In this episode, Mike and AJ catch listeners up on the state of production for their forthcoming book, The Money Habit, including working with Page Two’s graphics design team, efficient ways to power through proofreading, and Mike’s current state of getting an “in” with the MacMillan Publishing’s sales team for marketing purposes. We’re keeping hope alive!
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New Book Update: Surprising Marketing Challenges”
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 Harper: [Deep, distorted voice] Don't worry,
Mike Michalowicz: You can do you.
AJ Harper: [Deep, distorted voice] Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I only want you to have some fun.
Mike Michalowicz: That was amazing, AJ.
AJ Harper: He made me do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You made me do it.
Mike Michalowicz: So we have a brand.
AJ Harper: If you're not Gen X, you don't know what that was.
Mike Michalowicz: But yeah, first person to guess that song emails us. They get nothing, but they get accolades, they get recognition. You get your recognition. So
AJ Harper: can't believe you got me to do that.
Mike Michalowicz: That was so good. It was so good. So this is your new soundboard. It's a, uh, road Caster Pro two, and we're working on getting it. Perfect. But it has these
AJ Harper: No, you have to know. Wait, let's back up. Okay. Last night we were putting this together. The road caster board is, looks like a light bright.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it really does.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It's like a, it's…
Mike Michalowicz: It's a little bit much.
AJ Harper: It's a lot. And you said. Oh, it has all these sound effects. This one's just Prince. And I was like, what do you, what do you mean it's Prince? And you said, what's that song? What's that song?
And you said, don't worry. And I was like, oh, I can do it. And they came over and did it. And now you made me do it today and
Mike Michalowicz: And we were laughing so hard because there's these other ones got AJ Harper: I can’t believe you got me to do it just now.
Mike Michalowicz: It's so good on our show. In our show.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Alright, well welcome.
AJ Harper: If you're Gen X, you know.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, totally. You know.
AJ Harper: You know if you know.
Mike Michalowicz: And if you don't, it's one of the best songs of all time. So go find it. Yes. Today we're gonna talk about the new book, the Money Habit, and we're gonna talk about some of the perhaps surprising marketing challenges. You are guest you're listening to.
Don't write that book. I am Mike Michalowicz, co-host with my writing partner, AJ Harper. We are still here in Madeleine on Madeleine Island. We're on the Rock. Isn't it funny? Uh, there was a a bit or joke routine by Jerry Seinfeld. He goes, isn't it funny you get in a taxi but on a train? Isn't that kind of crazy?
Oh, I'm, I'm hopping on the train. You don't say I'm hopping in the train. I'm hopping on the train.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: but you don't say, I'm going on the taxi. I'm going in the taxi.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: Nut you go in on both cases.
AJ Harper: That's a very Jerry joke,
Mike Michalowicz: isn't it?
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: You go on a plane, not,
AJ Harper: It's also a very New York joke.
Mike Michalowicz: It's very New York, but you go on a plane, not in a plane.
AJ Harper: Yes. But also New Yorkers say, I'm waiting online. Instead of in line, which is, uh, geographic, that's not what we would say here in the Midwest. We would say you in line. Are you in line? Like you're at the counter and you're asking somebody, are you in line?
Mike Michalowicz: And would they respond and say, yes, I am waiting in line.
AJ Harper: Yes. But in New York, when people would say to me, when I first moved there 20 years ago, yeah, are you online?
Mike Michalowicz: And they respond and say, what, what? What's your problem?
AJ Harper: Well, no, I thought they meant online as in, uh, the, on the internet. I was confused.
Mike Michalowicz: Hey. Yeah, I'm waiting online. Hey, wait, who now? What's your problem?
Um, here's what I admire about you is you take pause to think deeply. I noticed that we were, uh, trying to fix and navigate some of these problems here. And me, there's this building welling.
AJ Harper: Oh, with the road caster?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Because I'm like, it's just frustrations. I, I start getting tunnel vision. You're like, well, hold on, take a pause. Let's think through this. And then we, we found the resolution. But that's a great tendency of yours to take pause to think deeply, find a resolution. I go into a mania.
AJ Harper: You have to fix things right away.
Mike Michalowicz: Exactly. And well, there's a frustration if I can't.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And then the default solution, at least I'm consciously aware of it. Is well try to fix it faster in different ways. As opposed to just putting thoughtfulness into it, intentional pause and allowing myself time to find the appropriate fix.
AJ Harper: That's nice.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. That's a, that's a good talent. That's a powerful, AJ Harper: I don't observe that about myself, but I accept your observation. Mike Michalowicz: Good. I'm happy you receive that.
AJ Harper: Do I sound super echoey.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Are you And you're on top of the microphone. AJ Harper: I'm right here on the microphone.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Maybe it's coming too close to you. I'm gonna back up. You know what it is? I'm speaking and there's books behind you catching it behind me, the blank wall.
AJ Harper: And so might so I need to put something there.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. You know, we might, we may do something like that. I was thinking in our office, the back in Boonton, I dunno why I'm saying Boin that way. It's Boin New Jersey. Uh, we do have the entire place, uh, with sound cushioning. There's definitely a deadening of the sound when that door is closed.
AJ Harper: Yeah, for sure.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And maybe
AJ Harper: I'll have to work on it, but here's what I admire about you. So we, so you get here at my place yesterday and I was so nervous because I wanted it to be just right. And it hasn't been because all my contractors, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Mike Michalowicz: Unbelievable what you're dealing with.
AJ Harper: You came in and you're like, put me to work. And I just, at first I was like, I mean, I just, I don't know. I just had this view of, oh, we're just gonna enjoy the lake and we'll do our work. And… But you wanted to help and you just, not y'all, he, my wife and I have been trying to solve this living room configuration because we're both terrible.
Like usually in a couple, one person excels where the other person doesn't. When it comes to any interior design. Home project, DIY, anything, we are both totally useless. Completely. So, but you came in and you said, oh, I think it's the rug. Can I move your furniture? I'm like, it's really heavy. And you did it.
