In this episode, Mike and AJ discuss the numbers of women in publishing today, and the answer might surprise you! They’ll also share their experiences in publishing with respect to their gender, with AJ offering a mindset shift she’d like to see in more women who publish. Mike also gives an update on some cool marketing coming for their next book, The Money Habit.
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Big Freakin’ Change, by Cara Poppitt
Get Good with Money, by Tiffany Aliche
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
Episode 99: “Behind the Curtain - Being a Woman in Publishing”
Mike Michalowicz: Welcome back to the Don't Write That Book podcast where you can learn how to write your bestseller and own your authorship. Follow along with us as we give you an insider's view of the book industry. Now here are your hosts. Myself, Mike Michalowicz and AJ Harper. So I am a day away from going to Long Beach Island.
So we're actually, I'm going on Saturday.
AJ Harper: You're going to the Dairy King.
Mike Michalowicz: I am going to go to Dairy King. I have one more gig. I have to fly out right after this to Florida, do a keynote, come back, pack, and we're going right down to the beach. I haven't taken a vacation yet this summer and summer's coming to a close now.
It, I, I have goosebumps. I'm so looking forward to.
AJ Harper: How long are you gonna be there?
Mike Michalowicz: Only two weeks.
AJ Harper: That sounds great.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I cannot wait. The new TV show, I can say, say this four-minute moneymaker launches while I'm down there.
AJ Harper: What's the date?
Mike Michalowicz: September 2nd. So this will be well after the show launch. It's on the Visio network. Um, so it's funny, I call last night. And they say, Hey, we'd like to promote it. Now this is the production house. And they said, we'd like to promote your new TV show. I'm like, yeah, we'd like to too. But there's a thing called an Exclusive, and Forbes acquired the exclusive, which means only Forbes can break the news and no one else can break the news until Forbes breaks the news.
I can't even tell my own community. So I'm like, yeah, there's something fun coming. Forbes is breaking it on August 26th, so five days from now, Forbes is gonna announce it, and then we're off to the races. But, um, it's such a last minute marketing. So now that they, the production house are calling like the talk shows, the day, the morning talk shows, like Drew Barrymore has a show.
1
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And, um,
AJ Harper: She's my Gen X hero.
Mike Michalowicz: I love her.
AJ Harper: Love her.
Mike Michalowicz: Kelly Clarkson. Yeah. I saw her in E.T. Drew Barrymore, and I was like, my gosh. She, what a great actress. Then, um, when I was a little kid, I was like, that's a good actress.
AJ Harper: That's what you were thinking? What an actress.
Mike Michalowicz: What an actress.
AJ Harper: That kid, what an actress.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, we were the same age, and it's like, wow, you actually, because I, I thought ET was real. And like, you know, I was just so into it.
AJ Harper: That was a devastating movie and just saying.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, he makes it home, doesn't he?
AJ Harper: He does, but can you remem do you remember how awful it was when he was Mike Michalowicz: sick,
AJ Harper: dying and he was all gray and,
Mike Michalowicz: oh, it was horrible. And the, and the, the evil. Law enforcement just couldn’t
AJ Harper: This is a film that has shaped our perception of society.
Mike Michalowicz: It totally has. And had me eating Reese's Pieces. Well, I'll give you, it was Reese's, right? That was a game changer for that business. So there is a podcast, I think it's called Acquired or something, but they talk about M&Ms. And Reese's got the deal for that ET movie to be the candy in that movie. And it gave them a massive leg up on M&M's.
AJ Harper: Reese's are also superior.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, true.
AJ Harper: I just have to say.
Mike Michalowicz: true
AJ Harper: Personal opinion. So you're gonna the beach,
Mike Michalowicz: gonna the beach. Um, can't wait for it. Football season's kicking off. It's, it's this
AJ Harper: Oh, it's just a happy time for you.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, totally is. I, we have a dinner down there with, uh, a friend and I told him, I said, uh, can we move back dinner two hours because there's a football game I wanna watch? Because I, otherwise I wouldn't be present for the dinner. And you, you're returning to Madeline Island again, this the last time this year?
AJ Harper: Maybe a couple more times. Um, yeah. Going on Friday, driving Mike Michalowicz: nice.
AJ Harper: Throwing the dog in the car.
Mike Michalowicz: That's the way to do it.
AJ Harper: Well, right now they're finishing our house.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh. They're, they're still working on. And you got the, you got the water cleared up, the filter for the house.
AJ Harper: Yep.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep. Um, do you have all your paintings high? Hang up? Hung up. . Okay.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Yeah. Okay
Mike Michalowicz: Is it fully decorated now? Is there any other decorative work?
AJ Harper: I mean, I feel like there's things I'll do next year that are interesting or that my wife might wanna do.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: Yeah. But I mean, it's, I think we did a good job of getting it up and ready to go. Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Well, you haven't seen it since we finished, but, Well, they still have some work to do. Okay. And then hopefully, uh, they'll be done, but they're on island time. I tell you the story about my Carpenter?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Something like he was working the, the dock or something. What? So
AJ Harper: my carpenter, I don't think he's gonna listen to this, but whatever. I don't think he even knows I have a, I don't think he knows anything about me. Um, has still not finished. It was getting really contentious actually, because I could not, I mean, they're just on island time. Yeah. So they send an email and then they might check their email again about 10, 14 days later, so I can't get ahold of him.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Meanwhile, I'm in the car with Laura and Sade, my staff, and my wonderful staff, and we are pulling onto the ferry. And he's standing there.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right. That's right.
AJ Harper: Taking the tickets. Not, he's not the ticket guy, but sometimes the captains do it and he's the captain for that ferry ride. And I was like, Hey, what do you, what? What is life? This is the island. It's like your carpenter is also the captain of the ferry. And that that's the only way you can get. So we had our whole discussion there. Well, after he took my ticket through the window of my car on the ferry.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh. Frustrating. So was the resolution.
