In this episode, AJ and Mike discuss where they often see authors go wrong with their marketing plan (hint: it’s when they get started versus when they should get started), go into detail about why a longer runway is almost always better, and hint at some of the new ideas Mike is cooking up for their next book. This is a topic on which everyone, from newbies to seasoned pros, can use a little refresher.
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Painted Baby, by Matt Shoup
I Will Teach You to be Rich, Ramit Sethi
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
Episode 69: Building the Marketing Plan
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 A. J. Harper.
It reminds me of my mother. So I visit my mother maybe two to three times a week, I try to.
Or more even frequently. She lives home alone. My father's passed away. And, uh, she has,
she calls it the gift of gab. She has a vomit diarrhea mouth. Just talks and talks and talks. But
she'll talk so much that she starts swallowing air as she's talking and starts burping. And she
just can't stop herself.
I've been out to dinner with her and she was like, miss manners growing up, but she'll talk
while she's eating and like she'll start choking. It's like, why don't you just stop talking?
AJ Harper: So she's always been that way. It's not just because she's alone and you're—
Mike Michalowicz: Always been that way, but it's amplified. So now, you know, she doesn't
see her friends occasionally, but many of them passed away. My mom's 90. So my sister
visits, I visit, um, and friends and stuff visit, but when she has your ear, she just goes, she just
goes, uh, she, she's has anxiety. And I think that's part of the expression of it, but it kind of
correlates what we were talking about.
There's certain things we do and triggers. All right. Our listeners are like, what the hell's
going on here? You're listening to Don't Write That Book. And, uh, I'm joined in studio with
AJ Harper. She's the co-host of the show and my co-writer, copartner in all the books I've
written. We've just finished our newest book, formally.
Um, and AJ, what I want to point out about you is your devotion to readership. We were
talking prior to this, not readership, to authorship, you're talking about the community that
you work with and them having a voice and all these different things going on with social
media platforms and stuff and how you're responding to it, you take it to heart, not, I think,
just because of your own considerations, but you care so much about the author community.
AJ Harper: I do. Thank you.
Mike Michalowicz: You're welcome.
AJ Harper: Flip side for you, too. I think both of us, we have that in common. You're so
dedicated to entrepreneurs, your underdogs. I think just underdogs in general is who you're
dedicated to.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you, I do.
AJ Harper: I think people who, you love a good story about somebody who had some sort
of, uh, brought themselves up in some way or shifted their thinking or made some sort of
change and you'll help anybody who wants to make some sort of change.
Mike Michalowicz: I love the aha. Today we're going to talk about building. The marketing
plan. It's funny. I have an author visiting my house right now. Uh, Matt Schaup, you've met.
AJ Harper: Matt's in town?
Mike Michalowicz: Yep. He wrote a book called Painted Baby. He's working on a new
book. And, uh, we both got up about five this morning to go exercise.
So we're exercising. He's like, yeah, my new book, it's going to be Pouring to People. I'm
like, I don't know about that title, man. He's like, I love it. I'm like, no, I'm like, dude, you got
to listen to, Don't Write That Book and you got to listen to like the title discussions. I'm like,
what do people get out of this?
What do they want? And, um, he's talking more and more and he's very faith-focused. I said,
okay, then why don't you write a book, like how Jesus would run a business. Like speak to
your community from what you feel is compelling because that's what his argument was. But
he's talking about the book. He's like, the more you care for people and he said, Jesus gave
himself, gave his blood, is all about contribution and that's how you should build your
business.
I'm like, then, then put that. Put that, but he's like, I love this. And I said, you know what? I
love the concept of eradicate entrepreneurial poverty or the mission. But I'm like, that became
my mission. I don't have a book called eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. And I don't even
know if the end consumer would understand what that is, but it means something to me.
I'm like, you're Pouring to People? Maybe it means something to you, but I don't know if it's
going to resonate with the end customer. So.
AJ Harper: I mean, I think there are books on that topic though. (Right.) You know, radical
generosity.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Um, People first.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So
Mike Michalowicz: I also want them to use the PickFu system because you can do a quick
survey of an anonymous audience to see what resonates with them.
You can pick communities. You can pick the Christian community. You could pick LGBTQ.
You can pick any different community that you want to survey.
AJ Harper: Uh huh.
Mike Michalowicz: And then. He, uh, I have a cold plunge with the house. He's like, ah, I
want to do that because I have one in my house. I'm like, dude, mine's super cold.
He's like, ah, no problem. He gets in there and goes, Jesus, it's cold. I'm like, that's
blasphemy. You can't say that. Jesus. Matt. Matt.
AJ Harper: I had one of the nicest discussions with him ever when we were in, when I met
him. Remember we were in Maryland.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
AJ Harper: And we were at the writing retreat, but you and I and Matt had to be at a
separate location. Do you remember this?
Mike Michalowicz: I don't remember that.
AJ Harper: Almost everybody else was in or in these two big mansions on the water.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And then three of us were in this little house. Airbnb.
Mike Michalowicz: I do remember that now.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: I do remember that.
AJ Harper: So I remember staying up late talking to Matt one night.
Mike Michalowicz: He's the nicest guy. I love him.
AJ Harper: He's... You know I feel like he listens.
Mike Michalowicz: He does.
AJ Harper: And so you can have a real dialogue even if you come from different
perspectives.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And there's a lot of respect and love there.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: He loves you.
AJ Harper: High, high, high respect for Matt.
Mike Michalowicz: He's got a busy morning, but I'm like, oh, I'm gonna see AJ. Oh, I want
to go see her. Yeah, we're at the office.
AJ Harper: Come on over. We'll be here till 10.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I may. Exactly.
AJ Harper: okay. So let's talk about, just tell him I said no on porn to people.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. And he even said that because people think it's porn into
people. I'm like, already this is bad. It's going south. All right.
AJ Harper: Building the marketing plan for the new book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um, you know, we had a call with, I had a call with Ronnie, who
is the liaison at. Um, page two for the simplified imprint, uh, and oh my gosh, I can't
remember her Josie. Ah, I can't remember that person's name, Andrea from our team, um, this
call you weren't able to be on, but you attended most of the calls.
And so we went through the basic, uh, considerations that, uh, that we have in place. And
then some of the. ones that they introduced and some of the ones that, uh, are more
outlandish. I'll tell you this, the coolest thing I said, I like to do crazy things. And I said,
there's one idea I had for, um, I can't remember.
