. He also kindly offered to cancel my order. No harm, no foul I guess?

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Maybe but I would first ask around and find the best people who specialized in these ads that I could find. 

8) Pitched book blogs

DETAILS: When I received a list of book blogs from a seminar on getting your book in libraries ran by Jane Friedman, I combed through it meticulously, determining which accepted unsolicited submissions, which weren’t long gone, which cost money (a lot) and which weren’t completely janky. I was left with about a quarter of what I’d started with and asked a friend helping me with PR to pitch my book to those. Not one responded. 

COST: $0 

WHY I DID IT: Readers read book blogs. Right?

DID IT WORK? Um, a zero percent success rate suggests that perhaps this whole book blog thing has fallen off a cliff. Maybe going to the paid sites would have been effective but the reign of book blogs (if there ever was such a reign) seems to be long past. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No way, Jose. 

9) Did a guest blog post for a big writing site 

DETAILS: This allegedly used to be the way to gather a big audience for a book: go to someone who already has a big audience in your field, do something nice for them (like write an amazing post) and voila, that person’s readers will become yours. 

COST: $0, though a considerable amount of time. 

WHY I DID IT: See details above.

DID IT WORK? I have to say no. The blogger ended up running it weeks before my release, when my book wasn’t yet available on Amazon, and even though some blogs on this blogger’s site have hundreds of comments and have been shared dozens and dozens of times, my post gathered only a few comments, mostly by people I’d sent the post to. But also the way I employed this strategy was admittedly lame, since you’re supposed do a bunch of guest blog posts and not just one.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? If I did, I'd make a much bigger effort to do a whole guest blogging extravaganza.

10) Hired a designer to create a Slideshare out of information from the book 

DETAILS: A guest on one of my podcast episodes swore that this was a great way to gather readers and the key element was to, after posting, reach out to the Slideshare account on Twitter and ask them to feature it on the Slideshare home page. So I created one of my own and reached out to that Twitter account.

COST: $200 for the designer, plus my time

DID IT WORK? With a whopping 67 views, 0 comments and 0 Likes, I’d have to give it a hell no. I reached out to the Twitter person twice, which was once more than I would have liked to and got no response. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Um, no.

11) Gave away the first three chapters of the book as a lead magnet

DETAILS: As far as I know, my Facebook ads manager team invented this brilliant concept: they created a site where visitors could read my first three chapters, comment, like, sign up for my email site and sign up for my newsletter buy my Memoir Writing course at a crazy discount. Then we ran Facebook ads that directed traffic to our site. 

COST: $0 because these guys are my business partners (they charge roughly $5000 for the service) and the money I put into Facebook ads I would already be spending

DID IT WORK? While I don’t have exact sales numbers as a result of this, it summoned so much interest, sold quite a number of courses, added a lot of people to my email list and frankly everyone in the world should hire this team.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN: As a Valley girl would say, fer sure.

12) Submitted my book for a Readers Favorite review

DETAILS: I heard about this site from another book marketer and though I couldn’t tell if a review from the site would be taken seriously, I figured why not?

COST: $0.

DID IT WORK? They wrote the nicest review ever, weeks before the book came out and even posted that review on other sites. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN: Yes! They were very nice! And a review’s a review. 

13) Opened a Pubby.com account

DETAILS: Pubby is a site that allows you to review other people’s books on Amazon in exchange for others reviewing yours.

COST: $20/month

DID IT WORK? Not for me. I tried reviewing a few people’s books but then my reviews weren’t approved by Amazon so I kept getting emails from Pubby that I’d failed to meet my commitment.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. It felt kind of gross actually. Actual reviews from readers who passionately love (or even passionately hate) your book means so much more.

14) Tried to get my book in libraries

DETAILS: I heard about this from the aforementioned Jane Friedman seminar and had a library one-sheet created. Then when I poked around, I was told that most libraries order from Overdrive. I tried to set up an Overdrive account but was unable to and although Ingram, my distributor, allegedly distributes to Overdrive, for whatever reason it didn’t work in my case. Kind of knowing I would be throwing money away, I signed up for a Library Bub spot, which seems to mean I paid $300 to have this release sent out which means that dozens of us paid to be a part of something that cost the company the $200 or so it costs to send a release.  

DID IT WORK? In a word, no.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? I wouldn’t do any of these things but one of recent podcast guests, Jason Pinter, explained a much better way to get into libraries in this episode.

15) Hired a social media agency 

DETAILS: Someone I knew was launching a social media agency and though I already have a good handle on my Instagram and Facebook, I figured I’d be supportive and possibly give my social media accounts some extra love that would help my book. I ended up taking over that process myself after getting a few ideas from them but then they ended up becoming incredibly useful during my release week when they DM’d all my LinkedIn contacts and Instagram followers, telling them that the book was available for 99 cents.

DID IT WORK? While I can’t track exactly how many people bought the book because of those messages, I have to imagine it was a lot. The fact of the matter is I find it cringe-y to ask anyone I know to do me a professional favor (see #19) and the lovely thing about this was not only that I didn’t have to laboriously message thousands of people but also that I could pretend it wasn’t happening. There was another added benefit, which is that many people responded asking me if I would come on their podcast or if they could write about the book or even if they could hire my company to help them.

COST: $700

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? I'll take elements of what that service offered and encourage my clients to do the same. 

16) Asked stores if they’d carry my book 

DETAILS: I learned something when I switched from traditional publishing to indie publishing: it’s not nearly as hard to get into bookstores as your publishers tell you because they’re often angling to get other books in those stores and are thus invested in your book not getting in there. I learned from my client Emily Lynn Paulson, when she got her book in over 70 stores, that bookstores are often quite open to selling a book they think people will buy.

DID IT WORK? Yes! I reached out to my favorite local book store, Book Soup, and they not only said yes but also hosted an online event for my book. I also reached out to my favorite specialty shop, Kitson and they said they’ll both sell it in store once life rolls around to being normal again and also host an in-person signing for me.

COST: 0

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Hell, yes. 

17) Hosted a launch day pitch party event

DETAILS: In an effort to come up with a virtual event that wouldn’t just be the same old same old, I asked my friends—fellow writers Ryan Hampton and Lisa Smith— to come on a Zoom call. I then invited my followers and subscribers and Lisa and Ryan invited theirs. Lisa asked me a few questions and then we allowed anyone there who wanted to an opportunity to pitch us their book ideas, which we then helped them refine and polish.

DID IT WORK? Yes. And it was super fun. Evidence here. 

COST: 0.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Absolutely.

18) Created a whole bunch of swag

DETAILS: I made I’m Making My Mess My Memoir thumb drives, t-shirts, bookmarks and canvas prints—and sent packages, which also included signed paperbacks, to the Advanced Reader Team members who had been the most supportive. 

DID IT WORK? Hard to say. Getting shirts printed at the beginning of the pandemic was no small feat and while I was happy to be able to gift my most supportive readers t-shirts and other stuff, I think they probably would have been just as supportive without the extra incentive. 

COST: Around $1000 (I wanted shirts people would actually wear! I figure if you’re going to give away a shirt someone would only wear to sleep in before they give it away, why bother?)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Survey says probably. The fact is, making shit with your book title on it is fun but whether or not there’s a direct payoff is impossible to determine.

19) Reached out to institutions to see if they wanted to bulk buy books

DETAILS: Knowing that rehabs want to offer their clients special workshops, I created a bunch of bulk offers where, in exchange for their purchase of a large number of books (at a major discount, thanks to the folks at BookPal), I would give them courses, one-on-one consultations and swag.

DID IT WORK? Nope. Admittedly I didn’t try very hard; I offered it to a few rehab owners I knew but when they didn’t respond, I just stopped trying. Because of the pandemic, the rehab business is in a serious state of flux so I figured I’d cut my losses and move on to other strategies.

COST: Just time. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Doubtful.

20) Tried to work GoodReads into my strategy 

DETAILS: GoodReads is one of those Amazon-owned companies that’s meant to be a social media site for readers. It’s not my thing because I was burned out on social media networks by the time it came around and because, as most authors already know, their members are harsh. But I’d heard that it was important to work GoodReads into my launch strategy so I went and updated my GoodReads page in the hope of being able to do a giveaway timed to my release but the customer service was so janky that by the time I got my page functioning and a promotion prepared, it was already too late to time it for my release.

DID IT WORK? No. Too many roadblocks to even really try it.

COST: Just time. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No, but that doesn’t mean others shouldn’t. The truth is if I don’t use GoodReads normally, I’m probably not going to have a great experience using it to promote a book. An author who loves GoodReads and uses it all the time may well have a different experience.

21) Submitted my book to be a BookBub featured new release

DETAILS: BookBub is the most influential of the book sites out there (see #7) and is notoriously picky about the books they choose to promote. In other words, they’ve rejected me in the past. While landing one of their featured deals is the real golden ticket, I submitted my book to be a featured new release and felt like Charlie himself when it was selected. 

DID IT WORK? Because my book was featured the day of my release and I was employing a million other promotional strategies at the same time, I can’t say how many books this helped sell but having my book exposed to millions of book buyers undoubtedly helped enormously.

COST: $300 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Hell yes!

22) Sent an email to friends and personal contacts on the day of the release 

DETAILS: This one’s pretty self-explanatory but I sent out an email when my ebook was priced at 99 cents to ask friends to buy it.

DID IT WORK? Now maybe other people have different relationships with their friends than I have with mine but I would rather ask a million strangers to support me than promote myself to my friends. (I will say this not to be self-aggrandizing but just for clarity: I have hundreds of people I consider friends so this was an email that had to be sent in six batches.) I also think friends are probably much more supportive when hearing from someone who’s publishing their first and possibly only book than when hearing from a girl on her eighth. I will say this: it’s always surprising who writes back with the “Oh my God, this is so amazing, just bought it” sort of reply and who doesn’t say a word. This time around, it was my dentist who won for most enthusiastic response.

COST: Just my pride.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes, I would suck it up and hit send.

23) Created a book trailer on Clips 

DETAILS: When my first book was released, publishers were fond of telling their writers to go “create viral videos,” probably because one author in the history of publishing had a massively successful book because they had a video that surpassed a million views. Millions were then spent on elaborate productions (I was one of the suckers; for my second book, I hired a director and even auditioned God damn actors to make a video that maybe 30 people saw). These days, I just create videos using the Clips app; because I’ve used the app a lot it doesn’t take me long to create a cool video that is, I believe, just as effective as the ones that required mucho dinero and a lot of time. This time, I went a step further by having the social media company I was working with make it better, with my voice over and a sharper look. 

DID IT WORK? Sure. It was 30 seconds, intriguing and surely captured some interest from people (don’t judge the 21 YouTube views; I hustled this video all over). 

COST: Nothing since I was already paying the social media agency

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Absolutely.

24) Did smaller (but not small) podcasts and local TV shows timed for release week  

DETAILS: Starting a few months before my release date, whenever a friend or acquaintance asked me to be a guest on their podcast, I asked if the episode could be released during my launch week. Everyone agreed though a few people forgot and released the episode early. I was also asked to go on a local Portland TV show and timed that for release day.

DID IT WORK? Yes. Exact numbers are impossible to track but picking and choosing podcasts that had decent sized unique audiences and being strategic about when they came out is easy enough to do. (There are different schools of thought on going on podcasts; plenty of people feel that every podcast, no matter how small, is worth appearing on. Because I don’t love going on podcasts and because I already have too much to do, I [kindly] pass on ones that I know won’t move the needle at all.)

COST: $0.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yep! 

25) Hired a programmatic ad company to drive traffic to videos I’d created for the book

DETAILS: I didn’t know what programmatic media was until the social media company I was working with talked me into hiring their partners for this and honestly I didn’t get a good vibe from the people from our first conversation. They tried to sell me on a very expensive offer but told me they could give me a “special deal” because of my relationship with the social media company.

DID IT WORK? Just like with most things I don’t understand, I received a report from this company with results that flummoxed me but the social media company told me were “good.” I sent them to my Facebook ads team to ask if the results were good and was told they were horrific. When I forwarded that response to the social media company who’d referred me, I was told I just didn’t spend enough for it to pay off. 

COST: $700.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No and no.

26) Had an influencer friend post about my book when he offered

DETAILS: When my friend Joe Polish offered to post something about my book, I figured having him just post the book would be humdrum so I had my designer create a funny image that photoshopped the book into an already existing photo of us.

DID IT WORK? The post generated comments and interest from members of his community—the exact audience I want to reach. 

COST: $0 (my designer did it as a favor)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes of course! But I will say this: I asked a few other people I know with big followings to post and they didn’t; if I’d followed up, I believe they would have but see #22.

27) Used Quora to generate interest in my book

DETAILS: I’d heard that posting answers to people’s questions about writing about a month before my release would be a good way to establish authority—with the idea that I could then have a following and promote my book there once it was out. It was pretty time-consuming because I knew that there was no point in half-assing the answers if I wanted people to be interested in me and I have to assume that Quora, like Reddit, is highly suspicious of any user who appears to be too self-promote-y.

DID IT WORK? I amassed 284 followers and 1600 content views from my dozen or so answers (I have no idea if this is considered good or bad or neither) and then completely forgot about this strategy until just this moment, a month after my release so I just went and posted shamelessly promotional answers with links to my book which may or may not be deleted by the moderator. Just like with Amazon ads, I bet if I’d invested real time and energy in this strategy, it could have been effective but it seemed like it could be a potential serious time suck without a clear payoff. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. 

So there you have it. My roughly 6000-word attempt to create the definitive post on promoting a book. I’m sure, despite all these efforts, there are myriad ideas I could have also tried. Please, if you have experience with any of these or have found other effective book launch techniques, post about them in the comments.

The Definitive Guide to Launching and Marketing a Book

How the hell do you market a book?

I think, after publishing eight of my own and dozens for other people, I finally know.

Why did it take so long to learn? Two reasons. One, I’m stubborn. Two, publishing is confusing as hell. 

