In this episode, Mike shares his intensive marketing plan for their latest book, The Money Habit. He’s been hard at work thinking outside the box with a few ideas that blew AJ away, so if you’re looking for cool new marketing ideas for your next book, this is one to save and listen to again and again!
Check out Burned by Julie Bee. Thank you to Julie for sponsoring today’s episode!
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Illusions, Richard Bach
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Episode 83:
“Mike’s Best Book 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 AJ Harper.
AJ, if you only knew then what you know now. There’s an author out there, her name is Julie Bee. She’s written a book, Burned: How Business Owners can Overcome Burnout and Fuel Success and we were talking off air about this, and you were like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got a story that fits right into Julie Bee’s work.”
AJ Harper: Yeah, and I wish I’d had her book back when, because I think I burned out from ghostwriting two years before I retired from it.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, really?
AJ Harper: Yeah. I really jeopardized my health, and I lost my passion, and I ultimately did burn it to the ground. Julie Bee talks about burning bright, not out. I burned out. To the point where I did burn it all down, except for continuing to work with you. I think I needed her book. I’m so fascinated that she helps people not just to deal with the burnout, but to leverage it. That’s so cool.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. That’s interesting. What I’m hearing is there is a way to rechannel that energy. So even in the burn out, there is energy being burned, just in the direction you don’t want to go. Julie Bee’s book solves that. Hey, if you don’t have your copy, get it now. It’s Burned, and it’s at your favorite bookstore. Don’t delay, don’t have burnout another day.
Yeah, you'll find a way home. We're recording, you know.
Oh, AJ's like, let's get, let's get rolling. We, uh, we took about a three second break between last week's episode and this one, she's like, let's go. And she goes, it's all you, Mike, you're listening to, Don't Write That Book. This is Mike Michalowicz. I am your co-host, author of Profit First and the new book, The Money Habit.
Joined in studio by my co-host, AJ Harper, author of Write a Must-Read, a book you must read. Is there not one book, AJ, that you tell people about? Not of yours, but of any book that like, oh my God, you just have to read this one.
AJ Harper: I mean, I'm a broken record when it comes to the books I tell people about.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, me too. We all are.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So what are you, a broken record over.
AJ Harper: The War of Art by Steve Pressfield. (Yep.) Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I haven't read that one.
AJ Harper: Oh, you might enjoy it. It's got writing prompts. I mean, it's old. Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. No, I love the old ones.
AJ Harper: Um, look, I love that book. Um, for fiction, I'm, I'm constantly recommending anything written by, uh, Louise Erdrich.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm-hmm.
AJ Harper: Uh, she's probably my favorite author of all time. Did you want me to go on? Mike Michalowicz: If you want, if you want you, I mean, you do sound like a broken record.
AJ Harper: I mean, I, I pretty much always rec those books. Um, there's other books that I recommend of course, and I think depending on what you're trying to do.
Mike Michalowicz: And I think the reason that we come up broken record over something is because it's been transformative in our life in some capacity. Entertainment or education improvement or what otherwise. So for me, it's. Um, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.
AJ Harper: Yep. You always recommend that one.
Mike Michalowicz: Always recommend that. Um, uh, Michael Gerber's E-Myth. Yep. AJ Harper: E-Myth Revisited. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Because they've been trans-transformative. Transformative. Um, and maybe that speaks to the topic today, we're gonna talk about,
AJ Harper: Oh, you know what book? Sorry, I totally interrupted you. There is a book that has been so, that was so transformative from the time I was a teenager, called Illusions by Richard Bach.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: And I never talk about it anymore and I always forget, but it was huge for me. So huge that it, we used to pass it back and forth among our friend group in old, you know, we're Gen X, so like in the mail, you know? (Yeah.) And it's a little book. I gave it to my son, actually. I gave him my copy. I was like, this is transformative. He'll ne— I'm, I'm positive he'll never read it.
Mike Michalowicz: But I'm positive he won't read it when the time is right. Right. The, the student needs to be ready. I gave my son. So a transformative book for me that helped me dive in self-help was Dale Carnegie's work, but also Anthony Robbins wrote The Giant Within.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm. Awaken the Giant Within,
Mike Michalowicz: Awaken the Giant Within. I love that book.
AJ Harper: This does not surprise me
Mike Michalowicz: and how I came about it. I was 18 or 17 years old, and the guy I worked for Gupa is his nickname. Uh, I worked repairing jukeboxes. That was my job.
AJ Harper: Oh, I didn't know that.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, yeah. So he would buy jukeboxes from the fifties to the seventies, um, and renovate them. Then he'd rent them out. So he was a DJ and, but an entrepreneur. He realized he could only DJ one event per night, and he was losing these opportunities.
So he said, I'll rent you a jukebox. I'll deliver it to your home, and you can have all the music you want. And, uh, he would be renting out jukeboxes during a weekend on a busy day, five 10 on a weekend at back then two to $300 a pop when a DJ was costing you, me, $500. The
prices are different today, so he was making a lot of money, but now he needed to find jukebox to repair them.
