Anna David's Blog, page 22

How Long Should a Book Be?

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Rather than interviewing a guest or breaking down an expert author's way of launching a book, this week I'm answering the question: How long should a book be? The short answer is: it depends. The longer answer is that books are getting shorter. Confused yet? Listen to the episode and you won't be.

And if you want me to answer your writing question on this show, DM on Instagram at @annabdavid.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there. You're listening to Launch Pad, a podcast hosted by me, Anna David. While normally I talk to the world's most successful authors and entrepreneurs about how they launch a book and what a book can do for their business. I am now going to start answering questions, and that is because I receive so many questions over social media, over email, over good old fashioned conversation. And I figured the easiest way to do it would be to answer the most common questions that I receive. If you'd like me to answer your question on this podcast, please, I would love to direct message me. This is the best way to do it. Direct message me on Instagram. I'm @annabdavid. I will not only answer your question on this podcast, but I will give you a shout out. In fact, tell me what you're writing and I'll give that a shout out.

So today I'm going to answer the question. How long should a book be? So I could start by answering this in a totally annoying way and say, as long as it needs to be, and actually that annoying part is partially true, but I would tell you something that is very interesting. Books are getting shorter. You may know this. When was the last time you read a book that was over, say 250 pages. There's a book I really want to read. It's called The Body Keeps the Score, been wanting to read it for probably 10 years. And yet I look at it and it's so long and I don't do it. Now. Then, in 2011, the average length of a bestselling nonfiction book was 467 pages. Then it just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. And now the average nonfiction bestselling book is about 250 pages.

That's like fallen 50% practically who knew we were going to be doing math. Now the thing is there are always going to be long books. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is over a thousand pages and, and novels. This really doesn't apply for fiction. Novels are still often 300 to 400 pages, but this comes up with clients at Launch Pad all the time. They, they think they want longer books because they believe that longer books show higher quality. And if that is true, you have to ask yourself, do I want people to read my book or do I want people to be impressed by my book? One of the, one of the things that did change, obviously our attention spans are shorter all the time. We have the attention span of a gnat. We're constantly distracted by bright, shiny objects. You know, endless news cycles, social media, all of these things, but when Amazon launched their Kindle singles, which was about 10 years ago, what they started doing is, is assigning authors, short, short books.

When I say short, I mean the length of an article, I was super lucky and managed to get in and be one of their authors. It wasn't many people, you know, really prestigious people. Stephen King did it. And I did two Kindle singles. One was called Animal Attraction and the other's called They Like Me They Really Like Me. Each was about 40 pages. And what Amazon did is because they controlled everything. They were able to put that those books, there weren't many Kindle singles and they were able to feature all of them prominently. And so I made more from those two tiny books that took me a week each to write than I have from books that I've spent years on. It's just sort of sad. But in addition to Kindle SIngles, there are just, you know, Brene Brown wrote a book called Gifts of Imperfection.

It's 158 pages. Austin Kleon wrote this book that people love and quote all the time called Steal Like an Artist, it's 160 pages. And what's interesting is that over 64%, yes, this is more math over 64% of the number one bestsellers since 2000 have fallen into the 200 to 400-page range. And there was a number one New York Times bestselling book called On Bullshit that’s 80 pages. So there you have it. And, and, and by the way, when you're writing it's best to think in word count instead of pages, because different people are doing single space, double space, space, and a half, whatever it is. So most of our books that we publish at Launch Pad are between 35,000 and 50,000 words. And I will tell you also, I knew nothing. When I sold my first book Party Girl, I had heard books should be around 300 pages.

So I made it around 300 pages and I didn't know that they meant space and a half. So it was 300 single-spaced pages. So it was twice as long as it needed to be. So, but, but this should come as a great relief for people who think, Oh my God, I've got to write some, you know, 300-page or 600-page opus. You do not. Books have gotten shorter and are going to continue to get shorter. That being said, if you're writing a full-length nonfiction book, don't make it under a hundred pages, maybe minimum, 150, but you know what? This is writing. You get to make the rules. Okay. I hope that helps. 

Episode 334: How Long Should a Book Be?

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

Rather than interviewing a guest or breaking down an expert author's way of launching a book, this week I'm answering the question: How long should a book be. The short answer is: it depends. The longer answer is that books are getting shorter. Confused yet? Listen to the episode and you won't be.

And if you want me to answer your writing question on this show, DM on Instagram at @annabdavid.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there. You're listening to Launch Pad, a podcast hosted by me, Anna David. While normally I talk to the world's most successful authors and entrepreneurs about how they launch a book and what a book can do for their business. I am now going to start answering questions, and that is because I receive so many questions over social media, over email, over good old fashioned conversation. And I figured the easiest way to do it would be to answer the most common questions that I receive. If you'd like me to answer your question on this podcast, please, I would love to direct message me. This is the best way to do it. Direct message me on Instagram. I'm @annabdavid. I will not only answer your question on this podcast, but I will give you a shout out. In fact, tell me what you're writing and I'll give that a shout out.