You moved all the furniture out, move the rug, put the furniture back. Then you were like, okay, what's next? And uh, then I think you, you hung up three paintings, moved all 12 chairs. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And tables and did the whole dining area on the porch, and then put all this podcast thing together. And that was just yesterday.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. We have stuff to do today,
AJ Harper: but I admire that about you.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you. That means a lot to me.
AJ Harper: You are, um, the definition of a go-getter.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you. That means a lot to me. It's also a privilege to be a participant. You know, in, in the smallest itty bitty way in the home you own.
AJ Harper: Well, I'll always remember that you hung those pictures. You be, you'll always be, you know, I'll, you'll, you'll be a part of this place.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um, my wife is, is the one who has the talent in design. So I don't have that natural talent, but I have observed it and I'm like, oh, there's certain things, certain kind of rules and principles to design. So when I saw the carpet, um, what my wife will say is, what's the center feature and what the center feature in that room is Kind of like writing a book perhaps is the coffee table, you have like a surfboard shaped coffee table, at least how I define that.
AJ Harper: Yep.
Mike Michalowicz: And I, I realized my wife would say, okay, that's the center feature, therefore that needs to be centered on the carpet. Or some carpets are designed differently, but the carpet generally in the design you have, it draws your eye into the center because of how this patterns are. Then it becomes the centerpiece and then you balance the furniture around it. And we basically, we just move the carpet to do that. And I'm like, wow. It feels now like a space.
AJ Harper: It works now.
Mike Michalowicz: And the flow around it, you have to, you know, those all, all this happened automatically.
AJ Harper: Fantastic.
Mike Michalowicz: Well thank you for saying that.
AJ Harper: Yes, I, that blast. Much appreciated.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm happy to help. Um, so today we're gonna talk about updates on the money habit. I wanna start with something that's unexpected.
I wanna give an update on the television show. I, I can't technically share many details. I probably accidentally revealed the name or any stuff I just got while you were on the break. Uh, they, the production house emailed me a link to the current version of the 30-minute epi. It's 20, actually 22 minutes with commercials. It's a 30-minute show.
So during break I was able to watch it. I would say it is good. I'm not gonna say it's, it's the best. And there's self, some self-criticism. But the first one I saw, I was like, uh oh, we're in trouble. And now I'm looking at it, it's like, oh, this is good. Like I think I would watch this show, particularly if it was another person.
I don't, just like a lot of people, I feel a lot of self-criticism. I don't like to watch myself, but I was like, this content in the flow now is good.
AJ Harper: Oh, so they had sent you one version and then they revised it?
Mike Michalowicz: They sent me a version two months ago. I was like, we're in trouble. I. The, when we filmed the uh, series, I dunno if I told you, there's a studio in
AJ Harper: Yeah. You did. New Jersey.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Tracy Morgan, figuratively, he wasn't actually, but figuratively walks out. I walk in, he was recording there and, um, Tracy Morgan from Saturday Night Live.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: I then, uh, go in there and we have these two, I would almost call 'em magical days. The crew was excellent. The production and the live feedback I'm getting on the performance was excellent. I put every ounce of my energy into it and I felt very good
about how I performed. And at the end there was appropriate high fiving, like we got something special here. And then I saw the first episode two months ago and I was like, what happened to it?
Like there was, the emotion was gone. The just, I don't know, the story was gone. It, it felt. Very functional, like a download of just ideas. Like if you ever saw someone speak, you were talking last week's episode, or two weeks episode back, you were talking about performance, how you did with Garrett Gunderson.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And this, this was, there was no performance. It was just the facts. Like when you see someone speak and they're like reading off of the, uh, slide deck, like bullet 0.1, bullet 0.2, it felt like that.
AJ Harper: So it was in the editing.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I, I had no idea that editing could. Oh yeah, break. So they went through a re-edit to the team's, and I asked myself too, to be removed. Uh, there was too many cooks in the kitchen and like, I, I'm not appropriate to be cooking and I'm trying to cook, so get me outta the kitchen. So I said, please don't communicate with me. Don't make me look at it until you guys like it. I said, then send it to me if you want me to review it. Say, sent it. And I'm like, this is good.
AJ Harper: Do you want more changes to it?
Mike Michalowicz: I don't know if there can be more, now. I, I don't understand what's going on. I think there is opportunity for new elements, different things, but I think I'm including things we didn't even capture. So you can't put 'em in. Put in a future episodes, but it was, uh, good.
I, I'm self-critical of how I presented on that. I think there's things I, I will improve. AJ Harper: Hmm. There's
Mike Michalowicz: There’s one tip from Dave. He's one of the producers and he goes. I'm telling you, at the end of everything you share, smile like, like I am now. Like, do a real smile. He's like, you're ending it and you're serious.
And he goes, I am telling you that puts this exclamation mark on something where you're putting a apostrophe or a period.
AJ Harper: Mm.
Mike Michalowicz: And I'm like, okay. But it's not natural. And so I try to remember to smile a lot of times. Like they're, they're waving these smile signs at me from behind the cameras. That's actually who I am, but I'm just not doing it.
So there's some, I knew I did kind of artificially. Well, they inserted those and by golly he's right. It's better. It ends better. And I, I couldn't…
AJ Harper: They do say also when you're recording audio to just to smile while you're doing it.
Mike Michalowicz: It's interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: It, it's interesting. So there, there's an update there. Um, the other AJ Harper: I'm excited.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It was gonna broadcast. We still don't know when, um, maybe by the time this episode comes out. So, uh, once we know details, we're gonna share the name, share the details, share where it's broadcasting, and all that stuff.
AJ Harper: Awesome.
Mike Michalowicz: The money habit, I gotta get clear on this. There is the writing phase. AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: We're going back to basics 101 here.
AJ Harper: I mean, you do, you do have an entire diagram you created after asking me these questions.