I didn’t really know either of these things when HarperCollins acquired my novel Party Girl In 2005. I also didn’t have a clue that the publishing industry itself didn’t have a clue. I naively assumed that because I was being published by one of the Big Five, my future was made. Fame, fortune, millions of copies. 

It took me five more books to realize that, despite the fact that I got my books featured on shows like The Today Show and The CBS Morning Show and in the pages of Cosmo and Redbook, this was not going to happen. 

Between the years that my agent sold my books to publishers and I started a company where entrepreneurs pay us to write and publish their books, I studied marketing. Then I took what I’d learned in marketing and applied all of it to launch my most recent book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir. I didn’t do this because I wanted to sell a lot of copies (in my experience trying to sell a lot of copies is like trying to sleep well; it’s either going to happen organically or not). I went all out on this book because I wanted to see what worked and what didn’t so I could use the good and disregard the bad for my clients.

Here's what I tried, why I tried it, how much it cost and whether or not it worked: 
1) Created a “sales page” on my website for the book on my site

DETAILS: As opposed to having a standard book page with just a book description and cover image, I created a page that breaks down, in succinct sections, what readers will get out of the book, why they should read it and what others had said about it. The sections include a few brief sentences followed by testimonials followed by a message about why I wrote the book followed by information about why I’m uniquely qualified to do this followed by bullet points about what the reader will get out of the book (scroll to the bottom of this page to see what I mean).

COST: $0 

WHY I DID IT: I read this post about an author named Tom Morkes doing and it sounded like a great idea. 

DID IT WORK? There’s absolutely no way to gage how effective it but it was fun to do and I think really helped me streamline how I could talk about the book long before it came out. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes! And I will recommend my clients do as well. 

2) Compiled lists of media people I knew and reached out to them months ahead of time

DETAILS: Because I spent years working in media—writing for dozens of publications and appearing as a “talking head” on multiple shows—I’ve built up hundreds of contacts over the years. But I also really left that world when I started my company. And I also happen to find pitching myself to people I know to be one of the most uncomfortable experiences in the world. 

In an effort to keep myself motivated to keep going when I felt rejected or got scared, I actually created a vision board for the media I hoped to appear on as a way to get myself to break through the fear. The board featured almost all shows I’d been on before or podcasts hosted by people I know.

COST: Free, aside from the time and mental anguish

WHY I DID IT: Media attention is good. Duh. But not THAT good. Not so duh. More on this in a bit.

DID IT WORK? In a word, here’s what happened: Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Months before the release, I reached out to people I know who write for Forbes and The Daily Beast, bookers I know at The Today Show and Fox News and even people like a former employee who works for Shonda Rimes’ site. For each outlet I had a unique, pandemic related pitch tailor made for that show or site. I also reached out to podcaster Rich Roll, someone I’ve known for decades, who had asked me for help when he was getting ready to launch his first book and has actually discussed me on two of his episodes. For years, I’d been too scared to ask me if he’d ever have me on his show (see paragraph one in this section) but I finally took a deep breath and did it. When I didn’t hear back, I reached out to his ads manager (also an old friend) who forwarded my request to his producer.

In all these cases, I was either ignored or, in the case of Shonda Rimes’ site, told to come up with idea after idea after idea, all of which were rejected. 

BUT THEN: A funny thing happened. As the release got closer, I began reaching out to people I didn’t know very well—including a woman I’d met once who worked at The New York Post. She immediately responded that she’d love to include my book in a column on the best books of the week.

And then, an even funnier thing happened. Good Morning America, a show I’d always assumed was way out of my reach, asked me if I wanted to come on for a five-minute segment to talk about my book and how people could use it to keep their mental health stable during the pandemic. Every step of the way, the producers were so kind and helpful, consistently telling me how grateful they were to me for doing this—as if I was doing them some massive favor. It was an exquisite experience for which I’m incredibly grateful. 

It also reminded me of something I learned when I originally worked in media and was a freelancer for People magazine. When I reached out to Kevin Sorbo’s publicist (Google him, he used to play Hercules on some show), I remember the publicist being verbally abusive and unhelpful. When, the next day, I reached out to Tom Cruise’s publicist, she was lovely and gracious and respectful. Basically, the reality (and irony) is that often the higher you reach, the better you’re going to be treated. The true pros are at the top. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes but I would defy all the suggestions we’re always given and not do it so far ahead of time or reached out to so many people I actually knew. And I would have shot for better outlets at places where I didn’t actually know people, rather than assuming the biggies wouldn’t be interested.

3) Put together an Advanced Reader Team

DETAILS: An Advanced Reader Team is a group of people made up of personal contacts, email subscribers and social media followers who agree to read your book ahead of time and then post a review of the book once it’s out (on Amazon and, for extra credit, on Barnes & Noble, Walmart and GoodReads). 

This means giving the members of it a copy of your book a month or two before the release (the easiest way to do it is to create a BookFunnel account and email them a link. For mine, I had one of my team members stay on top of the team so they purchased the ebook for 99 cents a few days before the “official” release and then posted their review. 

COST: $500 for the team member plus $20/year for a Book Funnel account

WHY I DID IT: Reviews are social currency (do you buy anything that has fewer than 10 reviews?) Reviews also, along with sales, kick Amazon’s algorithm into gear so that the site starts recommending your book to those who bought books like yours.

DID IT WORK? Roughly 150 people joined the team but I knew from previous experience with Advanced Reader Teams that usually only about half of the people in the team—if that—end up coming through. As of this writing, a few weeks after the book’s release, there are nearly 100 reviews on Amazon. While of course those aren’t all from my team, they definitely got the momentum going. 

BUT. Many people’s reviews were rejected, owing to Amazon’s arbitrary and Byzantine way of trying to prevent fraudulent reviews. In short, Amazon has both humans and bots constantly trying to prevent any author or product creator from filling their item with positive but phony reviews. Yet whom they reject is quite random: I know people who have reviews from their mom on their books but I’ve had people I’ve never even met but whom I follow on social media that have their reviews rejected. Still, there’s a workaround: once a review is rejected, my team member handling the ART asked the person who submitted it to re-send a shorter review with a lower star rating and voila, it was usually approved. 

IN THE END…Despite the annoyance (most of which I didn’t need to deal with firsthand because I had a team member running interference), this was probably the most useful of all the techniques I tried. The book debuted at #1 in all 10 of its categories and has remained there pretty much every day since. While that can’t be attributed solely to the reviews, they make a big difference. (While the book also has dozens of reviews on Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other sites, we all know the behemoth, for better or worse, is the one that matters.)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? In the words of Mr. Big, Abso-f-ing-lutely. 

4) Signed up for a Book Review Targeter account  

DETAILS: Book Review Targeter is a site that reveals who has reviewed books similar to yours on Amazon. Many of those reviewers have websites and the idea is that you then go to each person’s website and, if they have a contact form or email address on their site, you reach out, tell them how much you love the review they did for whatever book it is and ask if they’d like to join your Advanced Reader Team. 

COST: $20/month for the account, plus what I paid the team member to do it

WHY I DID IT: I learned about this from Dave Chesson, who knows more about book marketing than anyone out there. I figured that even though I already had a sizeable group for my ART, it’s never a bad idea to add more.

DID IT WORK? Depends on how much you value one lovely person. I had the same team member who managed the ART try to track down those who’d reviewed other books on writing; most ignored her, one joined the team and then asked to be taken off the emails and still posts weird shit on my social media and one was so utterly lovely that she wrote me several notes telling me how much she loved the book and being one of the first people to post a review. Was it worth all that to find one lovely person? Not entirely. Though almost.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. Way too much trouble for way too small an impact.

5) Created a book made out of a big podcaster’s episodes in the hope of getting on his show

DETAILS: My company has a service where we compile an entrepreneur’s pre-existing content (podcast episodes, newsletters, social media posts or anything else that encompasses the person’s work) and create a full book out of them. Since I did one for my mentor which he absolutely loved, I figured anyone else I went to this sort of effort and expense for would be wowed. 

COST: $8,000 for research, editing, layout, design and printing. 

WHY I DID IT: Rather than go on a dozen tiny podcasts, I decided for this book I was going to make an effort to only go on a few big ones. I targeted Jordan Harbinger, both because I’d interviewed him on my (now long gone) Sirius radio years earlier and also because we’d casually discussed my going on his show. I figured if I surprised him with a book “by” him, painstakingly created by me and my team, he’d be so wowed that we would finally make my appearance on his show happen.

DID IT WORK? Not at all and beyond that, it was totally demoralizing! Admittedly, I didn’t know Jordan well, although he’s sent me Twitter messages that were very complimentary (see below).

So, after months of having my team meticulously go through his episodes, transcribe the best ones, organize them by topic, edit them and compile them into a book, I had a cover designed and the book laid out. Thrilled with the final result, I emailed Jordan—telling him about my surprise and saying I’d love to have copies printed to send him. I realized that the person I thought I knew didn’t exist when he responded that he was moving soon and would probably throw it away. 

BUT. No but. This killed me and cost me a lot of money.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? A million billion trillion times no.

6) Ran excerpts from the audiobook as podcast episodes

DETAILS: I have my own podcast where I interview writers about their best book launch techniques. It has over 800,000 downloads and a fairly devoted audience of writers or aspiring writers so I picked three chapters from the book that I thought would be most helpful to them and ran each as its own podcast episode.

COST: $0 [I would have been paying to have those episodes produced anyway]

WHY I DID IT: Because I could! I may have been slapped down trying to get on other people’s podcasts but no one could reject me on my own. 

DID IT WORK? Hard to say. I offered a bonus to podcast listeners and only a few took me up on the offer. But thousands of those episodes were downloaded. For me, the impact of my podcast can be hard to determine since a podcast is, well, non-interactive. But I know that when I hosted a retreat a few years ago, three-quarters of the people who signed up—some flying in from other countries—knew me from my podcast.        

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Sure. In the end, there seems to be no good reason NOT to do this. I need pod episodes every week anyway. And no one messaged me to say they didn’t like it. 

7) Ran Book Bub and Amazon ads 

DETAILS: BookBub is considered the most important site when it comes to getting readers to buy your book (see #21) and Amazon is, well, Amazon. Whenever I’ve explored the world of advertising on either of those platforms, I’ve become woefully confused and thus run just a few highly ineffective ads. So I found people on Fiverr who specialized in advertising on those platforms and hired them.

COST: In the end, $0 but for a brief time, $200 

WHY I DID IT: Um. Advertising is good.

DID IT WORK? No and it was entirely my fault. First of all, I went to Fiverr—which can be great when you need, say, podcast episodes edited but you really never know what you’re going to get there. Despite being reasonably tech-savvy, I literally couldn’t do the basics that the Amazon ad guy I hired told me to do (which is to say, set up an advertising account on Amazon) so he kindly offered to cancel my order. With the BookBub guy, he ran ads from my BookBub account without showing them to me first and they were, well, terrible. So they performed, well, terribly. He also kindly offered to cancel my order. No harm, no foul I guess?

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Maybe but I would first ask around and find the best people who specialized in these ads that I could find. 

8) Pitched book blogs

DETAILS: When I received a list of book blogs from a seminar on getting your book in libraries ran by Jane Friedman, I combed through it meticulously, determining which accepted unsolicited submissions, which weren’t long gone, which cost money (a lot) and which weren’t completely janky. I was left with about a quarter of what I’d started with and asked a friend helping me with PR to pitch my book to those. Not one responded. 

COST: $0 

WHY I DID IT: Readers read book blogs. Right?

DID IT WORK? Um, a zero percent success rate suggests that perhaps this whole book blog thing has fallen off a cliff. Maybe going to the paid sites would have been effective but the reign of book blogs (if there ever was such a reign) seems to be long past. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No way, Jose. 

9) Did a guest blog post for a big writing site 

DETAILS: This allegedly used to be the way to gather a big audience for a book: go to someone who already has a big audience in your field, do something nice for them (like write an amazing post) and voila, that person’s readers will become yours. 

COST: $0, though a considerable amount of time. 

WHY I DID IT: See details above.

DID IT WORK? I have to say no. The blogger ended up running it weeks before my release, when my book wasn’t yet available on Amazon, and even though some blogs on this blogger’s site have hundreds of comments and have been shared dozens and dozens of times, my post gathered only a few comments, mostly by people I’d sent the post to. But also the way I employed this strategy was admittedly lame, since you’re supposed do a bunch of guest blog posts and not just one.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? If I did, I'd make a much bigger effort to do a whole guest blogging extravaganza.

10) Hired a designer to create a Slideshare out of information from the book 

DETAILS: A guest on one of my podcast episodes swore that this was a great way to gather readers and the key element was to, after posting, reach out to the Slideshare account on Twitter and ask them to feature it on the Slideshare home page. So I created one of my own and reached out to that Twitter account.

COST: $200 for the designer, plus my time

DID IT WORK? With a whopping 67 views, 0 comments and 0 Likes, I’d have to give it a hell no. I reached out to the Twitter person twice, which was once more than I would have liked to and got no response. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Um, no.

11) Gave away the first three chapters of the book as a lead magnet

DETAILS: As far as I know, my Facebook ads manager team invented this brilliant concept: they created a site where visitors could read my first three chapters, comment, like, sign up for my email site and sign up for my newsletter buy my Memoir Writing course at a crazy discount. Then we ran Facebook ads that directed traffic to our site. 

COST: $0 because these guys are my business partners (they charge roughly $5000 for the service) and the money I put into Facebook ads I would already be spending

DID IT WORK? While I don’t have exact sales numbers as a result of this, it summoned so much interest, sold quite a number of courses, added a lot of people to my email list and frankly everyone in the world should hire this team.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN: As a Valley girl would say, fer sure.

12) Submitted my book for a Readers Favorite review

DETAILS: I heard about this site from another book marketer and though I couldn’t tell if a review from the site would be taken seriously, I figured why not?

COST: $0.

