In this episode, Mike and AJ not only discuss what key marketing assets are needed when promoting your book, they also warn newbies about the harm of a cold, unprepared ask for free promotion. They detail all the elements of a top-level media and marketing kit and what you need to have on hand to ensure your book’s success.
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Friction, by Roger Dooley
LINGO, by Jeffrey Shaw
John DeMato, Photographer (tell him AJ sent you)
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
Episode 56:
“Marketing Assets You Need”
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. We're in the thick of it. The show is rolling.
Welcome to episode 56. We're going to talk about marketing assets, the ones you need for your book. I'm joined in studio with AJ Harper, my co-writer, copartner. I said co-friend last time. I think one more co.
AJ Harper: Hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Cooperative relationship?
AJ Harper: Hmm, co-crier.
Mike Michalowicz: Are you really? I'm a co-crier.
AJ Harper: No. You are. You're, that's you.
Mike Michalowicz: I now use this as a joke. for when I do a speaking engagement. So last week, first speaking gig,
AJ Harper: It’s also written in Profit First that you're a co-crier.
Mike Michalowicz: But I use it now in the speech, but I'll tell you how I built into it. So I did my first speaking gig in Boonton in this town. Um, 50 people, there's a country club, a golf course right at the very edge of Boonton.
So I presented there and there was about 50 people in the room and I shared the piggy bank story. And so the joke is I'll wait till, till it hits with some person in the audience and I'll pick on them. And it's one woman starts like, Welling up. I said, don't you dare. Don't you do? I stopped the whole president.
I don't you dare. I point I'm like you're about to cry and I said, I'm a co crier if you start crying I'm gonna start crying and then I'll look at you more and then I'll start dry heaving You'll just start dry heaving, then I'll vomit the whole place is gonna be vomiting in seconds. So that's the the joke.
AJ Harper: I love how you take it to the vomit level.
Mike Michalowicz: They love it. Comedy is taking things to an extreme.
AJ Harper: Yes,
Mike Michalowicz: You keep me tempered though because in books You I'll want to go to these extremes like, Oh, this is a genius story. I'll, I'll, I'll catch a laugh or connect in a great way. And you're like, no, no, there's certain ones. You can go too far.
AJ Harper: Sometimes you can go too far.
Mike Michalowicz: You can, and you're, you're a great filter. So I wanted to acknowledge that as my introduction of you.
AJ Harper: That my, my prudish throttling--
Mike Michalowicz: Because something's throttling. Yeah. There's a time and place, and you have a great acute awareness of the time and place.
AJ Harper: I think I do.
Mike Michalowicz: I know you do.
AJ Harper: You know though, I've, but you do the opposite for me, right?
So you'll just, I'm more, I'm, I am pretty conservative. When I'm in how I communicate except for sometimes I'm cursing a lot. Like if I'm feeling punchy or if it's Friday,
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah
AJ Harper: Why do I think I can curse on Fridays like it's Friday But you you'll always put inspire me to push myself to be more Me to be more me and I am if you talk to my friends that I've known forever, I mentioned to you earlier that I’m on a group text that seems to have gone back to the beginning of group texts. And it only really pops up, you know for holidays or at somebody's birthday and it's going right now because it's election day.
So they're all. “Well, what are you doing? What's your plan to vote”? You know um they would tell you that I’m pretty, uh, out there sometimes and maybe a little bit, um, inappropriate sometimes and maybe a little wacky and you'll be like, who are you talking about?
Mike Michalowicz: That's so interesting.
AJ Harper: But see, ‘cause you, there's only so many people that I would be that way with. My wife and maybe, and some very close friends, maybe about six of them, seven of them.
Mike Michalowicz: There's a,
AJ Harper: But you, you kind of inspire me is what I'm saying, to be just more me.
Mike Michalowicz: Meyers, I think it's Myers Briggs or one of those things where they show an analysis of your true self versus the presentation version, like when you're amongst others, how you present yourself, how you want to be seen and how you really are. And I believe the argument was the greater the discrepancy, um, the less effective we Influencing others because it's not congruent with who we are.
