How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months by John Locke | A Your Shelf Life Review
5 STARS!
This is a really great book. If you're an author or aspiring author who wants to sell a bunch of books, you should buy it and put what it says into practice. It's like having a strategic marketing coach who cares about you tucked away in your Kindle. You can buy it here.
That's the business portion of this review. Having that out of the way, let's hang out and get acquainted.
I bought this book approximately thirty seconds after the nice people at the Amazon Digital Platform sent me a press release saying that John Locke had passed the one million downloads mark, the eighth person in history to do so and the only self published author.
I had never heard of John Locke.
I've read the book four times now and can say that this is one of the most exciting books I've read in a long time, both for what it contains explicitly and for what isn't talked about. The book is a how-to focused on John's marketing plan and a case study of John Locke, both of which I find fascinating.
I really get off on this sort of thing. Many years ago, I was amazed and terrified to find myself a doctoral student in economics at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. (The GSB or Biz school) It was as scary and difficult as it sounds. A year later, I slunk away, battered. (I left in good standing, but had discovered that I couldn't do the math. And I never would be able to do it.)
I went back to my previous occupation, being an economic analyst, thinking of the experience as "the year I almost got an ulcer."
But the year wouldn't go away. Out of the blue, I got a call from one of my professors at the GSB. Richard T. Pascale PhD was the best classroom teacher I have experienced. He presented a stunning combination of intelligence, speaking ability, mastery of his topic (negotiation) and "people skills." As well a genuine warmth and humanity. Plus he'd written a bunch of bestselling business books, starting with The Art of Japanese Management and ending with Surfing the Edge of Chaos.
Turns out that his class, Negotiation & Intervention, had become the most popular in the Biz school by a long shot. Richard needed help doing videotaped negotiation exercises where teams of MBA (Master's of Business Administration) students attempted to outfox each other using the techniques he taught. He also needed help with other exercises like teaching them to active listen, and, of course, grading papers. Richard wanted me to help him.
Really? I couldn't believe it. But I remembered that while I stank at the mathematics of optimization, I soared in the people-orientated classes, like negotiation.
So I said yes. It turned into a twenty year gig. For a few days each spring quarter, I got to work with a team of other really cool facilitators and whip those MBAs into shape. We videoed and debriefed negotiations and ran listening exercises. And we graded lots of papers.
That job was the most fun of any I've had. I also got to work with David Bradford PhD, who taught "touchy-feely", or Interpersonal Relations as the class was actually named. He was a master.
Statistical studies done by the Biz school indicated that grades in touchy-feely and negotiation, plus a few required courses, were the most powerful predictors of lifetime success. To quote the MBA students, "A C in touchy-feely is a C in Life."
Sometime in this period, I earned an MA in counseling to complement my MA in economics.
Time passed. Richard went off to Harvard and Oxford. The job went away, but left me with a permanently altered psyche and a love of business case studies.
GIVEN THIS BACKGROUND, THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT READING JOHN'S BOOK:
First off, John attributes his success in selling books to his marketing plan. Hah, thought I.
Did you ever hear the joke about the two farmers standing in front of their neighbor's giant new barn. One farmer says to the other, "It's pretty, but I've never seen a barn have a calf worth a damn."
I've never seen a marketing plan sell a million books, either.
There had to be more to it, and I was determined to find it.
Did I? Oh, yes.
Some obvious, and not so obvious, factors in John's success:
"I've made two major fortunes in my life, excluding book sales," John Locke says in his book. He describes a lifetime of business success. Unbelievable success. He's currently engaged in something like fourteen business ventures, in addition to his writing.
When I read this stuff, my blood became about 90% adrenaline. Of course, John sold all those books! Psychologists say that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Of course. he succeeded. That's what he does.
Do you know any extremely successful people? You need to hang out around one to see what they're like.