So today I'm going to answer the question. How long should a book be? So I could start by answering this in a totally annoying way and say, as long as it needs to be, and actually that annoying part is partially true, but I would tell you something that is very interesting. Books are getting shorter. You may know this. When was the last time you read a book that was over, say 250 pages. There's a book I really want to read. It's called The Body Keeps the Score, been wanting to read it for probably 10 years. And yet I look at it and it's so long and I don't do it. Now. Then, in 2011, the average length of a bestselling nonfiction book was 467 pages. Then it just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. And now the average nonfiction bestselling book is about 250 words.

That's like fallen 50% practically who knew we were going to be doing math. Now the thing is there are always going to be long books. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is over a thousand pages and, and novels. This really doesn't apply for fiction. Novels are still often 300 to 400 pages, but this comes up with clients at Launch Pad all the time. They, they think they want longer books because they believe that longer books show higher quality. And if that is true, you have to ask yourself, do I want people to read my book or do I want people to be impressed by my book? One of the, one of the things that did change, obviously our attention spans are shorter all the time. We have the attention span of a gnat. We're constantly distracted by bright, shiny objects. You know, endless news cycles, social media, all of these things, but when Amazon launched their Kindle singles, which was about 10 years ago, what they started doing is, is assigning authors, short, short books.

When I say short, I mean the length of an article, I was super lucky and managed to get in and be one of their authors. It wasn't many people, you know, really prestigious people. Stephen King did it. And I did two Kindle singles. One was called Animal Attraction and the other's called They Like Me They Really Like Me. Each was about 40 pages. And what Amazon did is because they controlled everything. They were able to put that those books, there weren't many Kindle singles and they were able to feature all of them prominently. And so I made more from those two tiny books that took me a week each to write than I have from books that I've spent years on. It's just sort of sad. But in addition to Kindle SIngles, there are just, you know, Brene Brown wrote a book called Gifts of Imperfection.

It's 158 pages. Austin Kleon wrote this book that people love and quote all the time called Steal Like an Artist, it's 160 pages. And what's interesting is that over 64%, yes, this is more math over 64% of the number one bestsellers since 2000 have fallen into the 200 to 400-page range. And there was a number one New York Times bestselling book called On Bullshit that’s 80 pages. So there you have it. And, and, and by the way, when you're writing it's best to think in word count instead of pages, because different people are doing single space, double space, space, and a half, whatever it is. So most of our books that we publish at Launch Pad are between 35,000 and 50,000 words. And I will tell you also, I knew nothing. When I sold my first book Party Girl, I had heard books should be around 300 pages.

So I made it around 300 pages and I didn't know that they meant space and a half. So it was 300 single-spaced pages. So it was twice as long as it needed to be. So, but, but this should come as a great relief for people who think, Oh my God, I've got to write some, you know, 300-page or 600-page opus. You do not. Books have gotten shorter and are going to continue to get shorter. That being said, if you're writing a full-length nonfiction book, don't make it under a hundred pages, maybe minimum, 150, but you know what? This is writing. You get to make the rules. Okay. I hope that helps. 

Episode 333: A Play-by-Play Breakdown of How James Altucher Launches a Book

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There's no one like James Altucher. Now I get that there's no one like any of us but there's REALLY no one like James Altucher. The hedge fund manager, podcaster and author of over 20 books has one of the most unique writing voices around—a major reason why his book, Choose Yourself, sold 40,000 copies in its first week of release.

But there are a number of other reasons he sold so many copies and I break those reasons down in this episode. I get into how he hones his writer's voice, controls his destiny, gathers opinions, comes up with unique propositions and then gets media attention for them, spends what he can afford to and—most importantly—never stops writing.

You may not be someone The New York Times writes about when you decide to embrace minimalism but that doesn't mean you can't learn from what he does and apply all the same concepts and techniques to your own book release. In fact, in this episode, I break down exactly how.

[BTW, FOR A FEW WEEKS AFTER WE MET, I WAS ONE OF ALTUCHER'S FAVES AND I EVEN HAVE THE SCREEN GRAB BELOW TO PROVE IT. AND YES, MY SCREEN SAVER WAS A LITTLE INTENSE BACK THEN.]

And, as promised, here are the links I mentioned:

The blog post where Altucher breaks his process down

The $997 Choose Yourself course

The Entrepreneur.com story I wrote where I quoted Altucher

The James Altucher podcast

My Media Attention for Writers course

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there. Welcome to Launch Pad, a podcast hosted by me, Anna David. This is where I talk to the world's most successful authors and entrepreneurs about how they launch their books and what a book can do for your career. Now, this is one of my favorite new things. These play-by-play breakdowns, because it gives me an opportunity to study the best and break down in my opinion. So using my experience to break down my interpretation of what these incredibly successful people have done from, and for their books and how you can do the same. So before I forget, this is episode 333, and it’s on James Altucher.

And I have actually had the pleasure of meeting him twice. So I can tell you that he's a pretty fun guy to sit down with as well. If you are not familiar with who he is, he's a hedge fund manager, very prolific author, very prolific podcaster, and has founded, or co-founded over 20 companies and he's written over 20 books. And so he has so many things that he is very hard to categorize. I also remember him telling me, when we met in New York about how he had this job doing shows for HBO hosting shows in the middle of the night, involved, him being up and outside in the middle of the night in New York City. But he, he got new life as a blogger because he started writing these incredibly honest, incredibly bizarre, unique posts, and he started to develop this following and he started to sort of put out these ideas that people began to quote and follow.