DID IT WORK? They wrote the nicest review ever, weeks before the book came out and even posted that review on other sites. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN: Yes! They were very nice! And a review’s a review. 

13) Opened a Pubby.com account

DETAILS: Pubby is a site that allows you to review other people’s books on Amazon in exchange for others reviewing yours.

COST: $20/month

DID IT WORK? Not for me. I tried reviewing a few people’s books but then my reviews weren’t approved by Amazon so I kept getting emails from Pubby that I’d failed to meet my commitment.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. It felt kind of gross actually. Actual reviews from readers who passionately love (or even passionately hate) your book means so much more.

14) Tried to get my book in libraries

DETAILS: I heard about this from the aforementioned Jane Friedman seminar and had a library one-sheet created. Then when I poked around, I was told that most libraries order from Overdrive. I tried to set up an Overdrive account but was unable to and although Ingram, my distributor, allegedly distributes to Overdrive, for whatever reason it didn’t work in my case. Kind of knowing I would be throwing money away, I signed up for a Library Bub spot, which seems to mean I paid $300 to have this release sent out which means that dozens of us paid to be a part of something that cost the company the $200 or so it costs to send a release.  

DID IT WORK? In a word, no.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? I wouldn’t do any of these things but one of recent podcast guests, Jason Pinter, explained a much better way to get into libraries in this episode.

15) Hired a social media agency 

DETAILS: Someone I knew was launching a social media agency and though I already have a good handle on my Instagram and Facebook, I figured I’d be supportive and possibly give my social media accounts some extra love that would help my book. I ended up taking over that process myself after getting a few ideas from them but then they ended up becoming incredibly useful during my release week when they DM’d all my LinkedIn contacts and Instagram followers, telling them that the book was available for 99 cents.

DID IT WORK? While I can’t track exactly how many people bought the book because of those messages, I have to imagine it was a lot. The fact of the matter is I find it cringe-y to ask anyone I know to do me a professional favor (see #19) and the lovely thing about this was not only that I didn’t have to laboriously message thousands of people but also that I could pretend it wasn’t happening. There was another added benefit, which is that many people responded asking me if I would come on their podcast or if they could write about the book or even if they could hire my company to help them. I only got one unpleasant response, pasted below, but let’s assume she (a person I don’t know so I have no idea how we became LinkedIn contacts) was having a bad day. 

(btw my theory about how she was maybe just having a bad day when she wrote that was disproven when, weeks later, she decided to pick up the convo...)COST: $700

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? I'll take elements of what that service offered and encourage my clients to do the same. 

16) Asked stores if they’d carry my book 

DETAILS: I learned something when I switched from traditional publishing to indie publishing: it’s not nearly as hard to get into bookstores as your publishers tell you because they’re often angling to get other books in those stores and are thus invested in your book not getting in there. I learned from my client Emily Lynn Paulson, when she got her book in over 70 stores, that bookstores are often quite open to selling a book they think people will buy.

DID IT WORK? Yes! I reached out to my favorite local book store, Book Soup, and they not only said yes but also hosted an online event for my book. I also reached out to my favorite specialty shop, Kitson and they said they’ll both sell it in store once life rolls around to being normal again and also host an in-person signing for me.

COST: 0

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Hell, yes. 

17) Hosted a launch day pitch party event

DETAILS: In an effort to come up with a virtual event that wouldn’t just be the same old same old, I asked my friends—fellow writers Ryan Hampton and Lisa Smith— to come on a Zoom call. I then invited my followers and subscribers and Lisa and Ryan invited theirs. Lisa asked me a few questions and then we allowed anyone there who wanted to an opportunity to pitch us their book ideas, which we then helped them refine and polish.

DID IT WORK? Yes. And it was super fun. Evidence here. 

COST: 0.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Absolutely.

18) Created a whole bunch of swag

DETAILS: I made I’m Making My Mess My Memoir thumb drives, t-shirts, bookmarks and canvas prints—and sent packages, which also included signed paperbacks, to the Advanced Reader Team members who had been the most supportive. 

DID IT WORK? Hard to say. Getting shirts printed at the beginning of the pandemic was no small feat and while I was happy to be able to gift my most supportive readers t-shirts and other stuff, I think they probably would have been just as supportive without the extra incentive. 

COST: Around $1000 (I wanted shirts people would actually wear! I figure if you’re going to give away a shirt someone would only wear to sleep in before they give it away, why bother?)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Survey says probably. The fact is, making shit with your book title on it is fun but whether or not there’s a direct payoff is impossible to determine.

19) Reached out to rehabs to see if they wanted to bulk buy books

DETAILS: Knowing that rehabs want to offer their clients special workshops, I created a bunch of bulk offers where, in exchange for their purchase of a large number of books (at a major discount, thanks to the folks at BookPal), I would give them courses, one-on-one consultations and swag.

DID IT WORK? Nope. Admittedly I didn’t try very hard; I offered it to a few rehab owners I knew but when they didn’t respond, I just stopped trying. Because of the pandemic, the rehab business is in a serious state of flux so I figured I’d cut my losses and move on to other strategies.

COST: Just time. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Doubtful.

20) Tried to work GoodReads into my strategy 

DETAILS: GoodReads is one of those Amazon-owned companies that’s meant to be a social media site for readers. It’s not my thing because I was burned out on social media networks by the time it came around and because, as most authors already know, their members are harsh. But I’d heard that it was important to work GoodReads into my launch strategy so I went and updated my GoodReads page in the hope of being able to do a giveaway timed to my release but the customer service was so janky that by the time I got my page functioning and a promotion prepared, it was already too late to time it for my release.

DID IT WORK? No. Too many roadblocks to even really try it.

COST: Just time. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No, but that doesn’t mean others shouldn’t. The truth is if I don’t use GoodReads normally, I’m probably not going to have a great experience using it to promote a book. An author who loves GoodReads and uses it all the time may well have a different experience.

21) Submitted my book to be a BookBub featured new release

DETAILS: BookBub is the most influential of the book sites out there (see #7) and is notoriously picky about the books they choose to promote. In other words, they’ve rejected me in the past. While landing one of their featured deals is the real golden ticket, I submitted my book to be a featured new release and felt like Charlie himself when it was selected. 

DID IT WORK? Because my book was featured the day of my release and I was employing a million other promotional strategies at the same time, I can’t say how many books this helped sell but having my book exposed to millions of book buyers undoubtedly helped enormously.

COST: $300 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Hell yes and I also plan to submit this same book to BookBub as a Featured Deal.

22) Sent an email to friends and personal contacts on the day of the release 

DETAILS: This one’s pretty self-explanatory but I sent out an email when my ebook was priced at 99 cents to ask friends to buy it.

DID IT WORK? Now maybe other people have different relationships with their friends than I have with mine but I would rather ask a million strangers to support me than promote myself to my friends. (I will say this not to be self-aggrandizing but just for clarity: I have hundreds of people I consider friends so this was an email that had to be sent in six batches.) I also think friends are probably much more supportive when hearing from someone who’s publishing their first and possibly only book than when hearing from a girl on her eighth. I will say this: it’s always surprising who writes back with the “Oh my God, this is so amazing, just bought it” sort of reply and who doesn’t say a word. This time around, it was my dentist who won for most enthusiastic response.

COST: Just my pride.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes, I would suck it up and hit send.

23) Created a book trailer on Clips 

DETAILS: When my first book was released, publishers were fond of telling their writers to go “create viral videos,” probably because one author in the history of publishing had a massively successful book because they had a video that surpassed a million views. Millions were then spent on elaborate productions (I was one of the suckers; for my second book, I hired a director and even auditioned God damn actors to make a video that maybe 30 people saw). These days, I just create videos using the Clips app; because I’ve used the app a lot it doesn’t take me long to create a cool video that is, I believe, just as effective as the ones that required mucho dinero and a lot of time. This time, I went a step further by having the social media company I was working with make it better, with my voice over and a sharper look. 

DID IT WORK? Sure. It was 30 seconds, intriguing and surely captured some interest from people (don’t judge the 21 YouTube views; I hustled this video all over). 

COST: Nothing since I was already paying the social media agency

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Absolutely.

24) Did smaller (but not small) podcasts and local TV shows timed for release week  

DETAILS: Starting a few months before my release date, whenever a friend or acquaintance asked me to be a guest on their podcast, I asked if the episode could be released during my launch week. Everyone agreed though a few people forgot and released the episode early. I was also asked to go on a local Portland TV show and timed that for release day.

DID IT WORK? Yes. Exact numbers are impossible to track but picking and choosing podcasts that had decent sized unique audiences and being strategic about when they came out is easy enough to do. (There are different schools of thought on going on podcasts; plenty of people feel that every podcast, no matter how small, is worth appearing on. Because I don’t love going on podcasts and because I already have too much to do, I [kindly] pass on ones that I know won’t move the needle at all.)

COST: $0.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yep! 

25) Hired a programmatic ad company to drive traffic to videos I’d created for the book

DETAILS: I didn’t know what programmatic media was until the social media company I was working with talked me into hiring their partners for this and honestly I didn’t get a good vibe from the people from our first conversation. They tried to sell me on a very expensive offer but told me they could give me a “special deal” because of my relationship with the social media company.

DID IT WORK? Just like with most things I don’t understand, I received a report from this company with results that flummoxed me but the social media company told me were “good.” I sent them to my Facebook ads team to ask if the results were good and was told they were horrific. When I forwarded that response to the social media company who’d referred me, I was told I just didn’t spend enough for it to pay off. 

COST: $700.

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? No and no.

26) Had an influencer friend post about my book when he offered

DETAILS: When my friend Joe Polish offered to post something about my book, I figured having him just post the book would be humdrum so I had my designer create a funny image that photoshopped the book into an already existing photo of us.

DID IT WORK? The post generated comments and interest from members of his community—the exact audience I want to reach. 

COST: $0 (my designer did it as a favor)

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Yes of course! But I will say this: I asked a few other people I know with big followings to post and they didn’t; if I’d followed up, I believe they would have but see #22.

27) Used Quora to generate interest in my book

DETAILS: I’d heard that posting answers to people’s questions about writing about a month before my release would be a good way to establish authority—with the idea that I could then have a following and promote my book there once it was out. It was pretty time-consuming because I knew that there was no point in half-assing the answers if I wanted people to be interested in me and I have to assume that Quora, like Reddit, is highly suspicious of any user who appears to be too self-promote-y.

DID IT WORK? I amassed 284 followers and 1600 content views from my dozen or so answers (I have no idea if this is considered good or bad or neither) and then completely forgot about this strategy until just this moment, a month after my release so I just went and posted shamelessly promotional answers with links to my book which may or may not be deleted by the moderator. Just like with Amazon ads, I bet if I’d invested real time and energy in this strategy, it could have been effective but it seemed like it could be a potential serious time suck without a clear payoff. 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN? Nope. 

So there you have it. My roughly 6000-word attempt to create the definitive post on promoting a book. I’m sure, despite all these efforts, there are myriad ideas I could have also tried. Please, if you have experience with any of these or have found other effective book launch techniques, post about them in the comments.

Episode 322: Anna David (That's Me!) on Making Your Message Your Business (Final Excerpt From My New Book)

Here we are at the final week of excerpts from my new book. This one is the final chapter, Making Your Message Your Business. It's all about the ways you can take that memoir you made out of your mess and create something that can support you for the rest of your life.
 
CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!!

 

TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE:

Hi there. Welcome to Launch Pad. It's a podcast all about how to successfully launch a book and what a book can do for your career. I am your host, Anna David, and every week I interview bestselling authors and the world's smartest and best marketers and entrepreneurs about how to make the most of a book.

This week, the one I'm talking to is myself. Just like the last two weeks. I am providing you with a free excerpt from my new book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir. And this is a short one. It is the last chapter. And it is about the ways you can take the memoir you made out of your mess and create something that can support you for the rest of your life. I'm talking about business. So this is the book's conclusion. You're going to hear me reading it a little bit more formally, but in the very same booth that I'm sitting in now. And if you would like the show notes, which is to say that excerpt from the book and links and all of the above, you can go to www.launchpadpub.com/blog/excerpt3. Or you can just go grab the book, go to www.makeyourmessyourmemoir.com. Grab the book. It, uh, we should give you everything you need to make your own mess into a memoir and then into a business. And now I give you the very final free excerpt from my book. 

Conclusion: Making Your Message
Your Business

Okay, elevator riders, we’ve made it to the end. We’ve analyzed our messes, determined our messages and come up with a plan for sharing it with the world. There’s just one last fact I’d like to reinforce: while few of us will make a considerable amount of money from our book sales, it is wholly possible to create a successful business from a book.

Of course building a business—and finding clients for that business—isn’t easy. I know that in order to make and keep the business successful, I have to do…well, a lot.

I have to get clear about where I believe my ideal clients are and start showing up there—whether it’s a pricey marketing conference, an out-of-city workshop or a dinner party. I then have to prove to them that I, out of all the people out there offering my service, am the one to hire. And I have to accept that some of those people might still meet me, be familiar with my work and hire someone else.

I have to study other businesses as if I were in business school—subscribing to their newsletters, attending their webinars, combing through their blog posts and websites, listening to their podcasts—so that I can always be coming up with new ideas about what clients want.

I have to be indefatigable when it comes to my marketing—consistently updating my website, my offerings, my blog posts, my podcast, my newsletters and everything else. I have to be reading marketing books, experimenting with Facebook ads and embracing my business with the same enthusiasm I put toward my writing.

I have to manage people—something that can be challenging, not only because my character defects pop up but also because anyone I manage is bringing to me whatever issues they have with authority. And so I have to learn not to take it personally when they’re disgruntled—and to be open to seeing when their issues mean I have to change something about the company—or myself.

I have to consistently be observing the way we work—and always looking to refine and improve it. I have to constantly focus on trying to make our clients feel as special and taken care of as I felt un-special and disregarded when I was in the traditional publishing game.

I have to be tireless when it comes to sharing my belief that everyone who feels they have a story to share should publish a book—and that their book can help their bottom line.