AJ Harper: I'm really hoping that when we get back, everything will be done. But you know what, these are not problems that matter in the vast scheme of the world,
Mike Michalowicz: Do really many problems matter in the vast scheme of the world, one of a hundred. It's not
AJ Harper: affecting somebody's, you know, health and wellbeing. . It's all good.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, right. Whatever. Today we're gonna talk about. Uh, being a woman in publishing, um, I'm, I've been looking forward to this.
And, uh, we actually had to do a second take on this, uh, recording because we started to go into a dialogue about challenges we've seen other authors face in regards to racism. Um, and, and other elements, but we thought, Hmm, without their permission, we don't wanna share that. So we deleted, we started again.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm joined studio with AJ Harper. She is my co-writer, a, a partner, an extraordinary best friend. Um, and co-host of the show. She's also the author of Write a Must Read,
AJ Harper: Which is now out on paper back by the time this airs.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, congratulations.
AJ Harper: Thank you. That's next week.
Mike Michalowicz: It's recommended by our shared publisher, which is page two. They effectively mandate or require that every new author comes on board, they give 'em the book.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: But this is the, the standard. Um, so, and, and one thing I admire about. You is, uh, just availability. Like we had a call last night, um, and you're like, Hey, can we start early? I'm like, yeah, maybe. No, I don't know.
I'm like, ah, yes, I can start 10 minutes early. And you're like, okay. And then we were off the races doing a proofread for, for two hours.
AJ Harper: Well, let's, well, let's be clear what that was. What we do is we separately review pass pages, which are the typeset pages of the book. So it's already been through copy edit and there's also a simultaneous proofread happening at the publisher side.
Mike and I like to print it out, but you didn't this time, so comment. So, but I usually print it out and then I go over it by hand and I flat put flags on all the pages. It's actually my favorite thing. Is my favorite, favorite thing to do. That why? I like the tactile. Yeah, me too. Um, aspect of it. I like having my little office supplies, but I also like leaving.
I go to usually go to a cafe or some, I like having it with me. I had it on the plane coming home from my last editing retreat. I knocked out like three chapters doing that. I, I don't know, I just like having it in my hands and then you need to print it out because you're going to catch things that you wouldn't normally catch.
But Mike and I have a fun thing we do. We've done this so much is then we meet. And we compare. So I, we compare, we compare notes. And then, uh, last few years we started a competition to see who found the most errors.
Mike Michalowicz: Who found the most errors. Yeah. So what just waved up or held up when AJ started giggling is our scoreboard.
AJ Harper: And this is from this last one. One Mike keeps score.
Mike Michalowicz: So AJ got 10, 20, 25. Wow. 31. Edits. Yeah, I got 11. I mean, you crushed me by 20 points. I crushed. Yeah, I crushed it. But a chicken stain fell on my side. So I marked that as a bonus from,
AJ Harper: As a bonus for you.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. But you also got a comment of the Echo Queen because almost all your point, not a lot of your points, A lot of 'em, but, and I, unintentional repetition, and I, I just did a read of the book. And I was seeing these echoes and I'm like, I'll just remember, I'll get to it. And then when I—
AJ Harper: You won't.
Mike Michalowicz: And I forgot it. So, um. Yeah, so, but we had three ties and that's like this part I get most excited about. That's a tie is when we both find the exact same error but then the best thing happens. So we gotta share this.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So there is this one error and I'm like all excited 'cause. Because how it works is AJ, you'll say, okay, I'm on page one 50. I'm like, oh. And we say, we're currently on one 30. I'm like, oh, I got one on 1 37. Oh, you're up, Mike. What's the error? And I'm like, the la the word mortgage. This is so good. The word mortgage is two Latin words and it's uh, and we had it in the book.
Wrong it. It should be Morse. Morse means death. And the last part, uh. Like say it was Gage in Latin means contract, so it means death contract or death pledge, pledge, death pledge. You're death pledge. But in there we had M-O-R-G-U-E and I said, that's not it. Mor-go,
AJ Harper: I can't.
Mike Michalowicz: I go, mo go. And all of a sudden AJ starts laughing so hard. I'm like, what? What? She goes, that's not, oh, I'm swearing again. She goes, that's not the word, Mike. That's not the word. More goo. I'm, I'm like, it's more go like it's more morgue. I could not see morgue. I could not see morgue.
AJ Harper: It's still still so funny. Oh, more goo.
Mike Michalowicz: And I'm like, no, no. It's more go like I put more emphasis into it as
AJ Harper: It's just what happens when you start reading it and you don't see words the same anymore.
Mike Michalowicz: But if you asked me to spell morgue, I'd be M-O-R-G-U-E. Yeah. But when I was looking, I was like, that's Morgo. And I still, and I still think it's Morgo.
AJ Harper: Well, it is forever now. You took it a little sloppy. It was nine o'clock. It was 9:00 PM.
Mike Michalowicz: No, no, no. That's when I was reading it, like to myself doing the edits. It's like, oh, why is there Margo? Margo in here?
AJ Harper: Oh, okay. So there's no good excuse.
Mike Michalowicz: It was a full commitment to Margo, so. AJ won this year. AJ Harper: I did win. I feel like you should send me a picture of that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can have it. I was actually thinking about framing it and mailing it to you, but like that's a little bit over the top.
AJ Harper: It's not over the top.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, okay. Maybe I'll do that if I won.
AJ Harper: Yeah, I was thinking about
Mike Michalowicz: And then you could hang it in your uh, Madeleine Island home. That's good.
AJ Harper: It has the chicken stain on it.
Mike Michalowicz: Chicken stain. Um, a couple of chicken stains on your side, but it was outside the red line, so I'm like, I'm not gonna give you credit for that.