So I didn't do the technical work. He had a guy that did the, like the mechanics, but you get these jukeboxes in, and it was actually sad. It woken me, I was never gonna smoke anyway, but like, God, don't smoke you. I had to dismantle the jukebox. You take it down to its bare bones, take out all the mechanics, and Bill would start working on that.
And now I had to start cleaning inside the jukebox. And you take spray nine and you just spray inside and you just see the tar dripping off of these things. It was disgusting and you're washing it out and cleaning and cleaning, but that's how you'd start this restoration process. And then, uh, you would rent out the jukebox.
So then once it was repaired, it worked and tested, load it into the pink truck and drive around in this pink truck--
AJ Harper: All over in New Jersey.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I. And there I am in my And he's--
AJ Harper: You were driving the pink truck.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh yeah. Delivering a jukebox. 17 years old. Three on the tree, stick shift, a box truck wearing my pink uniform.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Getting creamed by snowballs.
AJ Harper: You would, listening to what, Dokken?
Mike Michalowicz: Listening to Dokken, rockin’ to Dokken, and as I was pulling in, in the wintertime, it was the worst. I'm like, here it comes. And people would yell inappropriate thing people, teenagers. And younger were yelling inappropriate things and start winging snowballs at me as I'm delivering a three-to-500-pound jukebox.
So the pace I had was like a sloth going through trying to pull this into someone's house while getting pelted by snowballs called all these profane things.
AJ Harper: Wow. This is a great story.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. But I would earn like a $15, $10 tip.
AJ Harper: And it was Tony that came into your world when you were
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, so yeah. So yeah. Oh my God. Talk about digressing. So, uh, yeah, so I'd be back at this shop cleaning jukeboxes. And after he only liked music from the fifties. So after listening to Chuck Barry for the hundredth time, I'm like, what is there? And there was this little cassette tape thing that said, The Giant, Awaken The Giant Within. So I'm like, I'll play this. I'm like, this is good. So my first book in Self-Help was actually audio. It was a box of cassettes.
AJ Harper: That was probably one of my first self-help books too.
Mike Michalowicz: It was eye-opening for me. Okay. So today. We're gonna talk about the marketing plan for The Money Habit, where it stands today. This is a riff show. We don't have a outline to go from, except I do have the marketing plan in front of us, and I want your feedback and thoughts as we go through it.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: I spoke with. Uh, Leslie Boodle. Leslie, Leslie is new to the team. I don't even know if you've met her yet.
AJ Harper: At Page Two? Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Um, for Zoom. Oh, you were in that call.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So she and I had a call this past Sunday just going through the entire marketing plan and yeah.
AJ Harper: What'd she say?
Mike Michalowicz: She goes, this is the most comprehensive marketing plan I've ever, ever seen. Um, so let me, let me go through it. We have a goal by February 10th, 2026 to sell 50,000 copies. Why that goal? And it's audacious. Why such an audacious goal is, I believe more than anything this book can transform the mental health of so many people that are under so much stress. It can give peace to so many people and financial strength through clarity. Uh, so I feel compelled and called to do it more than anything, particularly with all the turmoil that's going on.
AJ Harper: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, I think people are pining for something like this and so. I realize I have the responsibility once you write an extraordinary book, and I think everyone listening to the show is committed to that. That's just the beginning. You then have to put in an extraordinary marketing, and you better start off with an extraordinary goal. What's a goal that's truly of service? Um, so we have a little bit of prematter in our marketing plan of the goal, why this matters, the, the greater calling. We say why this effing matters in the thing. Um, we talk about the target audience. I'm doing, I guess there's a term for this, like
a transitional state. So I'm no longer serving entrepreneurs exclusively now it's a greater community. So this is what, what would you call that? A bridge book or something? Is there a term for that?
AJ Harper: I don't, I don't think it is a bridge book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. What would, is there a term?
AJ Harper: I think you're writing for a new reader.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Okay.
AJ Harper: You're in a new genre, personal finance.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. But, but it also includes the historical reader.
AJ Harper: Well, yeah. They'll, they'll come over with you and you know, a lot of authors can get. Readers to come over.
Mike Michalowicz: So
AJ Harper: if they have a big enough fan base, it can be confusing If you, if in the beginning when not, not very many people are reading your book and then you switch to a new genre, then that can be very confusing and off putting. But when you have a fan base, they're gonna go with you.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So in the marketing plan, we have the target audience and how we're tied into them. So the Profit First readers is the most obvious. This is a translation of business finance into personal finance. So that's the reader community. And the messaging to to them is if you're borrowing from your business to cover your personal bills, you're killing your business. So that's why you need to read this book.
AJ Harper: But they're not the primary reader necessarily.
Mike Michalowicz: No, but they're one of our targets. Target audiences. AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, the primary reader is someone that has worry. It's under stress on their personal finances. And so the next one we put is Clockwork Reader. So there's some people have read Clockwork exclusively and we said, well, they're, they want their business to run on autopilot so they understand the importance of autopilot. And that translates to your personal finances too.
AJ Harper: Nice. Yeah, okay.