My dad rose from being a penniless, first-generation immigrant to the owner and CEO of the tenth largest residential construction company in the U.S. at its peak. He built 14,000 homes, 2,500 apartment units, three shopping centers and bunch of churches (those at cost), all before he was killed at age 45. He was also a AAU champion wrestler, body builder and health food nut. He supported the Boy Scouts, taught wrestling at a police youth club for kids at risk (which he built), and was the best water-skier I've ever seen.
What does this have to do with John Locke? I don't know Mr. Locke, but I expect he's like my dad. Totally focused, disciplined, and on top of things. Living his life as though he was skating on a razor's edge. Able to do not only "the math", but possessing the people skills to make his business plans a reality. A major multi-tasker, but able to delegate. Possessing intelligence, charm, intuition, physical power, mental and physical stamina, and the ability to inspire and persuade. (Are you blushing, John?)
The super-effective people get the whole package––all the human skills. And they have fun. My dad had more fun than anyone I know. Business was a game to him and his buddies––money wasn't prized for itself, it was just the way they kept score. I expect John's like that.
Are these skills transferable? Can they be inherited? Not as far as I can see. I've kicked up some dust in my life, but I've never built 14,000 houses.
This ultra-successful person syndrome is a problem when ordinary mortals try to implement something like John's plan.
OTHER ELEMENTS I don't want to turn this into too much of a John Locke love-fest, but he does a really good job in this book. You can start from word one and go all the way through, finding meaty tid-bits. I'm not going to discuss all of them here, though you may feel like I have by the end of this post. (I have trouble writing less than three hundred pages.)
John shows superb joining skills. What's that? Imagine you've just walked into a room of strangers. You want to become part of the group (or its leader), influence them to do something, and you want them to like you. How do you skillfully do this?
You could sell a million books for starters. If the people are writers, that bit of info would get around pretty fast. Faster than that: The title of the book tells us John's sales record. Having established that, he immediately lets us know that he's been in the same battle we're fighting. He starts his book with a section titled REVENGE OF THE NERDS! In it, he compares the popular, pretty people in high school with the rest of us. I was instantly transported back the the golden days of zits and braces. John had hooked me by the end of the first paragraph of his preface, when he says, "the publishing industry, which is like high school on steroids!" Yes! Yes! Yes!
If you've been in the publishing industry for more than twenty minutes, you know this. But John said it! The publishing industry would reduce a team of family systems psychotherapists to blithering idiots. It turns writers from competent adults to insecure, competing adolescents in less time than it takes to write an elevator speech.
After naming the problem, John immediately reframes the traditional publishing/self publishing debate into a dispute between puffed up egos and good business people.
"One of us" or OOU. This is one of the keys to his marketing plan and I'll let you read about it yourself. John calls it Loyalty Transfer. It hinges on what I said above, "entering the room" and making people feel like you're one of them. John discusses this thoroughly and he shows it even better.
For instance, when he listed the traditional marketing things that he initially did to make his books successful (at the advice of experts), my heart bled with his. I'd done all the same stuff! All of it! None of it worked.
Know your market segment and give it what it wants. A zillion marketing people have told me this, but when John Locke said it, I heard it. He has a great exercise where he writes a detailed description of his buyer and what he/she wants in a page or so.
Oh, maybe I should do that, thought I. Who buys my books? How do I find them? Entice them? I'm working on it.
A deep market segment vs. a wide one. John's aiming at a tight, like-minded group of buyers who love his work. He doesn't want to create homogenized characters that everyone and their ex-wife will love. He wants to and does write idiosyncratic work that the average person might hate. And he encourages us to do the same!
I love that! I do that. My first novel was about the most bad-ass executive you'll ever meet and a great Native shaman. That's not a mainstream plot.
That's what the indie publishing movement is about. Creating the unusual. Writing stuff you won't find on drug-store shelves.