AJ Harper: What I think is really interesting is that I don't actually know how you score. You're over there like, well that's a po Well that's a point. Well, that's this point. Well, that's a time. What are you talking about? But I trust you.
Mike Michalowicz: I know I'm changing the rules constantly. I was changing the rules constantly. It's fine. Whatever. Whatever we catch works. Alright, let's get into the topic for today.
AJ Harper: Women in publishing. Yeah. Um, don't turn it off dudes.
Mike Michalowicz: No, no. We, we started talking about this on our last episode, um, particularly as your, your experience as a publisher and you shared some stories.
AJ Harper: Well, I didn't share that much, but it, what came up was you didn't know why I go on by aj.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right.
AJ Harper: Which is because in back in the day when I started, I could get more jobs. My name is Angenette Harper. I sound like a romance novelist, you know, and it's fine. I love my name. It's a great name. I actually do, I think I even might've said on the podcast that I regret it, or maybe it was just a recent conversation.
I do now regret. That I just went by AJ because that's just how, that's just ingrained now. Not change. There's no changing it.
Mike Michalowicz: Did anyone prior to you declaring yourself as AJ call you AJ?
AJ Harper: One person I, when I was at the Young Playwright Summer conference, I was a teenager and our dorm RA. Who I thought was the coolest person alive.
Yeah, it was Becks Loca. And she was there for the summer on an internship. But her job, she worked at Saturday night live.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh.
AJ Harper: And she worked for Phil Hartman. Oh. And I just thought. She was the coolest person alive. Yeah. And we used to go into her dorm 'cause she was the RA and she would tell stories and she would sit on the counter and she always had like this, um, like Diet Coke.
And she would just pontificate and tell us stories about, oh my God. I just, oh my God. I thought, I just thought she was just a queen. Yeah, she called me AJ.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh.
AJ Harper: And I think, I don't know why I should ask her, but I, um. Now we're still friends, but well Facebook friends. And, um, that just seemed, I don't know, it just came to me remembering that she calls me aj, but she's the only person that ever did until I decided to build an entire career around that name.
But it was easier because people had no idea. I remember when people would meet me and they thought I, they had assumed I was a man, so they were surprised.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm-hmm. It what's your middle initial?
AJ Harper: I have two.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh my gosh. How did I not know this? Or maybe I did. AJ Harper: I don't know, man,
Mike Michalowicz: What are they?
AJ Harper: I bet I don't know your middle initial. Oh, we, we should keep this. What is, let's keep it a secret.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, let's keep it a secret. .
AJ Harper: I like that. Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: That’s funny. We'll never know each other's middles names.
AJ Harper: Um, you know I'm Catholic and I have, a lot of us have. .
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. I bet you one of 'em was an RI have a sensor's an R. Nope.
Oh, okay. Um. So you, you change your name mm-hmm. To be AJ and did you see an immediate uptick in work? Mm-hmm. And so people were placing judgment simply on seeing your name, where, I don't know
AJ Harper: what the reason was, but I know that I got more jobs.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep.
AJ Harper: All I did was change the name.
Mike Michalowicz: But where was your name?
Where would people see your name to make a determination if they're gonna hire you or not? AJ Harper: Um, it used to be Elance.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's how we met.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Which is Upwork now. And, and you, you could see your name once you get into the bidding process. I, I didn't have like a company name. You know, I just didn't know what I was doing, so I just used my name.
Mike Michalowicz: I may, I wonder if I subconsciously placed a judgment on that or not, but here's what I think, but this, I could be reflecting and, and biasing my opinion now in the past, but my preference would be to write with a female writer.
AJ Harper: Really?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Why?
Mike Michalowicz: Because like I got the male side down.
AJ Harper: Were you really thinking that at the time?
Mike Michalowicz: No. That's what I'm questioning. I don't know.
AJ Harper: I don’t think you were, because you weren't writing for that. You were writing for these like frat boy college dudes. .
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah I guess you're right. That first book— AJ Harper: What you asked for was an irreverent tone.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And
AJ Harper: you wanted help with blogs?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that, well, that was the test. 'cause I, I wanna Yeah. You were AJ Harper: testing.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: but what I sent you was very male. What I sent you was a sample I had written for Rich Jerk.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It was so good.
AJ Harper: And the only reason I can say that out loud is I wasn't hired by rich jerk. Mike Michalowicz: It was so good,
AJ Harper: but it was very you, you probably wouldn't know. A woman wrote it. Mike Michalowicz: No, no.
AJ Harper: If you have certain biases with the way like it was written to for like, this is a man who is a rich jerk.
Mike Michalowicz: Correct.
AJ Harper: And I wrote like that.
Mike Michalowicz: It was so well written. So just to give a little more context, there was a, I guess he, he or that entity was a blogger and so they made this persona of this super wealthy, super jerky dude. And so. They even had video of, I, I presume it was an actor, not the real,
AJ Harper: oh, I don't know.
Mike Michalowicz: But this actor would wear, like, you know, you see him around the pool with all the big rings, the big gold chain. Oh, the open. And he'd be like, you're an idiot for watching this because you could, you know, and that was the whole thing. But if you follow my rules, you'll be rich. And it was really interesting. And, um. The writing was really good. It was like, this is good stuff. And then when, when you sent a sample, I was like, really? This is the person. This is so good. So I thought the writing was phenomenal.
AJ Harper: So you wouldn't normally think that somebody with the name Anjenette Mike Michalowicz: No.
AJ Harper: Would be… see? So it was just, you know, it made sense to me. At the time. I was desperate for work. I just did whatever,
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. And you mostly wrote for men?
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, do you have to take on a different. I guess for every person you write, do you have to envision you're that?
AJ Harper: I wonder if that's why. I'm just thinking that now. Is that why so many men hired me? Because it said AJ?