Mike Michalowicz: I have it on my wall. Uhhuh, I think I, I mistyped some of it. There's a substanting,
AJ Harper: Substantive.
Mike Michalowicz: Substantive, substantive stage. There's copy edit.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Does copy edit include proofreading?
AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: Is that considered its own stage?
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: And then there is page layout. Is that its own stage? AJ Harper: Mm-hmm. Interior page design.
Mike Michalowicz: One day I'll be an author and know this stuff.
AJ Harper: You don't have to know that stuff. You're not a publisher. Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, but I still confuse them. Um, we are now in the copy edit stage. AJ Harper: Well, we just finished it. Well, I don't know if we have, we kinda have. Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: Is it gonna be, you're
Mike Michalowicz: doing kind of like the head back and forth, like cockiness?
AJ Harper: Well, all the major work is done. There's only a few queries. Yeah. So that's, if you have something that you're wondering about, you wanna ask the copy editor and the copy editor may look at what we did and have a query back. But honestly, it's, it's nothing.
Mike Michalowicz: The copy edit phase, what I've noticed is there are considerations of factoids, if that's right. The, the accuracy of certain facts.
AJ Harper: Facts. Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: There is still some grammatical corrections. Yeah. She caught repetitive words. I think that sometimes happens in proofreading where the same word, whatever may be
AJ Harper: Echoes
Mike Michalowicz: Exactly. Echoes. Is used repeatedly. I meaning an echo. AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: What are some of the other things that,
AJ Harper: well, they're, they're, so they're following the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the style guide for North America in publishing. And, um, there also have a page two style guide. And then there's usually style considerations for each project.
So for example, when we decide are we gonna use all caps for the different accounts, that would be part of a style guide for the money habit.
Mike Michalowicz: Got it.
AJ Harper: So it's almost like, um, a hierarchy of style guides. Chicago Manual Style, page two house guide, and then the money habit guide.
Mike Michalowicz: What's it, what's it feel like for you, 'cause you have it from both the publishing perspective and the writing perspective to move into this phase, which is production.
AJ Harper: Hallelujah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: It's cake. For me. It's just cake. It's like, oh, okay. We're, here we go, here we go.
Mike Michalowicz: Have you ever had a situation where you had a book that you were ghosting back in the day? Editing with a client, that you said, oh we, we've got it. And then the production house comes back and says, it's not passing the substantive phase, you gotta go back?
AJ Harper: That's not the language they would use. They would just ask for different types of changes.
Mike Michalowicz: Has that ever happened that surprised you that actually they did that? AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Have you ever had a client submit perhaps against your better judgment?
AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: So have you ever had one that's been bounced back and basically you say no.
AJ Harper: Oh,
Mike Michalowicz: Cocky!
AJ Harper: Well, no, I'm just answering honestly. Yeah, I
Mike Michalowicz: know, I know. But I mean, you, you're talking about hundreds of bucks. AJ Harper: No.
Mike Michalowicz: How many would you say
AJ Harper: People keep adding?
Mike Michalowicz: Well, you, you work with so many authors. I, I mean, AJ Harper: I've probably hit a hundred.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: A hundred or a little over, but not hundreds.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, okay.
AJ Harper: I worked with hundreds of authors. Correct. But not, I haven't written all their books.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, no, I understand that. Yeah. I'm thinking ones that you just help with edits. I mean, have you given guidance to people that wouldn't, was not written by you, that you didn't even directly edit?
AJ Harper: Oh, I see. No one's, no one's thrown it back like a bad fish. Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: Um, you know, most of the time my students will go through two rounds. I gotta be honest with you. It's um, you know, I'm starting editor certification, right?
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, refresh me
AJ Harper: Did I tell you about it?
Mike Michalowicz: Refresh my memory. So
AJ Harper: I'm doing write a must read editor certification, so it's,
Mike Michalowicz: that's so smart.
AJ Harper: Sort of, I know this is my little baby.
Mike Michalowicz: So smart.
AJ Harper: So I'm, it's to certify editors in my methodology for prescriptive nonfiction to ensure, because editing is focused on making the book work, but they're not making it better, making it the best it can be in terms of the writing, but it's not actually geared toward is this book delivering the promised change?
So the way I do it is both, but the emphasis on, the emphasis is on does this book deliver the promise transformation? Does this book deliver change? And a lot of editors are not focused on that. In fact, I don't know many who are. They're focused on things like accessibility and clarity and all, and simplification, and those are really important things.
But I don't know that many, I don't even know one editor that's thinking, Is this actually going to give them what
Mike Michalowicz: is promised?
AJ Harper: What is promised?
Mike Michalowicz: That's so smart.
AJ Harper: So I have a methodology. It's in my book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: I lay it out. But what I've found with my author students is that they'll leave me and they'll go get a deal and then I hear from them, oh, I'm struggling because I can't, I want this editor to understand what I'm trying to do here. And uh, so you know, we need editors who are qualified to think that way, and then on top of what they already do, it's not ex, it's not separate from what they do. It's an added skillset
Mike Michalowicz: and we need authors to, when they inquire with their publishing house that they're considering, I. Is this editor certified? Who am I gonna work with?
AJ Harper: Listen.
Mike Michalowicz: Do they have this capability?
AJ Harper: It's actually becoming a thing. I mean, I've got three authors right now who wrote incredible books who are messaging me and saying, can you please help me deal with this editor situation?
Mike Michalowicz: That's smart. So it's an advantage for the publishing house to have an editor that's certified in this, or independent editors,
AJ Harper: Especially because there's so many write and must read, um, readers
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I know. Oh, I know, I know. Um. And, and a publishing house, page two specifically mandates that their authors read your book.
AJ Harper: Well, they don't mandate. They send it as a nice welcome gift. Oh, they're Canadian. What are you talking about? Yeah, it's true. I mean, they wouldn't mandate, they're, they're not gonna say, you must read this book.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Now they send it as a welcome gift. Yeah. Which I'm so honored. That was their idea.