I have to do all sorts of tasks I’d rather not do—from negotiating deals with clients to being the bad guy if they don’t pay on time. But perhaps the hardest part is that I have to live with the pressure of every­thing resting on my shoulders. The work I do, as I see it, isn’t only producing the book; it’s taking on the emotional and literal responsibility of making clients’ dreams come true. (I’m not being dramatic here; The New York Times reported in 2002 that 81% of people dream of writing a book and from my unscientific surveys, I would guess that the percentage is even higher today.)

For all the toil, the rewards of running a business are almost impossible to describe. I get to make the sort of living I never could have imagined back when I was being published by HarperCollins. More im­portantly, I get to facilitate a process that can change people’s lives. I’m the one who controls the elevator so if I ever feel stuck on a floor, I have all the tools I need to fix that.

But, of course, no one’s going to just hand you a business. You have to work tirelessly until it clicks. In my experience, the transition from having expertise to being able to use that expertise to run a business happens, as Hemingway put it, gradually and then suddenly.

Still, there are all sorts of “indie” business oppor­tunities you can experiment with in the meantime. In Chapter 13, I suggested you come up with an after-book plan, whether it’s building a coaching business, becoming a consultant, launching a speaking career or anything else.

So consider where you’ve put your sweat equity; it’s probably a skill you could both put into a business and would find rewarding.

You could try to get a spokesperson deal. The best way to start is to leverage the relationships you already have. Look at the people you know through a new lens…a lens through which you can support one another in your respective goals—the way Darren Prince did when he landed the six-figure spokesper­son deal. The person who hired him did so because Darren, thanks to his book, had become a valuable asset.

If you’re thinking, “Well, I’m not a sports agent and so I don’t know people who can hire me for fancy spokesperson deals,” I encourage you to make a list of the people you know; go through your address book, look at Facebook, do whatever you need to do in order to inspire your brain to look beyond the obvious. Then ask yourself: who do I know who knows other people who I may be able to work with? Keep going from there.

If public speaking is your goal, brainstorm a list of organizations that might hire you as a speaker and then, if you get hired, figure out how to make your visit into a news event the way Ryan Hampton did. Of course, it isn’t as simple as publishing a book and waiting for the speaking offers to roll in. While we have a course on the exact steps to take to launch a speaking career, the most important fact to keep in mind is that it can be a slow build.

Still, speaking is one of those careers where your fee can skyrocket once you have success. Some authors who are currently making a killing on the speaking circuit are Dorris Kearns Goodwin, who nets $40K a gig, and Tim Ferriss and Malcolm Gladwell, who are each in the $50K-plus range. I get a mere $3000-$5000 for a speaking gig, which is great since speaking isn’t a priority for me, but it’s pennies compared to these others!

If you want to develop a coaching program, take the material in your book and think about how you can develop it into material you could teach. With a program, you’ll be able to help people on a much deeper level than you did with your book while also taking a deeper dive into the topic yourself. Who knows! It might even provide you with enough material for book two!

If you want to take coaching to the next level (and possibly get paid better for it), consider offering consulting services to companies that could use what­ever expertise you established with the book.

You could also create a certification program by training other people in what you’ve been teaching since the best preparation for developing a curric­ulum and providing certification is having a coaching program.

You could create a subscription or monthly mem­bership program—with videos and worksheets you’ve created, guest interviews, in-person events or daily or weekly video check-ins. The main factor to remember with membership programs is that success is defined by how much direct involvement you offer.

You could put on events. We’re living in the day and age of event throwing and your event can be anything from a workshop to a retreat to a weekly gathering. It can be held at a cafe, a theater, a holistic health center or an AirBnB. (I’ve held events at all of these places.) Your agenda can cover the same material as your monthly programs. But here’s the truth: people are often just aching to connect with a like-minded community and thus the activities matter far less than the simple fact that the event is happening.

You could create a mastermind. If you look at who runs the biggest mastermind groups—people like Joe Polish, Brendon Burchard, Jeff Walker and Russell Brunson—you’ll notice that they’re all authors.

You could sell a physical product. James Swanwick, the author of The 30-Day No Alcohol Challenge: Your Simple Guide to Easily Reduce Or Quit Alcohol, watched his career skyrocket when he expanded his expertise from “quitting drinking” to “lifestyle” and started selling blue blocking glasses.

Finally, you could launch a podcast. Yes, there are a billion podcasts out there. But anyone who tells you it’s too late to start one is lying (see what I have to say on the topic here). If you’re looking for the next steps to get started, consider taking my free class on it. One factor to keep in mind: podcasts are very rarely a source of revenue; much like a book, they are a cred­ibility builder, but they are even better at providing an opportunity for people to develop a “know, like and trust” factor with you and therefore they support all your other endeavors. And if you have ANY of the offerings above, your podcast will absolutely bring in clients.

Before you get overwhelmed by these options, remember that the first step is to write and publish your book. While my company is here to help with that, you may not need us. And so let me leave you with a thought you perhaps want to pass along to your future readers: you got this.

I’ll see you on the top floor.

Episode 321: Anna David (That's Me!) on Always Remembering You’re The Messenger (Excerpt 2 From My Book)

This week's episode features a very special guest: me. I got such a great response to last week's episode that I decided to release a few more excerpts from my new book. This week, it's the 13th chapter, which is focused entirely on how to find, nurture and serve your readers.

 
CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!!

 

TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Hi there. Welcome to Launch Pad podcast hosted by me, Anna David, where I talk to bestselling authors and the world's best marketers about how to launch a book successfully and what a book can do for your career. Now, I have a special treat for you last week. I gave you an excerpt from my new book. Y'all really liked it. So now I am giving you a second excerpt from my book, and I'm not doing this just to be self-indulgent, I'm doing this because if you listen to this podcast, this is the best information that you can get about it because it's information I've culled from my 20 years in publishing and from other guests on this podcast. So this is the 13th, the lucky 13th chapter from my new book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir, and it is focused entirely on how to find, nurture and serve your readers.

So just like last week, you are going to get me reading the book, but I'm going to be a lot more formal than I'm being now because it was an audio book and that has to be a little bit more professional than, than we get here. If you would like show notes, which is to say that actual section from the book and links go to launchpadpub.com/blog/excerpt2, but you can also just go grab the book. You know, you can just go to www.makeyourmessyourmemoir.com. Grab the book. I hope you love it. And I hope you like this excerpt.

Chapter 13: Always Remember That You’re The Messenger

Now that we’ve covered how to do a successful book launch, you need to get clear on what and how you want to do a book. Call this “expanding on your why.”

For that, one factor matters more than any other. 

You Need a Plan

Whether you want to use your book to create a coaching, consulting or other online business or to build an already existing business, the rules are the same: you need to get used to saying your message over and over again and you need to accept that some of what you’ll try to do will not work overnight.

When I first decided I wanted to have a career I controlled, I thought creating online classes was the way to go. I bought courses by all the people who teach others how to become successful with online classes, studied them thoroughly, acquired all the software they recommended and spent months upon months creating and recording courses.

The webinars I did to sell them were nerve-wracking— somehow far more nerve-wracking than going live on CNN—and yet, they didn’t work. I’d spend months creating and promoting a webinar only to have it sell a course or two.

I also tried coaching a group of students. I had an easier time signing people up for those programs, but it was still a struggle.

The day that one of the students in my coaching program told me she hated the program and found me useless, I had coffee with a new friend. I told him about this woman and how she had demanded a refund because my (quite inexpensive) program was too pricey. I then told him that people like Darren were asking me to publish their books.

He looked at me, a bit dumbfounded, and said, “You’re telling me that you have wealthy people with abundant mentalities who treat you well and value your work and then you have people without abun­dant mentalities telling you that you’re worthless and that you’re putting your effort into the latter?”

I nodded. I hadn’t realized it until that moment.

From that day forward, I switched my focus from the latter group to the former and that’s when business started booming. That is officially when I created my new playing field.

While I still coach students and make compara­tively little money doing it, the fact that I’m not dependent on their payments for my income means I only allow people into the program who I sense have abundant mentalities, no matter what they can afford to pay.

A few months into coaching my current group of students, I realized something else: what I was learning from working with them was giving me invaluable insight into what my audience wanted. I’ve now set up a certification program so that those who work with me can spread the Launch Pad method to even more people.

Coaching students also gives me unbelievable support. Whether I’m asking if they’ll review or comment on something or read one of my books, this small but mighty group shows up with a passion that almost makes me cry. And that brings me to some­thing else.

You Need a Small But Mighty Group

We’ve already talked about how you need an audi­ence.  It’s going to start small, just like it will for anyone whose last name doesn’t start with “Kardash.” But you need them as much as you need your message.

So how do you get them?

I have a course on how to build an audience, and its main message is this: it takes way longer than you might think so you better make it fun.

Building an Audience 1: Instagram

Let’s first talk about the platform I’ve found to be most effective: Instagram.

No, Instagram is not just for mindless scrolling, followed by Ben & Jerry’s-accompanied sessions of comparing and despairing. Some of my biggest clients have come from Instagram, including my first client Darren, who found me from doing a hashtag search for recovery.

I resisted IG for so long, telling myself I was a words person; the resistance just meant I was late to the party. Still, Instagram is not a requirement for every­one. I know people with companies that pull in millions who wouldn’t know how to sign onto Instagram and I know people with millions of follow­ers who don’t make a penny. If you’re in the former category, ignore this. If you’re not, here’s what I suggest:

Figure out your message. Sound familiar? Well, Instagram is an amazing place to hone and perfect whatever it is you have to tell the world. If you’re thinking, “I have more than one message,” great. Now pick the one you believe in most passionately and that you also believe could eventually net you the highest income. The message I always try to convey through Instagram is “share your story” and I sprinkle that in most posts. Your message could be “recovery is possi­ble” or “self-love is everything” or any damn thing you want. Just know what it is so you can share it.

Don’t only share your message. Before you go calling me a hypocrite, know this: people are much more likely to care about your “thing” if they know you. So share yourself—your pets, your significant other, your penchant for karaoke, whatever the hell makes you you. I recommend peppering in some personal material every three or four posts.

Be consistent. As a non-psychic who doesn’t work at Instagram, I can’t tell you how the algorithm works. But I can tell you that it favors people who use the app the most. This doesn’t mean you have to post multiple times a day but if you want to grow, I would aim to post at least three times a week. You can go crazy using different apps to try to determine what time of day is best for you, like I did for a short time, but you can probably just observe when your posts tend to get the most interaction and determine when and what to post from there.

Be brave. I’ll be honest: I feel unbelievably vain posting photo after photo of myself and the people who unfollow me every week (I tend to get as many unfollows as follows, therefore remaining at a steady 20,000-ish followers) surely agree. But I do it not only because I am unbelievably vain but also because it works. Yes, my boyfriend is tired of taking 20 photos of me in a certain pose so that I can pick the one I believe is most Insta-worthy but if it’s going to net me a $50,000 client, I’m going to continue to do it. And I don’t take it nearly as far as others do. A woman I know who has millions of Instagram followers says to really grow on the platform, you have to be polarizing. You have to, she says, be willing to have people hate you. Since I’m a fragile flower who doesn’t think inspiring hatred would be worth it even if it made my audience grow, I resist this method. I just post what allows me to feel honest while still honoring my own privacy. Speaking of which… 

Post what feels honest: In case it’s not obvious, the captions we post are just as, if not more, important than the photos. I used to judge people who used all 2200 characters until I had the experience of posting blogs on Medium that no one read, then re-posting the same content on Instagram and getting an amazing response. Instagram, for better or worse, is where people are consuming content these days and while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it’s far easier to convey your message through the words you put below your photos.

Talk to your people: While it can be easy to get caught up in numbers, never forget that every single person who’s following you made the choice to follow you. How nice is that? You may choose to follow them back or you may choose not to but if someone comments, make your best effort to respond to that comment. Not only do more comments show the Instagram algorithm that followers are responding to your post, but it also shows people you value them.

Stay on message: If you’re trying to build a busi­ness, don’t post bikini photos. That may be obvious but I can name a handful of people who claim to want the former but do the latter. I get it; for certain people, a bikini photo is going to get a lot more likes than an inspiring business quote, but staying on message and building your story is so much more important than the validation that comes from those likes.

 

Use the features: Instagram is constantly busting out new features and the algorithm allegedly loves to favor those who use them. Stories are those short videos and photos you can post by pressing on your image in the top left corner. If you have over 10,000 followers, you have a “swipe up” option, which means that users can actually click on a link you provide. (A standard Instagram caption doesn’t allow for click-able links.) You can also “go live” on Instagram, add­ing other people to chat with or interview. For longer videos, you can use IGTV.

Building an Audience 2: Emails

Make no mistake: starting and maintaining an email list is no small feat. It requires dedication and persistence. It is also the best way there is to build an audience. So how do you do it? 

Sign up for an email provider account: There are countless companies that offer this service—from Mailchimp to Constant Contact to Drip to Kajabi (what I use and love). Most of us start out on Mailchimp, not only because they offer free accounts but also because it’s the simplest. Once your list grows and you want to start doing more advanced things, like segmenting which people purchase certain offers or click on certain things, you can move on to one of the others.

Come up with a lead magnet: Once you have an email provider, you need something to incentivize people to sign up for your list. Whether it’s a quiz or a 10-step guide or anything else, create a PDF that’s valuable to your ideal newsletter subscriber. Just put­ting SIGN UP FOR MY LIST on your site is unlikely to get the sort of traction that SIGN UP FOR MY AWESOME THING THAT YOU FOR SURE WANT will. Settling on the right lead magnet isn’t easy; I’ve probably tried out a dozen and while some have worked well, I’ve never had one that was a gusher that inspired thousands of people to sign up for my list. It really is one email address at a time.