Mike Michalowicz: Well, that, isn't that why you changed it?
AJ Harper: Yeah, but I mean later, or maybe it was just that I was getting all these male clients and they were referring me. And they had mostly new dudes. I don't know, actually. I don't know. I don't know why that all… It's, I have written for many women, but it's been mostly men.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And I would say the people who still ask me to ghost write are men.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: And they know I'm a woman now.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: But they, it's men.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. So let's talk about, uh, some of the stats for women in,
AJ Harper: Well the, yeah. 'cause the thing is, I. Women, there's women's experiences in publishing, and then there's the statistics about representation. So the truth is that women now dominate in publishing.
Mike Michalowicz: Gimme the stats behind that.
AJ Harper: Uh, so there's, uh, over 50% of books published are written by women. Mike Michalowicz: Wow.
AJ Harper: Almost 80% of people in publishing are women, and women are, read more books than men and also read more often.
Mike Michalowicz: So women produce more books and consume more books. AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: And I can attest to that experientially with Page Two. Uh, with Penguin, while we had Noah as our editor, most of the time was a male editor. It was, but we had Brooke for a period.
AJ Harper: we had three male editors and two females.
Mike Michalowicz: Two females. Um. But the maj, but besides the editors, everyone else I dealt with were was always female.
AJ Harper: Except for the people in executive positions, and that's where the numbers change for.
Mike Michalowicz: Except for, yeah. Which now, uh, um, oh, I can't remember her La her name, not Nicole, but Adrian, I think he's retiring out. And, um, oh, she's a Greek last name. Is that is whatever is taking over a female Nikki at
AJ Harper: Portfolio.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Nikki sap.
AJ Harper: Oh, Nick is? Interesting.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: I mean, that's right.
Mike Michalowicz: It's totally right.
AJ Harper: She should be taking it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. But women, while they're the majority of authors and publishers, it doesn't mean that they're sharing an equal experience.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of biases in publishing. I wanted to talk about it, and this is not really a rant, it's more like, let's be aware.
Mike MIchalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Even with those statistics, there's a lot of biases, and let's be real, those numbers are o overall, but it's not gonna be the same. For example, when we were just at your event. Authors For authors,
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: In Nashville… Maybe 50 authors. Maybe 10 women? Mostly prescriptive nonfiction
Mike Michalowicz: For the women? Yeah.
AJ Harper: No, everyone there.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, every, oh, everyone. Yeah. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Well, except there was some, a couple, um,
Mike Michalowicz: There was a poet, there was, uh,
AJ Harper: The poet, and then there's, um, children's. Children's. But for the most part, Mike Michalowicz: yeah,
AJ Harper: like 99% prescriptive nonfiction.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I mean, I know the stats pretty well, so it isn't that extreme, but yes, the most part. So we had faith-based authors, uh, we had fiction authors, we had, uh, religion. Yeah. But prescriptive
AJ Harper: Nonfiction is still the, that stuff is the faith-based still falls under prescriptive nonfiction. Oh yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: I guess you're right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. AJ Harper: I'm just speaking of nonfiction versus fiction. But if you— Mike Michalowicz: And one and one cookbook author.
AJ Harper: Yeah. And if you put. If you put, uh, if there was a room full of fiction authors, it would've been a different demo breakdown. It would've been mostly women.
Mike Michalowicz: So interesting.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And I wanna get more of those fiction-based authors in there. Um, interesting. Okay. So one of the qualifiers to get in that room is you gotta sell a million books or more, and. I don't, I don't know if that means you have written a great book as much as you've marketed it greatly.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And one thing you shared in the notes here is like, I think you're right, is that women, and this is a generalization, don't market the same way that men do with their books.
AJ Harper: No. And I'm saying this from someone who's been a publisher, worked with authors, and now teach authors, and I've been on a mission the last year to just really ramp up trying to get them. To push harder and advocate for themselves, but also push harder in marketing. What happens? This is what I see. This is my perspective, is one woman, one teacher, one publishing professional, and my experience. But keep in mind, I've worked with, you know, I don't even know how many authors.
There's a tendency, the women I notice are, they're kind of waiting to see not everyone, but most of them are waiting for to what the publisher's gonna tell them what to do next. Whereas I'll see the men are more apt to ask.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: And also request things. So one of my missions is. You know, in my workshop and, and in my, in my membership community, just educate, educate, you know, because I want all authors, regardless of gender, to move forward with a publisher with enough information so they can advocate for themselves and ask for what they want.
It doesn't, it's not an adversarial relationship, but waiting doesn't help. I have one author, and I think I've said this on this podcast before, Big Five Deal. She's a big deal. Her editor told her to wait until a month out for pre-orders. What kind of nonsense is that? I've got another one who got a significant deal, which is an official term that means about, I think it's like two 50 or 300 to 500,000 advance. Okay? That's, that's what that means.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It's big.
AJ Harper: Gave her zero. Zero instruction about marketing, why you would spend up to $500,000 on an author and then not give ‘em, right? But then that author is doing what they think, which is, well, my agent's gonna tell me and my public, like, why would you invest and you don't tell me and then it's too late and you've missed all this stuff.
So I've been on this mission of like, okay, this is how it works. This is how it works behind the scenes. This is what's happening. Here's what you need to do. No one's telling them these things and the men are more likely. To go find the answer or, or be aggressive in their pursuit, you know? Um, and then I wanna say a couple wins.
Like, so I started doing that in my membership community. You know, earlier this year I did a three-part series, one on pre-orders, one on launch, one on post-launch reader engagement. I did a three-part series on marketing, so about three to four hours on each, just deep dives, and I did this big pre-order class.
