In this episode, Mike breaks down all the data he’s managed to collect so far since publishing The Money Habit in January 2026. He updates AJ on bulk buys, individual orders, how he ran orders through third-party systems like Porchlight, and how pre-sales added up, and more. He’ll lay out whether they met or missed his team’s expectations. If you’re into juicy data, this is the week you won’t want to miss!
In this episode, Mike breaks down all the data he’s managed to collect so far since publishing The Money Habit in January 2026. He updates AJ on bulk buys, individual orders, how he ran orders through third-party systems like Porchlight, and how pre-sales added up, and more. He’ll lay out whether they met or missed his team’s expectations. If you’re into juicy data, this is the week you won’t want to miss!
Be sure to visit https://dwtbpodcast.com for more information and add your name to start receiving their newsletter. If you’d like to support this show, rate, subscribe, and leave a review on your podcast app.
Nir Eyal, Hooked
Mike’s Monday Night Reading (Audio)
AJ Harper, website
AJ’s Socials:
Mike Michalowicz, website
Mike’s Socials:
Episode 123: “The Big Book-Launch Debrief”
Mike Michalowicz:
Welcome back to the Don't Write That book podcast where you can learn how to write your bestseller and own your authorship. Follow along with us as we give you an insider's view of the book industry. Now, here are your hosts. Myself, Mike Michalowicz and AJ Harper. We adjust our cameras. I was, uh, watching an episode, I, if you've watched our YouTube episodes, but we're at different heights and I had mine too, zoomed in. So I was this mega head and you were a floating head. Now
AJ Harper:
you know what, now I'm like a white pasty and you look tan.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, well, I was in Florida, so my, uh, my roommate from college, my freshman year roommate,
AJ Harper:
Oh,
Mike Michalowicz:
That's why, because I am tan. Invited me down to his house in Florida for the football, for the Super Bowl. And, uh, I brought my wife and some other, uh, college buddies brought their spouses and we were outside the whole time. So
AJ Harper:
Most, most watched halftime show ever. It
Mike Michalowicz:
Was awesome.
AJ Harper:
A joyous,
Mike Michalowicz:
And that was a real marriage that happened. I mean, it was staged, but it was real.
AJ Harper:
Yes. But, um, it was like a joyous jubilant.
Mike Michalowicz:
I think it might have been my favorite halftime show. I was so into it. I thought the game itself was boring. Um,
AJ Harper:
I don't watch the game, but I, I have to dispute you on the favorite halftime show. There's
Mike Michalowicz:
My Jackson. Maybe. What was your favorite?
AJ Harper:
No, um, prince
Mike Michalowicz:
Janet Jackson. When the Wardrobe Malfunction
AJ Harper:
Prince,
Mike Michalowicz:
I don't remember Prince's. I remember the infamous wardrobe. Wardrobe malfunction.
AJ Harper:
No, hang on. You have to at some point watch it. You can watch his performance. It rained and he still kept performing and he did Purple Rain in the Rain.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh my God.
AJ Harper:
And they were saying they wanted to change something right before he went out. 'cause they were afraid. He's like in these six inch heels and he is gonna dance all over a slick, um, stage. And he said, make it rain harder.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yes. That's awesome.
AJ Harper:
It's the best.
Mike Michalowicz:
That's awesome. That's awesome. Um,
AJ Harper:
Okay. Yes. Sorry.
Mike Michalowicz:
No, we mean that we,
AJ Harper:
I just get a little riled up if you think
Mike Michalowicz:
I love. No, I love it. I love it. Um, we're gonna, we're flying with no safety net. I forgot to hit record locally. I don't think you're recording locally. And we're just gonna go, we're just gonna go with it. 'cause this is the main record recording we capture.
AJ Harper:
We're doing it.
Mike Michalowicz:
Um, I wanna thank you for last night. Now, when people hear this last night would've been, I don't know, two months prior, but, uh, last night you invited me to do a live reading in front of, of your author audience. Mm-hmm
AJ Harper:
Yes. It's called Monday Night Reading. It's a free event. I do them all throughout the year. Um, and so if you just have to either check out my social media or be on my mailing list, I also post all of them on YouTube, on my YouTube channels. You can watch past Monday night readings with a a ton of wonderful authors.
Mike Michalowicz:
If someone listening in right now wants to get on the list, and I'm telling you, you wanna get on the list, where do they go?
AJ Harper:
AJ harper.com. Super easy.
Mike Michalowicz:
AJ Harper:
Kristen, by the way, gave us permission to share that, um, email that she sent. Do
Mike Michalowicz:
You wanna read that?