AJ Harper: Interesting.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, and then conversely with the less satisfied with our life experience. And so can you get congruency? And so the argument was to get, you know, work life experiences that are in alignment with who you naturally are.
Hmm. Um, so one thing you need to be ready for when it comes to marketing your book is have the assets ready. So I wanted to give kind of a, uh, a win-loss. So. I had a experience with television for a while with that Donny Duetsch show. So I was on there regularly and start getting invited to other shows to appear as a guest, a guest expert.
And I had launched the first book, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, and we were in the process of writing the Pumpkin Plan. So I'm like, I need to get some media. Well, what was interesting about television is. I remember one instance I got a call from ABC and they call up and say we need someone in 30 minutes because our guest dropped We we've heard of you, but you got to prove that you're the right guy. Well, I didn't realize they reach out to 20 people at the same time and the first to respond is the first to get it So there's certain media television that type of television which was live broadcast. You got to move fast and they had a car. I So I had my head shot because there's a term called telegenic. “Do you look the part?“
AJ Harper: Uh huh.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um, and telegenic simply means do you have features that are distinct and unique for television and are you seen as attractive? Like that's what they're measuring. So they want you to be different looking, but also in an attractive way. That's the win for TV. It's the brutal reality and maybe it's changed.
AJ Harper: I doubt it.
Mike Michalowicz: Probably not. Do you have topical knowledge and do you have a degree of expertise that they can put the lower thirds where they have scrolling below? It says like, you know, Mike Michalowicz, but if it says Dr. Mike Michalowicz and we're talking about a medical procedure, there's more validity there and you know, Dr. Mike Michalowicz from Harvard, you know, so they want those credentials. You got to have that ready and you got to be able to deliver it concisely. So the nice thing is I had all that stuff stocked up and ready to go, but also, so, so you have to have that ready. And I did. The other thing is they said, here's the topic.
I don't remember the topic was, you better have bullet points ready, too. Not like, yeah, I, they say, can you speak on that? You don't say, yes, I can. You say yes. And here's what I like to talk about. And you give them three bullet points, very digestible. So there was this readiness I had and I got on ABC. The funny thing was I'm like, I was working with this guy, uh, Scott at the time and I go, Scott, dude, 45 minutes from now, book sales are going to explode. Just watch, just watch the books. Right? So it's a major network.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: They're like, Mike, we call it what's author and they do it. Author of I think it was maybe the Pumpkin Plan, but it was definitely Toilet Paper Entrepreneur or past. So they say author of we'll say the Pumpkin Plan. And I'm like, let's watch.
And we went online and nothing. No, nothing.
AJ Harper: Of course. It's different for fiction, by the way. Like if, if your book is announced, somebody says, these are my top five books for holiday gifts, or this is my book of the month, you know, they've got somebody like, like Jenna on the today show that says this is, you know, Jenna's book club and here's what we're reading.
Those books sell.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Fiction's different.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting. Yeah. Um, this goes back to last week's episode when it came to, uh, the year ahead. We are testing. I'm not gonna share what it is. We're testing a brand new marketing idea. You said I always have like the, you know, these marketing ideas testing a new brand new marketing idea.
Um, so a little tease just because I don't want to forget it. And then in the future, once we get this idea out there, I'll share if it worked or not. But it's, uh, it's a really interesting idea and it uses AI and well, we'll see. Um, so let me give the counter story. So There was another show where it was around personal finance, ironically, uh, and we had written Profit First and they say, can you speak about it?
Uh, and I did have the, the standard bullet points ready, the, the, the bio, the, the picture and so forth, but I didn't know the topic. I said, I simply said, yeah, I can speak on it. And I guess they got me on there because of my quick response and my credibility in past stuff. And it was a disaster. I was a disaster.
I wasn't prepared for the topic. I didn't know what they were talking about. It just was a show I had never seen before either. And the stylistically wasn't ready at the end. The producer's like, We're not going to have you back. You're done. And, um, I never got back and they influenced other shows. It hurt me for subsequent interviews.