He has this idea, this idea, this concept that you have to constantly be thinking of new ideas. And you know, he's just kind of gotten opinion on everything. You know, I remember reading that he said, you shouldn’t eat after a certain hour in the day; he wasn't calling it intermittent fasting. He was just saying like, what I really like about him is that in many ways he doesn't try to defend his position on something. He just says, this is what I think, and this is what I do, and it is true. And so, as he became known as this blogger he, you know, he did some very interesting things that he's written about and talked about. Like he during the crash in 2008, 2009, he went and stood there at Wall Street and handed out chocolate bars just to get people to smile.

And what he talks about is that his most popular post of all time is the most, the thing that brings more people to his website than any other is when they Google “I want to die” or “I want to kill myself” because he has written about that. And he's just incredibly honest. And like I said, he says things that other people don't. So, like I said, he's written 20 books and a number of these were traditionally published. So like me, he started off in traditional publishing got very disillusioned and now publishes his books himself, but among his books, there's something called My Daddy Owns all of Outer Space. There's Super Cash, The New Hedge Fund Capitalism. It sort of runs the gamut: 40 Alternatives to College. One of his controversial opinions is that college is a waste of time and money and nobody should go, Oh, he has a book called the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Mediocre People.

And the book that we're going to talk about today is his book, Choose Yourself: Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream. And it came out in 2013 and he published it himself. And I have learned so much from studying what he did with that book. And he's been very, he's very generously shared with the world how he did it.

By 2016, it had sold over 500,000 copies, hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, was number one on Amazon for all nonfiction books for a few days, and obviously hit number one in its different categories. Now, the very interesting thing, and this is going to be the first, well, no, here. I want to talk about the first tip that I have determined from studying what he does.

I've touched on it already but really hone your writer's voice. Don’t be afraid to share who you are and to just constantly be as honest as you possibly can. I actually interviewed him for a story I did for Entrepreneur magazine a few years ago. I can put the link to that story in the show notes. And what he said to me when I interviewed him for that, cause it was a story about how entrepreneurs use their books to become more successful, he said, “When I first started blogging, I wanted people to know how hard it is to strive for something to deal with failure, to actually fail, to confess mistakes in a world where everyone pretends to be perfect.” And then he added, “It was this very style of writing that multiplied by a hundred times my number of readers.”

So yeah, I mean, it's a nice sort of antidote to all the people out there that are telling you they've got it all figured out. His sort of platform, if you will, is based on how, how not figured out he has it. And we all relate. So that book I already told you about how well it sold like crazy, it's got almost 2,500 ratings and reviews on Amazon and this is how he did it. 

This is tip number two. It's basically spend whatever you can afford to spend. Now, this dude's like loaded, you know, he's done all these things. He's got, he's got a big old budget for this. So it depends on what your budget is. I'm not saying you should do what he did because most of us don't have the sort of budget that he did for this.

But he hired Ryan Holiday, who is the biggest and the best when it comes to marketing a book, he hired this editor who he really admired. And he said that they went through more than 15 different rewrites for the book. He hired the best audio book company. And he, he basically spared no expense. So I think that how that applies to you is…side note, one of my least favorite questions anyone has ever asked me is what's your budget for that? Because I always want to go “Well, what's whatever the cheapest is that I can get it for. “And apparently you're not supposed to do that if you want to be incredibly successful. So don't do that; I've gotten a lot better about it. I used to be sort of allergic to spending more than a hundred dollars at a time, but then I'd go around spending a hundred dollars on 800 things. Nobody has ever accused me of being good with money or any sort of a numbers guru.

I would highly recommend if you want to follow the James Altucher formula, figure out what your budget is and where you want to divide it, he suggested, I agree with him, spend the most of the money on the editing, that is what's going to pay off the most. And you know, he and I have both said, you can design a cover for free on Amazon or on Canva, but you are going to get what you pay for. And so a certain level. So I would say the school of James is spend the money on the editor and next would be the cover and obviously hiring somebody like Ryan Holiday is an indulgence—not an indulgence, but it's for those who can afford to hit it out of the park.

So tip number three that we can glean from James Altucher is control your destiny. After getting sort of frustrated with traditional publishing and deciding that he wanted to control the experience and he talks about it in the same way I do. It was frustrating to have to wait so long, that it was frustrating to not have control over the cover and the title and, and all, and it was frustrating not making any money. So not only did he decide on everything for himself, but he even went out and found a foreign rights agency to sell the foreign rights, which is something that it doesn't occur to a lot of people. Of course, it's not something that gets us rich. My first I've only actually had one book that was translated into other languages, Party Girl was translated into Russian and Italian, go grab it there, any Russian and Italian listeners.

So you don't get rich off of that, but it's pretty awesome. So he writes in a blog post and I will put a link to this in the show notes, he writes about how he got a foreign rights agency and he writes about how much he made from the rights when they sold it to Brazil, he made $2,500; to China, he made $4,300; to Korea, he made $5,000. So that was just another example of taking it into his own hands.