Effective Use of Twitter John used Twitter to fuel his sales drive. He explains how to use Twitter in the book. Isn't that nice? I had no clue what to do with my little band of outlaws––my followers. To implement his marketing plan, John posted emotionally affecting blog articles not specifically aimed at selling his books, then used Twitter to spread the word. (My husband thought the blog articles were emotionally manipulative. I disagreed.)
After my first reading of the book, I recalled John as saying something like, "I posted this blog article and then Twittered it. It went viral. The next day I was famous."
All my alarms went off. Right, John. I could really see that happening. I get a few retweets once in a while, but "It went viral," just like that. Hah.
Except that isn't what he said, which is why reading things again is a good idea.
People skills. What John said about how he used Twitter to fuel his campaign illustrates how to REALLY use Twitter. It illustrates every personal skill that the Biz school tries to pound into its students. Believe me, the entire staff teaching touchy feely would CHEER reading what John says about how he wrote his blogs and used Twitter.
He didn't just write a blog article and toss it to the wolves of cyberspace. He carefully cultivated, one at a time, people who would be interested in him and his work. And then he organized and ranked his followers and formed networks of on-line friends that would benefit him and others. I'll let you read what he did. Know that you're reading about brilliant interpersonal interaction.
Look at how he handles people. He answers every email. He commits a huge amount of time to his buyers and shows a genuine interest in them. Read the book. And read the sample blog articles he's included in it. This is touchy feely at it's finest.
Do you know why major graduate schools of business created the field of organizational behavior (how people operate in organizations) and courses like Interpersonal Relations (touchy feely)? Some of the really smart faculty realized that businesses don't fail because people don't know enough Linear Programming. They fail because people don't know how to get along, express feelings, deal with personality conflicts, or negotiate their way through the simplest human problems.
People skills are the key to business success.
Writing skills. Also look at the care with which John's blog articles are crafted. Delightfully subtle selling. Those messages obviously took time to put together.
This is why some people succeed and others don't. Howie shows you every step of the way.
While John Locke didn't start selling books until he implemented his marketing plan, I bet that he was working on his Twitter network long before the launch.
(There's one catch in using these techniques: You have to be absolutely sincere in what you write and in your interactions with your market/on-line friends. People can smell a rat. They'll ditch any rodents.)
When I said that I didn't believe John's marketing plan was what sold the books way up above, I meant it. He sold the books, using his plan.
As I approached the end of Howie the first time, I'd gotten the stuff above, but didn't feel it was sufficient to have a million people hit that buy button on Amazon.
When I got to the end of the book, to the LOYALTY & THE OOUs and THANK YOU! chapters, I had a true spiritual experience. I was reading John's words, but felt like he, in some insubstantial form, was hovering between my Kindle and my chest. It was as though a golden light floated there.
I kid you not.
I was in Santa Fe NM, the woo-woo capital of the universe, at the time. That might have had something to do with it. Maybe all my years of meditation and spiritual practice gave me a kick. I didn't have that experience on subsequent readings, but once was enough.
I could feel John's energy, his voice, his soul, if you will, vibrating out of the pages. "That's what sold all those books," I said, triumphant."The essential John Locke."
We're talking about spirituality now. That is my area of expertise. I can feel you rolling your eyes and thinking, OMG. Now she's going to talk about religion. Nope. You're safe with me.
The best demonstration of spirit I have seen occurred in the movie Temple Grandin. The real Temple Grandin is an autistic woman who's used her disability to improve the lives of animals. In the movie, Temple is a high school student when she visits the school stables. Her favorite horse lies dead on the barn floor.
Temple looks at the animal and says, "Where did he go?" She's asking an existential question, and she's truly perplexed. She says the same thing later at a slaughter house as cattle are transformed into beef. "Where do they go?"
Where did whatever made those animals the living creatures they were go?
That definition of spirit is one I used in my book Stepping Off the Edge. It's the animating principle, the difference between a living person and a dead one. Spirit is what moves the world, sells millions and millions of books, and does everything else.
Read the last few chapters of Howie and see if you don't agree with me. John's spirit sold those books, and its behind everything he writes.