AJ Harper: So that's less about marketing assets, but more about maybe you're not, um, maybe you shouldn't be using your marketing assets to try and get a gig that you aren't prepared for.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. Prepare for it. And it wasn't in my vertical marketing for marketing sake. You know, all news is not good news or all, all news is good news. Uh, yeah. Just getting your name out there, even if you're ready to jump on something does not serve you if you're not positioned well.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: And that, that was kind of the flop. So there's just a couple of experiences, some examples, some examples. So what are the marketing assets, uh, that we should have?
AJ Harper: Well, let's talk about what, I mean, yeah, we can talk about what they are, but can we talk about why we need them? Would that be cool?
Mike Michalowicz: Sure, start there, yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah, because, um, if you don't have them, you, you can't promote the book. You just, you just can't. If you've got nothing, no marketing assets, then it's harder for you to promote it. It's also harder for other people to promote it. It's harder for the media to write about you and talk about you. It's harder for you to take advantage of opportunities. It's hard for you to do almost anything related to your book.
And if you wait too long to develop them, then you're scrambling. So imagine if you didn't have what you needed for that ABC gig that did go well, even though, even though the books weren't flying off the shelves, it did go well for you. If you hadn't had all the marketing assets they needed, you wouldn't have been chosen for the spot.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right.
AJ Harper: You had to have it already there in the Dropbox, in the folder, wherever it lives. And I, in, um, And I, I would argue that, uh, you need to also have a bunch of it on your website because you want it to make it easy for people who might want to write about you or might want to book you to go find all this stuff without having to ask you for it.
So I just wanted to get that clear that we're talking about your agility, your ability to take advantage of opportunities. And if you don't have these assets established, it is just. You're missing stuff, right and left.
Mike Michalowicz: One of the great books that is shamefully unknown is Roger Dooley's book, Friction.
AJ Harper: I know. I wrote about it in my book. It is so good. Because I talk about how you need to remove friction for readers. And yeah, it's a good book.
Mike Michalowicz: It is so good. And I bet you, if you're listening to it right now, you haven't read it. Get it. Friction, by Roger Dooley. Well, What he argues is how friction can slow down things, but sometimes it's a benefit when you want someone to see more value in something.
So if you make it, you know, snap of your fingers to join your club, um, that's different than if you have to go through some kind of onboarding process or hazing or something crazy. That's what fraternities use a lot of friction to join. Conversely, when it comes to marketing, if there is friction in it, people may abandon and give up on it and they'll go the easier path like water down a hill.
By having the marketing assets prepared when a marketing opportunity presents itself, the easier it is for that person that you're now working with partnering with whatever, the easiest for them The more likely there's support you and they're more likely to support you in the way you want to So I have people, AJ, reach out to me said Mike, Would you market my book? whom friendly with we have a rapport and I'll say absolutely. I'll support you. No, you got great. Thanks the book launched in such and such date. I'm like,
AJ Harper: You're joking. (No.) Like people who, who are experienced at this?
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, maybe, maybe not. I mean that. Yeah. There's certain circumstances where the relationship so strong, that is the expectation saying, Hey, would you mark my book, market my book on such and such day? No problem. I like to use my own words. Where do you want me to send them? That sometimes happens. No, I've had, there was a piece of mail. I actually, there was a book that arrived here. Um, sitting on the desk saying, Hey, Mike, I know you and I don't know each other well, I have a friend, we have a mutual friend, so I hope it's okay, I'm sending my book. It's launching on such and such day, I hope you'll help me out.
AJ Harper: Why would you do it?
Mike Michalowicz: So, here's the burden on me. It was a handwritten note with a book. There's no assets, there's no materials, there's no rapport. It literally went right into the recycle bin.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm not gonna spend another minute on it. They're putting burden on me. Now, if this is a person I knew and said, I have a new book coming out. First of all, don't send me the book. Tell me what, what you're going on and what, how I can serve you. Secondly, is asking me to read your entire book so I can figure out a way to market your book is a massive burden.
AJ Harper: Write that down. That is the truth. Oh man.