AJ Harper:
I, I do wanna read it. This is an email that we received through the, don't write that book email line. It says, dear AJ and Mike, there are so many things I could thank you for your generosity in sharing what's real and relevant, your alchemy, your banter, your expertise. You give me confidence and keep my eyes on things I need to know. And there's something more personal. Your podcast got me through late night drives in the months before my dad died. He had ALS. I adored him, and I was his person. Dad was in and out of the hospital, and I often slept on the cot next to him. But sometimes I would drive home on a dark accident-prone highway. One time my husband said, it's late and you sound tired and teary you okay driving sniffling? I said, yes, I've got Mike and AJ.
AJ Harper:
He knew what I meant, that I'd be listening to you two. From then on. When I was driving at night with my hus, without my husband, he would say, okay, be careful. You got Mike and AJ. And the answer was always, yes. Thank you for being such a comfort and for engaging me in the world of my dreams when I had so little energy for anything but my dad. As a member of AJ's community, I so often hear how much your episodes mean to us. Please keep it up. On another note. Your live show. I'll do what I can.
Mike Michalowicz:
All right. Kristen, drag it along your husband too. He sounds amazing. What a supportive fella. Both of you come to our show now. I've got two people. Um, yeah. It, it, that touches me and it just makes me think about how important this work is beyond just the information. Is the connection. Yeah. Is the connection. Yeah. So, hey, we're gonna do the big book launch debrief. We are, today, we're recording this. It's, uh, February 17th. The book launched on January 27th. So we're roughly three weeks away. And, um, we wanted to do a breakdown of basically what's working, what's not working, but not just with one episode. We're gonna go, I think we're just gonna do three episodes.
AJ Harper:
We have maybe even four.
Mike Michalowicz:
Maybe even four. Okay.
AJ Harper:
Because we're gonna do an overview today and then do some deep dives on areas that I think everyone always has a lot of questions about.
Mike Michalowicz:
Okay. Would you mind leading us through this and asking or saying? Yeah,
AJ Harper:
I, I'm basically asking you a bunch. 'cause you know, just so everybody understands, Mike and I co-write and collaborate and I'm very involved in the front end. And then when it comes to marketing, I'm more like, um, um, sitting on the window sill,
Mike Michalowicz:
I started networking 18 years ago,
AJ Harper:
Mike Michalowicz:
And I do say that, you know, with the intent of being funny, but also it's, the reality is you can never start your relationships with influencers too soon. Um, and be of too much service, I believe, to other, uh, influencers. So, um, what I did with influencers specifically for the asks was I did ask for them to promote the book, but, um, historically, I would go to authors for the last launches and say, Hey, on this day we just sent out this email and there was lots of yeses. I think this being the 10th or 11th book or whatever, it's go, I'm going to the coffers too often with the same ask. So we reframed it and said, what, what can we do that benefits them? The first thing I did was identified who the major influencers are in the personal finance space, and said, what can I contribute to them?
Mike Michalowicz:
And I can't remember whose idea it was, oh, you know who it was? Another fan of the show, Michael Bungay, Stanier, who we talked about yesterday, uh, who sent us a beautiful accolade. And I can read the text maybe on our next episode, but, uh, he goes, oh, why don't you include those authors in your book, particularly the audio book. What I did is I interviewed Ramit Sethi, Jean Chatzky, Tiffany Allici, the list goes on and on. JL Collins and interviewed them on their perspectives of personal finance, regardless if it was complimentary or contrary to the money habits strategies. At the end of each chapter in the audio book, I have an interview with them, the idea was to give the audience an expanding view. And it was so interesting. I've already gotten emails from people saying, thank you for including all these perspectives. I love that personal financial authors, our working together to elevate our finances, not independently with our own dedicated system. So that was really cool feedback. But I remember Ramit specifically saying, Hey man, thanks for including me. I really want to promote you. He did the biggest promotion or support of me ever. He had me go on his show. He had his live audience there, hundreds and hundreds of people. And then they were, they recorded and they distributed their thousands on a list and just, she said, just teach The Money Habit, man. And people bought the book
Mike Michalowicz:
AJ Harper:
I saw that I got it. I saw it in his email that you were doing that.
Mike Michalowicz:
It was, it's huge. Because for me, for us, this is the first book that doesn't speak to the entrepreneurial space alone. Th this is a break from this. This is a broader new audience, and therefore 90 x percent have never heard of the work we've done together. They, they don't know any of the books that I have authored. And this was an opportunity to get into new audiences. Another fellow, Justin Bennett stepped up in the same way. He's in the thing. Tiffany Aliche promoted it. So Jean Chatzky, who I didn't know until I invited her to do this, promoted it. Now she's coming to our authors meetup down in Nashville this year. That was the big change with influencers that SCO around.