I also was coaching some people behind the scenes. Two of my authors went completely, just followed everything I said, plus more. One was Cara Poppitt. She made. The GL, two spots on the Globe and Mail, bestseller Forbes Toronto Star. Now, she'd done so much that her Indigo is sponsoring a main stage book tour for her, paying for it.
She was follow, you know, she did all the things she was supposed to do. And then last week I had, uh, a really big, exciting thing, which is my student, Carrie, Dr. Carrie Burn Knight. New York Times.
Mike Michalowicz: Wow.
AJ Harper: She hit the New York Times. She was in that pre-order class and I was like, please do these things, but she didn't know what. If she wouldn't have, she wouldn't have known to do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: So what I'm seeing with men is that they're more likely to just take the bull by the horns, um, than women are. Not always okay. Not all women, but
Mike Michalowicz: I, I know Cara, she worked the relationship that I have with her effectively, and when I say worked, I'm not saying manipulated or,
AJ Harper: oh no. She's such a sweet, genuine soul.
Mike Michalowicz: She's sweet. Yeah. I, uh. She, she actually keynote one of our events. AJ Harper: I know!
Mike Michalowicz: and what I think a lot of people do is they, they take an opportunity like that and they do their presentation, and then you never hear from 'em again. What she did is she sustained that relationship and then leveraged it very effectively to her advan-- to, to get the wins she wanted, but also in a caring way that supported me.
So one thing is she wanted some endorsements and so she's like, Hey, um. Mike, who do you know? But she sent a text, a video text, not like, it wasn't like, Hey, would you endorse my book? She said, said, said, Hey, I love speaking at your event. She goes, I know you connect with some people. Here's what I'm looking to do.
If you wanna support me, great. Or if you can, I would love it. And if you can't, um, I totally get that too. And I was like, oh yeah, I know some people. So I introduced her to JJ Virgin, uh, I reached out to Mel Robbins to endorse her. Uh, Mel's just like, you know, she's a whole new tier, which was funny at the event we were at together when, uh. James, or I think it was Rory Vaden talking about James Clear's ranking. Like, you know, like James, you've been
taken down by Mel, by her name is Mel Robbins. Yeah. She, yeah. And you get See James's face go. It's kind of funny.
AJ Harper: I will say Mel Robbins did endorse Kerry Burnight's book. That was New York Times bestseller last week. My student's Amazing.
Mike Michalowicz: Yes. It's amazing. Just saying she, Cara, what she was doing was, was following up. But then there was all, what I loved about her was she was acknowledging the support. So I hooked her up. I think she got an endorsement from JJ Virgin, who's also at the event, and some other folks I knew.
I think Cara sends a thank you to saying, Hey, I just really appreciate what you're doing to support me and stuff. And it just encourages you as a supporter when you're getting acknowledged to further wanna support someone.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: You know, so you can be persistent without being a jerky jerk about it.
AJ Harper: Yeah, well, but I think what I think women are conditioned to not ask for things and to also wait to wait for your turn and to wait for instructions.
Mike Michalowicz: Tell me, this sounds so, uh, misogynistic. But remember that saying like, I'm waiting for the knight in shining armor,
AJ Harper: if that's not it.
Mike Michalowicz: But it feels like, but
AJ Harper: That's not it.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, I remember my wife, um, her, this is crazy. It was someone in her family, like my, my wife. It's very difficult, impoverished upbringing stuff. And one of her aunts or something said to her, well, at least you're pretty because your knight in shining armor will come.
AJ Harper: Yeah. That's not what I'm talking about.
Mike Michalowicz: But it's, it's, it's, there's a programming is simply what I'm pointing out.
AJ Harper: Yeah. But that's, but that's not it. The waiting for instructions is a, is a thing about women. Um, feeling they need to be completely prepared and
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: It's not a, it's not a wait, it is not a waiting for a man thing. That's not what that is.
Mike Michalowicz: Right.
AJ Harper: It's just, well, let me follow the rules and follow the instructions and do what I'm supposed to do. There's a right way to do this. Someone's gonna tell me the right way to do it, and I'm gonna follow the right way to do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Okay.
AJ Harper: It has nothing to do with knights and men and any of that.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, I just simply said there's a, there's a programming going on. It seems like. Why, why do women. F more often think I gotta wait for the perfect instructions, and the guy says, I'll make up my own instructions. What? What do you think that's from?
AJ Harper: Because our society is conditioned men. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. In that way. Yeah. But it's nothing to do with. Uh, being pretty or waiting for a guy to save you. It's more like a guy will go. I mean, there's studies on all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That men will go apply for a job if they, it's in Cara's book actually. Cara Poppitt's book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Men will apply for a job if they have, you know, 50% of the qualifications. Mm hmm. Women wait till they have almost all the qualifications.
It's just how we roll. (Yeah.) And what the problem is in the publishing industry is the publishing industry is not transparent. With the exception of Page Two, I will say, um, and it, I don't think they're nefarious. I just think they're really bad at communicating with authors. And so if the publishing industry is not transparent and they're not doing their job with educating authors.
Then waiting for instructions is pointless. Yeah, you're just gonna be standing out there in the cold by yourself, waiting for instructions that are never coming. Then you add in the fact that the way the model is so ineffective, where an editor is your main point of contact, and that editor is now supposed to be not an, not only an editor, but a project manager.
And a liaison. Yeah. Between you on every topic.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Cover, title, sales team connection. You don't meet the sales team. No. Marketing, all of it. They're an editor. They're not trained to do all that other stuff. And they actually don't even know the answer sometimes.
Mike Michalowicz: No, that's true.
AJ Harper: So waiting for those people to tell you what to do is a fruitless endeavor.
Mike Michalowicz: I wonder if it build this negative subconscious feedback loop is if a author, female author waits for instruction, doesn't get it, therefore doesn't take an action that can move the book more, then the book doesn't sell as well as a result.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And then the editor has quote proof
AJ Harper: mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: That the female authors aren't as effective, so why should I support them? It becomes this negative feedback loop I'm wondering.