Craft a nurture sequence: Once someone’s on your list, they may not have a clue who you are. That’s why it’s a good idea to warm them up to you. Set up a series of emails that go out every few days, starting the minute they sign up, slowly explaining who you are and what you do or offer. It’s ideal to provide a great deal of value in those emails, whether it’s providing another free download, links to your most popular blog posts or special offers on something you sell. 

Write your subscribers! This may seem obvious but you need to communicate with your subscribers regularly—ideally once a week. Just think about when you receive an email from some company you don’t even remember. “Delete” followed by “unsubscribe,” am I right? Try to provide your audience with infor­mation, stories or links every week so that they’ll want to open your emails. If writing them every week seems laborious, consider this: it’s going to get easier the longer you do it. Also: you’re a writer! So this is good practice, right? Plus, this is the beginning of your 1000 true fan base so it’s worth it. 

Track what works: Once you’re committed to writ­ing your subscribers, start looking at what they like. Check out your open rates and try not to get discouraged. The average open rate is between 15-25%; if I get over 30%, I’m giddy. Experiment with different subject lines. The highest open rate I ever got was for an email with the subject line “Oops!” (I had just sent a different one by mistake so I was telling subscribers not to open that one.) My second most popular was “Can you help me?”

Conclusion: subscribers like mistakes. They also like to help. They don’t like to be marketed to. A successful copywriter I know recommends crafting subject lines that sound like an email from Mom; the example she gives is “dinner on Sunday?”

Episode 317: Adam Carolla on Why Having a Great Book is the Best Launch Tip of All

Adam Carolla is, well, Adam Carolla. The comedian, actor, radio personality, television host and NY Times best-selling author also hosts a podcast you might have heard of since it holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for most downloaded podcast. He was also the co-host of the long-running radio show Loveline, co-created The Man Show and does like 190 other things. 

His first book, In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks, while the audio version went straight to the #1 position on iTunes. He has since released a bunch of other New York Times bestselling books and it's probably safe to assume that his newest book, the just-released I'm Your Emotional Support Animal, will also make it there.

In this episode, we talked about why he doesn't know his publisher's name, how to write a book while driving to a comedy gig and the best  launch tip of all: have an amazing book.

 
CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!!

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: 

Anna David:                  00:01                All right, Adam. So your new book I'm Your Emotional Support Animal will be out by the time people hear this. This is, is this your fifth book?

Adam Carolla:               00:11                Fifth book. Yes.

Anna David:                  00:13                Here's what I was wondering as I was looking through your books, why do books, why you have all of these mediums that where you can communicate, why do you do? Book publishing some horrible industry? I mean, I know you had New York Times bestselling books. But why even do them?

Adam Carolla:               00:29                You know, I think people pardon the pun read too much into many of the things I do, including writing books. People say, why did you do Dancing with the Stars? And I always just go cause they asked and that that's my answer for most things, they go, what got you interested in and why? And I go, well, they asked, they offer you money and they asked you to write a book and you think about how much money and how much time and what we're talking about. And then you do it. And nobody wants to talk about that aspect of it because they think somehow the material will be compromised because the fact of the matter is, the first book I ever wrote was, In 50 Years, We'll All Be Chicks. And it was about 10 years ago. And by the way, that process happened a lot faster than 50 years. But they came to me and they said, Hey, would you like to write a book? And I said, okay, how much money are we talking about? And it was like $350,000.

                                    01:35                And I said, Oh, okay. But the good news is I wanted, I'm glad I wrote a book. I would have never written a book on my own. They incentivize me to write a book. Now they paid me to write a book and I wrote a really funny, interesting, I think insightful book and the process has worked that way all throughout. And I think people think like, Oh, they came to you. They paid you money. So now what? I don’t know, it's like going to a good restaurant. You came to them, you paid them money, and you got really good sushi. Like, it's not like, well, you've been bought and sold by the guy that makes sushi now. It's like, no, that's how life works. And I'm not, I never mail it in.

Anna David:                  02:18                And so, but didn't you do a book with Drew before that? Or does that not even really count?

Adam Carolla:               02:23                Oh, that's interesting. I did. And in my mind it doesn't, it doesn't count because we had like a ghost writer. I mean, even though we fed him everything and told him everything, it was me, Andrew was like, Loveline the book. It didn't feel like me. It just felt like they wanted us to write a book. Loveline was popular. So we'll just write a book, but it never felt to me, like really writing a book, like the subsequent five have been. So maybe I've written six books.

Anna David:                  02:56                Yeah. I know what that's like, where it's hard to know what to count. I'm always like, Oh, I'm the author of either six books or eight books. I don't really know if you count those two. So, what has been the process for you? You don't work with ghost writers on all the other ones or you do, or how does that work?

Adam Carolla:               03:12                I work with a fella named Mike Lynch and trying to think of like, I guess ghost writer has kind of a negative connotation to it. He's an assembler of the thoughts that I regurgitate on a daily basis. And so our process is he's not even in California, he's in Massachusetts. And he, it's a guy that I've written with, in different capacities for awhile. And so he listens to my podcast on a daily basis and he starts pulling things that I've seen said, ideas, you know, sort of spontaneous riffing on mostly that's where my ideas come from as a sort of pontificating on something or bloviating on something. And something interesting comes out. It's a little bit, I'm sorry. It's a little bit like panning for gold, which is you go through a lot of silt and sand and eventually get to little nugget of something that has some value. And then he starts kind of assembling it. He starts putting it in different places and adding and subtracting. And then at some point we start having these daily conversations. Like here's what I got. Here's what I'm thinking about.

                                    04:36                And so for me, especially living in LA pre-pandemic, I would say to him, Hey, I am driving to the comedy store from my house tonight, on Saturday night, I got to be there for an eight o'clock set. I'm going to get my car at seven. It's going to be 10 O'clock your time. You want me to call you when I get in the car? He says, call me when I get in the car, I call him and we worked the book, the whole, and also the process is better. Cause he'd be reading it out loud to me and I'd be hearing it versus reading it. I'm much better at hearing it. And then I'd get to the comedy store and I'd say to him I'm going to go up, you know, do a 20 minute set. I can be back half an hour, 40 minutes. He'd go, okay. Call me when you get back to the car. Get back to the car, drive back to [inaudible] from Hollywood. Work on it again. If I had a road trip or it's going to be somewhere for awhile, I'd say we put it on the calendar. Here's two hours. I got to go to San Diego to do a corporate gig or whatever. I'll be in the car for two hours. So let's do it. And that's we do it.

Anna David:                  05:49                Dare I say that sounds pretty fun. I would say that sounds like the most fun book writing experience I've ever heard of.

Adam Carolla:               05:56                I'll tell you this, you don't get writer's block or whatever that is. You don't find yourself doing like what they do in movies, where you sit down and bang out a paragraph and then your race it, and then you bang out another paragraph and erase it. It's very functional. It's highly functional. It's like really pragmatic. It's symbiotic. Like I talk, he grabs, once you start getting an outline of the book, then you realize that almost everything you say will fall into this chapter or that chapter. And it's very collaborative and it moves fast. Like it's a really, and look, a lot of people can't afford to do it that way. It's not free. I don't get to keep all the money. I break off a good chunk and give it to him. But if you're willing to do that, then it's a very good process. But also that person has to be good. They have to hear, they have to have your voice in their head.

Anna David:                  07:07                And so, and was he somebody who came to you because he was a listener? You have your crew, he's just like a member of the Carolla crew, right?

Adam Carolla:               07:18                Yeah. For, yeah. I mean, it's a, you've oversimplified it a little, which is completely fine. Yes. He's a member of the crew and we've been working together for years.

Anna David:                  07:31                So, okay. So if this book, if the podcast focuses on book launches, what do you do when you're launching it? But I mean kind of you just tell your legions of listeners and they go buy it. But again, I bet I'm oversimplifying a much more complicated process. So how do you approach it? What do you do when launching a book?

Adam Carolla:               07:50                I talk about it on my podcast, and anyone who will have me, like, you, thank you.

Anna David:                  07:57                I mean you are hustling it when you're coming to my podcast.

Adam Carolla:               08:00                I will start to play little clips of the audio book that we record in the studio where I'm sitting right now. So we get to keep the whole recording of the audio book in house, which is just like the writing of the text of the book. And it makes it a lot easier when you can go to the place where you work and, and do it kind of on your schedule with the hard out at the end, but still it's on your time. And we started playing little clips of it in the podcast and send it out to some of the more notable people I know to get blurbs for it, you know, the usual wiggle. And at some point they'll start setting up a little press, junket and that kind of stuff. It's nothing groundbreaking. You know, it's a, I don't know, you're going to sell a book based on press junket. People need to read your book, like your book, recommend your book and share your book. I can't imagine another way of doing it.

Anna David:                  09:12                Yeah. I mean, if you think about like, if I think about what I read, I only read because somebody told me to, or because I'm a fan or a friend of the person.

Adam Carolla:               09:22                Yeah. Well, that's an interesting point. Have you ever read a book where you saw the person talking about it on a TV show and bought that book or if you have done it that way, isn't it a much smaller number than the number of books you've read because folks, who you respect have recommended this book to you.

Anna David:                  09:47                Yeah. Well, you know, it's like, there's this marketing rule of, I think it's seven or eight. You have to have heard of something seven or eight times. If, if you don't know the person for it to even resonate. So it's like, if you go on the Today Show, okay, cool. Someone has to hear about you six more times to even buy your book. So that's why something like people like you who have this built in audience, like, that's how you're going to sell books, not by going on a TV show, you know?

Adam Carolla:               10:14                Yeah. I, you know, I agree. And it's sort of like this pandemic thing, which is, we don't really know exactly how it works, so we're just going to wear masks and wipe shit down. Like not go to any basketball games. And I don't know if it works, I don't know what works, what doesn't work. I just know this is sort of the protocol and it's kind of that way with books. Like you do this show, you do this radio junket, you talk this guy, you do that. And that's just sort of what you do and you go, well, let's really try to define which one works or what's fertile. And the answer is we don't really know, just do everything. And how could it hurt?

Anna David:                  10:59                I will say you are the very first and congratulations on being able to compare the book publishing process to the pandemic. Yes. The first. It's not wrong. It's not untrue. So have all of your books been New York Times best sellers. So it's safe to say the process is working.

Adam Carolla:               11:19                Yes and no. I think three out of the four, have been New York Times bestsellers as I recall, I know two, maybe three, but not all four. Three out of four.

Anna David:                  11:33                Pretty good. Pretty good record. I'm not a mathematician, but that's a good percentage. So, and how has your publishing experience changed? I mean, this first one, you've switched publishers. Right? Right. How has publishing, has it changed over the past decade that you've been in it?

Adam Carolla:               11:52                You know, it's funny a little like insight into my wiring. I oftentimes don't know the name of my publisher and the reason I don't know the name oftentimes is because it's not important to me, but what's important is the product and I'm lazy or something. I have this weird process where I'm only interested in things I can control. And if I can't control, God's honest, you'd have to look up to see who published my last books. Cause I honestly don't know, but Crown maybe.

Anna David:                  12:40                Well, first of all, they all swallow each other up, so they all have different names.

Adam Carolla:               12:46                That's right. Take my take. It's to me, it's academic. My thing is I'm going to write a good book. It's going to be, it's going to be edgy. It's going to be funny and it'll be thought provoking and it'll be accurate. And then I'm just going to push it out there and we'll see if everyone makes their money back and we'll see how it works.

Anna David:                  13:07                Here's what I'm going to tell you why I believe you. I had been on your show three times and then saw you. And I was like, Hey Adam. And you basically said to me, I don't know your name because I only learn the things that are kind of relevant. You said something like that. It made me not feel bad at all. It was like, Oh, okay, cool. I don't have to feel bad about that.

Adam Carolla:               13:25                When did I say that?

Anna David:                  13:28                We were in a green room at HLN, like back when drew had his show there, and it was pretty refreshing. Cause I was basically like, do you remember me? I've been on your show and you were like, no, but don't take it personally.

Adam Carolla:               13:42                I, so I don't know. I understand I have a wiring that's off putting to many, many people. Crown published the older books. And then more recently it was Harper Collins, I guess. So says the screen, Matt it's written in front of me, but so here's the thing. I somehow have decided that there are certain things I need to know and then certain things I don't need to know. And if I decide and sometimes it can be arbitrary, but if I decide, I don't need to know it, then I don't need to know it. Like, I don't know. I don't know any of the names I have twins. They just graduated from the eighth grade. I have no idea what any of their teacher's names were and the reasons that I have no ideas because I don't need to know it. But also I only have a certain amount of room in my head and I have a lot of stuff I want to know. So I somehow just decided writing a book is important. And coming up with thoughts that are going to go into that book is important. But the name of the publisher for that book is not important. Now, if I was doing a radio junket, I would write it down on a pad and put it in front of me so I could glance down and see it. And then after that, I would forget about it again.

Anna David:                  15:15                Yeah. I mean, I think we're all like that, what's refreshing about you is that you just say you're like that as opposed to people who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I totally know. I totally know. You know what I mean? You're not faking it.

Adam Carolla:               15:28                I guess. I mean, I feel that way with a lot of time with birthdays and stuff like that. Like, I don't know. I'm just, I'm not wired for I guess not trivia. I like trivia, but, but things that don't feel like they will benefit me or my family or the what have you. I'm also not a big, like if you and I were going to meet for dinner and you were 15 minutes late, and you came into the restaurant and were like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I just go and sit down. I'm not interested in, well, we don't have to do this part where you tell me why you were late, your late. You're 15 minutes late. I don't need to know why. I understand you feel bad about it. Let's order.

Anna David:                  16:25                Yeah. Like it less than not your relevant information, but less than relevant information is I feel like what your saying.

Adam Carolla:               16:30                Well, also, if you could give me information that could affect you being late. Like if you could give me information and I could go back and use it to not make you late, then I'd be all ears. But this is done. Not that you're late. But as an example, it's a done deal to me and let's move on to appetizers.

Anna David:                  16:56                So about this book, in looking at it, would you say, I mean, it's sort of my cursory glance at your earlier books. It's most like your first book, right? Or is it not?