Mike Michalowicz: I think it's brilliant. I hope every author does read it. How do, if someone's listening in right now wants to get certified or whatever, is that…?
AJ Harper: AJharper.com?
Mike Michalowicz: Everything's at aj harper.com.
AJ Harper: Yeah. Keep it simple, man. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, by the way, it is one of the smartest techniques is to have 1.1 call to action, one spot to go.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Right now, um, the money habit, assuming copy edit is effectively done. It's gonna go to interior page design. One thing I didn't know is the graphics, the internal graphics, when I was working with Penguin. I had to draw those graphics.
AJ Harper: Yeah, that's what it's mostly the case.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So it's unique. Page Two said, no, we, we include graphics design. So just give us the graphics which already designed appropriately. Liz, the designer, got the fonts and all the information from the book, because you wanted to look at the same as the cover. You want the flow. And so she integrated that and they said, oh no, we do that for you. I only found out after the fact. So next go around, I'll have 'em do it. Of course.
AJ Harper: Yeah. But that's their. Page two is exceptional in many ways. So Mike Michalowicz: So yeah.
AJ Harper: They're not typical.
Mike Michalowicz: No. So that's fantastic. So, but typically our listeners are gonna have to get, if they have graphics in the book, create them themselves,
AJ Harper: or they can pay the publisher to do it.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, they can, okay.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And then it's gonna go through proofreading. Mm-hmm. Well, you and I proofread how we've been doing it, and we'll probably do the same, is we get the book printed on paper.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So we used to get it past pages sent to us. FedEx, and they
Mike Michalowicz: It's kind of fun, actually.
AJ Harper: It's so fun.And then they stop sending it because they're trying to save money. Mike Michalowicz: But then did pen, did Penguin stop doing it?
AJ Harper: They did, but but then you call them and you say, send it, and then they will. Okay. Yeah. But I don't, I think they stopped doing it as a matter of course.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. I think that makes sense.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: It is a lot of paper. I feel a little guilty about holding like a AJ Harper: You gotta— No, no. I, I understand the guilt, but you gotta do it
Mike Michalowicz: because there's something when you go through the tactical or tactile, tactile reading of a book. As opposed to just seeing on the screen. To me, there's almost a drone trying to read on the screen. It's really tough to stay engaged, but when I'm flipping pages, when I'm feeling it, when I can mark it up with pen. So you and I both do that. Now, one technique I wanna share, and I think I've shared this before, is I use a tool called speechify.
AJ Harper: You've shared that before.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. And you can upload the PDF and it'll read it to you. You can now import your own voice, which I suggest. So you read, it's read to you back in your own voice, almost like an audible.com. Not perfect, but it's easier for me in my own voice, listening to it to catch mistakes. It's really helpful for when the same word is inserted twice. It's very hard to see that, but it's very easy to hear it.
So like the, the, particularly when there's a line break, so you're reading a line and the last word in that line is the word, the, and the first word in the next line is the, I, it's almost invisible to me. I can't see it, but you hear in the audio. And so our job there in the proofreading is to catch what else? What other mistakes do we do?
AJ Harper: oh, so many things. So here's what, here's what happens is in the copy edited process, new mistakes come up. And that's just what happens because you're tracking
changes. So, you know, you notice how we always have, find these double periods. Yes. Things like that. That just, that's 'cause a lot, been a lot of cooks in the kitchen.
Mike Michalowicz: You can't, there's so much going on in that document. AJ Harper: You can't always see it because of track changes.
Mike Michalowicz: Correct.
AJ Harper: So, um, and then also when, when a book is, um, goes to interior page design, also sometimes new things come up in the interior page design, and that's all normal. That doesn't, it's not reflective of the publisher's abilities or quality, it's just what happens.
Mike Michalowicz: The spelling of Lillian came up and we had a conversation about it as I backtracked it. We through edits accidentally changed it once, and it got changed in many places, but there were some spots with double Ls, most spots with a single L. And so when we reached out to the um, the reader, or not the reader? The, the, the case study.
AJ Harper: Lillian is the daughter's name of one of the,
Mike Michalowicz: of Dom, right?
AJ Harper: No, Justin
Mike Michalowicz: Of Of Justin. Of Justin, yeah.
AJ Harper: Justin is a featured in the book and it's uh, it talks about how he set up a fund for her.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So I reached out and he wrote back, here's her full name. AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, so
AJ Harper: He’s so proud of her.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, he should be. Yeah. He should be so proud of himself too. The transformation he's made. But it's interesting. To your point as something may have been correct, but through the editing there's so much track changes going on. I had difficulty, 'cause I'm working on, this is the iPad that I use when I'm traveling, that it wasn't enacting track changes.
So there's missing... It becomes this, this nodded web of editing and, and changes. AJ Harper: But I mean, you maybe shouldn't do it on the iPad.
Mike Michalowicz: I know. I actually bought a, um, a Microsoft. Whatever they call the, the, the equivalent to this.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: I just neglected to travel with it.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I mean, you know, I know you don't wanna use Apple products, but there isn't,
Mike Michalowicz: Well, this is an Apple product.
AJ Harper: I know, but there's a laptop that is the air and is very lightweight. Mike Michalowicz: Maybe I'd do that. Yeah. Maybe I,
AJ Harper: And then you could have word on there and then it would track properly. Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Maybe I'll do that. Um,
AJ Harper: I mean, you're an author.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I know. For, for God's sake. Well, you remember you used to have a keyboard that like certain letters wouldn't.
AJ Harper: Okay. But I could still do it.
Mike Michalowicz: And you wouldn't do the letter T or something.
AJ Harper: Yeah, it was broken. Listen, I'll run it to the ground.
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, you did. Um, while this is all going on, we're working on the marketing front, so I wanted to give some marketing updates. Yep. We shared that Leslie Bootle has been assigned to us through Page Two. UTreating this book as a special instance where they want to be even more engaged in the marketing.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, I think perhaps that's reflective of the performance of our past books, but also I think they acknowledge that we wanna push the limit on how marketing works. One of the things, and we've talked about in a prior episode here, I believe I wanna give an update, is there's this mysterious sales team. These are people, in this case, at McMillan. So McMillan is the distributor for Page Two.