AJ Harper: I don't know if they are saying, I'm not gonna support women authors. I, because, you know, women do dominate. I, I just think,
Mike Michalowicz: yeah,
AJ Harper: I just think that women could be advocating. I don't think they're advocating for themselves and aggressively marketing in the ways that they need to.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah Okay.
AJ Harper: That's, that's what I see. I also see there are other biases. Like for example, if a woman writes a book, I've seen this, I don't even know how many times. If a woman writes a book, the first cover comps that come back from the publisher,
Mike Michalowicz: Pastels.
AJ Harper: Are traditional, um, female colors, which is dumb. There are no tradition, you know, whatever. So stereotypes. And the assumption is they're only writing for women.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: So here's your pink cover.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: It just happened two weeks ago to a really. Brilliant person with many degrees. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Fascinating.
AJ Harper: You know, and it just wouldn't happen to the dude.
Mike Michalowicz: You mentioned in the notes here, uh, that women need to be reminded not to use certain words.
AJ Harper: Oh,
Mike Michalowicz: Hedging. What's that all about?
AJ Harper: Well, I find, and again, just one human's, uh, experience, I find that the women I work with or all, all the women authors I've ever worked with, they are less assertive in their language. So they do a lot of what we call weasel words. Um, pretty much, kind of, almost, um, a lot of hedging. So instead of just making an absolute statement, hedging. Kind of, um, uh,
Mike Michalowicz: Sounds like a Michalowicz book.
AJ Harper: A lot kind of, it's like, it's a lot of phrasing that isn't definitive. So not, instead of just saying the thing. Leading up to the thing or hedging around the thing or softening the thing.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm-hmm.
AJ Harper: And so a lot of what I do is trying to get them to just own that. You don't need to say, well, possibly it's this. No. You know, it's that. It's, yeah. So just say it. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um, which is funny. And so in, when we write my books, I use the work. A kind of k
AJ Harper: Well kind is different. That's like a stylistic choice.
Mike Michalowicz: It's a stylistic, exactly. But it's not a hedge. No, it's usually used for humor. Like actually left when I was doing the reading. Um, we have an acronym, MUI, which is the money. Oh my gosh, I can't remember what it stood for. MUI, but I said it's pronounced mui. I said kind of like a wine, uh, a whiny cow, you know, kind of moo-y.
AJ Harper: That's just humor. It's just humor. That's just funny. Yeah. Um, which your copy editor tried to edit it out.
Mike Michalowicz: I can't. Isn't that crazy?
AJ Harper: Well, with all respect, I know they were just doing their job. Yeah, but it was, I was a little bit infuriated.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it's frustrating. And so this has happened to female authors. Do they get edited to be using weasel words or…?
AJ Harper: Hopefully, hopefully they have a good editor who realizes that's what's happening.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Um. You know, but I, I see it all the time. It's just, I want stronger prose. Mike Michalowicz: So if I'm a female author, what are ways to navigate this?
AJ Harper: It's almost like, it's almost, sorry, I'm interrupt. Sorry to interrupt. Go. It's almost like, well, if you don't mind that I tell you this, it's almost like, mm, it's that same sense of per needing permission, and I'm seeing this from people who are extremely accomplished in their fields.
And I, and it's just this, this feeling, this “if I may” kind of attitude. Yeah, you, yeah. It's your book. State the thing and this and, and advocate for yourself and, and ask questions and get the thing you need and market the heck out of this thing. And it just seems like there's just a lot more fear.
Mike Michalowicz: I wanna give our female authors an opportunity or a leg up here to address these things. So some questions I have around this. If I'm a female author, should I pursue a male editor? Is that a good idea?
AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. No.
AJ Harper: No, just, no. This is about standing in your, on your own two feet in your conviction.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. When it comes to marketing, do you have some STR strategies or techniques to actually stand on your own two feet when it comes to these elements?
AJ Harper: Well, number one, you have to educate yourself about what's actually happening. When you sign a deal, this is what's, this is the problem with the lack of transparency, and you're waiting for an email from your editor. All kinds of stuff's happening behind the scenes. They have not told you, they're not going to tell you. And it's not because they're a secret society, it's because they're not equipped to do it and they don't wanna educate authors. And I get it. I understand. But you have to take it upon yourself to understand what is going on, what are the milestones, what are they doing?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: How, what, when have I missed my chance for X? Like for example, how are you gonna get a bigger print run? Do you know the answer?
Mike Michalowicz: How, how do you?
AJ Harper: Do you know when they make, gonna make the decision? About the print run? Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Do
AJ Harper: you know what your cutoff is for that?
Mike Michalowicz: Mm-hmm.
AJ Harper: Ask, find out because you have to get bigger sales in there, or you know, more pre-orders in time so that they'll increase the print run.
Mike Michalowicz: Well print run story. So, and you were talking about pre-orders? A, we were at that event together at Don's Place. Mm-hmm. Thank you for presenting there. What you shared was phenomenal. I thought the whole event was world class.
AJ Harper: It was a great event.
Mike Michalowicz: It was world class and a very well known. Author was asked to speak 'cause we had this whiteboard up there. And anyone could write down topic. Um, so this person goes up and speaks and says, you should not get pre-orders until eight weeks before,
AJ Harper: Which I vehemently disagree with. And another big author disagreed with later. Mike Michalowicz: Oh. Who? I don't remember who the author.
AJ Harper: Yep. Another author got up afterward and said, I don't agree with that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And I contested that. I don't know if you were there when I said it, this author who said, you should only wait till eight weeks before, shared something, which I thought was profound. They said. You gotta write a book that takes out all the top books in your space. It's gotta be that good.