I think it was Get Different. I can't remember which book it was. It's to get a hot air balloon
to go over Las Vegas and I had it lined up and it was going to be a balloon that goes up and it
was going to say people of the earth, we've come to save you and it was going to go to our
domain. I think it was probably first.
But, um, the what's the air control regulation FCC or something, whatever it is, that's radio,
but whatever the—
AJ Harper: Air traffic control.
Mike Michalowicz: yeah, shut it down. So I called a balloon company. He said, Yep, we'll
do it. Um, it wasn't that expensive. He was gonna put like a big banner hanging off the
bottom of his balloon.
I wanted to get like a space alien looking kind of balloon thing. And when I told penguin
about this, Because this was back in the Penguin days. There's a silence and no. When I told
page two about this, like, that's so good. We got to do something like that. Um, so I really
liked their,
AJ Harper: You're really enjoying having positive feedback on your wackadoo stuff.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Just to alleviate the concept. Um, even if we're not going to do it,
just to get it out. It feels good. And for it to be received that way.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So maybe we should start off with the timing and the schedule.
AJ Harper: I think the reason that I wanted to talk about that first is because I'm just seeing
this.
It's no matter how many times I tell authors that they need to start early, they're just not
starting early enough.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: So I thought it would be a good thing for us to look. You can, you can start as
late as you want, but you have to understand the trade off and what you're missing out on. If
you choose to do it that way.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right.
AJ Harper: So it's not that you can't market your book in just the last three months leading
up to it, but you're gonna miss out on a ton of stuff. So I thought it'd be good to set context
for timing.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I think when it comes to timing the misperception that I used to
have was, oh, you have to have something to market.
Meaning a completed book. And then you go through almost an advertising, but now what I
came to realize pretty early on is marketing is the building of relationships. It's putting the
foundational stuff in place. Maybe the Uber fans that you can assemble all these folks, getting
them ready for that pinnacle moment.
I generally start actively marketing now. We have so many books in, the process is continual.
I'm always marketing. It doesn't stop.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Because you have a body of work.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So there's, there's the backlist and we're always marketing that
and it naturally transitions into a launch campaign for the new book.
But we, the day the book is, uh, agreed to, there's a contract in place, the publisher is
generally the day the marketing starts.
AJ Harper: Okay, so that's interesting. I just had a conversation with Page Two with Trina,
uh, this week.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: About my second book.
Mike Michalowicz: Nice.
AJ Harper: And it was interesting because, you know, I timing is, of course, a factor.
But when I told her the idea, which I'm not going to share right now, only because I'm not
trying to be secretive, but I'll lose all my juice and interest if I tell too many people what it's
about. ‘Cause then I think, well, I already talked about it.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I, I can talk about it once I have my feet under my ground on the ground
with it, but I told her she was, she had a really emotional response to it, which every time I've
shared it has happened.
Mike Michalowicz: this is with her or just with anybody.
AJ Harper: Um, with anybody I've told it to.
Mike Michalowicz: Wow, wow.
AJ Harper: Yeah, like I told Laura Stone about it and she started to cry.
Mike Michalowicz: Really?
AJ Harper: Yeah. Ha! It made me cry, thinking of it. I know, I know it's the thing.
Mike Michalowicz: And you're not a crier.
AJ Harper: I don't know. I've been crying, I think I've been crying a lot lately, but.
Mike Michalowicz: Good.
AJ Harper: I really think it's just perimenopause. I don't think it's, I don't think suddenly I'm
a crier. I think it's mostly like some weird hormonal stuff. Yeah. And anyway, this was
surprising to me because we're talking about timing. I know you will, you signed the contract
and you're starting to market. And that's true.
But I spoke with her and she said, you know what, um, Actually, with a book like this, I want
18, a full 18 months, she said, from the time we get the manuscript. I was like, what?
Mike Michalowicz: Full 18 months?
AJ Harper: For the sales team to do what they do.
Mike Michalowicz: For the sales team? Okay, and why so long? That seems extraordinary.
AJ Harper: She just, she said, I think it could be huge, and so we really want all the time we
can get.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh my gosh.
AJ Harper: So then that changed everything for me because I had planned to finish a first
draft by the end of July so then I could not write when I'm teaching in the Fall. And I said,
well, when do I need to get the book done then, first draft to publish in ‘26? And she said,
May. And I said, uh, that's not happening.
I mean, that's just not even happening. Yeah. So now I'm going to have a ‘27 book and not a
‘26 book.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. How do you feel about that?
AJ Harper: I feel fine because, um, first of all, I'm happy that she was excited about it, and
I'm, I'm up for the challenge of, okay, I didn't let 18 months, you know, I didn't do that with
the last book, mostly because, I mean, I had a long runway, but not that, but mostly because I
had all these delays due to all of the pandemic related personal stuff that happened.
And I finally was just like, I got to get this, you know, yeah. But we can't keep delaying it. So
I didn't do everything I could have done marketing wise, and I made peace with that. But now
I'm thinking, okay, well, this makes sense. I have, just like you're expanding your readership
with the new book, I'm doing, I'll be doing the same thing.
Not just prescriptive nonfiction, but my readership will be much more expansive. And so
maybe I need it at a time. I think that there's a component when you're thinking timing of also
bringing your readership up with people who are interested in your topic, who are interested
in your perspective on the problem, so that people are poised and ready to buy.
I don't think it's just leveraging the people you already have. I think sometimes you have to
build up readership in the communities where you want to be. selling that book. And if I have
two years, and I'll have two years. Mm hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. Two years. But it's active. It's an active two years. You
gotta. So it's interesting.
You're you don't want to talk about the topic until you've written the book.
AJ Harper: No, I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna write about the topic. You know, do get myself
out there on the topic, but I'm not going to talk right now in this precise moment, just because
I'm in the, I'm about to start development And so that's when I'm just reading stuff,
interviewing talking to people, tinkering, got my index cards out, playing around, I'm seeing
what's there.
Mike Michalowicz: That's great.
AJ Harper: And so when I'm in that phase, I don't, I don't want to spend too much time
talking about what it is because I don't fully know yet exactly how I'm going to approach it.
And that's just this really exciting, um, creative time where I need to be my own little bubble
about it.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: Once I get enough, half-way with it, then I'll talk about it all the time.
Mike Michalowicz: I think books have changed in how they're marketed just because of how
they're consumed. So this out analogy Maybe you can work with me here because I don't
think this is perfect, but I remember in high school I went to my first concert. It was AC DC
and the next morning, I came to school and you looked around for who else was there by the t
shirts they were wearing.