AJ Harper: McMillan is a Big five publisher.
Mike Michalowicz: Exactly. And that means they have access to retailers that extend beyond what Ingram Spark can do is my understanding.
AJ Harper: I mean it's way more than that, but yeah. Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: And they have a sales team. These sales teams represent books and they, I still don't understand the exact math, but they, I. Bank on the books they believe are gonna do the best.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It's not a democracy.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it's not a demo. It's definitely not a democracy. I don't understand. And maybe you do, is the salesperson compensated on the performance of a book?
AJ Harper: That part, I don't know. I, I don't really know how the sales team is compensated, but I do know that, you know, they do give books, certain books, more attention than others.
Mike Michalowicz: To me, that's the big mystery. And if, if, if I know that. May, maybe it's AJ Harper: why do you need to know how, what they're compensated?
Mike Michalowicz: Always speak to a person's selfish interest, not your own, you know, when I, uh,
AJ Harper: I mean, they're sales, right? So they've gotta get some benefit out of hitting certain quotas.
Mike Michalowicz: But the more you know, the better you do. Yeah,
AJ Harper: I know. I'm just, you know, I'm gonna be different than say your, your acquiring editor who you know, it can make their career if they have a successful book.
Mike Michalowicz: Totally. Yeah. When you do a proposal, your job is to empower the editor to make the pitch internally. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of authors are trying to sell their book and it's really empowering the editor and it is a, it's a minor twist or spin, but it's a world of difference. If I know how the sales teams work, I can speak to their interest. I get, I got two or three emails today.
I was just up in the room and it says, please endorse my book. Here's my, I wrote this amazing book. It's gonna be a game changer. Here's your deadline. Like literally you said,
AJ Harper: oh, man.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It literally said, here, endorse my book. Here's your deadline. And I'm like, delete. Delete.
AJ Harper: Yeah, for sure.
Mike Michalowicz: I, I first believe that people should make an effort to, if you're gonna garner value of someone, to deliver them value. And sometimes the value is just entertainment or outta the box thinking, or a genuine compliment or some form of appreciation in advance. I also think, um, they gotta think of the selfish, selfish interest of the person that they're asking a favor from. You know, if, if they're seeking an endorsement, could they, could I be getting some exposure?
Or maybe they could say, Hey, listen Mike, I'd love to, uh, I know you're trying to expand your network of authors. I'd like to make you some introduction of another person's endorsing my book. I'd love for you to consider endorsing, but nonetheless, I like to make an introduction to so and so, like that is offering me value.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: So for the salespeople, I wanna know how they get value and if, if every time I book sales they get a penny per book, I want,
AJ Harper: they don't.
Mike Michalowicz: well I don't know what it is. But if I do know exactly what their win is, I can cater to that. Mm-hmm. What their wanted is.
AJ Harper: Yeah. You can cater that. I mean, I think part of it is, um, just being, They are interested in authors who are already getting buzzed and already pushing and they wanna amplify those efforts.
Mike Michalowicz: But why? My question is why you just, I'm just keep digging and digging.
AJ Harper: I mean, listen, you are using AI all the time.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Ai.
AJ Harper: So why have you not asked this question of ai?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Well that's a good point.
'cause I've gone through the AI
AJ Harper: friend, my BFF. What, how are sales teams at publishing houses and trade distribution. Um, the trade distributors compensated?
Mike Michalowicz: I just turned on ai as you're saying that it's gonna answer it. I, uh, you're right. And, um, during the break I wanna do this. I've been found the traditional path. I've asked Leslie and she's given a coherent but incomplete response. Because I don't know if she really knows. I've asked some other people at page two. I've asked Noah at Penguin who. Kind of iron curtained it. I mean, not, not by intent, but like, no response. Um, it's just, it's just mysterious.
AJ Harper: All of publishing is mysterious.
Mike Michalowicz: So, so what my offer is, is I, I want to, even if I don't find out the real benefit to salespeople, so I want to send a video to every single one of the salespeople just so they can put a human behind a product.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um…
AJ Harper: But you did go meet with them, some of them.
Mike Michalowicz: I met with, uh, a couple. Yeah. Yeah. So they brought, I bet the Amazon rep, a couple other folks, so they know there's a real person behind it now. But I also spoke to them in batch and they were still behind a curtain. It was a virtual connection. It was me in a room with a few people, in a sales team with all their cameras office, like who are these invisible people? You’re humans!
AJ Harper: But those are like what? It's like at pitch meetings.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm. When publishers have to do pitch meetings to the sales team. Mike Michalowicz: You don't, you don't get see them.
AJ Harper: I mean, it depends. It's just kind of funny.
Mike Michalowicz: So, uh, I wanna do these videos, but now the, the, the challenge is as of today, I don't have the names of the people I'm gonna reach out to. I wanna say by name.
Like, if you're a sales rep, I wanna say, hi AJ, this is Mike. I'm a real person and you're a real person and you're doing me a real favor. I wanna just thank you and I'm putting all of my efforts to move this book and here's the things I'm doing. I hope it supports what you're doing. Thanks for representing me.
Like maybe that's minimally it. If I knew that they were getting some form of compensation, I would say I wanna do everything to support your own personal goals. And I know moving more books helps, like if that's the fake case, I wanna say that. But as of today, we're, we still don't have the names of the sales reps.
Uh, there's intent to move there. Page Two is hands down, bar none the most innovative, aggressive in a very good way, um, outta the box thinking team. But even. In this relationship, we're not there yet. Um, because I think it's so outta the box and there's protocols that exist in the industry
AJ Harper: mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: That you, they, they too have to break through. And it's just, there's a lot of, we're, we're mired in just a lot of the history of the industry.