Mike Michalowicz: So's a slightly different messaging. Okay. And so we did this for each reader: Pumpkin Plan. Uh, you fix a key part of your business for organic growth and you need to fix a key part of your home finances. So they understand that if you change one thing, it cascades, it's true for Fix This Next, too.
But then we started talking about other communities, uh, the Profit First Professionals community. These are people who are already advocates of Profit First and teachers of it. They can teach this method, become a certified coach. That's their positioning. Business owners, why would they want this for their team?
Well, if their employees are financially stable, uh, it indicates good leadership, but also they don't have to worry about the employee bringing worry to work around personal finances
AJ Harper: Or quitting their job to get more money or,
Mike Michalowicz: yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: And if you're an employee, why do you want this? 'cause you want financial stability and you wanna show up, uh, strong for, for the things that you want to do and the work you do. So why, why do you wanna read this book and so forth?
So we go through every type of audience. That exists and how the messaging is special to them as opposed to one generic message of don't worry about money anymore. We say, 'cause you already get this,hi ts is an extension of that.
AJ Harper: So the employee message is to be a better employee?
Mike Michalowicz: Well, no, you want financial stability because you want to, you wanna show up to work as an employee, you wanna show up to work the strongest you can be. So you can get, uh, a raise, get a better career. And, uh, you want, you need financial stability in your current state to get to the next level.
AJ Harper: But that, how are you marketing to those people?
Mike Michalowicz: So to employees, that's gonna be, uh, likely… We'll get to the marketing in a minute, but likely, uh, through podcasts, through, through access to the audience that I don't already have.
AJ Harper: Okay. Can I, can I just challenge you on that?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, sure.
AJ Harper: I don't, I don't think that's the right message. If you're talking, that's the general, that's why I asked who, how are you marketing. Is that within the confines of training at a, at a corporation, then that's one thing, but I think the way that you need to market that is about worrying. I don't think people are, their primary desire is not to be a better employee.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay, so I, I'll counter that. We also have, people are frustrated with their finances as the next level. So these are, these people likely be marketed through the employment environment. So the H, we're gonna talk with HR directors, uh, and we talked to the HR director.
AJ Harper: Oh, so you're not talking about general podcasts.
Mike Michalowicz: Right? No, no, no.
AJ Harper: Oh okay. I misunderstood. And I thought the general podcast, you were gonna go with the employee thing.
Mike Michalowicz: No, no. So the general podcast is individuals frustrated with other systems is a common one they've already tried. So other systems make you change who you are. This one allows, this one works with your natural habits.
AJ Harper: But people who generally want to never worry about money again.
Mike Michalowicz: Right. That's the, and that's true for all these people. You don't, you don't wanna worry about money again. What's your, what's the thing you're facing right now?
AJ Harper: Got it. Okay. I'm, I'm running alongside the car.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, and so we have these emotional hooks in here. I never wanna worry about money again. Um, turns out that more income isn't serving me. When I make more income, I have more struggles. So, you know, more money, more problems, and, and it goes on. So we, we have about a page or so of this, then we go into the marketing elements. So I just wanna kind of go through these and you tell me if this is new or something we should discuss. Or we'll just leave it as is. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Okay. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Pre-launch stage, uh, completed by, uh. April 2nd. So we're recording this on April 10th. Just to give context, so this is already done, is to evaluate the Bacs, BISA, B Sacks, B sacs,
AJ Harper: B-I-S-A-C
Mike Michalowicz: To-may-to, to-mah-to.
AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, the Bi sacks. Um, I went to, I got the Bi sacs that were provided by, um, the team at Page Two. We did an evaluation. We used AI to, to say what is the. The pri, what should the primary be and so forth. Minor changes. Page Two reviewed it. They said, we agree, and they completed the B sack.
AJ Harper: BISAC codes are how the industry categorizes books.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep.
AJ Harper: Just so people know they're listening.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Right. So for, so if a library purchases books, they'll use that. AJ Harper: Or a bookstore, they know where to shelve it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, exactly. For shelving. Yeah. And that's a big, that's a big deal. AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, one thing we're doing that's really unique. Is I want to contact the entire sales team. This is the people –
AJ Harper: Macmillan.
Mike Michalowicz: At Macmillan. There's a hundred, um, there's 80 people we've now identified that are involved, and I've made requests of Page Two to get, introduce these people and they've been back and forth on it. Now it's in Leslie Boodle's hands. And she's gonna get me the name of each person. 'cause I'm gonna reach out to every person. Individually.
AJ Harper: Individually?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. They said that No one's ever done that before. AJ Harper: Are you gonna do the video thing?
Mike Michalowicz: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Individual video for each person from me, not AI generated, just a legit call out. And Leslie said, Leslie gets it. She goes. The whole team's like, but no one's ever done that before. And Leslie's like, that's it. Like Mike wants to do what No one's ever done before. Get Gifferent. So she gets it.