AJ Harper: Yeah. That I agree with.
Mike Michalowicz: And that one, that one I disagree with. I said, you gotta write a book that includes all of your best.
AJ Harper: No, I mean, I agree with what he, I agree with what the idea 'cause I… Because I always say, if we're not writing, set out, setting out to write a classic, what are we doing?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's true.
AJ Harper: It's the same kind of vibe.
Mike Michalowicz: That's true, that's true.
AJ Harper: But I vehemently, I think that person has forgotten what it's like to be a new author and have to get attention from a publisher.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm.
AJ Harper: So that advice might've been good for that room full of people who have sold an ass ton of books. But for a person who's a new author, that is not good advice.
Mike Michalowicz: That's a great counterpoint. I think the point that that author was making was, there's only so much attention you can get from an audience before it starts to wane. (Yeah.) And what they were suggesting was you can keep people's attention maybe for eight weeks and keep that momentum going.
The other thing they pointed out was to, um, to promote the book forever, which it was important to hear from someone that's had that much success that. The launch is simply one period, but you can do it over and you can launch again. And again, yeah, and again,
AJ Harper: But if you wait till eight weeks, you might, with a lot of publishers, you have missed the window When the sales team sees that there's something cool and dynamic happening here, you've also missed opportunities to maybe go to some of the internal industry events, which they would not have recommended you for if they don't think your title has, is got buzz and potential and it's got legs. And so if you're just sitting on your hands until eight weeks now, you've missed a ton. That's, that's only a little bit of what you missed.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, anything else you wanna share on this topic? I wanna give some updates to about the money habit? We, we promised to keep people posted.
AJ Harper: No, I just, I just think that. I wanna see women, we're already do, listen, we're dominating in the industry. It should act like it. That's basically what I,
Mike Michalowicz: oh, I love it. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I mean, the statistics speak to women dominating in the publishing industry, so you know, don't, this is your, this is your industry, so go for it to claim it.
Do your thing.
Mike Michalowicz: I met with Yanik Silver. When I wrote the toilet paper entrepreneur and he asked a question, he said, uh, my book was struggling to launch. I was so frustrated, and he goes, uh, will your book change lives? I said, yes. He goes, do you feel your book is the best of your efforts? I said, absolutely, everything you know, he asked me all these questions, qualifying how. And significant, I thought the book was, and still feel, he goes, then you have a g**damn responsibility to market it accordingly. And that shook me. I was like, that's it. Like you'd never give up on this. And I hope our authors listening in, men and women.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Treat it that way. This is your life's work and it changes the lives of other people. And, uh, don't expect to be supported. Step up, do it yourself. Be relentless.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: Update on the money habit. Um, so thank God you won the bulk buying battle royale. We had.
AJ Harper: Okay. This, I wanna hear,
Mike Michalowicz: uh, I wanna say we have, um, over $50,000 of orders now for the book through bulk already. Um, so they haven't been processed, but we've collect—
AJ Harper: How many books is that?
Mike Michalowicz: Um, 25 5, um, 10, 10,000 books.
AJ Harper: Yes. Go.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, yeah. I, I take it back. It's not, that can't be 10,000 bucks. That's not, that's not right. That's not right. '
AJ Harper: Because that would be $5 a book. A book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. I'm Math is off. It's, it's, it's averaging $20 a book. So, uh, why am I sucking at math right now? It's not fun. I don't know. AJ Harper: I suck at math every day.
Mike Michalowicz: 10,000 would be 200,000, 20.
AJ Harper: Meanwhile, the listeners have already 2,500. The answer.
Mike Michalowicz: 25. Yeah, exactly. So that's 2,500 to three, 3000 books already. Um. Through eight orders. So 3000 books through eight orders. That means the average order is, uh, oh gosh. I'm horrible at this, but,
AJ Harper: all right. Well, is what, what's the goal for bulk?
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, the goal for bulk is to sell as many as stinking possible, but if we can get over 10,000 orders, 10,000 books ordered. So we're one quarter of the way there. My math is right on that, at least. Um, and the book doesn't launch for another four or five months.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: So we have something there. Um. We have a new mark. We always have new marketing ideas. So one of the new marketing ideas is to do a launch, not party, but a launch event where we have 12 consecutive hours. This came from Jamie Kern Lima, who is at the event, um, oh gosh, I can't remember the name of her book out.
Think or Outlive or something like that.
AJ Harper: She has two books.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, does she? Her most recent and she went in from the group for 10 minutes to, I dunno if you saw that. I did. Okay. Um, and she shared her thing and she did a 13 hour campaign on the launch day and sold 30,000 books that way. Well, the idea that came about was, oh, I'm connected with all these authors, have author after author come in and I interview them over a 12 hour period. And now invite them to bring in their list, do it all in one day.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, there's,
AJ Harper: and I thought it was interesting that she talked about that it was a, a zero, like she wasn't make profiting off of the event at all, that she just wanted any of the money from the event to go toward, um, more ads.
Like it paid for the ads
Mike Michalowicz: get to keep the momentum going. Yeah. Um. Wildly successful launch. Yeah, and, and well done. So we, we took that, we're taking that idea and now we're compiling that. Another idea that came about, which I think is really novel, this came from Michael Bungay Stanier, and this is the importance for all of us to circulate among other authors just to.
Uh, I have ideas is, um, to include other authors in my book. So I interviewed Tiffany Aliche, who wrote the book, get Good With Money. Uh, I just interviewed Jack Rains. He wrote a book called, or was writing a book called Young Money Ramit Satie, Chris Albo I interviewed today. I have a call with Garrett Gunderson.
I'm interviewing him.
AJ Harper: Oh, my pal.
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, Jean Chatzky iss on the list. So I hope I can pull that one off. Interview her, but I'm interviewing all these personal finance experts and inserting them into the audiobook, the actual,
AJ Harper: So good.