AJ Harper: Yeah. It's a bureaucracy. It's a mess. It's, um, antiquated. Yeah. But, um, listen, why, what's stopping you from just going on the McMillan website to see the list of the teams?
Mike Michalowicz: the, the, I don't think the individuals are listed. Um, I
AJ Harper: Are you sure?
Mike Michalowicz: Uh, you know, I'm not sure. I don't want to try to, uh, circumvent. (Circumvent?) Yeah. Circumvent Page Two.
AJ Harper: Fair.
Mike Michalowicz: Um,
AJ Harper: spoken like the, not like the person who planted his book at Barnes and Noble.
Mike Michalowicz: That's when, when you get rejection everywhere, page two is they're in the fight with me.
AJ Harper: No, I know. I'm just giving you a hard time.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, but back in the day, like it was me against the world. I'm like… AJ Harper: You go stand in front of the building with a sandwich board. Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I would do that.
AJ Harper: I know you would.
Mike Michalowicz: So here's another thing I want to do. Um, the, and we're working on it, is go to McMillan before launch, the week before launch, whatever.
And get a huge cardboard cut out of me and put it in the entrance of the Have you been to McMillan's space?
AJ Harper: Not McMillan? No.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, it's gorgeous. It's similar to Penguin. There was a reception area, but what's nice about least the space we walked into it is the main flow of almost all the traffic of the building for the, for McMillan? Put in there, uh, with a, with balloons and like some kind
of sign saying basically. A new book coming out, I love you guys, or whatever. Something like that. Then going to every single desk and leaving a chocolate kiss or something, some kind of chocolate with a note saying, involved or not, you guys are a big deal to me. Love Mike. Something like that.
AJ Harper: Why, why, why the week before
Mike Michalowicz: to, to create buzz at that. Well, maybe it's not even before.
AJ Harper: That's too late.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's too late. I think there's, there's other preambles we're doing by reaching out to the sales reps and all these other things.
I just want there to be,
AJ Harper: oh, this isn't the sales reps.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh no, this isn't the sales rep.
AJ Harper: Oh. Oh, okay. Oh, sales reps.
Mike Michalowicz: We were trying to do, oh,
AJ Harper: oh, nevermind. Yeah, that, that makes sense.
Mike Michalowicz: We're recording this on, uh, June 20th. We're trying to get this done July or August for sales reps, because that's when it starts. They're, they're finishing up right now. I think the fall catalog fall. Yeah. Yeah. And we're in the winter. Um, I want that week for everyone in the office say, who the hell is this guy? Like, these are the people who don't know I, who I am, who aren't involved, and like, who, who's this guy? This is kind of all news is good news type things. Just get buzz going about this thing. Um, and some magical things can happen when that happens.
AJ Harper: Okie. Ok.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, let's talk about how we're feeling about the book.
AJ Harper: I feel really good about the book. I feel, um, I'm very eager to hear how the new readership receives it.
Mike Michalowicz: Why do you feel really good about like what determines if you feel good about book or not?
AJ Harper: If it I is disruptive, it follows our immutable laws and characteristics. Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Is this book disruptive? Is this book doable? Uh, is this, does this book, um, is this book super useful? Hmm. And if I, I care about those things and that is critical for me. Can we de, can we deliver on the promise?
Mike Michalowicz: You know, we're so far in it. It's very hard. Once I read the book now for the umpteenth time, and I'm reading, you know, reading sections, I, I don't read it through like I used to just every time read it through, read it through. Now I'm going through the sections and stuff. Um, I still get lost in it. It's hard for me to consume, to consume it, like I'm consuming a book as opposed to trying to edit, fix, improve.
So what I measure is the outside input. And, uh, with pre-reads, how many people get through the book quickly is a big measurement. Um, the second one is external acknowledgements or accolades. And the big one came from, I think it was Trena, who said, this is a good stinking book.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Not her words. Didn't use words stinking,
AJ Harper: I don't think she would say stinking.
Mike Michalowicz: No, she would. No, no. Um, which was really a good affirmation. AJ Harper: I mean, if you, you, the most important accolades are the ones from readers. Mike Michalowicz: There's no question about it
AJ Harper: who are already implementing it,
Mike Michalowicz: there's no question about it.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, and there are people who are doing it. You know, the other thing that's interesting is, uh, my own children, they're doing the system, their own version of it. And this is the natural tense of humans, of all of us. Even though the system outlines the entire process, it's not natural to do everything. It's natural to kind of cherry pick. Um, and so we allow this, the book empowers you to do the partial implementation, which is still the proper implementation.
AJ Harper: You would've never done that 10 years ago.
Mike Michalowicz: No, I wouldn't have
AJ Harper: even five years ago.
Mike Michalowicz: The biggest accolade is the bonus chapter. So we did a chapter that you can only get 66 days after you've read the book. Now it's on the honor system. We don't have like a timer or something like that. We don't know when you bought the book.
So you have to email 66 days later, put in your calendar. The truth is, if you get this early, it will hurt you. It won't serve you if you get it later, um, then 66 days, it's okay, but it starts waning as effectiveness. There's a reason there's 66 days, and I'm not gonna give away the secret. We had a reader, one of the first pre-reads, who said, uh, 66 days.
We sent them this chapter and they got back hours later and said, holy crap. AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: This is, was exactly what I needed. Exactly the right time. Nice. And I'm double down on the system now. It was that booster shot, um, of adrenaline that they needed at the right time.
AJ Harper: Exactly.
Mike Michalowicz: To me, that was the biggest accolade.
AJ Harper: Just so we're clear, the bonus chapter isn't like a rah rah. Actually, it's not, Mike Michalowicz: oh, no, it's, it's part of system.
AJ Harper: It's actually a big reveal.
Mike Michalowicz: It's a big reveal. It's part of the system. It shares something in the system that we can't share in the book at that time. Yeah. And thank, I wonder how we would've done this a hundred years ago.