And that's something that I have really learned lately when it comes to bookstores, which is my experience with traditional publishing was that my publisher would say “Yeah, this bookstore doesn't doesn't want your book.” And so I would literally walk into Skylight Books, this bookstore, this very cool bookstore near where I live and actively resent, not just the store, but every single author who had a book in that store, not knowing how it really works.

Now that I'm out of the game and I know people who work in publishing I've discovered that, that the publishers only have a certain number of books that they can pitch to bookstores. And so they're not pitching yours. They are invested in it not being in that store. And I have just discovered quite how easy it is to get books in stores. For Make Your Mess Your Memoir, I reached out to Book Soup. They were happy to sell it. And they even did an online event with me. I reached out to Kitson, which is this kitschy kind of amazing store. And they said, “We'll not only sell your book, but once the pandemic is over, we would love to throw you a party.” And then, publishers always make Barnes and Noble sound like the white whale that none of us will ever get there.

My traditionally published books were all sold there when they first came out in the first month. And then when those books were sold, they never appeared in those bookstores again. And my publisher Harper Collins had paid for that placement in that. So I just randomly was in Barnes and Noble recently, God, I feel like I've told you guys this story already. And I apologize. It's like early senility. If I have an awesome, I was just there. And I started chatting with a guy who worked in the bookstore and I mentioned honestly, in a totally not even trying to be manipulative way that I was an author. And he said, “Wow, do we sell your books?” And I said, “Oh no, no, no, you stop selling them years ago.” And he said, “Well, why don't I order them?” And it was literally that easy.

What's ironic perhaps is he went in, I gave him my name and he went into the database and he said he said, which of your books do you want me to order? And I said, well, Party Girl. And he looked. And he said, “I can't order that” because the way the publisher had set it up, the bookstores couldn't return the copies if they didn't sell. And that is really what bookstores want to know is that they can return the copies if they don't sell. If you publish it yourself, you can set it up so that the copies can be returned if they don't sell. So he said, “Well, what's your second choice?” I said, "Oh, my new book Make Your Mess Your Memoir." And he said, “Great, I'm going to order it. And here's what I think you should do. I think you should come in once the books are here, sign them, post them on social media. And people will come in and order them. And we'll just keep ordering your book.”

Bookstores want to order books that people want. So that was so illuminating that it is that easy. And I say this because James Altucher, I was reading and he wrote something about how he was trying to get his book in more stores. And it is, as it turns out much easier than any of us may have realized. Certainly, I didn't. So that was tip number three, it was control your destiny. 

Let us talk about tip number four. And that is using group think in a way that is really productive. Now, what I mean by that is a lot of people will, when they have a title that they're thinking about or a cover that they're thinking about, they will go and they will post on Facebook or on Instagram or on LinkedIn.

And they will say, Which of these do you guys like? And they think that they are going to get an accurate response. By the way, I've completely done this myself. It's very tempting because it's very easy, frankly; the problem with it is that all studies say that people don't buy what they think they're going to buy. And the other problem of course, with posting it somewhere is that everybody's influenced. So they're influenced by the way you phrase the posting, they're influenced by what other people like. I mean, if they come there and they go, “Oh, I really like that second one, but everybody liked the first one. I must be wrong.” So it is actually the worst way to try to get feedback on what is better. And, you know, cause if you, if you go around asking people what is better, everybody's got an opinion and their opinions, frankly, don't matter.

It's what do the masses want? So what James Altucher did and Tim Ferriss did this too. And I believe I talked to you, I talked about this in the Tim Ferriss episode. So if you haven't heard that go back and make sure you listen to that. But he ran Facebook ads and he ran it with 10 titles that he thought would be good. And he sat back and watched what happened. And there were thousands of clickthroughs. And the one that he thought was the best one, which was The Choose Yourself Era came in third, Pick Yourself was in second and Choose Yourself was the first by far. And that is of course the title he ended up going with. He did the same thing with the subtitle and the final version of the cover. And you know, the proof is in how successful the book is.

So I think that that is an amazing tip, which is thinking that just going around and asking people which is better is going to get you the response that you want. I frankly think you're better off not asking anyone anything. If you want to invest in Facebook ads—both the time and the money and you know what it'll take to make those effective and you've got the time do it.

Okay. Tip number five: come up with unique propositions. That's part number one, but part number two is that you then have the ability to get media for, and he did two really great ones, which is he made an offer. He said that people could buy this book with Bitcoin. Did he do that to get rich from Bitcoin?

No, he did it cause no one had done it. And it was bizarre. And he, as I mentioned, was working with Ryan Holiday who had the ability to go get media to write about that. He also put at the beginning of his book, basically: if you read this book and you don't like it, I will give you your money back. Now I'm going to guess that very few, if any, people took him up on that, but again, it was bizarre and they got media attention for it.

It reminds me of this friend of mine who was very, very funny, Jennifer Belle, her first book was called Going Down. And I think for her fourth book, she said, “You know what I'm going to do.” She lives in New York. And she said, “I am going to hire actresses and pay them to read my book on the subway because that's how people know they want to read a book because they see other people reading it on the subway.”