To sell books, you need to use all the marketing skills and tools you can, and grow your spirit. (Gee. You'd almost think I was plugging my book on spiritual practice. Not really. This is a very personal area. Choose spiritual tools and practices that speak to your soul.)
UP YOUR ASPIRATIONS!
Am I telling you that only extremely skilled and charismatic people like John Locke can successfully crack the publishing market? Am I telling you, as some industry pundits will, that self-published authors will sell less than 100 books on the average and only a tiny fraction will top 10,000?
Absolutely not. The first thing we were taught in the Stanford GSB negotiation course was the charming phrase above. Up your aspriations! The higher your aim your sights, the more likely you will attain your target. If you don't hit the goal, you'll get more than you would have with low aspirations. The Biz School has studies that prove that. So, up your aspirations and go forth and sell!
In a recent blog article, John talks about how the traditional publishing experts try to deflate the hopes of independent publishers. I would urge you to take the tools John offers and use them. The first time I read Howie, I thought it should be subtitled Hope. It is hope for independent writers. John gives you the tools. I hope I have highlighted a few points that may make the difference between success and failure.
WHAT ABOUT YOU, SANDY? ARE YOU USING JOHN'S APPROACH?
Absolutely. I'm currently increasing my Twitter presence and writing more books. (I'm @sandyonathan on Twitter, if you want to follow me.) What John says about having more books ready to sell if one hits is absolutely true. My Numenon was #1 in three categories of mysticism and way up there in the Kindle ratings when it came out. People were emailing me (and still do), demanding the sequel. I've lost sales and customers because I don't have it.
I will have two more books in my Tales from Earth's End Series in print/eBook form by Christmas. The first book in the series, The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy, shows a group of people attempting to escape a nuclear holocaust in a ruined future world. It's part teen romance and part coming of age story, with overtones of 1984. It's won two awards in visionary fiction.
The Angel's first sequel, Lady Grace, brings The Angel's characters back together and puts them in another struggle for existence. This time, they're fighting against the elements and a degenerate society which the nuclear war has spawned. My editor says this is my best book. The second sequel, Sam & Emily, is a love story involving two characters from The Angel. It sizzles.
All three books have a transcendent, looking for a better world quality. They're thrillers as well as visionary.
REALLY UP YOUR ASPIRATIONS
Before signing off, I'd like to challenge you to attain a real goal. I'd love to sell a million books, or more. Tens of millions. I'd like to succeed by every measure possible. I'd like you to do the same.
There's something I'd like more. I'd like to sign on Facebook and not get triggered by all those people saying, "I just sold my 50,000th book. Finished my world tour. Five of the big six publishers just had an auction for my book. I'm invited to the White House to read my book. My book . . . My book . . ." You know what I'm talking about.
I'd like to have my goals and my standards and write books that speak to me and to like-minded souls. I'd like to resonate with my people and be so strong in myself that I don't fret about what other writers do or how they succeed.
I'd like to give up the whole competition thing. The measuring my self-worth in terms of what society says it should be. Selling one million books or 14,000 houses or earning a PhD or two. I'd like my soul to be separate from that deadly grind. I'd like to live securely in my own skin and my own being––and soar.
I'd like the bliss of freedom. Does that strike you as something you'd like, too?
Imagine a world of cooperation and appreciation. And kindness. Even love.
That's what I write about.
All the best,
Sandy Nathan, Award-winning Author
Sandy Nathan
Winner of seventeen national awards
Sandy's books are: (Click link to the left for more information. All links below go to Kindle sale pages.)
The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy
Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money
Tecolote: The Little Horse That Could
Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
I am going to discuss John's concept of market segment as it relates to Jungian type in a later article. The power of knowing one's market segment can be made more powerful by knowing its psychological underpinnings. I'm also going to write about on-line addiction. Are you being responsible to your fans or feeding an addiction when you're on Twitter three hours a day?