I best say thank God for the internet there. There's this mechanism to deliver something electronically Exactly. At the right time. I wonder a hundred years ago how they would've done it, you know.
AJ Harper: They wouldn't have done it.
Mike Michalowicz: No. I'm sure someone would've figured it out, like they would've printed something and put in an envelope with a, uh, a wax seal on it. If thou shalt,
AJ Harper: If you were alive a hundred years ago, that's something you would've done. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So that was, to me, those are things, um, that are supporting my feeling that this is the best book we've written.
AJ Harper: I really like that. I like what you and I did, how you and I worked through understanding the reader and really simplifying it and being so careful about not falling into the old reader. Not that the, not that entrepreneurs can't read this. They can and they should. Um, but there's a different mentality when you have a fixed income.
Mike Michalowicz: A hundred percent agree.
AJ Harper: And I just love the care that we took.
Mike Michalowicz: me too.
AJ Harper: And we did a lot of revising,
Mike Michalowicz: perhaps the most ever. I mean, I, I remember the, mm, maybe not, maybe not.
AJ Harper: You know, which was the most ever?
Mike Michalowicz: Clockwork
AJ Harper: clockwork revised.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. What a beast. That was a beast. Well, this one whole sections were sliding and moving around. We had a really spirited conversation around the clarity accounts. I think that was excellent. And that. I think it's gonna be one of the defining principles of this book.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Part of it was clinging to the Profit First. So in Profit First, the smallest step that will have permanent shift is if you allocate 1% of your income to profit and you do nothing else, you'll see appreciable profit and it'll cook you into the system. The 1% rule. In this process with discover does, doesn't work on on,
AJ Harper: But we do have a 1% challenge.
Mike Michalowicz: We do, but it's, it's not the, the main thing that instigates change. It's addressing your biggest worry.
AJ Harper: Your biggest worry,
Mike Michalowicz: yeah.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And, and, and, and fully addressing that. So no longer, once you eradicate one worry, you're primed to eradicate all of your financial work.
AJ Harper: Yeah. But that took some kicking around.
Mike Michalowicz: I love that we did that. Yeah. It was great. It was back and forth and No, and I was pitching you like, I don't get it. And I'm like, oh, is there's things we worry about or things we wonder about? And you're like, that's too much. And it was just really, it was great conversation, great dialogue. It was a lot of iterative writing back and forth.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: And we got it.
AJ Harper: We probably wrote maybe even twice the amount of words that Mike Michalowicz: probably,
AJ Harper: yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Kendra, our editor, wrote back and, and it landed with her. AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: Um. So I'm really proud of that. Updates on the pre-orders. Uh, the first announcement, which was a very soft announcement, just said, here's the new book cover resulted in 60 orders, um, which is nice.
Um, that's $1,200, uh, $20 a book, right? So that, to give a context on income overall, um, it was only through Amazon. So what the team did, which was not intentional, the cover they revealed was the Amazon cover, the link to Amazon as opposed to a page that shows the cover where it can invoke conversations and comments.That's what I wanted, like, oh, gimme your feedback and so forth.
AJ Harper: No, they did a good job.
Mike Michalowicz: And then links below.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: for Amazon and uh, Bookshop and so forth. Oh, I think the cover's extraordinary.
AJ Harper: No, I like that they went to the
Mike Michalowicz: Amazon page?
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I can test that. I think it should have gone to a page where there could have been dialogue.
My reason behind that is it's SEO, or now they call it AI SO, artificial Intelligence search optimization, where there's content on a blog and there's dialogue around it showing high engagement. I think that was a missed opportunity.
AJ Harper: All right. I'm just, I'm always thinking about, I wanna order this book right now.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, that's what it did result in. So we got 60 orders. We're now moving into the. So I'm not saying that anything was done wrong, it was just different than my expectations. And maybe it was a better move, to be honest. The next move, uh, is now bulk orders. So I've been working with Kelsey and here's what we did.
Originally, it was 25 books translates to X number of dollars, this is what you get: training, video, whatever you buy 50 bucks. What we realize is we're going to businesses. They're gonna give this to their employees. And if I have a small business, which is 99% of my readers, I have 25 employees or less, everyone's gonna buy the 25-book allotment.
But I'm like, we shouldn't be selling books. That should just be one of the happenstance benefits we should be selling with a a goal you're looking to achieve. So one is financial education for my team. Another one is financial education for my team that results in better performance at work if I'm an employer.
Another one may be financial education for my team that results in prepared performance and longevity of the hire. They wanna stay longer. Like what are the, what's the selfish objectives, quotes on that, but the objectives of the entrepreneur who's gonna be buying these things on
behalf of their employees?
You gotta speak to the interest of that person. So we repackaged it, and now we have four different levels of how you want to be of service and engage your employees. The quantity of books is just a happenstance benefit. That's not what people want. I don't wanna buy employees for my, I don't wanna buy books for my employees.
I wanna buy something that improves performance, removes worry, whatever those drivers are. So we packaged it that way. It's now done and we're starting pitches next week to companies with employees. Say, Hey, do you want this?
AJ Harper: Did you do the quantities based on what the car, how many books are in a case?
Mike Michalowicz: No. No, that's interesting. We could, no, the quantities, it's so irrelevant that we, we, I almost didn't wanna throw that in there. Well, I just wanted to say includes books, but,
AJ Harper: well, the reason I'm saying it is, it's so much easier if you can use ship cases boxes,
Mike Michalowicz: but they don't even know the cases. We don't know their cases yet. AJ Harper: Yeah, but you should get that soon.
Mike Michalowicz: We should give that soon.
AJ Harper: You can find out.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So we'll adjust. That's a good, that's a great point. I love that. We'll adjust accordingly though.
AJ Harper: when I do bonuses, I do, based on how many books are in a case. Mike Michalowicz: That’s good. So it's just easy to ship. That's so good. That's really smart. I like, that's a great tip.
AJ Harper: I got a tip.