Mike Michalowicz: I'll give you a flip on that. Joey Coleman did such a good job marketing asset plan that we actually have it stored in our mad lab. We've, uh, in our offices, one room called the mad lab, and we just store effective marketing in there from other people and our own. And in there, uh, it's a box. He first asked permission by way. Say, Hey Mike, I have a new book coming out. Do you mind if I send a, I'd love to get your support. Do you mind if I send you a kit, um, that explains things? Absolutely, Joey. So we're going to have rapport. He asked permission, right? (Yeah.) You open the box.
The book is there. Uh, that you can consume if you want to, but then there's a one sheet explaining here's what the book's about. It says, here's the links that I'm trying to get people to. Now he wasn't trying to get people to an Amazon page. He wanted to do a multi book purchase page. He said, here's some stickers and stuff like that.
He goes, if you do video and I like you to do video, uh, Doing some form of endorsement promotion just you can hold these stickers up or hold the book up So there's like an instruction set and there's like a level one, two, three. It's like you can market by doing a video you can do this or that so give me three options to market it in there Was other one sheet, so there was a bio I know Joey well, but there was a bio with the bullet points on who Joey is so I can explain this. There was a list of his past books, like here's other books he's written with a picture of the cover. So you knew his history. So I can say his newest book is never lose an employee again, but his prior book was never lose a customer again. And there's a parallel on this, you know, uh, it just had lots of basic assets and there was a gift. There was a gift.
AJ Harper: What was the gift?
Mike Michalowicz: It was something personal to me. I can't remember what it was. Like, uh, I'm going to make this up because it wasn't this, but it was like an apron or something like for, for baking. Because he knows I like to bake. It was something personal to me. Um, and shame on me for not remembering, but it was a kit.
AJ Harper: But it was meaningful to you.
Mike Michalowicz: It was meaningful.
AJ Harper: And the marketing assets within it. I mean, you could argue that the whole thing was, but really specifically today, I would say it's the one sheets that were in their bio that necessary information.
Mike Michalowicz: printed out in color.
AJ Harper: And it could have been also followed up in a PDF.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, there's a QR code? So, talk about friction free. I wanted to do a blog or post on my website with pictures of him, like, ugh, I gotta download a picture. No! Scan the QR code and it goes to the link of the page and all the assets are there.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: You just pull them off. Uh, if you go to mikemichalowicz.com, click on the hamburger menu in the top right, and I think it says media assets, you'll see headshots and so forth. And, and no surprise when I'm on a podcast, those are the ones that people are pulling from and we refresh them regularly, but they're there.
AJ Harper: And you got to have it. There is one picture that keeps going around to me that people are getting off my website, which I still have not updated.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, is it the one that you have behind your hand up?
AJ Harper: I don't know. No. It's
Mike Michalowicz: the one you're giving the finger at the..?
AJ Harper: I don't have one like that.
Mike Michalowicz: All right.
AJ Harper: No, I'm just going to tell you, every time I see that picture show up on something, I'm mad, but I only have myself to blame.
Mike Michalowicz: Right? So people will follow the easiest path and if you give them a difficult path, they'll avoid it and they'll look for someone else that provides the easy path.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Uh, uh, media resources I think is--
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: is the link, your page, bio media download. Yeah.
AJ Harper: And you can download everything.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yep. Uh, one other thing is for speaking engagements. Cause authors will speak, have a short bio. So if you go to my, uh, media page and you scroll down, it has, uh, the Mike's bio. It's a PDF form and it has bullet points. If people want to do bullet points, it has the short intro where people can say it in two minutes or less. It has a pronunciation of your name. (That's huge.) If you put Anjanette, people, I'm sure, have bastardized Anjanette somehow.
AJ Harper: Mostly they just call me Angie, which they should never do. Don't ever do it. Never ever.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So, uh, have pronunciation renamed. What are other must haves?
AJ Harper: I, okay, so this is less about a marketing asset, but more about something your team needs. But I would love to see more people have social media banners related to their book coming out. So on your social media platforms, there's usually a banner.
People should see you have a new book coming out and then you need to change it. Don't, I see this a lot too. The, it says “coming soon” for like two years after the book. So swap it out. But what you really need for marketing assets, you need a headshot and maybe a couple different ones. Multiple bios, this is something that I advocate in my workshop.