AJ Harper: Yeah, right,
Mike Michalowicz: Right.
AJ Harper: Uh huh.
Mike Michalowicz: So I had it on And so did like six other kids like, Oh, you were there,
man, like a high fiving and stuff. And then you're also cool to everyone else who didn't go
because you were the one who went. I think a book has kind of become that in that it's the
souvenir.
It's not the concert itself. It's the, it's the souvenir that people can kind of wave around, say, I
own this. It's, it's the t shirt where I think before it used to be, it used to be the whole
performance. Um, because now your book, my book, I think I have the responsibility. Even
before the book is available to start talking about the topic, get it out there.
It's going to be on all these different platforms like YouTube and podcast conversations. You
can assemble the whole book, I think, from what you're going to consume on social media as
an example. Same thing with Profit First is another example. You don't have to read Profit
First to understand Profit First.
You can get out there. There's enough people reviewing it, discussing and talking about it.
AJ Harper: I see what you mean.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So I don't know if a book provides a unique solution. That's it
provides a unique solution and maybe it's these, the starting point of it, but it gets. Dispersed
in so many other platforms and so many other ways that the book now just is representative
of that t shirt to me. And I don't mean that negatively. I mean that very positively.
AJ Harper: Maybe. I don't know. I, I, I hate books around to refer back all the time. To
refer. I have to stop saying refer back.
Mike Michalowicz: As opposed to what?
AJ Harper: It's just refer.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh. Yeah,
AJ Harper: I have a tendency to say refer back or reflect back
Mike Michalowicz: To refer. So just gotta say refer.
AJ Harper: Just reflect
Mike Michalowicz: reflect and refer to
AJ Harper: stop doing it. But I like, I got all my post-its, Mike. I got all my you know for
me. It's I'm actively Picking up a book turning to the page. I wanted to remember. Checking
things, but maybe it's generational.
Mike Michalowicz: I don't really know if a book means Something as part of your identity
It's a position, right? It's part of your identity. Remember, we did the research that a guy, John
Pierce, um, when we were writing All In, he talked about psychological ownership.
I remember interviewing this guy. Um, and he said on the phone, he, he's talking about a dog.
He goes, when, he goes, I guess he had a dog. And he goes, you don't own a dog. It's a, it's a
separate being. You don't own it. But once it's in your vicinity, Once you have some control
or authority over it, you care for it, you feed your pooch and stuff.
It starts becoming, you sense an ownership. And he goes, what ownership really is, is you see
this being or this thing as an extension of who you are.
AJ Harper: Yeah, it, yeah. So then, but what, how does that affect you in the marketing
plan? If that's how people are viewing books?
Mike Michalowicz: I think there's two types of kind of people that—
AJ Harper: Isn'tit just like your ACDC t-shirt, though?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I'm saying, yeah, it's part of the ACDC t shirt. The second I had
that t shirt on, I was part of the band, so to speak. Yeah. I was part of that experience. It was,
ACDC's part of me and me part of them. Once I have a possession of a physical book. So I
have that one of the shelves at my home office and that's like my prize possession of books.
That's my closest, um, to my identity. And therefore I'm such a promoter of those books. I
asked regularly, you know, what's your favorite books? I'm sure you do too. And I can just
rattle them off and my mind kind of goes to that shelf. So what I'm getting to is I think there's
two types of people that we need to market to, to empower marketing.
One is the people who Who grasped the concept, but never necessarily even purchased the
book, or maybe they do, but they just talked more about the concept. And then there's these
folks who just own the book. They live the experience of the book. The book is part of them
that they carried around almost as a trophy or a totem of what they've accomplished.
So one is, I think there's actually two marketing paths, and that's what we're doing with the
new book is. And, oh, I'm going to do bulk sales too. So we're talking about that. Yay. Um,
how to get people that, that consume the book, live the book, and then they want to buy
copies for their friends. And the, they spread the word and like, you got to have this book.
This is the best book. It's a top three, right? Then other people who just grasp the concept and
just talk about the concept just to say, Oh, made for money is about. setting up multiple
accounts at your bank and just talk about the concept. So it's like profit first. Yeah. Okay. So
that's kind of where I'm coming from on a conceptual.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. The first stage when it comes to the marketing plan is we are
focusing on building the list of end consumers now and end consumers.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Meaning not the bulk buyers, not the influencers,
AJ Harper: Individual trade sales.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Individual sales. And the way to do that is only through
education. I mean, that's what I find, start talking about it now.
AJ Harper: So, since you're expanding your readership into personal finance, so people who
are not necessarily and probably not entrepreneurs, where are you, where are you educating
folks?
Mike Michalowicz: Just through our own platform to get for the SEO, for the chat GPT ist
ness. It's so interesting, so Chat GPT is such a source now it maybe will supplant Google.
We've had calls come in, not in this community yet, because we're not established enough of
I'll give one example specifically, uh, a fortune 400 company wanted. It still wants, and we're
in discussions with them, a brand representative, someone that's a small business owner, a
small business representative, two small business owners.
And they went on chat GPT and they said, Oh, you were one of the top three guys.
AJ Harper: So they searched who, who would be a good...?
Mike Michalowicz: Well, who do you recommend? And they put in their parameters and
said, Oh, you got to call Mike McConnell.
AJ Harper: Interesting.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, this is, I don't know how dependent you are on chat GPT zero.
Okay. There is more and more people going to AI and soon you can't avoid it. Like it's being
integrated into if you use Siri, if you use Amazon Alexa or any of those devices, AI is going
into all that stuff. So it's unavoidable now. The usage of it. Um, I use it, I would say every
day I'm on chat. GPT for something, making inquiries.
It's it's better than S. E. O. There's no advertisements. There's no, uh, You know, link sorting,
you got to go through, it just gives you the answers and you can then have a dialogue with it
to refine it and over time it learns what your preference or your, your, it learns about you and
it gets better and better results.
So the more information we have out there, the more we teach, uh, and link back to made for
money. When someone goes on chat GPT or the equivalents, and there's now countless ones,
they'll find the book. So we're, we're starting to produce content. We haven't released it yet.
We're producing it.
AJ Harper: So you're putting out passive education, but what about interactive education?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, we've done some of that too. Um, so interact actually, I just had a
call yesterday, uh, 250 people, um, and, and the outlet it's, what we're finding, at least for me
is because I have a history with entrepreneurs, it's employees of entrepreneurial companies.
So we tell them, Hey, I can, I can present to you on, um, how your employees can be more
fiscally sound, you know, improve their personal finances, uh, and then we'll do this.