So she did it. She found actresses. She got them to read it on the subway. I don't know if that worked but the New York Times heard about it or maybe she told the New York Times about it and they were at a story about it. So it's coming up with these ideas. But the problem is it's like the whole thing about the tree falling in the woods. If you don't have the ability to get it to media, then your amazing idea isn't going to get coverage. And if you're saying, “Well, that's great for those people. I mean, they hire expensive publicists and know people,” know this: anybody can get media attention. Go back and listen to my episode with Cameron Herold, or even buy his book, Free PR. In the episode we did, he walked me through exactly what you can do to figure out what your angle is and how not just approachable, but reachable journalists are. 

The quick overview is all journalists are on Twitter. And so if you can figure out who has written about, you know, let's say you come up with your unique idea for your book and you want media to write about it. So start looking around and see who's written about this or what TV shows have talked about this before. And, you know, journalists have a beat. Maybe their beat is, is just the topic or genre of your book: figure out where they are, tweet at them. There is also a website called hunter.io that has a lot of email addresses. There's also a paid service where you can get people's email addresses. And obviously, there's LinkedIn and there's Facebook and there's Instagram and there are all these places.

So it, it just requires a certain level of proactiveness that frankly, I don't always have, cause I am scared of rejection and, and bugging people. I'm a former journalist. But as Cameron Herold very eloquently explained: if you are doing their work for them, a journalist is going to be grateful to you. You are not bothering them. You are presenting them with a story. And another thing you can do is subscribe to Help A Reporter Out, which is also called HARO. And it is where journalists list, all the stories that they're working on and what they're looking for sources for. And they send three emails a day. And whenever you see a journalist that is working on a story that pertains to potentially what your unique proposition is, then you can reach out to them. And, and I actually do have a course that gets into this a little bit called Media Attention for Writers. 

I can put a link to that in the show notes. So that, and then, and then the final tip that we're going to glean from James Altucher is that he keeps writing. And like I said, over 20 books, he doesn't put all his eggs in one book basket. I can't tell you the number of people I speak to who say to me that they've got a book that is going to change the world. It is their story. Everybody's always told them they should write a book. And I can feel the future disappointment when I talk to them because it's just not how it works. Yes. It worked that way for Elizabeth Gilbert kind of; actually it didn't. Eat Pray Love was like her sixth book. It worked that way for the 50 Shades of Gray lady so it can happen.

But it almost never does. So if you want to be a successful writer, you keep writing, you do not assume that one book is going to be quote “it” for you. But the other thing, and this is related to that. What James Altucher does very well is books are just a part of his strategy. And they lead people into his myriad, other things, which includes his podcast. Of course, he has a huge podcast and he's interviewed people like Mark Cuban and Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington and Peter Thiel and a whole bunch of people on that. And he has courses. He actually has a Choose Yourself Guide to Self Publishing, which I can put a link to in the show notes. It's a thousand dollars. I bet you a lot of people buy that. So that is, you know, I, I guarantee you, he has made more money from that course than he did from book sales.

Even though I bet he made a lot from book sales…by the way, that course includes his books, a membership group publishing software, it looks pretty, pretty awesome. Frankly, it's $997. It's not a thousand dollars. And you know, he has eight different newsletters that you can subscribe to. So I don't know if he has cloned himself or if he just has an amazing team or whatever it is, but he is somebody who I have learned so much from studying in terms of his marketing.

And his writing! I should mention he is a hilarious, incredibly intelligent original writer, definitely worth mentioning. And hopefully you guys got something out of this that you can apply to your own books and book releases. That is it. I am Anna David signing off. I will see you next week.

Episode 331: A Play-by-Play Breakdown of How Rachel Hollis Launches a Book

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Today I'm doing one of those breakdowns of how the experts launch their books (check out my previous one on Tim Ferriss here). And this episode analyzes the moves made by the icon to middle-aged women across the globe: Rachel Hollis. 

Rachel has had extraordinary success, by any standards. Her book, Girl Wash Your Face, sold three million copies JUST on Amazon. She hosts a huge conference, has a Netflix documentary and has millions of followers on social media.

But this sprightly little thing didn't just waltz into stupendous success. In this episode, I meticulously break down what I believe are the four main reasons she's had such an impact:

1) She knows her audience

2) She makes it about them

3) She's consistent

4) She listens to that audience

To understand how she's done that and hear more of my analysis of her many bright moves, check out the episode.

Speaking of the episode...as I promised in it, here's the link to the story I read about doing a sales page for a book and here's the link to my sales page for Make Your Mess Your Memoir). 

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR IT!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hey there. Welcome to Launch Pad, a podcast hosted by me, Anna David I'm a New York Times bestselling author of many books. I'm now a publisher, and this has been historically a podcast where I interview the world's bestselling authors and entrepreneurs about how to launch a book and what a book can do for your career, but how I've discovered this other secret passion of mine that I didn't know existed, which is to talk, to do a bunch of research and then talk to you guys directly. And I did it with a previous episode on Tim Ferriss. That was episode 330 for anybody who likes to be a good student and know exactly what I'm talking about and may have missed it. And I'm now doing it today. And just a brief intro. Basically, I'm obsessed. I became obsessed with the show Reply All because I realized I just liked people telling me things, especially if I found them funny.