You need the long bio, the shorter bio, you need one that's less than 100 words, you need one that's less than 300 characters, which I know from being a publisher, that you sometimes need that, that sometimes a limit that you can use. And you also need what we used to say was a Twitter bio, I know it's called something else now, but that it's like 160 characters now.
You need a bio that's easy for people to use that's short, super short, and can't just have one bio and expect everybody else to shorten it for you.
Mike Michalowicz: No, don't do that.
AJ Harper: Just give them different lengths of bios so they can use the one that they want because it takes time to create that.
Mike Michalowicz: Agree. A hundred percent. Let me just rewind back to headshots. I suggest. Perfect. Thanks. Update and refresh once a year because we change. Unless you're the only human, not aging, you are looking different every single year. And I've seen people have a headshot from 10 years ago and it's like, Oh, that's not you anymore. It's. Whatever. It throws consumers off. With the bio. Make sure you also have an introductory script. If people are introducing you on the podcast, as opposed to just the bio, which you'd use in print.
AJ Harper: Oh, that’s good. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So they just like, Oh, this is Anjanette Harper and blah, blah, blah. And make it, you know, something that they can read off in under 10 seconds.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I recently had an experience on a podcast where someone read the bio from a place that I hadn't updated. Yeah, mm hmm. And then it's awkward because you don't want to correct the host.
Mike Michalowicz: No.
AJ Harper: Yeah, so you can see these are, these is, these are the problems you run into.
Mike Michalowicz: And you don't want to correct the host with the name pronunciation. Michalowicz gets mispronounced all the time.
AJ Harper: You don't correct on that?
Mike Michalowicz: No, you don't want to.
AJ Harper: I think you have to on a name pronunciation.
Mike Michalowicz: I rarely have to because I have the pronunciation keys in all my bios.
AJ Harper: But I mean, would you, is what I'm getting at.
Mike Michalowicz: No, oh, no, I wouldn't because it causes an awkward moment.
When I do speaking engagements, uh, it's, it's on there. And sometimes a person will say, I just want to be a hundred percent sure how do I pronounce it? And I'll say this, it's pronounced Michalowicz and however you pronounce on stage is what we're going with. Because if we now have a dialogue, I'd like to introduce Mike Michalowicz.
Did I say that correctly? I'm not gonna say, Oh, it's a different name. It ruins everything. So whatever you say on stage. And I've had people still mispronounce it and then say, Mike, did I say that right? And I'm like, yes, yes. Nailed it. Because it breaks, it breaks the, the flow of the—
AJ Harper: But I'm going to counter that. Okay. I think there are people who have names that we should, we should make an effort to learn the pronunciation (For sure.) And if there's a name that is, Um, how do I say this? If there's a name, when you don't try and pronounce someone's name correctly, that's not a good thing. And if you mispronounce it, I think people actually want to know, and I think it honors, sometimes it's more about heritage and, um, And people are very, there are people who have complicated names or names that we don't hear often or have, are derivative of, um, you know, other countries, different backgrounds, and then we don't try or we mess it up. It's actually something that's really a problem.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I agree.
AJ Harper: But I think people should correct on their names.
Mike Michalowicz: I agree, I, I agree in those circumstances. I think it's the onus on us to make sure that it's there.
AJ Harper: For sure. And to say this is how you, you know,
Mike Michalowicz: But, but proactively, I'm saying.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Proactively.
AJ Harper: So you can do that in the marketing asset.
Mike Michalowicz: Correct. Correct. You can do the marketing asset and it's peculiar when it becomes a point of emphasis beyond what is needed.
AJ Harper: Okay, so again, all we're talking about is making it easy. Make it easy.
Mike Michalowicz: What else we got?
AJ Harper: Um, book description. Book description. Yeah. And I say at different lengths as well. Make it easy for people to write about your book so you can do your longer synopsis, you can do your shorter, and then I would make sure you have a one sentence so a person can just say, “This is, this is the book and this is the gist of the book.” Don't expect them to become a marketing genius for you.
Mike Michalowicz: Agreed.
AJ Harper: You know?
Mike Michalowicz: Agreed.