And so I did a call yesterday, 250 people and just went through the process. What's so nice
about it is the. And actually one piece of feedback was the concern with debt is so significant.
So I went through that. Like this is one of the first things I got to learn. I can't even worry
about managing my money till I'm out of debt, which is the same thing with profit first
business owner say, I can't implement Profit First. I can't be profitable until I'm out of debt,
which is not true.
AJ Harper: Right.
Mike Michalowicz: I wonder in the, as I was hearing this, I was like, I got to tell AJ
sometime now. We may have to just mention that in the book sooner. Yeah. Yeah, maybe not
give them a solution right away. But just tell them they think that what I heard from this
group was until I'm out of debt I'm not gonna do this system.
AJ Harper: You know, like were you able to get them to think otherwise?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah.
AJ Harper: What what was
Mike Michalowicz: Step one account we had it was so interesting. Don't want
AJ Harper: Dreams account.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep And the only thing we did, too, is we didn't call it Wants or
Dreams. I said, what's your biggest want or your biggest dream? And so I said, put it in the
chat, because this is a virtual presentation, put it in the chat.
AJ Harper: Oh. Home ownership?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Well, the dream was vacation homes, which was actually
surprising. One woman's like, I want to have this home in Italy. It was very specific. I'm like,
that's amazing.
And I don't know how many people had homes. These were, um, relatively new employees
with this company. Probably been working there for a few years, entry level position. So I
don't just based on our stage of life. I don't know how many of them owned homes. It was
just interesting that that was the big dream.
It was big. Um, and the wants was new car. Uh, which I think it could be a dream. You can
qualify it. Uh, some folks were talking about dinner's out and stuff. And what I told them
was, whatever it is, let's accept that one account for that one thing.
AJ Harper: Oh, interesting. So, are you feeling like maybe you want to adjust the book a
little bit?
A little bit. So that instead of saying, 1 percent goes into wants and 1 percent goes into
dreams. Yeah. Pick a dream.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Pick a dream, pick a dream
AJ Harper: And put the 1 percent in that. And then that can tie to the chapter where you talk
about Canyon Ranch.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. One account for one thing.
That's the, that's the simple way to say it.
AJ Harper: So then it's not going to be six accounts. It's going to be seven.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, we ultimately, right. Right. Well, there's that bonus account we're
talking about, right?
AJ Harper: Yeah, but we, we cut that because you only made it one sentence about it. I
Mike Michalowicz: know, I know, I know. So yeah, one account. Okay. So that.
AJ Harper: That has to change.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, one account for one thing.
AJ Harper: Oh, and then you know what you could do.
Mike Michalowicz: What's that?
AJ Harper: Instead of, you know, you have, you always have “email me” in all your books.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, tell me what your account is.
AJ Harper: Yes, it's way better than the message you have in there now.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's so much better.
AJ Harper: Because then people get to tell you about the thing that they're excited about.
Mike Michalowicz: Yes. Yes!
AJ Harper: It's so much better.
Mike Michalowicz: So much better. So it's funny, this is great, and I'm excited now, we
gotta go right. We gotta.
AJ Harper: we gotta, we gotta fix that.
Mike Michalowicz: We gotta go right, yeah. So What's interesting is this is part of the
marketing.
AJ Harper: That's so good. I'm sorry. I'm fixated. I love it. I'm already thinking about what
to do. Sorry. Okay. I gotta get back on the marketing. Go.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So, it was interesting that part of the marketing is speaking to the
community. And there's, well, there's still going to be a learning. Um, but what's interesting
Was, uh, I'm just, I'm kind of recapping here that folks thought they had to fight with debt,
uh, first, figure that out.
But once I got that across, I said, you just got to see, you got to have that early win and see
progress. And then we're going to start taking care of the debt and they got it. And because
it's, and
AJ Harper: because it's such a low amount, it doesn't feel like you're really delaying paying
down debt.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right. That's right. Because it's not, it's right. It's inconsequential,
but highly consequential. Then I, uh, I got all those. 250 people to sign up saying, Hey, I got
more content coming from you. So what you do in our marketing is we're putting them on a
drip campaign and saying, we're going to. Keep in touch with you to keep cheering you along
and there is a book coming out So they know there's a book coming at some future point,
AJ Harper: but now you're building a very specific list on that topic through education.
Mike Michalowicz: through education
AJ Harper: and you were leveraging your existing entrepreneurial communities to access the
expanded readership, which is their employees.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. One idea, Andrew and I were throwing back and forth. Now is we
got to get out to more of these organizations. There's a major one that I was just talking to
also yesterday. Um, who's interested? They work with mechanics, auto mechanics, and they
have a huge organization and they're interested in introducing it to all these auto mechanics.
So it's the shops and the people that work there. So Andrew and I were talking about what
can we set up as a educational drip to these folks. So that's, that's the end user. The second
thing is the bulk buys. So we had a great debate about that. You won the debate. Well, it's so
interesting when I was talking with, uh, the Simplified imprint at Page Two, Ronnie and the
team there, they said, well, we will do this, bulk buys. We want to do it where you still get
the book scan. So the book scans are important.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Book Scan is run by Nielsen and tracks about 85 percent of print sales.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I think they’re, why do you think it's so important to them?
AJ Harper: For Page Two?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Why do they even care? They just want to sell books. I thought,
but I have now a theory. I didn't ask.
AJ Harper: You mean right now in the pre order phase?
Mike Michalowicz: Or any phase.
AJ Harper: But it sounds like it's probably they're, they want it, the bulk, these bulk buys
that are part of pre order, they want it documented on BookScan because it goes toward
getting you on a list.
Mike Michalowicz: I think the list, I also think, my thought is the sales team sees the data
and they, they are motivated.
AJ Harper: Yeah, if the sales, and it's not just the internal sales team, so the sales team for
Page Two is Macmillan, which is a Big Five, and also Raincoast in Canada. But here's the
thing, it's not just Macmillan that sees it. That was, that data is available to everyone. So
Barnes and Noble sees it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Other big chains see it. “What's going on? What's this book?”
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: “Let me get that book. Let me put that on the shelves” to the point where Barnes
and Noble was only shelving certain books that had a certain level of preorder versus
automatically putting books on shelves.
And so it's really critical. It's not just for your sales team. It's not just for the list. I was just, I
was just spouting off about this in my little Friday newsletter because I have an alum from
my workshop who has a Big Five deal, and she was in writing sprint and said my editor told
me that I shouldn't worry about pre orders until a month out.