And maybe you find me funny, but I'd like personally, I want to, you know, spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I want to be entertained when I'm learning things. So today I am breaking down Rachel Hollis and I don't mean breaking her down emotionally. I mean that I, I have learned everything that is possible to know about Rachel Hollis so that I can tell you how on earth somebody has maintained a spot in the top 10 bestselling books in the country for seven months, sold 3 million copies of one book on Amazon alone, gotten 1.8 million Instagram followers and done a billion other things. And my research comes to you because I've actually heard her speak twice at two different conferences. And I've read the book and I have bizarre things in common with her. So if you don't know who Rachel Hollis is, she's an American author, motivational speaker and blogger.

She is published by a Christian imprint of Harper, but it's like low-grade Christian. There's like nothing too freaky for anybody who's like, eh, that freaks me out. Obviously she has widespread, crazy appeal and she's this little thing she's real cute. And she was this picture. Perfect. she has this had, that's what I'm getting to this husband, Dave Hollis, who used to be a Disney executive. They have recently divorced as of this recording. But it has not slowed her brand down, even though she was just like, I'm them, I'm the mom and the wife. And we're so happy. And we have this lifestyle brand. It doesn't matter. They got divorced. This happens. And the reign of Rachel Hollis continues. So who is this woman? And how did she do this? Well, she decided she wanted to move to LA from the Midwest, decided she wanted to move to LA.

And guess why? Because she dreamed of marrying Matt Damon. Now, here's what: I dated Matt Damon in college. I talk about it plenty. I mean, honestly, like almost any, any chance that I get that I could slip it in, I do. He was just a really cute guy who I met at a party who had a lot of ambition who was a super talented actor. And I would tell everybody, Oh, my boyfriend is a super talented actor and we were 20. And no one really cared though. He was rising. He was making this movie called School Ties when I was with him. Anyway. So not only is she dreaming of dating my ex-boyfriend, but she publishes a book called Party Girl, which is the name of my first book. And when my book was going out to publishers, my agent said, there's this book called Party Girl, but this woman, Rachel Hollis, we got to change the name of your book.

And then it was, she came back to me and said, you know what? That other book didn't make any waves. Don't worry about it. We'll keep your title. And I was like, I'm the reigning party girl? Well, joke’s on me. While all of that was happening. Rachel Hollis was an event planner and she was going around planning events. And then she started blogging in 2008. She started a blog called my chic life that started, you know, just about, about these events and what was going on. And then by 2016. So that's some serious years she put in, it had 600,000 users a month, which is a lot, then her big move. Yeah. Don't you just love modern day life. This was her big move. She showed a picture on Instagram in 2015 that showed her stretch marks. Suddenly the Today Show, NBC News, all these places are covering it, but here's the thing you can be like, Oh, she just got lucky. She was well, set up luck comes to the prepared. And she had been building and building and building and was very well prepared when this, you know, quote viral moment happened. So when I heard her speak for the first time at Traffic and Conversion, which is a conference in San Diego this was in 2018. I heard her speak, and this is something she said, I took notes. So I thought this was really interesting because here I talked to writers about how do they find their audience? How do they know who they're writing for? And she said, I know my girl. And that's what she calls her reader. She is not trying to get men. She says, I know my girl because I've hung out with her every day for 15 years.

I'm actually going to break down the four things Rachel Hollis has just done to perfection. Number one, she knows her audience. She told USA Today about five years ago. I used to mostly talk about food on her blog. I was a mom of young children. I was just trying to figure out what to feed them for dinner. Over time, I started to do a lot of work in personal development and really cared about my own growth and how I was becoming a better version of myself. As I went on that journey. I just sort of took the fans along for the ride, and that has led to where we are today. So I think that is a very interesting idea. The pivot, I will tell you for me you know, I sort of accidentally got branded as the sex dating and relationship expert.

When I wrote a story for Playboy in 2004, and then went on this show Attack of the Show. And, and I thought, you know, after a while, like, I'm just not interested in this anymore. This isn't me. Can I pivot and start talking about addiction and recovery? And I was able to, and then I was like, okay, I feel like I've done what I can there. Can I pivot and talk about writing? And it turns out, yes, you can. So if you say, well, I want to write this book, but I don't want to be categorized as the woman who, who only writes about being adopted. And that's my brand. No, once you are out there and you get used to being out there sharing about yourself, you can pivot because it is all about your audience. That's what it's about. Back when I was talking about sex, standing in relationships, I had all the media, you could dream up, Today Show, Fox News, in all the magazines. Today, I don't get that media coverage, but I am a billion times more successful because we now live in a world where it is better to have an audience.

It is not about the gatekeeper. So what she said back to Rachel, which she said is, this is at back at Traffic & Conversion. It needed to take 15 years. I didn't realize then, then that I was building the infrastructure I have today. Now I don't say that to discourage you, to make you go, Oh my God, it's going to take 15 years. By the way, if all of us could be so lucky as to have Rachel Hollis's success in 15 years, that would be amazing. I'd happily build every day, 365 days a year, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. But it's just look at what you've been already doing. We live in a world for better or worse, where we are audience building a lot of us all the time, whether we're aware of it or not, but you don't have to know exactly where it's going.