AJ Harper: Um, and then buy links on everything. On any marketing asset, people leave their buy links, meaning links to purchase, from various retailers. They leave them off.
Mike Michalowicz: I know. I know.
AJ Harper: Leave them off. They expect, and in fact, this is a, this is a pet peeve. I see people talk about their book online all the time. I just saw one the other day, it was a book anniversary. Yay. Wonderful. I, my book came out a year ago or whatever year it was. There was no link to purchase it. Are we just celebrating that it happened?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah.
AJ Harper: I used to go on to people's posts, like a little snake at the end. No, I would go like, you need a link. Um, I don't really do it anymore. Put your links. Why is this hard?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Put a link.
Mike Michalowicz: I agree.
AJ Harper: But you need it in your marketing assets as well.
Mike Michalowicz: One kind of hack for this is you can get a domain and then forward it so you can get the The Profit First book. com or whatever your book title is, and then have an auto forward to your bookshop. org link, which is this massive link. So people will put like this huge link to Amazon, for example, that that's like six lines long and then you may use a shortener, which is some strange, hard to remember term, or you can have one to your own domain. So for every book I have, I have its own domain.
AJ Harper: You know, Laura Stone taught me that you don't need that long Amazon link if you go on the Amazon page.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, use their shortener.
AJ Harper: Yeah, their little arrow.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's, that's, that's called a short link. But It's not that memorable. It's still, it's MZN
AJ Harper: Oh, because dot, two, four, five... Oh, yeah, good point.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I want yourbooktitle. com and then I'll remember, okay. What else do we need?
AJ Harper: Probably one of the most important things you can do for help getting people to help you is to give them swipe copy and swipe graphics. So swipe copy is, would be a social media language. You want them to use when promoting your book, email copy and do different versions, do short, do long, do different focus. Uh, could be a copy that you want them to say on video, could be a little script, but give them the copy and give them permission to modify it.
Include the buy-links and include instructions about which one to use and when, and the same with graphics. Include sample graphics for different platforms, for Instagram, Facebook, wherever you want them to go.
Mike Michalowicz: I'll add to swipe copy: testimonials and endorsements you get for the back of your book or wherever make those shareable. And make it through swipe copy So 10 testimonials is very similar, but this is more like readers of your book and what they've experienced make that copyable.
I'm wondering if, say on Goodreads, someone reviews your book, do we have permission to copy and use that, that Sandra W. said such and such?
AJ Harper: I don't know. You'd have to check the… Goodreads has odd policies. That one I'm not sure about.
Mike Michalowicz: But you can get testimonials from readers directly that they submit to you, and you can make them to swipe copy also.
AJ Harper: Yes, swipe graphic.
Mike Michalowicz: or swipe copy.
AJ Harper: You could include it in swipe copy. It would need to be part of it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah, and then I think you need a podcast one sheet, but podcasters might not agree anymore I think it's helpful to have.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, when I have a guest I I like that. And the only modification is I like to have their talking bullet points That they can talk about in advance.
AJ Harper: Yeah, but that should be on the one sheet.
Mike Michalowicz: could be the one sheet and so surprising how poor of a job many people do with that. Speaking of one sheet is a little bit different. I would have that you know the podcast one sheet Speaking one sheet should have your credentials in there because then they can interweave it.
So, uh, we did work for the wall street journal, you know, so, so when it says former columnist for the Wall Street Journal, that comes up pretty regularly. It's a bullet point on the list, but now people don't read it. My bio, they'll, they'll reference something and say, Hey Mike, you used to write for the Wall Street Journal.
Um, what was that article you wrote? And they have the bullets they can pull from.
AJ Harper: Yeah, that's helpful. Yeah. And then I'm going to say a couple of things that I think are nice to have, but most people don't think about it. One is a CliffsNotes version in PDF format of your book. So this would be, uh, beyond a one sheet, consider a description of your book. A beautiful PDF. Your, your headshot, the book cover, the colors, the whole PDF should have the colors from your book cover. An intro, you know, overview of the book, but then do detailed chapter descriptions. I'm talking three to five paragraphs. So really it's going to take some time to create this.