I mean, I almost want to punch those computers. Why would you say that? One month? Can
you imagine? So now you've had no activity and your sales team sees nothing. Nothing's
happening.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Why would you ever say that to an author? Just start worrying about pre orders
one month out.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: What kind of bad information is that?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I wonder if that editor is. Cause they're working with many books.
That's when they look at and say one month prior to the launch, how many pre orders do we
have so they can do their stocking, uh, requests.
AJ Harper: They all, they already did their print run though. Like that is the worst piece of,
that's horrible.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm just wondering why they would say that.
AJ Harper: That big five. That start, I'm not going to say the, not say the letter it starts with
because there's only five of them.
Mike Michalowicz: That's so funny.
AJ Harper: Um, but yeah, I was incensed. Can you imagine? So here we are talking about
18 months out versus one month.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Can you imagine?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's.
AJ Harper: So you got, you got it. So I'm assuming they want BookScan, you to run your
bulk buys for all those reasons.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I think that makes sense. So, so, okay. So individual users. Then
the bulk buys the next thing we're targeting for a bulk bias. It's the same groups. So the
mechanic place We're trying to get the individual Users, if we get this relationship going, but
they have this association over them.
AJ Harper: They're interested in just distributing it to their employees.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. To the owners of these, these businesses.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: So the, the owners of these businesses are members of their
organization.
AJ Harper: What about big corporations like American Express or
Mike Michalowicz: Those are totally opportunities. Yeah. I don't, that is so far into me,
meaning I still have experience.
The experience isn't the word. I don't have any established relationships in those
communities. That's going to be the harder stretch,
AJ Harper: you know, like, Oh, like Credit Karma. Um, organizations like that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Rocket, uh,
AJ Harper: the one that deletes your subscription?
Mike Michalowicz: yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So much. There's so many.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And I wonder, yeah. Then they could do, Oh, so sponsorships is
another thing which we haven't pursued yet,
AJ Harper: but those can be bulk buys is what I'm saying.
Mike Michalowicz: Totally. Yeah, totally. And sometimes there's an exchange saying, Hey,
I'm going to put you in the book. Um, you just gotta, every time you have a new user sign up,
we have a relationship with relay and we're testing it right now with profit first. As an
example, it's a marketing technique you go to, and you can do this. If you're listening to show
right now, go to profit first book. com. That's the dedicated book page. And on there I'll say
get a free copy of profit first and relay. Funds that they pay for the entire thing.
What they're trying to do is they want people to get accounts at relay, when customers over
so they're trying this out now, and I think they did with 500 books
AJ Harper: Oh, it's an online banking just to clarify.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it's online banking.
AJ Harper: Yeah, and so it's online banking that aligns with the Profit First methodology
Mike Michalowicz: So another part is marketing. This is I've been calling upon. Two banks
specifically real as relay is not one of them that do personal banking. They are smaller banks
Uh, so it's not the big names if they're interested in having a relationship. One bank said, we
might be able to make a bank called the Money Bank.
AJ Harper: Made for Money.
Mike Michalowicz: The Made for Money Bank.
AJ Harper: Which is not really the title. No,
Mike Michalowicz: yeah. The Money Bank. The Made for Money Bank. So they said we
might even be able to skin it that way. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. Okay. So we're in
many consecutive, lots and lots of meetings.
AJ Harper: So that's a, you know, you got to have advanced time.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that they said it's six to eight months to pull that
off.
I'm like, Oh, we got to do it now. Um, so what are the, so, so let's go over the things end users
through education, through education, bulk buyers. through the Dave Association. And what's
their win? They want to educate their customer base. Sometimes they want to be the first to
reveal, like, Oh, we're, we're, we're kind of insider.
They want to give their members something special and remarkable to retain those members.
So it's a retention move on their behalf and also recruitment mechanism. I remember Gary
Keller, the, the Gary Keller of Keller Williams called me personally. Did I ever tell you this
story?
AJ Harper: I think we wrote about it, actually.
Mike Michalowicz: So I, so we've never talked about it on the podcast though. It's a true
story. I was here in this office. I, my office was right across the hallway and I'm sitting here
and Kelsey, Kelsey was my personal assistant time. She goes, Hey, uh, there's a Gary Keller
on the phone for you. Wants to talk with you. I'm like, okay, voicemail.
Right. Cause I'm busy like typing and do whatever I'm like, okay, I'll call him back. What's
about, uh, he's got a. Real estate company that they want. Okay. I said, sounds good to send a
voicemail right now. I'll call back She sends a voicemail as I look down. There's a book on
my desk. The one thing by Gary Keller Oh my god, it's funny.
Oh my oh my gosh, no way. So I scramble
AJ Harper: Keller Williams
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, he's like, hey, this is Gary Keller of Keller Williams. I Discovered
proper. I call him back. It's him and he goes. Yeah, because I like my agents to to use this
And I said, okay, how many agents? He goes, 28. I said, 28. That's a pretty good size
location. He goes, 20, 000.
So those relationships, um, but what he told me, he wanted Profit First to be part of the Keller
Williams kind of package. And that if he could get an exclusive that only Keller Williams is
authorized to teach and use Profit First.
AJ Harper: Mmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So no, it was interesting. I like what he's doing because he wants
to recruit the best real estate agents from other places.
So he wants to offer unique things. So that's his strategy. I like that. I respect it. Um, so we
discussed it and things came out of that in a great way, but it would never become an
exclusive. So that's an opportunity. That's the bulk. The next thing is influencers so. What
you need to do the day you sign that contract is start networking with other people in this
community and find the people who are, and you got to be one of them, are of abundance
mindset.
I believe if someone reads Ramit Sethi's work, Ramit Sethi's, it's Sethi, who wrote, uh,
AJ Harper: I will teach you to be rich.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I'll teach you to be rich. If they love his book, these are people
now passionate about that concept. They're going to read other complimentary books in that
space. So, and Ramit's one of those guys.
That guy's awesome. Um, and there's other people that may be scarcity mindset, like, oh, it's
my book or no one else. And those people, you know, you'll vet them out.
AJ Harper: So right now, you're building those additional relationships.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You have really strong relationships in the entrepreneurial space. Yeah. And
now you need to branch out. In personal finance.
Mike Michalowicz: Personal finance. Yeah, so, How do you do it? Interview them for your
books. Uh, anything that supports them. Tiffany Alici, who's probably my strongest contact.
And Ramit is probably there, too. Um, build relationships, but actively support them.