Adam Carolla:               17:08                I'd say yes. Thanks for doing your homework. And I would say it's probably more like my first book then than any other book I've written.

Anna David:                  17:18                And is that because you felt like, Hey, the world needs to hear this stuff now again?

Adam Carolla:               17:25                There was an element of the first book really resonated with people. I don't know why. I mean, it was a funny book, so I understand that people thought it was funny. It also had a lot of kind of truths kind of tough truths in it, so. And because the first book was sort of a, here's where we're going to be in 50 years and then people kept kind of coming up to me and saying, Oh, it looks like we got there in 10 years, you know, or way under your Prognostication of 50 years. So I sort of went, yeah. Everyone liked that book. It's been 10 years since I wrote that book. And I also that's my style in terms of, you know, writing a book about being a dad or writing up autobiography and or some version of that, that's fine but my style would be more suited for, I'm just going to say everything I want to say in a book form. And that's what this book is.

Anna David:                  18:33                And you know, one other thing, this is kind of like going back to the conversation about these publishers who we can't, we can't remember. Why not Publish yourself? You do everything yourself. Like your entire thing is like a media company. Why not just have ace publishing?

Adam Carolla:               18:49                Okay. It's a good question. Mmm. You have to, it's kind of a twofold answer. You have to kind of figure out how much stuff you want to do yourself because the answer isn't going to be everything, you know, because it's like saying I'm a carpenter, but I don't do everything myself, but I could, because I have the skill set, you know. But it also to certain point, how are you using your time? So, you know, I have a pool, man. I have a gardener. It's all stuff I could do, but I'm trying to allocate my time a certain way. And it's true. People go, well, wouldn't save a lot of money if you just did your own pool, you know? Yeah. I know. But I just, and it's not analogous exactly. But you have to kind of think like you do a podcast or you make documentaries or you sell [inaudible], whatever you do your stuff. But then every once in a while someone wants to do a TV production and you're going to have a hosting gig. And they're going to handle it. You know, you can't, at least I can't sort of shoulder everything all the time and it has to be some allocations to others on occasion. And in this particular case, my partner Mike Lynch was looking to get from, he's a working as a social worker therapist to starting his own business and getting his own office and hanging his shingle out. And he needed money to get an office, to buy furniture, to start a business and so on and so forth. And so part of it was an eye toward, let me see if I can get you paid. And if we did it your way, which is a good idea, he wouldn't have gotten paid, tell whatever until I got paid or whenever the money came in.

Anna David:                  20:55                But he would make a lot more. I do think it's fascinating that he's a, so that I would not think the coauthor of an emotional support animal would necessarily be a social worker. That's just interesting.

Adam Carolla:               21:08                Yeah. Therapists, you know, social worker therapist now. Yeah. It is, he and I work well together because we do have a strong sort of psychological vent, and an interest. And we lean that way. I don't think people, I don't think we will think of me that way. But I do. They think of me is kind of a blue collar, you know, dude, who, you know, says what he thinks and thinks what he means or says or whatever the fuck they think. But for me, I'm like, I'm very interested in the human condition, psychology, motivation. It's where most of my comedy comes from and Mike is obviously very interested in that as well. He does it full time for a job. So when he and I get together to kind of approach a subject, it goes a little beyond what's funny, you know, we're trying to kind of figure out what's true and how people work and what motivates people. And then how do we find the comedy? How do we find that sort of psychological truth? And then where's the comedy in that. And when you find truths, sort of emotional, psychological truths, you will find a lot of comedy. That's why all the best comedians are sort of, you know, that's why people are going he's right. He's right. That's the way my wife thinks, you know, that's the way my husband acts, you know, those are the truths. Those are, if it doesn't ring true psychologically, it's not really funny.

Anna David:                  22:47                Yeah. Well, okay. This has been fantastic. Now, if you had to give us somebody who's not Adam Carolla tips for what they should do to launch a book, what would they be?

Adam Carolla:               23:01                I'm you know, I'm trying to think about launching a book versus creating a book. I'll answer it at some point in this dissertation, but I'm very interested in the process and the product versus the outcome. And I think people get a little fixated on the outcome. You know, like I'll write a book, as long as I know it's going to be a New York Times bestseller and it's like, well, then everyone would write a book, there are no guarantees. You should write a book because you would like to write a book or more importantly, because you have something to say or an idea you need to share. If you're just writing the book because you want get on this list or get paid or get laid or get whatever, then maybe, maybe you shouldn't be writing a book. So my feeling is it's a lot easier to push a product if the product is really strong, you know? So you could say what's the best way to launch a line of T shirts. Men's tee shirts and I'd go, I don't know how good is the tee shirt? Like, is it a killer t-shirt? Tell me why someone would need this T-shirt. I got a drawer full of t-shirts, you know?

                                    24:22                So in a world where everyone has a drawer full of t-shirts and a shelf full of books why do we need your book? Write that book, create that book, create that product. And then, you know, once you do that, it's everything you can access. You know, for me, I know Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern. So perhaps I can go talk about it on their program, but not everyone knows Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern. So you can't talk about it on their program, but maybe there are other people you know. And I get it. It's, it'd be much nicer just to go on Howard Stern and talk about it than it would be to go on podcast with eight listeners and talk about it. That's where you have to start. I mean, you can obviously only do it to whatever, and by the way, I couldn't go on, I don't know. I'm trying to try to think where you would like to sell a book. I probably couldn't go on Stephen Colbert show and do it, I don't get to go everywhere. I want to go and talk about it, but I could go on Tucker Carlson show and talk about, so you have to kind of figure out like, well, where could you go? Who would have you? And you know, be persistent. But again, if the products not there, it's all going to be a mood point anyway, because it's mostly all word of mouth.

Anna David:                  25:52                Yup. Excellent. That's perfect. So thank you, Adam. Thank you so much for your time. Listeners go grab I'm Your Emotional Support Animal. I'm assuming it's wherever people can buy books, maybe bookstores will be open by the time they hear this.

Adam Carolla:               26:11                They yeah. Wherever you get books, that's where you get it.

Anna David:                  26:15                Okay. Awesome. Thanks again, Adam. I really appreciate you.

Adam Carolla:               26:19                Thanks Anna.

 

 

Episode 314: Jeff Goins on How Real Artists Don't Need to Starve

Jeff Goins is a writer, keynote speaker, and award-winning blogger with a reputation for challenging the status quo. He is the best-selling author of five books, including The Art of Work, which landed on the best­ seller lists of USA Today, Publisher's Weekly, and The Washington Post. He lives with his family near Nashville, Tennessee. His website Goinswriter.com is visited by millions of people every year.

He is also an idol of mine when it comes to the fine art of combining writing with entrepreneurship and the even finer art of being successful at both.

In this chat, we got into the importance of patrons, why your network is like your neighborhood and how it takes years to promote a book. And of course we chatted about his top launch tips. Spoiler alert: it has to do with being a good neighbor.

 
CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!!

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: 

Anna: So we're going. So Jeff, I already got a little sycophantic before we started recording but you are truly my business idol. I have to tell you.

 

There's nobody out there who, who I know of who encompasses writing and business quite such a high level and encourages so many people to become writers and to see that it is so possible to have a career as a writer. Is that your mission?

 

Jeff Goins: Oh, gosh. Well, thank you. No, no sycophancy taken. Um, is that my mission? I think I'm trying to not get bored. I think that you know that. I heard Adam Grant interview Malcolm Gladwell recently and he asked him a similar question. And he was like, you know, what is your life's purpose? What's your mission, whatever. And he thought, you know, Malcolm Gladwell say something like I'm going to change the way people think. And he was like, I'm just trying to not get bored. And I was so relieved to hear that.

 

I am trying to share what I learned as a creative person with the world in a way that empowers and enables other people to do some of the things that I never thought was possible. And I'm trying to continue doing that work myself. So that's what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm trying to use my story to inspire other people and to allow my story to continue.

 

Anna: And so your story is basically you wanted to be a writer, you weren't you excelled in a marketing career and you hesitated to say I am I can be a writer. Can you tell us about how that transition came?

 

Jeff Goins: Sure. So I was working at a nonprofit organization. As a marketing director. I never thought of myself as a marketing person. I never thought of myself as a writer either. I just thought of myself as a person trying to figure things out my 20s. My first job was at a nonprofit. right out of college, I graduated college, and I toured the country with a band and then I moved to Nashville after I quit the band, which is not usually the order in which those things happen. I moved to Nashville ended up getting a job at a nonprofit and was hired as a copywriter. Because I was a writing tutor in college, I didn't even have an English major. But writing was something that I was always good at. And so I started writing and learning about marketing and blogging and social media. And this is 2006. And so as an organization, we didn't have a lot of money. And so we had to use kind of scrappy, free digital marketing tools like Facebook and Twitter and email and blogs to promote our mission projects. This is a missions organizations who are doing international relief and development all over the world. And I was trying to raise money for the organization and raise volunteers for our projects.

And so just had to figure out how to be a marketer without any money and became the marketing director of that organization. And I was telling other people's stories and sharing other people's ideas with these wonderful tools on the internet. And I started to feel a little FOMO. I felt like you know, I have some ideas. I have some stories that I want to share. What if I use these tools, blogging and social media to share my own stories and ideas? So I started a blog and use what I had learned as a marketing director online and started applying it to this side projects, just this personal blog, and it grew into a fairly large audience pretty quickly. And people told me that I could monetize that. And so I started publishing ebooks and sharing all that with the world. But before I did any of that, to answer your question, I had a conversation with a friend where I was like, really hesitating to call myself a writer. And as a result, I wasn't really taking this side project that seriously. And I started this blog, but I was kind of dabbling with it.

 

I was afraid to go all in. And I was talking to this friend and he asked me what my dream was. And I said, I don't I don't have one.

 

I said, I've got a good job. I've got a wife, we're going to start a family, like, I've got a house, so I'm okay. I don't need a dream. You know, that's good stuff. I was in my late 20s at the time. And he said, Really, because I would have thought your dream was to be a writer. I was like, Why? Why would you say that? And he was like, well, you talk about writing all the time. You write all the time you read books about writing, it seems like it's your passion. And he was right. But I was just afraid to admit it. Because I felt like if I admitted that this was something I wanted, then there'll be a higher level of responsibility associated with it. And so I said, Well, you know, I guess you're right. I'd like to be a writer someday. And he just looked at me and he said, Jeff, you don't have to want to be a writer. You are a writer. You just need to write.

 

And for whatever reason, there was a number of things that happened around that same time. This is in 2000. I, I was like, yeah, this is it like that was the moment where everything kind of came together. And then next day, I started this blog, I started writing on this blog. And I wrote every morning for an hour on it publishing about a 500 word blog posts for the next two years, every day. And I started calling myself a writer. People asked me what I did, I didn't say I was a marketing director. I said, I was a writer. And as a result, when you tell people, you're a writer, the next question they ask is, well, what do you write? And so it forced me to put myself out there in a way that I wasn't doing before. And because I was putting myself out there, I started to take the work a lot more seriously, and I got better faster as a result.

 

Anna: What are your tips for growing a blog? Daily posting is surely one of them. What else?

 

Jeff Goins: Well, that's what I did. I think now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, you know, the internet has changed a lot. But at the time, 2010 was not the beginning of blogging. In fact, I've been blogging since 2006, on a bunch of different platforms, and so this was a new blog, which was a personal blog just around me and my work. But the way to get noticed then was to make a lot of noise. Now, I think the way to get noticed because I don't blog daily Now, the way to get notice is because everybody's got something, you know, he's got Instagram or a Medium account or whatever, and they've got a platform, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, they've got a platform to share their ideas. And so the way that you get noticed now, I think, is that you have to do really, really good work. You have to care. If you care more than most people, you have to care about your work you have to care about your audience. So how do you get noticed today, I would say pick a platform, pick a place that you want to show up. It could be I would recommend a blog for writers but could be medium, which is a great platform. Could be Instagram, plenty of people are building large following followings on Instagram right now. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, I just really depends on where your people are.

Pick a platform, go all in on it, and do something every day to share an idea with somebody get it in front of them. So if it's a blog, I would write like one article per week. Or maybe it's a podcast, same deal, you know, publish one great piece of content per week. And pick when you're going to show up how you're going to show up, and then do something small every day to help that platform grow. So it could be promoting the thing that you've written, talking about it on a podcast, sharing it somewhere that you haven't shared it. When I was writing daily, that was the thing that I was doing. I think now it's better to create really, really great content, and then do something small every day to try to make yourself more findable. But really, the trick is to keep showing up. And a friend of mine says, do if you want to turn pro at something, you've got to commit to doing it every day.

 

For the next two years, and that's true, that's true for me, it took two years of doing the work every single day, sometimes only 30 minutes a day, sometimes a couple of hours, but consistently showing up, writing something for the blog, promoting it, figuring out online marketing, figuring out lead magnets and building an email list all the things. And I don't know how to do any of this. But I was committed to getting up a little bit early every morning. And at this point, when I was doing it, I had a wife and kid, I'm starting a family. And so it was a noisy household after about 6am. So I got up at five. And I worked on my blog for an hour every morning, and whatever I needed to do. And if I didn't know what I needed to do, I would do some research I would learn, but I knew that I wanted to get this message out into the world. And I would say that's good advice today do something small every single day and commit to it for the next two years. And my caveat to that would be don't expect any results for the first six months.

 

Which is what I experienced. My email grew by like a person every week for the first six months, and then the growth after that sort of the catapult, but you've got to be willing to just keep showing up. It's like dating or something, you know, like you go on one day, or like, whatever. But if the person keeps showing up, you keep liking them, you keep having good experiences with them, they're going to want to see more. And the same thing is true here with an audience, like if you show up once you write a great article. Cool. Have a great product, one great podcast episode, fine. But we're used to people on the internet ranting about something and then disappearing, fading into oblivion. So if you want to get noticed, keep showing up, prove yourself trustworthy, be consistent.