The team at Page Two kind of gets it, but still throws them off. When I was working with Penguin, they're like, no, no. Page Two says, yeah, but no one's done it before. So they kind of get it. But they're kinda like, but no one's done that. Exactly. And Leslie's like, exactly. So she's working on assembling the list of people so I can reach out to them. It's gotta happen soon. The book comes out in January.
AJ Harper: Yeah. 'cause they're already mobilizing.
Mike Michalowicz: They're mobilizing. So. I have a call with her next week and we're gonna see where we stand. Uh, trade reviews. Thanks AJ.
AJ Harper Yay. God bless.
Mike Michalowicz: In process submitted. Leslie and Roney are preparing that the Amazon page, we're already working on it. We have all the elements of, is a clear, compelling title, uh, uh, of the book that was tested out extensively through PickFu. We found one little subtitle change and we made that implementation and now it's on Amazon. It's getting SEOed as we speak. Uh, we're working on editorial reviews, the author section.
I'm gonna rewrite my author bio. We test the bio and it no longer works. AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, so Andrea is working on that today. Uh, we want to identify the categories to be listed on Amazon. Um, traditionally the publisher will just choose it for you. So we want to pick the best.
AJ Harper: You don’t want that.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, I don't want what?
AJ Harper: No. Listeners, you need to pick your own categories.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So we're doing that. There's a tool called, uh, rock Rocket.. Oh. AJ Harper: Publisher's Rocket!
Mike Michalowicz: Publisher's Rocket. Do you, it is a little app, right? Do you use it? AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: It's really cool. You pay one time,
AJ Harper: Pay one time.
Mike Michalowicz: 80 bucks or something, but it's something like that. It's under a hundred dollars, so it's not cheap. But then what it does is it, it goes out and it's, it's a live analysis of the Amazon Rankings and it tells you what other books are there. It's just a really powerful tool for you to identify the categories that best serve your readers and your objectives.
AJ Harper: And it's great because you can change them. That's right. So you can, you can check in, you can say, I'm gonna look in Publisher's Rocket every quarter and see if we need to alter these.
Mike Michalowicz: We're also working on early reviews. We want to get 250 reviews ready as to go around the launch.
AJ Harper: Nice.
Mike Michalowicz: And so we do is you get the books out to people in advance. Um, this is the technique Dory Clark shared with me. Get people to review the book, submit it to you, store it, and then give it back to them. So to cut and paste when it comes about.
AJ Harper: And you can also use the technique of getting people to, getting people to, on a spreadsheet, tell you when they're gonna, they're gonna actually post.
Mike Michalowicz: That’s good. That’s a good idea. Uh. Another section, the Mike Michalowicz website, which is in progress updating it, including the book. You know, this is all where stuff we're doing in April, uh, and May. And this is, you know, six to seven months prior. Even more to the book launch. Why do you do it? Actually, it's eight months prior. Why early 'cause of the SEO Gains? The Money Habit Life, which is a dedicated book site, uh, is in progress. We're gonna have our free re resources up there. This is all pre-order stuff. So, I mean,
AJ Harper: Why .life you couldn't get .com?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, the money habit.com was taken.
AJ Harper: What about the Money Habit book.com?
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, we have that.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: We have that. We just want the, the shorter the domain we're finding, the easier it is for people to find. Um, SEO will bring you to a .life .com is just for people to, to remember. Well, I'm not seeing much, I'm seeing more value in getting the money habit.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, for SEO purposes. Uh, then we're starting to work on early awareness and uh, book building. So one thing we're gonna do is the cover announcement. I think we shared that a couple weeks ago.
AJ Harper: Cover reveal
Mike Michalowicz: Cover reveal. Um, we're gonna show the history of it. So Peter, at Page Two assembled a video of where it started off.
AJ Harper: Oh, neat.
Mike Michalowicz: The sketch. Yeah, so you can see the progress.
AJ Harper: Oh, I love that. It's like, oh my gosh, that’s a much better cover reveal than. Here it's,
Mike Michalowicz: yeah. Yeah. It's like, where'd it start and what came about? AJ Harper: Love that.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, then we are doing, let's see, we've already started building our dedicated list. So we started a money habit newsletter. Okay. With with different little tips that are in the book, that are not in the book. New tips and stuff. Um, and we're inviting people to subscribe. I think we already have like 5,000 folks there. TikTok videos I already recorded, I think 40 TikTok videos, 30 to 40, I'll say TikTok videos on the money habit.
Last, yesterday we recorded a interview with me and my wife Krista.
AJ Harper: Aw.
Mike Michalowicz: And that's gonna be TikTok’s. They're probably gonna be five or 10 TikTok’s. Then I did a recording with Adayla and uh--
AJ Harper: Because they’re featured in the book.
Mike Michalowicz: They're featured in the book. So Adayla, we talk about the piggy bank moment.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And she recalls... Nothing.
AJ Harper: I know, I remember you telling me that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And, and she shared, it's the most beautiful story. It's just wired into this is what you do. Then she, we talk about the $75,000 medical bill moment and how she felt. It was so interesting in that interview. She shares the fear, then the release from fear when she knows it's covered, and the, the anger toward the insurance company.