Also, support them without the expectation of return.
AJ Harper: Yes, please.
Mike Michalowicz: Because you believe in what they're doing.
AJ Harper: And go the extra mile with it. It's, you know, really think about how you could
creatively support them.
Mike Michalowicz: Correct. I could care less if I sell a book because of my relationship with
Ramit, I just believe in what he does. I believe in that dude. I've seen him in the city.
He lives in New York, at least part time. And so I see him with some frequency. I just love
the dude. I'll do anything to support him. I think he's doing great things for the world. He then
told me a story, I actually got emotional, of he had a political belief that, um, He felt
compelled to put out there and he went into a community that had a different political belief
and he said, I just went door to door, knock on the doors and say, here, I'm here to support
you.
I know you've beliefs and I have beliefs, but I just want you to know that you're supported no
matter what you choose and put himself at risk. in some capacity to do it. He's like, I'm gonna
do every single time. He's like, cause I, I mean, oh, you're a good dude standing up for what
you're true. Yeah.
AJ Harper: That you're, you, you know, who you are.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. You're, you're willing to step into who, to your beliefs and
accepting other people's, but it's just a good dude. Um, Tiffany's the same way. So surround
yourself with those people and by just by supporting them. So that's next one.
AJ Harper: Where are you with that now since we're talking about your book and the
marketing plan? How are you doing with that?
Mike Michalowicz: I would say I'm activating those and more actively seeking out new
relationships and extending them. But I have some core ones we mentioned two there's like
probably three more core in the personal finance space that I have strong relationships with.
Um, the look at what, you know, instead of reinventing the wheel every single time, look at
what you already have and leverage that.
One of the things I have is this author meetup I facilitate.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Right. Personal finance authors. I listen, I, this is my selfish interest. I
want to connect more of that community. So I'm trying to draw more of those people in this,
this we're just planning this upcoming one in August. It's going to be our biggest, best one
yet.
AJ Harper: You had 60 people last time.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. 50 to 60 and this year might be up to 80 and I think that that's the
most we can fit in the room. It's the same, it's Don's house. We do it in his barn.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: That's very. Um, come on, a party. Yeah. Yeah. It ain't a barn is what
I'm saying.
AJ Harper: I, I've seen pictures of it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It's unbelievable.
AJ Harper: You’re out there. That's interesting too. And I, I, I, can I just pause about this
influencer piece? (Yeah.) So I think authors get really stuck on this and they think that they
can't do it and they think, why would anybody, how can I approach this really big person?
Most people are so grateful to hear how a book is meaningful to you.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: ...or to see that you're willing to support them and it's not just supporting and
promoting their books, but this is the simplest thing you can do is to go to somebody's
website or primary social media where they're mostly hanging out to see what matters to
them. There may be a charity they really care about They may be launching something else
that's really important to them You might see that they need a connection in some way. And
see how you can be helpful and useful in that way.
It doesn't just have to be promoting their book. It could be something they really care about.
But it starts with that. It just starts with what they have going on. And how can you be helpful
in some way in a, in a genuine way? I understand how confronting it is. I mean, I'm, we just
talked about, I have the second book, and I was talking with my team yesterday.
I'm going to go after some very big influential authors and other people to talk to, one of
whom is like one of my favorite authors of all time that I've loved since I was a teenager.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And it's scary.
Mike Michalowicz: Are these, is that author a fiction author or?
AJ Harper: Yeah. It's scary, but you got to do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And you just have to find a way to get connect with people on a real genuine
level.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And, uh, but I'm challenging myself to do it, but I need that 18 months. You
know?
Mike Michalowicz: What's your tool? Take access. Can you share that person's name?
AJ Harper: Yeah. So one of them is going to be Louise Erdrich.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Louise Erdrich. What's your strategy to connect support work?
AJ Harper: I don't have one yet.
Mike Michalowicz: I would argue interviewing is.
AJ Harper: Interviewing is probably the way it's going to go.
I'm lucky because I have one degree separation where I could get in touch with her. So,
normally that's not the case. Uh, but I also want to interview Anne Lamont, who wrote Bird
by Bird.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
AJ Harper: And then some other, um, different types of artists that aren't authors.
Interviewing is the best way. I mean, that's how I think. Yeah, I really But...
Mike Michalowicz: That’s such a talent of yours, too.
AJ Harper: Thank you. I also think it, you, you can't go into that though with a general
interview idea. It has to be something that makes the person who you're interviewing, when
you approach them, I want to know about this thing and no one's asked them that before.
Mike Michalowicz: Yes.
AJ Harper: And it's sort of, they're fascinated by, they want to have the talk. They want to
talk about it.
Mike Michalowicz: You, you just extracted the gold for our listeners right now. I hope they
rewind that what line you just said.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: It's the uniqueness of the interview. It reminds me there was an
interview by a guy named Rick Biotti or Biotti.
He's a musician, an extraordinary musician. He interviews. The musicians of musicians, uh,
and he, on this YouTube channel, there's an interview with, uh, Sting. You got to look at this
interview because it kicks off, Sting is sitting there with his arms crossed and you can just see
Sting is anticipating the same questions.
Why? Same questions. Every breath you take, why'd you write that? Hey, what's it really
about?
AJ Harper: Why'd you leave The Police?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, all that stuff. You see him sitting there, like, it's almost like he's
resentful for being there. Almost shocked he's there. Rick starts going, in Every Breath you
Take, right, and you see him just roll his eyes, he goes, you hit a B minor chord when you
expect a C diminished.
And Sting looks at him, he's like, that's right. He goes, that's very peculiar, why would you do
that? And Sting's like, well, what I did. And within minutes, he opens up Sting. It becomes
the most transfixing.
AJ Harper: Because they're geeking out.
Mike Michalowicz: They're geeking out, man.
AJ Harper: So you've, that's the key to any, getting anyone to not only agree to the
interview, because then you, you ask the question, you know, if you need to try and get the
interview, you let people know what you're wondering about that's really specific.
But then during the interview, you got to geek out together.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: If you can do that. Leave all the regular questions behind.
Now you, now you've created a, first of all, you create a good piece of content if you're going
to use it. But secondly, you create a rapport.
Mike Michalowicz: Really ask things that, that dig into the human inside.
Um, I've, I do podcasts today. I know by the end of the day I'm going to have lost my voice.
We're doing three episodes of this. I got six interviews today, podcast interviews. Um,
Thursday is my interview day. And. Sadly, most interviews are like, Hey, Mike, welcome to
the show. For the people that don't know about you, could you tell us a little bit about
yourself?
Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, Profit First. Love it. What's the core concept of Profit
First? It's like so Bleh. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Fine. Promotion, I appreciate it. Happy to do
any of it. Happy to do any of it. One out of every like 50 podcasts and the guy last night did
it. I had one last night. It's like, oh, these are deep questions no one asks.
AJ Harper: Yeah
Mike Michalowicz: Um, I had it's research and prepared. I'm like this guy really is
interested.
AJ Harper: Oh my gosh. Yes, right.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah So he I got interviewed on Get Different which is not that
common and he starts going into the behavioral concepts of differentiation Because when you
differentiate you get noticed. But he goes, what's the risk of the internal perception of
yourself?
Like how far can you push yourself into different before you start becoming resistant to it
yourself?
AJ Harper: Oh my God. You must've been just like, I want to talk about this so badly.
Mike Michalowicz: I know.
AJ Harper: I was interviewed by Jenny Nash on the hashtag I'm writing podcast.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And she was so prepared and she started talking to me about how she thinks
Write a Must-Read actually can work for fiction authors. And I was like, how? I mean, I even
wrote a whole author's note at the beginning about how it wasn't.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I know.
AJ Harper: She's like, no, let me tell you. And she, she, I was fascinated talking to her
because she had thought about how to apply something I wrote and want to talk to me about
it. And I'll, I'll never forget that. That was, I didn't want that conversation to end.
Mike Michalowicz: That's cool. Yeah. So that's a great marketing technique is to interview.
It is one of the easiest ways, interviewing another marketing technique, uh, that was done to
me, if that's the right choice of words is. Just be human. Like, so it's this, this reported
building with influencers.
Just connect. So John Jantz called yesterday. He's like, dude, we should just be talking once
every three months or so if we don't talk. So he's like, I'm just going to put in our schedule.
So he calls up, he's like, Hey, how's the guitar going? I'm like, good. I'm like, how are you
doing? And Cara's good. And it's like, you're building furniture.
It's like, yeah. It's a half hour of this back and forth. It was just fun. He's like, all right, man.
I'm like, anything else? He's like, no, just wanted to catch up. No agenda. I'm like, this is
awesome. 23 months or sooner, but, and, and I learned he's going into fiction. He's like, Oh,
you're kidding. I'm like, how's that?
He's like, dude, it is hard. He goes, talk about up leveling is hard. Oh yeah. Um, next
marketing. Um, the thing I want to talk about was building the, the web assets, the digital
assets. Yeah. Secure your domain immediately. So a couple of domains to get, if you don't
have your own author name, Mike McHalowicz.com. By golly, get your author name. And
one of the tricks some people put is if Jane Smith is rate taken, you can put the Jane Smith or
Jane Smith author is another one or Jane Smith's books. So, but get your, your name because
it is still very SEO-able.
AJ Harper: And also stock your name. I have AJ. Well, I couldn't get AJ Harper at first, but
I have it now.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, stock. S T A L K.
AJ Harper: Like, I did not pay. I did not pay anybody's bounty. How do you stock? I just
keep checking.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay, so you look at when the expiration date is.
AJ Harper: Sometimes you can't see when it is.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: I just keep checking, just every month.
Mike Michalowicz: Check and then pick it up.
AJ Harper: Pick it up.
Mike Michalowicz: That's brilliant. Yeah, I don't pay those bounty fees either.
AJ Harper: I'm not gonna pay the bounty fee.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. Um, and, and don't be hesitant to get other domains. Dot
com is the old school.
AJ Harper: You think really? You think it's not as powerful as it is?
Mike Michalowicz: No, I don't think so. Dot We do dot life dot IO.
AJ Harper: So it used to be that that was not a good idea.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I'm finding for SEO for everything, it doesn't seem to matter
anymore. Doesn't, I shouldn't say it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem that much influence.
Consumers are like, so we have like the made for money life. And... You know, remember
back in the day, it was, you had to know that the address, the URL to find it. And now it's just
going to come up in a search. So it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't really matter.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, get a domain for your book. So when someone searches profit first,
this is still kind of the Google mentality, but chat GPT, I think is functioning similar. When
you go onto Google and you type in Profit First, I want to own quote, unquote own all of the
responses. I don't want it to go to anything else, but, but my stuff.
So the one way to secure the links is first of all, mike mccallowitz. com slash profit first has
probably first, I guess, SEO. Then I have prop first book. So that is a second listing. Below it.
And then of course the Amazon page is listed maybe first. So I have it happening over and
over again. So get a domain for your book.
Get a domain for your author site. I make the author site the central repository, but when you
go to the domain for the book, there's a book page. And then you can link back.
AJ Harper: We're talking about that in the next episode.
Mike Michalowicz: The book page?
AJ Harper: Author websites versus
Mike Michalowicz: oh, yeah, it's a book page. Yeah. Yeah, so you got to secure those
domains and all that stuff now here This is this is like the outer edge.
So where the kind of pie in the sky or just weird things. So a couple weird things. One is we
have seen a small correlative effect on Amazon by doing book, uh, what do they call it now?
Compendiums, um, series book series. So what you can do is you can go on Amazon and
with fiction for sure, but also nonfiction books, you can register a series.
So if you have multiple books, you can link them together. It gives you one more, uh, click
that's exposed, but we call above the fold, right? When you open the page on Amazon and
You see your primary book and you see a link. It says, look at this, the entrepreneurial series
we've had. It's a little bit hearsay, but we've had people actually call and say, Hey, I bought
your entire series.
So that is a strategy. I want to give a shout out to Alan Dibb, an extraordinary author wrote
the one page marketing plan. Um, he's got other books out there. Lean marketing is his
newest. He's the guy that's amazing. He's the one who turned me on to that. Do it. If you don't
know what I'm talking about, pull up any of my books.
Get Different. Clockwork. And you'll see it says series. You can just activate that through
Author Central.
AJ Harper: It's not hard to do.
Mike Michalowicz: Get your Author Central page set up. So you register as an author,
regardless if you're with a Big five, big, it's a big five or is it before now
AJ Harper: Five.
Mike Michalowicz: Or a hybrid or self-published, get your author central.
Um, they're linked into book scan. So you'll actually see your book scan numbers through
author central. You can pull up and see how it's performing there. Um, but you can do some
additional marketing there. You can build out your author page, which is another form of
SEO. So I have on Amazon, the Mike McAllist author page, which has my bio, it has links to
my podcast, podcast and blog.