You just have to see that there are people there and that you make it about them. I'm going to get to that next. That's another Rachel Hollis tip that I've, that I've decided she gives a tip that I have learned from studying her. Let's just say, so Rachel Hollis knows who her readers are. She said at Traffic & Conversion, I have three types. I have the diehard fan who has known me since I was a food blogger. I have the Target mom who doesn't work. And I have the hustler who has her own business. So here's something interesting. People will say you have to just, you have to have an avatar. You have to know what that person drives, what they read, what they, you know, podcasts. They listen to what books they read and know. Rachel Hollis shows that you can actually have three types of fans, but I will tell you, you might notice those three fans are not that different. They're all women. Somebody who's a diehard fan could easily be a hustler or a Target mom, but they are three and distinct. And she knows who they are. So as you are building your audience and your fan base, think about who they are. And if you don't know who they are, ask them, ask the people who follow you on Instagram. They're there. And once you have a bigger audience survey, your newsletter audience or whatever it is.

So I alluded to this before, but tip number three from Rachel…Oh, sorry. This is tip number two. I'm switching the order. Don't judge. She would never do this. Or maybe she would that's. Her whole thing is she's scrappy. She makes mistakes. I happened to be recording this while I'm in my pajamas, so that a Rachel Hollis move, maybe back to the tip, she makes it about the audience. Now in my stalking, I saw a Facebook post that she wrote on November 22nd of 2017. And she said, #ChicTribe. That's a hashtag. So she has named her people after her own brand—brilliant: chic tribe. We're looking for people. I'm sure she didn't write this. Someone on her team wrote this. We are looking for people to spread the word about my new book, Girl, Wash Your Face and to say, thank you for helping me out, you'll get all types of goodies, including an advanced copy of the book before it comes out in February. So if you're interested request to join this group and connect with the rest of the GWYF launch team, she's already got, you know, okay, you click on that by the way. And it's gone because she knows what she's doing. It's gone now. But back God knows how many people were probably trying to get into that group and joining that group—well, enough to make the book sell 3 million copies on Amazon alone.

Now she had a book tour and she didn't just kick back and let her publisher set up a tour. She sold tickets and the event was called #Rachexevereve. Yeah, that's a hashtag. So if you bought a ticket, you got a hardcover of Girl Wash Your Face before anyone else, you got cocktail hour and nibbles and a sweet gift bag. You got signing and photo opportunity with Rachel Hollis and you got 15% off all ever Eve. That's her line of products. You got a shop and sip party, plus personal styling opportunities from the ever Eve staff, which sister is how Rachel figures out, what to wear. See sister, like we're talking to our girl, plus you'll get the most fun night ever with your girlfriends. So she has made what is about her all about you, the reader.

And interestingly, if you go to her website for Girl Wash Your Face now, what is there? Ah, this is genius. It's a thank you video. And what it is s a video showing people's Instagram posts about Girl Wash Your Face. So her team, you know, took screen grabs of I don't even know how many women holding up this book. And she's saying, thank you for doing this, but it's brilliant because she's just also showing how many people love her. You know, it just is great social proof and great, a great way to make it about the audience. Totally gonna steal that. I just realized that now here's another thing that she said at the Traffic and Conversion event, which backs up this whole idea. Somebody asked her, cause she's got a documentary on Amazon prime about her Rise conference. And they, somebody said why did you start this conference and this documentary and all of these things.

The Rise conference as of last time cost $650 for a few days. And she said, I was running into all these people who were saying, I wish I could go to your conference, but I can't afford it. So she said, let's make it an Amazon documentary. God, it's pretty cool. I don't know. I didn't watch the documentary. Did you? Let me know now, okay, I'm going to go a slightly backward. You don't know I'm going backward, but I'm going backward in my notes. Tip number three, Rachel Hollis is consistent. She said at Traffic and Conversion: it is not about production value. It is about consistency. And that means as a back then at 8:00 AM central time, every single day, she got on Instagram and she would entertain for five minutes and then she would get in your face and issue challenges.

You know, that's kind of her vibe is she's not going to let you sit back and be ordinary. She is going to push you to be your best. That's her whole thing. Now I'm number four of what she does. These are all connected. She listens to her audience. So she's got that breakdown of who those three types are. And she says, cause now she's got a whole line of products, a whole bunch of other stuff. She says, if your audience isn't buying, that's because you haven't explained it right. If your audience isn't buying that's because you haven't explained it right. Now in terms of a book that is really, really interesting because sometimes we can be so close to our material that we don't see what we don't see. I will tell you a really good exercise for me with Make your Mess.

A marketing person I knew said, why don't you write a sales page for your book? You know, because for previous books, I'd always just had here's about the book, here's the cover on a website. And I thought, and this person said…I'm actually totally lying. It was an article I read that suggested doing a sales page for your book. And so I looked at this example and actually I can link in the show notes to this example, cause it was awesome. And it basically said break down what this is, why the reader should be interested, who your reader is, break it down into sections. 