And then the action. So it went from fear, anger, action, and. It's powerful is that the, with, if that money didn't exist, it would stay in the fear state the entire time. So that she talks about that. But then the part I didn't know about, and we don't clean the book, is how she's deployed the money habit herself and how her and her boyfriend, um, figured out a system he's.
He lost his job there. You know, we're in this recession, he was, uh, with a large corporation and they did mass layoffs. Um, and so she's the breadwinner and how they use The Money Habit to, and he still makes money. He's doing like side hustle type of work. Uh, to still participate in a fair way in contribution to the house and stuff like that. It's really cool story. So she tweaked, she took the money habit and her and Marco tweaked it. Um, oh, that's
AJ Harper: Oh, Marco. Adayla and Marco.
Mike Michalowicz: He's awesome. This guy is. Awesome. Such a nice young man.,
AJ Harper: oh, what a nice thing to think about your daughters. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Her life partner, I think, uh, they, they found each other and, uh, he's great. Plus he's a cool guitarist. He's like a really good guitar.
AJ Harper: Oh, I see. Okay. The real reason.
Mike Michalowicz: That doesn't hurt. They're the real, yeah. So when he comes over like, Hey, can you play guitar? He's like, yes, Mr. Michalowicz. It's like, yeah, you're cool, dude. Um, can we play ‘80s stuff? He's like. If we must, Mr. Michalowicz.
Keynotes are, we're already lining up some keynotes. Uh, we have some inquiries out there, um, YouTube shorts, all this stuff is preamble. Okay.
AJ Harper: So you just front, you're just getting a huge asset bank.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Asset bank, SEO preparation. Bliss building. Now, pre-order actions. This starts in August, is the plan. We want, we intend to get 20,000 pre-orders. So how do you do that? Number one, you listen to AJ when we do the great debate.
AJ Harper: Wait, wait a minute. You can in 20,000 pre-orders and then you want 30,000 If the 50,000. You wanna sell 50,000 by the first week?
Mike Michalowicz: Lemme get through effing this plan. Okay?
AJ Harper: You just, just cursed.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh my god. Adayla. Beep that out. Lemme get through the plan. 'cause I don't know if it works when I swear it's 'cause I'm, I'm scared. I'm trying to scare you off.
AJ Harper: Okay, just inconsistency.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, no, I think this, this works. I just gotta, okay. All right. All right. Decision, move on.
AJ Harper: I'm listening, I'm being quiet.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Uh, sponsors, so this was, we had the great debate. Me and you, uh, you won by a mile of, of getting bulk orders. And one idea we have is a dollar per book sponsorship.
So if you wanna sponsor us, you can sponsor 20,000 books, $20,000. You can sponsor 10,000 books. And what you'll do is you'll get referenced as a supporter for those books. Now we're doing print runs in quantities after the first batch, which will be probably a large batch based upon our pre-order demand.
We may do a large run. That's why we're doing so early. If we get 20,000 pre-orders, we gotta do a 10, a 30,000 or 40,000 pre-run. If we get this 50,000 target, we need to do massive prints. Um, your book will be in that first print run. And then subsequent print runs, we'll probably do in batches of two to five to 10,000.
Depends on demand. And you'll keep on being inserted. So you can't say, I'll get, I like to sponsor 753 books. No, you gotta do the first batch. Minimally, we'll say 20,000. And then you can do subsequent batches of 10 and 10,000 increments. That's how we're doing a dollar per book. Um, but we have 'em all listed out, like who could be the sponsors for this?
We have some banks identified that we already work with. We have, um, organizations we haven't worked with, but maybe we can get access to and so forth. Um, we're working on a sponsor deck right now of what, what this could entail. How it could benefit them and so forth. Uh, we have the hundred by a hundred campaign.
The a hundred times a hundred is 10,000. Um, so that's the next tranche of books. That's 10,000 more. That's why I started swearing. So 20,000 through sponsorships.
AJ Harper: Oh, I'm, I apologize. I understand now
Mike Michalowicz: Then to a hundred by a hundred, that's more accessible now. A hundred books isn't cheap. That's. $2,000, but we have enough companies that have employees around a hundred employees that this would make sense for.
So we're reaching out to them and we're adding something special. Mike will do a video training. We'll do one batch training. I'll record once 45 minutes, but then I'll do a five minute. You know, preamble or something like that, or a two minute, Hey, I wanna thank such and such event. uh, 20 people buying 500 books.
I'm sorry, 500 people buying 20 books is a thousand. So that's another one. And so forth. Um, we're in negotiations with the bank and we're looking to get a money habit debit card with the money habit on. That's the
AJ Harper: coolest. I remember you saying that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep. And we submitted, uh, our idea and they are now internally reviewing it. And I would say it's more than 50% likelihood. Um, we have all these different kind of packs. That we're making available, we call it the Couples pack, uh, or life Partner
Pack when there's two people working on finances together, like Marco and Adayla or you and your wife. Um, book clubs, a 15-pack, family packs. Leslie and I were talking about the old Tupperware model.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And now maybe Avon does that or something. But basically you come to my house, we have a little party and we talk about finances, and then the host of that can monetize it by providing the book, but also some other materials we'll provide to them.