Mike Michalowicz: You got a good tip. So we'll have to adjust that. Um,
AJ Harper: I mean, you can adjust it later if you don't even put the quantities now. You can just put cases. In fact, you don't even, you could even just do a range of books that are in a case right now and just say X number of cases and that way you don't stuck with anything.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's a good point too. Maybe we could do that. I mean, we, um, to be clear, we, we do say the quantity of books, but almost as a. Uh, a, a, a throwaway. It's very end. So it says, you get this benefit and this benefit and this benefit and includes by default, 25 books if you want, uh, more books to distribute to your team and their family members, here's the book rate. And so the higher dollar point you buy out of these four thresholds, each one has a lower per book dollar rate.
AJ Harper: Oh, okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Initially, we were leading with book quantity, and I'm suggesting for our listeners who don't, don't do that.
AJ Harper: Lead with the value.
Mike Michalowicz: Lead with the value.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. You have a book sitting right here. Tons on your shelf. Mm-hmm. The cha The problem is what are you gonna do with Oyster Books?
AJ Harper: No, I ordered them for a specific reason.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, you did? So you already, you you, yeah.
AJ Harper: I'm gifting them to retreat people.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh. Well I have a room, a stock room, almost the size of your office here with shelf after shelf with 50 books, a hundred bucks, and it becomes a burden.
AJ Harper: That you have other people's books.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That we've bought to support them in their efforts. But now it's like, I gotta distribute these books and it becomes a burden.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So interesting. Um, anything else on the book update you wanna share?
AJ Harper: No, because we're in production, baby. I'm almost done.
Mike Michalowicz: I love it. Oh, you know, one of the things, we, we have a bank, uh, I can't announce who they are yet, but we have a bank.
AJ Harper: Oh, great.
Mike Michalowicz: We, we, uh, I understand from Kelsey last week we went to contract with them. Um, it was important to us that a, the money habit works with any bank. It's totally bank agnostic, but at the same time, to find a bank partner that is willing to integrate these concepts inherently into their system, basically it becomes if there was to be an app in the future, and maybe there will be a Money Habit app.
This is the bank version of Apping It Before.
AJ Harper: I would Love a Money Habit app.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. I think
AJ Harper: it's coming. Or you can just see all of your. Um, accounts.
Mike Michalowicz: Accounts, yeah. Yeah. I, I think there's something there. But at the bank level, this bank is effectively supporting,
AJ Harper: you know that AI can create apps super fast?
Mike Michalowicz: we did one in-house. Kelsey did it. Yeah. For the money habit. It was unbelievable. Within an hour, the functionality had, and I'm thinking one year from now, six months from now, my gosh, the power it's gonna have. You and I will.
AJ Harper: So why don't you put an app out when the book comes out?
Mike Michalowicz: Because right now, the better way to serve our readers is to have a dedicated bank and we have that partnership. Having an app and linking to banks even with AI is still extremely difficult. We've been, we spent over a year with Profit First trying to do that. Pla, there's a thing called Plaid. That's the integration. It's not achieving what we needed to achieve.
It's been a very expensive investment and the technology doesn't exist.
AJ Harper: Hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: There is compliance issues. So this one banking partnership we have, there are insurance requirements now that we have all these different things because if we recommend a bank and uh, that bank has an issue and money stolen, there's potential liability and risk back to us just for making the darn recommendation once you integrate an app with them. That is tenfold. Now we have some kind and so there we can't have any financial control. We can pull data and look at their finances, but we can't say, move this money here, transfer that.
It's a whole ‘nother level.
AJ Harper: I mean, my head is swimming right now. Yeah. I'm so high. Like I stopped being able to process about 30 seconds ago.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. So that's why at this juncture, it's better to have a bank handle it on their own.
AJ Harper: Got it. Makes sense.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So it's um, it's interesting. Plus it looks like we may have money habits, debit cards.
AJ Harper: Oh yeah, you were saying that. I think that's so cool.
Mike Michalowicz: And they have a special design that allows you to do a certain thing that other debit cards. That's do. That's great. Yeah.
AJ Harper: That's just so good.
Mike Michalowicz: That's secret too. But that's coming, uh, hopefully by the time the book is released. Um, yeah. Exciting times in front of us. Now it's gotta market the living hoo-ha out of it. Or as you would say, the living. What would you say? If I had a market? What, say it.
AJ Harper: No you gotta get your fingers off the board.
Mike Michalowicz: No, I just wanted to, why don't you finish that up just one, one more like, like, why don't you tell people in Prince's voice, To check us out at our website. What can you tell 'em? What website go?
AJ Harper: It's not Prince's voice 'cause it's just the, it's
Mike Michalowicz: not Prince, it's your voice. What website should they go to before we wrap it up?
AJ Harper: [distorted voice] DWTB.com
Mike Michalowicz: That's great. Dwtb podcast.com is this. That's last time. Oh, that's it. Thanks for playing along.
It's so much fun. Um, you, my friends, we really appreciate you listening to the show. We really appreciate your support and the wonderful feedback we're getting. There is a regular stream now of emails.
And, uh, that's a big deal to us. We wanna be. The greatest service to you because you gotta write the greatest book. Also, check out aj harper.com if you want to, uh, check out the certification for being an editor yourself, if that's your, your skillset or your talent or your title. Um, secondly, you can go to the retreats right here on Madeline Island as we look at the looping out the window and the water just over my shoulder.
And you can join the online community with aj.
AJ Harper: Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz: It's remarkable. I, I've been, I've beared witness to it in all formats now, and they're all breathtaking. Um, I'm proud to be your number one client. Well, I'm not saying we're not a client.
AJ Harper: You haven't been a client since your number one partner. 2009.
Mike Michalowicz: Find to hit the button since they say since nine, say since 1999. You gotta say that.
AJ Harper: 1999.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you. All right, my friends. We love you. We hope you love us too. Uh, email us the hello@dwtbpodcast.com and remember this, please don't write that book. Write the greatest book you can.