Mike Michalowicz: So brilliant. That was Michael Bungay Stanier's idea. Um, so I just invite anyone listening in is.
Surround yourself with other authors. Build a community yourself. That's what I did with this authors group that you attended. And now that we have 50 strong and, and did I tell you, Jack Canfield texted me, say, can I get in the groove? I'm like, I don't know, Jack,
AJ Harper: Stop it. No.
Mike Michalowicz: No Lie. Chicken Soup for the Soul. Do you would not believe the people texting me. You know,
AJ Harper: That's like over a hundred million sold.
Mike Michalowicz: I don't know if he qualifies to be honest. [laughs] You, I, you won't believe the people who are reaching out to me saying, Hey, can I get in next year? I had one author who went off the rails on me saying, why wasn’t I invited?
And so forth. And, uh
AJ Harper: Oh, that's not a good look. Come on.
Mike Michalowicz: It was not a good look because they were invited and oh, they told me they couldn't come. And I said it was a guy. I said, dude, scroll up in the text to see what you said about the invite. And then there was this like ghosting for a period of time and it's like, um, my bad.
So it was kind of funny, but it's kind of funny. Um, build that community and. And, and it'll be unbelievable what comes out of it. I do want to give a little, couple pluggy things, uh, but don't, don't fast forward through this 'cause I think it's really relevant and important. One is a book you must read, which is AJ's book Write a Must-Read.
You must read that book period. Um, and also go to aj harper.com to check out the events you have going on to support authors. Some of your authors, AJ, are coming to the simplified imprint. Mm-hmm. We are so proud. Ryan Deis has signed, signed with us, uh, Brian Harriot, John Briggs. Um, we are in negotiations with a massive female author right now.
Um, Joey Coleman is on the brink of coming on board. Uh, by the time this comes out, he will have been on board with us. Uh, we have some folks, uh, internationally now have joined. We are doing a gathering on December 4th of the simplified authors, and this is what imprints don't do.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Is we are all coming together. And we are strategizing how to elevate each other. How do we get this tide going?
AJ Harper: Love it. where are you guys meeting?
Mike Michalowicz: in Austin.
AJ Harper: Nice.
Mike Michalowicz: Ryan Dice's place?
AJ Harper: I don't know Ryan.
Mike Michalowicz: You don't know Ryan Dice?
AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: Scalable is one of his books.
AJ Harper: Oh, you know what ?
Mike Michalowicz: he was at?
AJ Harper: Does it have like a, um, turquoise cover? Scalable?
Mike Michalowicz: No. Uh, I don't think it's turquoise. I think it's white and green text. AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: There's a few books named scalable. Ryan Deis is like the dude in the entrepreneurial space. Um, and the, the character of Ryan and Joey, they're all, what I call this salt of the earth type people. Really driven to, to—
AJ Harper: Oh, Get Scalable.
Mike Michalowicz: get scalable, okay. To have, to have impact. They're all committed to having impact, but they're all just like fun. People poking fun at each other. Just great people. Um, so I think that's really unique about our imprint. Like any other, uh, publisher you work with, one test is, Hey, I like to meet all the other authors with this imprint.
Yeah, that's not happening. See, see how they respond to that. I think that's a great qualifier. Uh, but here's the, the big, big, big, big news. Next episode. 100.
AJ Harper: Oh yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: The one hundo.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It snuck up
Mike Michalowicz: It did sneak up a hundred episodes. Uh, we have so many binges of this show. We do. I wish the hundredth episode was being recorded at a theater in front of a live audience.
AJ Harper: I know.
Mike Michalwowicz: And that your buddy
AJ Harper: next year. Let's just wait. Here's the thing is we keep waiting while we still only have a handful of people who would wanna do a live event. But you know what? That's not how we roll. Why are we waiting? We should just schedule it for next year.
Mike Michalowicz: That's a good idea. Just do it.
AJ Harper: just schedule it.
Mike Michalowicz: But you have to get Steve, your buddy.
AJ Harper: Okay. But I, that's our, I will, I'm, I haven't emailed him yet. Let's pick a date and just do it. We'll pick a date, but I, I'm gonna, he's not my buddy. I,
Mike Michalowicz: Well,
AJ Harper: but I can get, I, I'm gonna ask anyway,
Mike Michalowicz: should we get other authors too?
AJ Harper: I have an idea, but I'm not gonna share it right now.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Maybe I like the idea is pick the date. Start going. I got some folks that we can call upon to, if you're interested.
AJ Harper: Yes. I have an idea right now. I'm having it. Okay. But I'm not gonna say anything
Mike Michalowicz:. Let let it,
AJ Harper: I'm gonna let it percolate.
Mike Michalowicz: percolate. Yeah.
AJ Harper: But yeah, let's just do it next year.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. I'm in. And tell us if you're in too. You can email us at hello@dwtbpodcast.com Adayla's keeping our eye on those and just say F Yeah, I'm in. I'm coming. Um, where are you doing it? And then just be there.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Uh, go to our website. We have free materials there. You can check out, uh, all the stuff that AJ's shared with our audience, all for free at dwbpodcast.com.
Hey, if you'd rate and review the show, I'm not gonna ask for like, oh, can you give me five stars I deserve? No. Whatever you think this show deserves, please give us a rating. Um, I think honesty trumps everything else and, uh, a rating of any type as long as it's honest and fair supports in spreading the word on this show.
So, uh, we hope we earned. Uh, your time investment on that. I do have one other surprise. Next week we're gonna talk about the Gerta letters. AJ doesn't even know that's coming, um, but it's her best writing of all time. And we're gonna open up the episode, the hundredth episode with her best piece ever.
Thanks for joining us today. See you next week. Don't forget this, don't write that book. Oh, please don't write the greatest book you can.