So it's like cliff notes and for each chapter and little bullet takeaways. And use that for getting endorsements and for podcasts because people don't have time to read your whole book, but also a one sheet doesn't give them enough. And that way they have, they can get real gist of your book so that when they're interviewing you or talking to you or deciding to endorse you, it's, they don't have to feel like they don't really understand the book.
Mike Michalowicz: That's brilliant.
AJ Harper: Um, it's worked really well. We use it. Um, it's actually started with Jeff Shaw, kind of a happy accident for his book Lingo because his galley wasn't ready. So we made that instead. And as it turned out, it was, people loved it because it made their lives easy. Again, easier.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Then I would say a sell sheet and most authors don't know what a sell sheet is, but this is from when I was a publisher.
It's a one sheet, but it's geared for bookstores. And so it makes it easier. So let's say you're trying to, you want to get in the bookstore, have an appearance or something like that. A sell sheet is something publishers use, but if you have one, and you could ask your publisher to give you the sell sheet, but you could easily make your own.
So it's one side, it's eight and a half by 11, but not both sides. And then it has your, your face, the book cover, Uh, very short description, very short bio. It has selling points for the book. Okay. So the main selling points, which your publisher would already have, or if you're self-publishing, you should have them yourself.
Where is it just, who are the distributors? Okay. What is the marketing bullet points? Three to five. This is what we're doing to support the launch of this book or the ongoing marketing of this book. Couple really good endorsements or trade review pull quotes. So from critical trade reviews, not from Amazon.
Buy links, and then the metadata. Title, subtitle, author, ISBN, price, page count. All the stuff a bookstore needs, right? Ordering information. All on one sheet. And then when you need to go connect with them, you've got that you can say, let me just send you a one sheet, a sell sheet. Let me give you a sell sheet, send you a sell sheet.
Mike Michalowicz: Can that be in a PDF format? Do you need to have a glossy?
AJ Harper: No, just, just PDF is what they want.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: Yeah. And so now you're giving them every single thing they need to decide if they want to book you decide if they want to order the book.
Mike Michalowicz: What else?
AJ Harper: I think it's helpful to have a Q and A. You know some frequently asked some questions that you are, you know, here are the questions to ask and here's how I would answer them. Because if a person wants to write a blog post about you
Mike Michalowicz: Totally
AJ Harper: an article about you… You've already it's like you're have it's like an interview on a on a page .
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah, and sometimes when you have to give the—a part of you just ask the questions. I'll be on a podcast I'll say What are the five most common questions you have, or five questions no one ever asks?
AJ Harper: Sure, but I mean, they could still write an article—a person could write an article about you with just the—
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, no question about it.
AJ Harper: Answers. And so again, you made it easy.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep, make it easy.
AJ Harper: And then press kits have kind of gone out of fashion, but I still think that they're great.
Mike Michalowicz: Digital?
AJ Harper: Digital press kit.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. And this is to get into the news, uh, your little paper.
AJ Harper: It's just to have everything in one place. Everything we just talked about, for example.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Right? All the headshots, the different bios, the, the different, uh, length, book descriptions, the endorsements, the Q and A. Just put it all in one place in an easily downloadable format
Mike Michalowicz: and One thing is have these press kits or your promotional materials ready But also flexible so you can tie it into current events and human interest stories. Recordings on the election day if I wrote out to people say, you know, I'm writing a book I wrote a book on profitability or Clockwork, whatever not interesting but if I wrote how this election regardless of who's elected will change the workforce environment forever, author from All In, now it's interesting.
And so, we need that flexibility to address current events and human-interest stories. Um, When should we be creating these marketing assets while writing the book?
AJ Harper: No, because you don't have enough going on.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Once you get the cover, you should start.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Oh, and we didn't say, that as a standalone asset is very important.
AJ Harper: Yeah, the front.
Mike Michalowicz: The front cover.
AJ Harper: Flat front.
Mike Michalowicz: It's so important because if you Google anyone's book, if you Google All In by Mike Michalowicz and you go to the images, you'll see them. over and over and over again. You want to encourage as many different outlets to use your book cover because it just enhances the SEO.