So it can be an income source for them. While providing financial education. AJ Harper: Oh, cool.
Mike Michalowicz: So that's the Tupperware model. All that stuff adds up. Uh, influencer asks, we already write writing down the influencers, uh, Ramit Satie. The calls coming bro. If you're listening in, uh, Tiffany Alici, Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman.
We're writing down all these people. I don't have access to all these people, but start off all the names and you may be one degree of separation. Or you may be direct access. Uh, and some of these names may not be a good compliment, but write down all of them, and then you'll figure it out as you move along.
Uh, we are gonna print out, uh, Leslie and I, were talking about 500 advanced reader copies to targeted influencers. But the key here, of course, is we ask, do you want to receive the book before we send. So you don't just aimlessly send it. I get a book every, I wanna say it's every day now. It's so frustrating.
I got back from this trip with my son for the Final Four and we came back. There was a stack of books. I'm like. What is this? They said, oh, here's all reader, advanced readers. I'm like, I, I can't. It's just overwhelming. It's so frustrating. No one's asking. They just send and buried in there was Fix This Next, Japanese, did I tell you we got the Japanese edition?
AJ Harper: No,
Mike Michalowicz: the Japanese edition. I'm like, I, I'm scooting through this real quick. I'm like, oh my God, fix this. Next is now in Japanese. It's. A black book in purple text. Really interesting. Pre-launch activity. It starts January of 26th. Remember the book launches on the 27th, so January 1st to January 26th. Um, I'm gonna do speaking for book purchases.
We think 1,500 books plus travel and accommodations and stuff offsets my speaking fee. Uh, and we'll do it. I'll speak on any topic. This will still be the book. Profit First is my most popular topic, so people are looking to hire me for that. I'll say, look, I'll still speak on it, and here's a great bonus for your audience.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm. Nice.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, we believe. We can get up to 10 gigs that way. 10 times 1500 is 15,000 books. So right there we start hitting that number. We got the 20 plus 30 plus, here's our 15,045. So we think that's how we're gonna get there. Um, multi. And then we're gonna do a multi-book offer.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Multi-book offer, uh, is where if you buy. Two books, you get certain bonuses. If you buy four books, you get certain bonuses, you buy 15 and so and so forth. One thing that's interesting, I was talking with Leslie, is I was in San Antonio. I'm in San Antonio. I do a speaking gig and then I have the rest of the day before I travel out, my agent could call churches or mosques, temples and say, Hey, uh, there's a money expert in town.
He's willing to come to your place of worship if you want, speak to your community for 15, 20 minutes on this. If it's of service, I'm there anyway. There's no cost to me. Uh, there's no cost to them. And I'll invite people to get the book. I'll also have a mechanism saying, um, you guys as a community can work together, make these little pods and start supporting each other.
Um, so is there an opportunity there? What are the congregation points? We're asking ourselves where people want. Um, this, uh, we're talking about chambers of Commerce and other just gathering points. Those are generally more entrepreneurial and that's why we started talking about temples and churches, which are more, uh. Less entrepreneurial, more individuals perhaps with money struggles. Um,
AJ Harper: Have you considered community action agencies that are working with people who are super low income?
Mike Michalowicz: Yes. That's in here too.
AJ Harper: Awesome.
Mike Michalowicz: That's in there too. Um, the television show, which I can't talk about yet, because beyond there's a television show coming. We're gonna be leveraging that, that launches in July. Uh. By August, we'll know if that television show gets renewed for another season. And that's where it'll play out into, uh, the new year. And then we can really leverage it. Um, so then we talk about the multi-book purchase offer. Then we start talking about some, like, what are the cool bonuses for the multi-book purchase offer? Well, one is: be a VIP guest at the studio when we're recording our next show.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: If we get renewed, ask yourself what are the things you have access to that are unique? A sense of exclusivity, but then this don't cost you anything. Coming to the show doesn't cost us anything. I can only invite in one or two guests, so it's pretty prestigious.
But you get behind the scenes, um, we said, why, why not? Uh. Create a fix my money, uh, recording. Um, it's a live session where you can ask, like, basically ask me anything about money, uh, and make that available, um, a secret bonus chapter, which you and I are working on right now, uh, is something that's really appealing to, to folks, um, to, to encourage consumption.
The lost content is something you should always do. Stuff that was on the chopping block, which I think you have the most access to, or can at least. Bifurcate out the stuff that got chopped. Yeah. And so we'll create that and that will be a bonus piece of material. Um, VIP clubs, Insider Money Crew, a personal audio message from me encouraging you Masterminds, uh, a Money Habit Playbook.
I'm just reading off all these different ideas. We have a bonus audio content, uh, a curated list of other books to, to reuse the Money Habit cheat sheet, um, and and so forth. What can we do to, uh. To, to enhance, uh, to build around the experience when you buy a book. And those are all for multi-book buyers.