That was there.

 

Anna: You said so many things that I that I wanted to jump on. Yeah, I always tell people the most successful writers I know are not the most talented. They're the ones who kept doing it. They're the ones who started in the 90s and are still at it today. And I would say one of your one thing also that I noticed that that you did a lot and I think that you've talked about a lot is this guest posting, do you still think that works going on other people's platforms sort of borrowing their audiences?

 

Jeff Goins: I think the principle of it works. And I'm as a marketer, as an entrepreneur, as a writer. I'm always interested in principles over strategies because strategies change, fairly often principles change, almost never. And the tools to implement the strategies change even more often. So when it comes to where to focus, I focus on principles and then I figure out how can I execute these principles. So for example, permission is a principle in the world of marketing, meaning I need permission from you to communicate with you in a way where you're eventually going to pay me for something, buy something, buy a book, or pay your attention to me. So the strategy that works for a lot of people is I need to get you on my email list. That's the strategy is get on my email list and the tool is sign up for MailChimp or something ConvertKit. So the principle behind guest posting guest posting was the strategy for me that worked really well is

 

If you want people to know that you exist, you have to go where people already are. Right. So if I move into a new neighborhood, and I want friends in that neighborhood, at some point, I'm going to have to step outside my house and walk around the neighborhood and, you know, bring some brownies over to my neighbors or something. And that's what guest posting was, for me, it was showing up on other people's platforms where other people were already gathering the people that I wanted to reach. And it was offering a gift, hey, here's a free piece of content, and then link back to my website. Enjoy.

 

Now from a search engine optimization standpoint, if you want to get into that, does guest posting still work? Yes, because your link building back to the website, which is going to increase the authority of the website, which is going to generate more organic traffic over time. Again, that's that's a strategy that you shouldn't expect to see any results on for the first six months. So guest posting, should you write a bunch of articles and other people's websites and link back to your website. Does it work? Yeah, I think it still works does it work as well as it did for me back then.

 

I'm not I don't know, I don't think so it's a bit of an old hat strategy. So you've got to find new ways to adapt. So what am I doing? Podcast interviews, what you know what's really big right now podcasts. I have a podcast I have a blog people like listening to podcasts. So the equivalent for guest posting for me. These days it’s showing up on podcasts and podcasts interviews, but the principle is the same is the same like go where people are, and make a splash, do something, create something, do something generous, that's going to link some attention back to you bring some people back to your house so that you can you know, have your own party I think of guest posting I thought of guest posting and interviews is like going to a bunch of neighborhood parties, meeting people and then being like, Hey, here's my address. Here's my phone number like let's stay in touch. When you meet somebody at an event or at a party or whatever. You want to stay in touch with them and they don't know who you are because you're new in town. Same thing with starting a podcast or a blogger website, you've got to go find the people, a lot of people think you can just build it and people are going to show up.

 

And I guess maybe sometimes that happens more often than not, you've got to go find where people are and bring some of those people back to your place.

 

Anna: And so in terms of launching a book, all of that is a great, you know, no, in the whole neighborhood is a great way to get the neighborhood to buy your book.

 

Jeff Goins: Right. Yeah. Knowing the whole neighborhood is great way to get the neighborhood to tell all their friends about your book. So even more people buy your book.

 

Anna: True! In terms of what I loved about your book Real Artists Don't Starve is it's very kind of old fashioned. Like, all these people are talking about, like, you need a mentor. I believe you call them patrons. Yeah, right. There's like something about it. It's very quaint. It's this like, way of talking about marketing. But let's talk about mentors slash patrons. You know, Michael Hyatt was a huge one for you. Yeah. I met with Marian Roach, one for you. Let's talk about the role that is played in it linking it back to books and how that has helped with book launches.

 

Jeff Goins: Yeah, I mean, another word for patron is like influencer. So yes, these people were mentors of mine, but they were also people who let me borrow their influence, or rather who shared my work with their audience. And I would not be where I am today, if Michael Hyatt wasn't generous in sharing a lot of my message, often with his audience, especially in the early days. And I remember having an uncomfortable conversation with him one time where I was like, Hey, you don't have to keep doing this. This is making it uncomfortable. I'm overwhelmed. Because he would, he would tweet an article and you know, a couple hundred people go, click the link and go visit my article, like immediately and it was overwhelming. And I thought he was being super nice because we were friends. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about. He said, I like sharing good work with my audience and you do good work. So I'm going to keep sharing it and I was like, Alright, Alright, fine.

 

Patrons are people who believe in your work sometimes before you do, and in the old days, in the days of the Medici family in Italy, they often gave money. But they more, more importantly, also gave their influence. So when Michelangelo was living with Monday, he family learning how to be a sculptor. Every week, he would sit at the dinner table with his patron Lorenzo and all of his friends, including Machiavelli, and all these incredible people, all the people who are changing the world, not just art, but of politics, literature, philosophy, thinking, you got to sit at that table. By the way, growing up in that house, he was growing up in the house of future princesses, and Pope's, I mean, so he was really well connected as a result of connecting with an influencer. So the money was good, the influence was better. And so these days, there's kind of two types of patrons.

 

There's the influencer type of patron. And the best way to borrow that person's influence, so to speak, is to let them mentor you. And in the book, I talk about what I call the case study strategy, which is simply making yourself teachable, showing up over and over and over again in front of a bunch of master workers have masters of your field, and letting them know that you exist and letting them know that you're here to learn from them. What does that look like today? emailing 10 people whose work you admire and say, Hey, so and so, thank you for your podcast it this particular episode, help me do this specific thing. Now, do you have any other resources for me? Is there anything else that you have for me? And if somebody keeps showing up like that to you, not in an annoying way, like let me pick your brain, but I'm already learning from you. What else can I learn? Do you have a book that I can buy as a course that I can sign up for? I really, really want to learn from you.

 

What will likely happen is that you will want to give more and more of your time and attention to this person because it feels good. It actually feels good to have somebody take your advice because most people don't. And so what I experienced in my own careers right, or what I've seen lots of other people who have succeeded do is they engage with these mentors, these patrons, these influencers that are top of the field, and not everybody responds, but if you put out 10 emails to influencers in your space, whom you admire, and you use the strategy, dear so and so thank you for x and help me do y now what about z? I say it as if it's some formula. It's just a nice note, hey, you're working back to me. I want more. And some people go cool. Other people, their assistant will respond to that people won't respond. You do that with 10 people don't give up. You're going to see some people respond. And the trick is to keep showing up so that you can prove yourself as trustworthy as an apprentice. And when I was starting out, I didn't know much. But I also knew that if I could get some people to mentor me one, I would get better faster, too. I kind of understood that they would want me to succeed. And that's what happened.

 

Anna: Yeah, that's interesting. It's almost like when people recommend crowdsourcing material for your book, asking your audience what they want, you're crowdsourcing your mentors investment in you, because you're the material.

 

Jeff Goins: Yeah. And you'll have probably multiple mentors at different times.

 

Anna: And so when it comes to a book, how did those mentors help? Did they, you know, promote your book to their lists? Like what were the actual things that happened that helped the launch succeed?

 

Jeff Goins: So if you want people to promote your work, the best thing that you can do is form a real relationship long before you need something from them. And this is tricky these days, because lots of people are reaching out just to connect, and they're like putting your name on a list and two weeks or two months later, they're asking you for a favor. When Tim Ferriss wrote The Four Hour Workweek, he had no platform. He did not have a blog. He sold the book, a big book deal in 2006 and it came out 2007. It was a 100 page book proposal. Very impressive. But what he had done was he had built a network with hundreds of bloggers going to South by Southwest and these tech conferences and these blogging conferences 2005 and 2006 connecting with all these people who represented this lifestyle design that he wanted to promote to the world. And he knew that if he made friends with these people, and a year later asked them for a favor that a lot of them would say, cool. So what did he do? He formed relationships and created experiences.

 

Robert Scoble said that Tim’s marketing strategy was getting drunk with bloggers and that's not that far from the truth. Have you ever hung out with somebody at a conference, had a couple of drinks, had a good time. And then a few months later, they reach out and you're like, Man, that was a good time, like you're associating them with a good experience.

 

And so that's what he did. And his patrons were all these bloggers, all these people like Noah Kagan, who are in kind of the online marketing space, but newer voices, but had this very powerful tool called blogging. And 90 days before the book came out, he called in all these favors, and ended up guest posting and doing interviews and all these different blogs and podcasts and just kind of descended on the scene very quickly and became a big deal. So what does that look like for us? Make as many connections now create memorable experiences help people before you ever expect them to help you and help people because it feels good, not because they're going to pay you back someday. But what my dad taught me growing up is true. What goes around comes around. If you help enough people get what they want. Many of them are going to want to help you get what you want.

 

So for me, when I was starting my blog, I just understood that it would be better for me to help other people than to just go around asking for help. And yes, and when a book comes out what you want actually, is you want a list of people who are eager to promote your work. Because you've been a faithful student, you know, a mentee of theirs a friend for a long, long time. So that when you've got a project coming out, they want to help you. And if I've helped somebody, if I've given them advice, and they've taken it, and then they've turned that into some sort of project, like a book, I want that to do well, because I feel invested in that person, even if I've just been giving them advice for free over the years. I'm invested in their success, because in some ways, I identify with them. And so I think the trick to getting people to promote your work is to be a good friend, and to be teachable and to reach out to people whom you admire and solicit their advice in ways that demonstrate you're going to actually apply it.

 

Anna: And so, how long had you been blogging and building this audience by the time you reach you released your first book?

 

Jeff Goins: I started my blog at the end of 2010. And the first book came out in 2012. So 2011 was basically my year of audience building. I built the email list about 10,000 people. I wrote an article per day on the blog 365 days in 2011. And then I guest posted on about 100 different websites just trying to build the audience and build the network people that at some point, were going to promote my work and I didn't even really know what that meant. I was just trying to show up and kind of make a bit of a splash in the scene.

 

Anna: Did the success of your book surprise you? Were you expecting it? How did you feel about that?

 

Jeff Goins: I had two books come out in 2012 within six months of each other in 2011. I was growing my blog and I got a book deal a small book deal with a small publisher in Chicago. And I was elated. I was excited. So I started writing this book about my experience of working in the nonprofit industry. And it was kind of this personal development book. And before that book came out, as I was working on that book, my wife and I got pregnant, start, you know, basically started, started a family. And I quickly realized we couldn't afford for her to stay home and be a full time mom for a while, and she wanted to do that. And so I thought, well, maybe I can find a way to make some money off of this blogging thing, because my book deal was like a $6,000 book advance, it wasn't very much and it was nice, this nice little payday, but I needed more money. And, and I kept hearing about self publishing, and I had a friend who made like, $40,000 off of a self published ebook in two months. And I was like, I want to do that. And so I called her and asked her how she did it, and she told me and so in a month, I

wrote a book called You are a writer. So start acting like one. And then I spent like a month or two, editing and designing and getting ready to publish. And then I published it and I just bartered with friends. I didn't have any money. So I didn't spend any money on the book. And I published it. And the book sold about 10,000 copies in the first several months.

 

And I was selling it as a PDF on my website, and I was also selling it on Amazon, and every day, I would see money come in through my email, and I remember lying in bed one night going, we just made $100. You know, in the last hour, I've never made $100 in an hour, you know. And so when that started taking off, that did surprise me. And it started to excite me about what was possible. And I knew that my wife was going to be able to quit her job, but by the end of the year, I was also going to be able to quit my job and things were going to be different.

 

Anna: And what are your feelings on self publishing versus traditional publishing?

 

Jeff Goins: I think for most people, the option is self publishing, that is the smart option of publishers aren't knocking on your door, if you don't have a large platform, ie more than 10,000 email subscribers, I think your first option should be self publishing. There is no stigma or taboo as there once was meaning you can self publish a book, and then still be desirable to a traditional publisher. So if you have a large platform, or you're talking to agents, you've got publishers interested in your work, then it's worth considering. A lot of authors go Should I self published or traditionally published, I have a few hundred people on my email list. And I've got a book that I'm working on.

 

Well, you should really just self publish, you should promote the book, you should use the book to build your platform. So once a book comes out, you could you even if you have a big audience, you can still go promote it. That's what every author does. That's what I do. So get on the podcast, write the articles, get it out there. And then you can leverage that success if you'd like. You don't have to. I mean, I have plenty of friends who are indie authors who make a great living—making six and seven figures a year self publishing.

 

So it really just depends on what you want to do. But if you're like a lot of authors I talk to where you still think I'd really like to work with a traditional publisher someday, because there's some sort of prestige associated with it. That's fine. I've worked with publishers, I've self published books as well. It really depends on the project. But you can start by self publishing, and then if you want, you can eventually leverage that success into a traditional book deal if that's what you want to do.

 

Anna: And for you from now on, what do you plan to do?

 

Jeff Goins: Um, I'm at a point where it's easier to work with a publisher, the money is good, and they handle the hassle of printing the books and distributing them and all of that. But I don't know that that'll always be the case. There may be a time when I just go completely independent. There are pros and cons and I constantly weigh them with every book. And so I think the question for me is, what is the goal of this book and then what is the best means to get this message out there? Sometimes the goal of the book is to make some money so that I can pay my bills. Usually, that's one of a few goals. Another goal is obviously spread the message. But a goal of a book could be I'm going to spread this idea to help sell this other thing that I have, or this book is really a means to get more speaking gigs. Or I want to sell as many copies of this book as possible. Therefore, I'm going to self publish it so I can keep most of the royalties and I know that I have direct access to this audience. So self publishing is the reason for doing that.

 

For me, right now, books are about money. I think you should get paid to write books. There's nothing wrong with that, about spreading a message that's very meaningful and important to me. I would never write a book just for the money but if I'm going to write something, I believe and I also want to get paid well for it. And then for me, there's sort of like a back end side of it, which is if my book sell Not right now.