AJ Harper: And don't do that thing where you do like the fake 3d version. That's not really 3D.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Why is that?
AJ Harper: It's just, it's like…
Mike Michalowicz: is this a pet peeve or is there, is there some?
AJ Harper: I think it's, I think it's amateurish. I really do. I think just do the flat front.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I do both the 3-d. And then, so my way, when you go,
AJ Harper: I think instead get your, get a book photo shoot.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's really sexy. And my person for that is
AJ Harper: John D'Amato. He calls it Book Boudoir.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: I did it for Write a Must-Read, it's amazing. I know, uh, Phil Jones uses it religiously, John D'Amato. And you send him a few copies of your book, and he does, a bajillion photos of it and the interior and the spine and this and that.
And then you have huge marketing assets for your team to use with your actual book.
Mike Michalowicz: Do you know John's website?
AJ Harper: Um, I'm going to tell you right now, John D'Amato is, I mean, it's amazing. I highly recommend it.
Mike Michalowicz: Is he US based?
AJ Harper: Yeah, he's, he's in New York.
Mike Michalowicz: He's a new, Oh, he's a New Yorker. Okay. Well, while you pull them up, uh, when should you update
AJ Harper: He did the headshot for my book, by the way, John D'Amato.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, he did your headshots, too?
AJ Harper: Yeah, he does amazing. He also does something that I think is really interesting is he does, in addition to shooting live events, so he does for speakers, he shoots digital, virtual events. He shoots the virtual event.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's interesting.
AJ Harper: Like on the computer. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so cool.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah
AJ Harper: Let me see John D'Amato dot com j o h n d e m a t o
Mike Michalowicz: John D'Amato check them out. Once we'll be updating the marketing assets…?
AJ Harper: I mean, you don't need as many when you're in reader engagement mode, but I think that's a fair question. I, you know, it's just like you said, you want to update your photo, uh, at least once a year.
I think you should update your assets.
Mike Michalowicz: I think so. And I think you can combine them, too. When you have a backlist, you know, your 10 books,
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Have them on one page.
AJ Harper: I mean, I have a, I think you should hire John and you should do your whole catalog.
Mike Michalowicz: That might be interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It would be so beautiful to see.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. It's a good idea. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Sorry, just thinking that up. You're in such a rare position where you have a body of work.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, next episode, we're going to talk about the writing and publishing of derivative books.
AJ Harper: Yes. This was an ask. This was an audience request.
Mike Michalowicz: And I think done right, you can do a few things.
It's another form of monetization. So it's revenue. Secondly, it's expansion of the brand. I'll give a quick analogy, probably forget it by the time we do the derivatives, but so I'll use it now. I don't know if you know this, McDonald's calculates how long it'll take from you feeling the first hunger pang until you're at the drive thru.
So they're measuring and locating their stores based upon you're driving down the highway, you're hungry, how frequently you're seeing a McDonald's sign, this exit, how quickly they get you there and how quickly they get you through the drive thru to satisfy that.
What's interesting about the derivatives. It's like the McDonald's franchise. One McDonald's is effective. Multiple McDonald's is even more effective because they're actually marketing each other. There's this constant reminder of McDonald's is out there. These derivative books, as we've done, these is particularly for Profit First, we've done it through other books to Profit has this community, but there's all these other highways and roadways people are taking that wouldn't come across Profit First naturally, so to speak, but they're discovering prop first for the McDonald's.
That community and it's bringing them back into the fold. So it's kind of like a McDonald's model. So I hope that worked.
AJ Harper: We'll talk all about it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Next week. So make sure you're here. Uh, as always, thanks for listening in. I hope you're getting tons of value out of the show. We do want to hear from you.
It really helps us next week's episodes because one of our listeners wanted to hear about it. What do you want to hear about email us at hello at DWTB. Podcast. com. Also, you can visit our website there to get the free assets we have. Join our emailing list. You can check out our marketing materials there, albeit it's a podcast, not a book at DWTB podcast.com. Thanks for joining us for today's episode. We look forward to having you on next week. And as always the great reminder, don't write that book, write the greatest book you can.