It has, um, All my books listed there. That's just basic effective SEO marketing.
AJ Harper: But what, what are you doing differently? ‘Cause this is, you know,
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that was an outer edge. Yeah. So the outer edge was the serious
things. The next thing is. But what I'm doing differently, um, they say when you put stuff into
chat GPT and why many people feel they need to avoid it, it becomes public domain.
I'm like, make it public domain. So anytime I put my material in there, like I put, I uploaded
profit first. I said, here's all the Profit First content. I want you to review it. I said, if you
make this publicly available, simply give attribution. So every time I post it, it says, make
sure you give attribution to this book title, this book name.
Will that work? I don't know, but listen, someone else is going to be uploading private first
into the system. Someone else has the Kindle and said, Oh, or PDF or whatever they have.
And they upload and say, I want to do private first, teach me this process or walk me through
it. So if others are doing it. I better do it myself because at least I can maybe influence where
I get attribution properly from the system.
AJ Harper: So it sounds like, though, your main things you're doing in the run up to the new
book is education in terms of passive education, online with, um, writing, basically, and
video, as well as interactive with different groups, influencer relationships.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And bulk buys.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep.
AJ Harper: Those are your kind of your big, and then the edge, I mean, and then just all the
stuff we always have to do, which is, you know, building out our marketing assets, marketing
assets.
But those are the three things that are going to take the most time that you just talked about.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right. And then we're just experimenting with these marketing
edges.
AJ Harper: Are you doing, before we close this, are you doing any sort of launch event
besides just saying, Hey, I mean, are you, cause you almost never do, Cool.
Cool. A live launch event.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, to be determined.
AJ Harper: Okay, I hope you do.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay, yeah, to be determined. Uh, let me tell you the big hairy
audacious goal. It's 50,000 books. Uh, the best launch we ever had day one was 7,000 books.
Um, That would be roughly a 10 times and this is where bulk buys are everything.
AJ Harper: I, I, I have a question.
Mike Michalowicz: Not day one, by the way, that's the launch week.
AJ Harper: You mean cumulative up and through launch week, pre order through launch
week.
Mike Michalowicz: Pre order. And then the two weeks of launch week.
AJ Harper: So I got to, I'm going to totally call you out just a little bit. Is it because of that
comment Noah made about you should have done 50,000?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I'm sure it is.
AJ Harper: You see, you got stuck in your head.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it's, it's probably, you know what it is? It probably is that. It's
subconscious. You remember he said that. Yeah.
AJ Harper: “Why didn't you do 50, 000?”
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: On All In.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. 50 or 60 thousand. He compared you to,
AJ Harper: he said you should have been able to.
Mike Michalowicz: He compared me to a personal finance author.
AJ Harper: You know what? That's why you picked that number.
Mike Michalowicz: That's why I picked that number.
AJ Harper: Whatever, man. Whatever motivates.
Mike Michalowicz: Lisa Dimona did it with, uh, Profit First when, when we were getting
rejected for Profit First. Yeah. It's another accounting book. Lisa didn't even get it, but she
goes, I said, we're self-published.
Make them regret it. She goes, make them regret it. I gotta send her a thank you note. You
know, 1. 1 million books sold with all languages, all trans, everything, yeah.
AJ Harper: But you know what? That's a motivator.
Mike Michalowicz: That's a motivator.
AJ Harper: When you just said 50, 000, I immediately thought, Oh, he's doing that. Cause I
was wondering where that came from.
Mike Michalowicz: It was so clear.
AJ Harper: Like, Oh yeah. Cause you remember also you wanted that the same advance as
Stephen King.
Mike Michalowicz: We got it.
AJ Harper: And you got it. So you know what? Listen, a number has to have meaning. It
can't just be arbitrary.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: So I think I'm right. I think you pulled that. I don't know if you were conscious
of it, but I think it's a Noah number.
Mike Michalowicz: I think it was not conscious of it. It's a Noah number.
AJ Harper: Noah number.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. That's beautiful.
AJ Harper: And now you'll do it. Watch.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, we'll do it. We'll do it. There's no question about it.
AJ Harper: Go.
Mike Michalowicz: All right, my friend. Uh, anything else about marketing?
AJ Harper: Um, get, uh, get off your ass.
Mike Michalowicz: Get off your ass and start doing it. Every single episode, we're always
touching on some form of marketing because even the book title, the words in your book is
all marketing at the end of the day.
AJ Harper: You know what? I do want to say one more thing. It's, it's, I said earlier how
mad I was about the editor who gave that wrong information to my student.
Why does it matter to me? Cause I see what people invest in getting the book. Written, first
of all, developed, written, edited, find the publisher, that's a year's. And then before that is
life's work, the thing that called you to write it in the first place. And I could, it's so
emotional. So market that thing.
Market that thing. This is not a bucket list item.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: This is a piece of you, your history, what you care about, what matters to you,
and also one of the most profound instruments of change.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And you just get, get, just go. That's what I have to say. I
Mike Michalowicz: love it. Um, if you don't own the book, write a must read, get that book.
There is a series apparently coming pretty soon. There's going to be a second book that works
with that. She's working on it, but get your copy, write a must read, sign up for AJ's events.
Do you have it? I know we just recorded this just this past Sunday. You still have some slots
available for, I think
AJ Harper: I have slots available for, um, editing retreat. Very, very few.
Mike Michalowicz: okay.
AJ Harper: Now's the time. Sign up.
Mike Michalowicz: Go to aj harper.com. Yeah, you've got to do it.
AJ Harper: Do I do four editing retreats a year up at our place on Madeline Island and, uh,
for up to eight people, so it's very limited. So I definitely want to get in on that.
Mike Michalowicz: It will transform, not just your book. It'll transform your life.
I promise you it. AJHarper. com. Also, we have an imprint called Simplified. Uh, you can
learn about that. If you're an author in the entrepreneurial space, we'd love to talk with you.
Maybe you and I could be, uh, Writing partners effectively, or at least author partners in our
imprint at simplified email us at hello at DWTB podcast.com. Adela is monitoring that email.
She'll get the message to AJ or me, and, uh, we can connect. We'd love to hear your stories.
Any questions you have, uh, any corrections. If you hear an error on the show and you want
us to correct it, we occasionally get those. Uh, we'd love to hear that. Plus we have our
resources available for you at DWTB podcast.com. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for
joining us last week and thanks for joining us proactively next week. As a reminder, don't
write that book. Write the greatest book you can.