We have an employee pro employer program. If you're an employer, here's why it's important for your employees to have this book, um, to reduce the employee's financial stress, which makes them, uh. More participative in work. And also is interesting is because many people believe you need more money to have financial security.
And the reality is you need financial clarity is a lot of employees come to their employer and will ask to borrow money, say, Hey, is there any way you can bridge me some money or, you know, pay me more. And, uh, with financial clarity that happens less often. It puts the employer in a less awkward spot. So we're beginning outreach all the way back in August is when we're starting that, and then we're gonna have the employer program come out. Financial advisors, how can we empower them? A certification program, PR first professionals will be leading that. Adult education programs. One, one idea we have here is there's tons of adult education offerings at, you know, these local community colleges and high schools.
Uh, why not prepare a curriculum and provide it to them with a book? So. AJ Harper: Nice. Genius.
Mike Michalowicz: These can do it. Yeah. Um, same things for, uh, trade schools offer for them universities. Uh, personal finance clubs, uh, we were talking about starting, that's the Tupperware model. The, uh, idea from AJ Harper herself is the massive launch party where we have this kind of global launch party.
And you said to look up Dave's winter party was your idea. Does that sound right? I have your name next to it. It says, AJ suggested Dave's winter party. I haven't looked it up yet. Okay.
AJ Harper: I'm not, I'm not gonna say anything then. It'll be a nice surprise for you. It'll be a nice surprise.
Mike Michalowicz: Paid ads. Leslie's like, dude, I'm telling you Amazon ads may work. Uh, their analysis says it may work when you're making higher royalties. So we're gonna start playing with that and see if it works. There's a guy we use, his name is, is Alex. Um, I can't remember his last name at the moment that we've used in the past.
And what I love about him is while it was monetarily unsuccessful, he kept on testing out different models to try to optimize it. And we never could make the return on the royalties as a traditional publisher, three 50 a book, but in a hybrid of six to $8 a book. Uh, it looks like it's gonna work. So we're reaching out to him.
Uh, now we can go on TikTok shop, so we're working on that. Um, we're, we may do some boosts on TikTok’s. We're trying things out. A reader challenge.
AJ Harper: I feel like you really need to do that. I'm hearing from a lot of people who are making—
Mike Michalowicz: The TikTok shop?
AJ Harper: --selling tens of thousands of books on TikTok shop.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So we're doing that, uh, street team. We're gonna activate a street team.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: So we're working on that. Um, is there any other stuff, big standing? AJ Harper: You know what's missing? Something I really wanted you to do. Mike Michalowicz: What's that?
AJ Harper: A challenge?
Mike Michalowicz: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. AJ Harper: Is it in there?
Mike Michalowicz: It is in here. I, I skimmed over it. Yeah. The 30 day— AJ Harper: Money habit challenge.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um. Leslie really liked and I really liked, maybe we're gonna, you're gonna like this too. We're gonna bring back the mom campaign. We got one more shot and this one is mom to, uh, influencers.
AJ Harper: The… what we did for pumpkin plan
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Think its coming back. I want, I wanna talk to you about it. AJ Harper: Oh man.
Mike Michalowicz: Because we just did it for endorsements.
AJ Harper: But you wanna do it in a different way.
Mike Michalowicz: Influencers. My son has a new book. So here's my thought is my mom sends out a letter to different influencers. My son has a new book. Um, he really is awkward about promoting it.
AJ Harper: I would love to write these.
Mike Michalowicz: I that's what I'm saying. I I'm promoting this.
AJ Harper: Ghost writing for your mom was the, was the, my favorite gig ever.
Mike Michalowicz: What if she digresses to promoting her own stuff like that? Oh my God. Would that be great? Like, I've never written a book myself, but I was thinking about it and so what if the end ask is, would you, would you have me on your show? Or something like that.
AJ Harper: Maybe I would, I would be so excited to write for your mom again.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So I wanna bring that back. And I, I want, I find I, I'm already searching for, I got the most awkward photos of me to print out.
AJ Harper: I'm to, I wish you had one with you and your mom.
Mike Michalowicz: What do you mean?
AJ Harper: There's never… We didn't put a picture of your mom in last time.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. We can, yeah. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. So put a picture of me and my mom together.
AJ Harper: Um, she's gonna get so much swag.
Mike Michalowicz: She'll get so much swag and it'll confuse her. She, she's not for making more pumpkin bread or anything. She'll do it for the holidays, for like, she'll make two or three at most.
AJ Harper: No, we're not gonna send that anymore. Yeah. The letter's fine.
Mike Michalowicz: The letter's fine. But I think it's a really fun, funny. Compelling letter. It could just be awesome. So just take that seed, play with it. And what, what I love about Leslie Boodle, she's like, no one's ever done that. We gotta do that. Like that.
AJ Harper: Oh, good. She gets it. She's made for you.