But my point about telling you about this sales page, because I still have it up. I can actually put a link to that in the show notes too. But basically it showed me that there was another way to explain my book that wasn't the book summary that we were putting on Amazon. It was how, if I encountered my ideal reader or my ideal client or whatever it is, how would I break it down? What would I want someone else to tell somebody about my book? And so the example that she gave it trafficking conversion. She doesn't try to sell a jacket but she shows her—that's her audience—10 ways she can wear it. You have to educate your audience. So if your audience is not buying your book, it could be that they do not understand it.

And so you need to educate them about why it's important and you can educate them on Instagram, on your blog, on Facebook, wherever you want. She says, your audience will tell you how to make it better. And this is something that you know, I may have talked about before, but basically there, there are a lot of very successful authors who talk about testing covers and titles. Now, a lot of people, when they, when they hear that, they're like, Oh, okay, I'm so guilty of this post on Facebook in your group or on your thing, Hey, you guys, which title do you like better? Or, Hey, let's do a poll. Hey, what cover, what title, all of these things, the experts will tell you don't bother with that because what people say they like, and what they actually buy are completely different.

If you are going to test something with your audience, the best way is not to ask them, but to say, design a cover and four different ways and run Facebook ads to that cover and see, which does better. If you're doing a title, do the same thing, that, that people will show you how to make it better rather than tell you how to make it better. Maybe if you're Rachel Hollis and you've got 1.8 million people on Instagram and a separate, or maybe the same 1.8 million people on Facebook, you can just ask them. But most of us need to see what they're going to do. Cause there's far fewer people. Now, she also recommends talking about your product for months before it’s out. That's, you know, we have different, I've employed different strategies, lots of times for lots of my books. And what I recommend for clients is to do the Beyonce drop, where you don't talk about your book at all, and then you just drop it.

And it's already number one in all its categories. And it's got all these reviews. Everybody's got a different strategy about that, but I will tell you that as of this recording her book, she has a new book, I Didn't See That Coming coming out. And she has on her website, preorder this book to get an exclusive hour-long class and 16-page workbook personalized by Rachel. It's all about rebuilding your life. When you're going through a hard season, you learn to set intentions and how to take the necessary steps required to build the life you always wanted. So the exclusive hour-long class, when it's someone like Rachel Hollis who is paid a lot of money for an hour, that's a super valuable thing. Any Rachel Hollis fan is going to say, absolutely that is worth it, plus this workbook. So that is definitely something, a lot of people do.

I did plan to do that with make your Make Your Mess You Memoir, but I never got it together. I mean, I did a launch thing online, but, but really giving your audience a chance to preorder and incentivizing them is a good thing. If that's the strategy you've employed, okay. She said about her audience when 10 people say the same thing, listen. A big part of being a creative person is you give your work to people and you gotta know who to listen to and who to ignore. I am very careful with who I get feedback from, and I am very careful too. And I'm very clear about what sort of feedback I want. When a book is published, I do not want people to give me notes on it, but I will pick a few very select people very carefully. And I will say, this is what I want.

I don't want you to sit here and tell me, it's great cause that doesn't help me. If you really like certain things, great. Tell me, but I need to know what needs work, what isn't clear, what is over explained, all of those things.

And the final thing that I learned from Rachel Hollis when she spoke at Traffic and Conversion is you want scarcity. She said, selling out is key because of FOMO. This is really only relevant if you have, I mean, a book you can't sell out, cause it's all just going to be on Amazon. But, but you know, just that concept. And I think the FOMO and the scarcity is really good. If you're going to do a preorder campaign or you or you're giving bonuses…the one thing that I did for Make Your Mess Your Memoir is we had an advanced reader team that I had someone on my team organizing and we wanted to get over a hundred people in it.

And we did. And then what we said, we said, do you want to be an elite messenger? And if you are an elite messenger, what you have to do is you have to recruit three new people to join this group. Once you've done that, then once the book comes out, you got to do these extra things, which is like post this on Facebook, do this, whatever it is, not many things, but the big thing was recruiting through other people. And then you're an elite messenger. And then those elite messengers, I sent them, not just signed copies. Everybody who was in the advanced reader team got a copy, but they also got shirts that say, make your mess your memoir. They got canvas prints that say that, they got all of this stuff. So you cannot pay people to review your book, but you absolutely can reward and thank them.

And whether that's with the free course, like Rachel Hollis does actual shirts, whatever it is. I love my readers so much that I actually go to the post office, which in Los Angeles is pretty much the most hellish place you can possibly go, but I do it. And so that's the Rachel Hollis breakdown. How Rachel Hollis has been able to become the massive success that she has using these very specific and easy to follow, not easy to do, easy to follow tips and techniques to break it down. Finally, one, she knows her audience too. She makes it about them. Three she's consistent and four, she listens to them. So that is it. Your breakdown of Rachel Hollis. And if you like this way of breaking down the show, I find this super, super fun. If you listen this far, I hope you found it fun or entertaining or both. Please let me know in the form of an iTunes review. And that is at Anna David signing off. I'll see you next time.

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?”