 

I sell online courses, some other back end product, often it's it's speaking and so it's easy for me to publish a book, sell a bunch of copies of it and then see kind of the trickle down effect with with speaking gigs. So, you know, it depends on the project, but but for me, because those are the goals working with a traditional publisher is often the best route.

 

Anna: And in terms of speaking gigs, is your speaking about becoming a writer, is that what your keynotes are about?

 

Jeff Goins: No, um, so, uh, I speak I speak at writing conferences several times a year, and I'll talk about that. But then, you know, the last book was about creative entrepreneurship essentially. So I'll speak at business conferences. I'll either speak on writing or on the topic of one of my books, I wrote a book called The Art of Work, which is about finding your purpose, and calling and vocation in life. So, yeah, it depends, but I'm usually speaking to business audiences or writing audiences.

 

Anna: Okay, so we're going to wrap up with your top three launch tips. And I did notice that you did something interesting, which is a lot of people will say, here's your bonus for ordering five copies or 10 copies, but you have an evergreen, hey, if you buy this book, you will get this worksheet, you will get access to this course. Is that one of your launch tips?

 

Jeff Goins: Yeah, I do think having bonuses for people is really important. And

remember that like when a book comes out to an author, it's a big, big deal. The first week, the first month, I mean, this has been a marathon by the time the book is out. You feel like the marathon is over. And it is but a whole new one begins to a reader. If a book is a week old, like that's a new book two weeks old, a month old, a year old. These are new books. I mean, how often have you heard somebody talk about a book and it's like a movie, or it's in the theater for like a week or two, or maybe a month is like, ah, I'll get to that later. It's a book, it's going to be on the shelf forever.

 

But to an author, it's really important to talk about it, get it out there sell a bunch of copies. So when people do you know, some sort of a launch week bonus, I think that's great. If you have a good size audience that makes sense. And I do that but then I also usually have some sort of evergreen—get the book and get something else that will help you with the book could be a worksheet could be an email course or video course or something that's relevant to whatever the book is. Because yeah, like give people a minute to learn about you and learn about the book and make a decision to spend $25 on a, you know, hardcover book or whatever. So I like that. I always like working with launch teams, getting people to read the book and talk about it.

 

And then get on as many podcasts as possible. I actually think a lot of times with launches, people try to get fancy, you know, they try to launch a new, launch a new podcast or do this new thing. And I've done that I've tried new strategies and new technologies, and it's fine. But really what it takes to sell a book is you got to get the book in front of a lot of people who are interested in the topic that you have to talk about it and not stop talking about it for the next two years.

 

Anna: Wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, this has been wonderful. If people would like to reach you, what is the best place they can find you?

 

Jeff Goins: Go to my website, Goinswriter.com. I have a podcast called The Portfolio Life. You can search that wherever you listen to podcasts as well.

 

Anna: Oh, and we should mention the portfolio life to you is to the way I see it is like it's sort of being a business person, as a writer having your income stream from many creative places. Is that it?

 

Jeff Goins: Yeah, your life your work is a portfolio. It's not just one thing, it's a bunch of different things that all work together. And so I don't look at my work as my writing, I look at my work as my life, I'm running a business. I'm a dad, I, I'm a writer, I'm a poet. I'm a marketer, like all of these things. I are my body of work. And so when I think about my work, I don't just think of one thing I think of this portfolio that I'm managing, like an investment portfolio, and my job is to make the whole thing succeed. Even when the various activities at different times the successes of them may flow, the goal is to manage the whole thing. And I think more and more that's what's required as creative people we have to live portfolio lives as writers. It can’t just be, I just want to make a bunch of money off of my writing. Well, that's great, but like that may look different at different seasons. And so being able to embrace the whole of your life and all of your work as sort of this integrative thing, I just think keeps you sane and gives you the freedom to try different things without feeling like you're selling out.

 

Anna: I love it. Jeff, thank you so much for your time. And hey, listeners, thank you for listening. How awesome was that? If you loved it, obviously throw a review up. Right. Okay. I will talk to you guys next week. Thank you.

How to Turn Your Book Into Consulting, Coaching & More

Once you’re an author, you’re not just an author.

You’re an expert.

And experts can do a lot of things. I’ve listed a fraction of them below.

Coaching

Most non-fiction books — even straight memoirs — display the author’s knowledge about a topic. And the majority of authors share their experiences because they want to help others who struggle or have struggled with the same issues that they have. Creating a one-on-one or group coaching program, either based on material in the book or simply on the topic, provides an author not only with the opportunity to help people on an even deeper level but also a way to take a deeper dive into the topic (possibly providing you with material for book two?) The best program I know of that teaches people how to become coaches is Inner Glow Circle (sorry, guys; it’s for women only).

Consulting services

Want to take the coaching to the next level (and possibly get paid better for it)? Consider offering consulting services to companies who could use whatever expertise you established with the book.

Certifications

If your coaching program is in full swing, maybe you want to create a bunch of mini-me’s — or at least train other people in what you’ve been teaching. Developing a curriculum and providing certification shouldn’t be hard if you have a thorough coaching program.

Subscription/membership programs

The same material you create for a coaching program can be used in a monthly membership program. You can run these however you want — with videos and worksheets you’ve created, with guest interviews, with in-person events or with daily or weekly video check-ins. The main thing to remember is that people abandon monthly programs that they don’t use so make this as value-packed as possible (the more the group includes direct involvement with you, the more value it’s going to have).

Events

We’re living in the day and age of event throwing and your event can be anything from a workshop to a retreat to a weekly gathering and it can be held at a cafe, theater, holistic health center or Airbnb (we’ve held events at all of them). Your programming can cover the same material that your monthly programs and everything else do but here’s the secret about gatherings: oftentimes people are just aching to connect with a like-minded community and thus the activities matter far less than simply the fact that the event is happening.

Masterminds

Plenty of entrepreneurs with books are launching them — and with hefty membership fees. Joe Polish runs two Genius Network groups (with a $100,000 and $25,000 annual cost respectively) — and he’s not the only one. The key to a mastermind is in its members: the price tag is the ultimate weeding out process, leaving members to network and do business with those whose businesses are thriving.

Products/swag

Selling an on-brand product can be a way to take your expertise to another commercial level. James Swanwick, the author of The 30-Day No Alcohol Challenge: Your Simple Guide to Easily Reduce Or Quit Alcohol, was doing well with his 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge program but his career skyrocketed when he developed and started selling blue blocking glasses.

WANT TO LEARN TO WRITE A BOOK THAT CAN HELP YOU BUILD A BUSINESS? DOWNLOAD MY ONE-PAGE MEMOIR STRUCTURE CHEAT SHEET HERE.

Before Publishing a Book, You Need to Know the Rules

The number of books on Amazon with horrible covers and three or four reviews is uncountable.

Like I said about the guy in the tube top: just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

In other words, you can dash a manuscript off, have someone from Fiverr lay it out and slap on a Canva-created design. I even recommend that path for those who have absolutely zero budget.

But I’m not talking to you when I say that.

I’m reasonably certain you want better than that.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m reasonably certain you’re only interested in excellent.

And that means following the rules.

So what are these rules?

1) Create an excellent manuscript.

I don’t care if it’s 100,000 words or 1,000. It’s not about length. In fact, as a publisher recently told The Financial Express, “We publish increasingly for readers who are more accustomed to and prefer short-form reading, thanks to the easy availability of books and journalistic literature on smartphones and digital devices.”

So: length doesn’t matter. Quality does. If you’re not a writer, please hire one!

2) Have your book professionally edited.

You, the writer, should not be the editor.

I learned this the hard way (and I’ve edited numerous books and thousands of articles).

I learned this when I finished my book of essays, How to Get Successful By F*cking Up Your Life, and then had it laid out and printed.

I received the 100 copies from the printer.

And then I caught mistake after mistake after mistake — despite the fact that I’d already gone through it repeatedly.

I had a professional editor read it and then had the book laid out and printed again.

I had to toss those 100 copies. I may as well have set the money on fire.

That’s why at Light Hustle, editing is a multi-step process:

- We do a comprehensive edit, which can mean reconceiving the entire book.

- We do an edit on that edit.

- We do a copy edit, which means we send it to a certified copy editor.

- We do an edit to make sure we catch everything the copy editor misses.

Yes, even people who edit for a living, who have in fact been certified in it, make mistakes.

They make mistakes because they are human.

As a human, you should hire an editor and a copy editor and then an editor after that.

Trust me, it’s worth the added expense.

While it’s inevitable that a published book will have some typos, I know when I see a bunch of them, I lose immediate respect for the author. I usually close the book right then. Do you really want to work that hard to have people disrespect or dismiss you?

3) Have it laid out by a layout expert.

Yes, there are people on Fiverr who can do this for $5. And there are people who charge thousands. Find someone in the middle.

4) Have a book cover designer create the cover.

Because of Photoshop, everyone’s a designer these days. But you don’t want everyone. You want a book cover designer. After a nightmarish experience with someone who came from the advertising world and called himself a book designer but had absolutely no idea how to design a cover that fit Amazon’s requirements, we decided to only work with designers who’d worked for the Big Five publishers.

Here’s what can happen if you don’t:

- You upload your cover.

- Amazon accepts it.

- You get an email from Amazon 48 hours later that explains that your cover was rejected because it doesn’t meet certain specifications but it neglects to explain which of the specifications it means.

- You have your designer fix it.

- It happens six more times.

It actually happened seven more times with the designer I’m talking about. Each time, perhaps because he was embarrassed by the fact that he couldn’t do something he’d told us he could, he got increasingly difficult so we were not only caught in a difficult situation with a publisher but also dealing with an incredibly nasty designer.

Trust me, you don’t want that. (That being said, some people want to release a book at the lowest possible cost; that’s why the final bonus in this book is a guide to releasing a book for almost no money, which walks you through how to design your cover yourself.)

5) Get all your release elements in place.

Here are some of the things I recommend doing the week of your release:

- Post Canva-created quotes from your book on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram (wherever you spend the most time and energy)

- Do a Facebook Live “release party” or something live that you can then convert to 9:16 size and also post as an IGTV

- Create a promotional video using the Clips app

- Ask influencers and friends to promote your book; provide them with whatever copy and material will help them

- Change your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and any other images to include your book cover. Make those clickable whenever possible and once your book is available, paste your Amazon link there

- Re-do your site to feature your book cover on the home page or create a separate site for your book

- Write out a series of emails to send people but rather than making them all sales-y (“Hey, I have a book” followed by “Hey, did you buy my book?”) make them newsy…have one that announces how well it’s selling, another that alerts them to a contest you’re running or another that announces that you’re doing a Facebook Live

- Run a contest. Give away Starbucks gift cards, a consultation with you or anything else you can think of to incentivize people to buy or share about your book.

6) Gather an Advanced Reader Team (ART).

What this means: Once you have a book ready to be released, the most effective way to guarantee success (in addition to uploading it to Amazon with keywords and in categories specifically designed to make it hit the top of the bestseller lists) is to put together and nurture an Advanced Reader Team that can review your book right before you announce that the book is available to the general public.

These can NOT be members of your family or close friends because Amazon not only forbids reviews from people it considers biased but also scans for potential relationships between reviewer and author and deletes those that appear to be from those close to the author.

(It happened to me! A girl I know but who isn’t a particularly close friend of mine reviewed one of my books and then got an email from Amazon saying that they’d concluded that the review was biased and were deleting it. Apparently, there are both bots and people on the Amazon team always scanning for these sorts of things.)

Advanced Reader Team members should instead be people who are aware of you, support your work, want to see you succeed and are interested in your book topic.

If you don’t have a newsletter list, use your social media or whatever other tools you have to find these people. If you have a newsletter list, send the offer to them first and then use social media and all the other tools.

You’re probably going to need to motivate and thank this group, and do keep in mind that roughly 20% of ART members end up coming through and actually writing reviews. That means: if you’re aiming for 20 reviews to be posted on your release date try to gather a group of 100 people.

7) Nurture your Advanced Reader Team.

Once you find them, here’s what I recommend: create a Facebook, Slack or WhatsApp group for them — some place where you can communicate with them easily.

At least a month before your release date, create a BookFunnel account ($20 for a year) and upload your book there.

Send your ART members a link to that and ask them to start reading and even writing their review but to hold onto it until your release date.

Over that month, keep in touch with them through a series of emails.

For my books, I offer Advanced Reader Team members different online courses I’ve created to thank and incentivize them. Try to think of your version of that.

To be clear: you are NOT “paying” them to write a positive review (in my opinion, it’s actually better to have a mixture of positive and medium reviews instead of all positive reviews; all positive reviews scream author-imposed; mixed reviews feel more legit).

You are giving them a gift to thank them for supporting you.

8) Get your ART reviews up before you even announce the release.

When you load your book onto Amazon, set the cost at .99. Don’t worry — you’re not selling your book for that. This is just the price for your Advanced Reader Team.

Three days before your official release, alert your ART that the book is available and send them the link. Ask them to go purchase the book for .99 and write a review.

(While people can review without purchasing the book, they need to have made the purchase for the review to count as Verified and have the little Verified checkmark next to it. Not only does this look a lot more legit but it also matters a lot more to Amazon than a non-verified review.)

And remember how I just said that the people on your ART should be interested in your topic?

Here’s why this is important:

They need to have a history of buying books like yours on Amazon for Amazon to find their shopping experience relevant. If you gather a bunch of people who only read Victorian romance books to buy and review your book about starting a business, that’s not going to help.

9) Announce your book.

Use all those release elements you got in place in step 5. And then keep using them.

You may be saying, “Dear God, why would I go through all that? I already did the book! Now I have to do all this extra work?”

Here’s what I have to say: there’s a massive difference between having a book out and having a bestselling book out. Sure, some books can just hit but wouldn’t you rather be in control of your destiny? I know I would.

WANT TO WRITE A MEMOIR? DOWNLOAD MY ONE-PAGE MEMOIR STRUCTURE CHEAT SHEET HERE.