Mike Michalowicz: She's made for me. I made for her. Um, let's see, uh, arcs, we'd already talked about arcs. Yeah, that's basically the stuff. So in the marketing plan, we have. A load of maybe 20 more just out of the box ideas. And we're combined it together. Here is the final analysis through the pre-order and bulk sales leading up to and closing out February 10th, which is the end of launch week two, is 50,000. So pre-orders, we think collectively 20,000. And the bulk sale things, which are also pre-orders and orders 30,000, that accumulates to 50,000 we think with social media. Uh, paid ads. We can get to an ongoing level of 5,000 books per week. That is a game changer. Profit First, comparatively right now is running US Edition, all formats, 16, 1700 a week.
Um, so this would be a four time, three to four times ask over that. Um, but the community, the size of the community supports it. It's a a hundred or a thousand times bigger than the profit first consumer community. I, I gotta market this like. It is funny. They say market like your, your life depends on it.
Instead market it like their lives depend on it.
AJ Harper: Yeah. 'cause it does. Yeah, because it does.
Mike Michalowicz: Because it does.
AJ Harper: This sounds great and I'm, I think this is, you know, something you need to dig deep with, dig deep on and stay so totally focused on marketing this. Versus moving on to a new book
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. In the past it was just get more books out, um, because I think it's so important, and I still have this compulsion to be of service, but I realize that if, if this book isn't marketed the way it needs to be marketed, this huge effort to offer naught.
AJ Harper: it's true. You get, yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So, um, and we'll still be talking about a book, particularly when it come up to your place. I got some ideas, but it, it is a long term play. Right now, the focus for,
AJ Harper: I think that's the right choice.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. The next year or two is the money habit.
AJ Harper: Money habit.
Mike Michalowicz: The money habit. Hey, uh, why don't you, our listener, join us up at AJ's place. Maybe not when I'm up there for that trip.
AJ Harper: Yeah, no.
Mike Michalowicz: Right. He just, you pop in, you're like, Hey,
AJ Harper: hey. What's up?
Mike Michalowicz: What's up? I'm just in town. I'm on Madeline Island. I thought maybe, I thought, I thought,
AJ Harper: I thought we were getting other. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: You said so on the podcast.
AJ Harper: Don’t do that.
Mike Michalowicz: Nope. But you can go to ajharper.com. You can sign up for one of the retreats.
AJ Harper: There's, I, I only have, um, space available in October now.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's right. That's right. And you just say that a few times now. Um, and October may not be available by the time you sign up, so just jump on it and get in the queue. But you've been so kind. When an author has something imminent, you still will occasionally work with them, at least have an initial call with them to get them their homework, so to speak. In preparation, you've done that in certain cases. That, that's not protocol. I know 'em,
AJ Harper: I don't, are you talking about for my workshop, my annual workshop?
Mike Michalowicz: I, I've introduced some authors to you like that. Are they kind of haul butt and you've, you've worked out programs to support them in that case,
AJ Harper: I will. I will, um, meet with an author to see what I can do based on what my offerings are. We'll put it like that. Yeah. But I don't take private clients. I do take VIP clients where we do a two day blowout. It's usually for people who—
Mike Michalwicz: I gotcha.
AJ Harper: --are honestly too busy to take my class and they need to get it, they need to get it all done. That's, you know.
Mike Michalowicz: So they're still part of your, the group, but they can upgrade to the VIP status?
AJ Harper: No, they're not part of the group. Oh. This is for people who don't have time to take the class.
Mike Michalowicz: How's that different than private? How's VIP and private different? AJ Harper: A private client would be like an ongoing thing.
Mike Michalowicz: Clear. Gotcha.
AJ Harper: This is a two-day deal. Knock it out.
Mike Michalowicz: Gotcha. Get it done.
AJ Harper: But I will, uh, if you do, if you do wanna think about how could you work with me in some capacity, you can message laura@ajharper.com. That's Laura Stone and um, she'll get you started.
Mike Michalowicz: Cool. Anything else on marketing? I think we're good. We went through all,
AJ Harper: I mean, that's a lot, man.
Mike Michalowicz: And Yeah, it takes a team
AJ Harper: I’m thrilled to hear it, honestly, because. I feel like this. Yeah, I feel like this is the right choice.
Mike Michalowicz: Me too. It takes a team. Andrea from our office is leading it, is overseeing it, and then everyone's filling their parts. I love though that we're eight, nine months out and I'm, I. Already have all this stuff in the bag that we're, we're accumulating. Including yesterday. We got just tons of great stuff to get out there. Um, yeah, so it's exciting. If you haven't read, Write a Must Read.
Come on. Won't worry. 90,000 episodes in, you haven't gotten the book. Get a copy. Also, you can go to our website, dw tb podcast.com. AJ has free materials, uh, up there for you. So if you want to start that way, go there, join our email list. We have cool stuff that comes out. We wanna do a live show at some 0.1 day.
So, uh, you'll learn about that show there. And, uh, we do have an imprint called Simplified. I have an imprint called Simplified for Entrepreneurial Authors. So if that's of interest to you, we. Email us at hello@dwtbpodcast.com ala. We'll put you in touch with the right people for consideration for that.
Hope you learned something. Hopefully you, you can deploy this in your own marketing and, uh, market your book like their lives, depend on it. And whatever you do, don't write that book. Write the greatest book you can.