AJ Harper:
So I think, um, I'm gonna speak for our listeners and ask you some really hard facts about it though. How many influencers did you approach, and how many influencers did you end up getting a guess from
Mike Michalowicz:
12 to be included in the book? I'm sorry, 13 or 14 to be included in the book? 12 accepted. There was, um, a couple folks that either just didn't re I think just didn't respond. I don't think anyone declined. Honestly, to me, the big get was Jean Chatzky because I've never met her before. Um, there was no reason to support me. She was not, I take it back. She was somewhat on a periphery, familiar with me. 'cause when I talked to her, she's like, oh, I think I've heard of Profit First before. So she had some awareness of it, but it was an outta the blue reach. But here's what's interesting. Once you know one person in the space, you know, too, so there was instant familiarity when I said, oh, um, I, I have Ramit sat doing this, and Tiffany Alleci. And she goes, oh, those are awesome authors. So, um, she came in.
AJ Harper:
Do you have, but that's, those, those aren't the only influencers you ended up asking for support in some capacity, are they?
Mike Michalowicz:
No. No. Um, but I didn't go to, there's some people I go to regularly like say Don Miller, who, you know, I'm just great friends with.
AJ Harper:
Sure.
Mike Michalowicz:
He just, I'm going through Nashville, uh, in about three months. And, uh, he just reach out and say, Hey, you want the house
AJ Harper:
Nice. Uh, I like that. I like that approach. Um, okay, so what changed for you for bonus offers? So let's talk about it. A bonus offer is something that you're giving readers in exchange for purchasing, usually multiple copies, but sometimes people give bonus offers even for one copy. So what's different about your bonus offers this time around?
Mike Michalowicz:
Let me rewind. 'cause I think you just hit on something important. Um, is the why. Why do we wanna have a big launch in the first place? Which bonus offers influencers? All these different things. Support, and it's a, it's a, there is a critical mass. Um, there's a certain percentage of people, and we were talking about this offline, but there's a certain percentage of people that buy your book who will never read your book. I mean, look at your own shelf. I, I have books. I, I just started reading A Brave New World. I've been sitting that book for two years. Um, and I probably been sitting on it since kindergarten, honestly. I think that's one of those, oh,
AJ Harper:
I Mean,
Mike Michalowicz:
Um, it's a, that book is prophetic. It's, it's crazy. Um, I'll finish it actually today on my flight. The, there's a certain percentage of books that people buy that sit on their shelf. And I, I do believe it's the majority of their books that are purchased. At least that's in my case. So, you know, I'm using myself as a data set of one, but there's a certain percentage of people that get a book, they'll consume it right away because that's who they are. Or that hits a a, hits the nail in the head for their moment in life or whatever. I think that's the minority of people. So realizing if we sell a thousand books that say, I'm just picking a number outta the air, say 20% will actually read the book in short order. You, while you've sold a thousand books, for example, you have 200 that are being consumed.
Mike Michalowicz:
Those 200 people are your potential, uh, marketing arm going forward. So the more books you can sell in the beginning, the more early readers you're gonna get and the more potential you're gonna have. Super fans, they'll start promoting. So when it came to bonus offers, historically, I've never done a one book bonus. Meaning you buy a book or buy multiple books. You go to a, a dedicated webpage we have, and it says, if you bought three, you can get this. But if you bought seven, you get this. Plus, if you bought 12, you get this plus. Plus. I've never had a one. We've always started off at three. And the reason is the buying dynamic is for my books that are retailed MSRP $30 or less, three times 30 is $90. It's under that a hundred dollars threshold. Now, that's a very entrepreneurial mindset. Um, for entrepreneurs, a hundred dollars or less business expense is almost a no-brainer for an individual.
Mike Michalowicz:
A hundred dollars or thereabouts expense. That's a big expense. Um, do I really wanna spend a hundred bucks on a book where an entrepreneur says, oh, it's just for my business. So we said, we're gonna do a one book bonus. We had Kelsey shared the numbers, and now I may mess this up. 500 bulk orders, uh, bonus orders, I should say, because of those, I think 300 or one book purchases. And the bonus they got, which I thought was really cool, is we call it ai. And the guy, we set up a dedicated AI chatbot to teach the money habit, or at least give guidance on the money habit so you can interface with the book. I think that was a big appeal.
AJ Harper:
I think it's great to do a one book bonus, especially if you're trying to get pre-orders. And As, and, and I love that you chose a digital option. I think that's critical.
Mike Michalowicz:
So yeah, it's very inexpensive for us to deliver. We do the pay for the platform that we use. It's called Delphi, if anyone wants to check it out, D-E-L-P-H-I, ai. And the the benefit is, it's a motivating factor to get the book. Then we ran the bonus campaign from, uh, Tuesday. The book launched to Sunday at midnight, and then it stopped. And, um, it's, it's not surprising, but it is interesting that on the day one, there's a surge of demand, and on the last day there's a surge of demand. So it's like a u-shape in demand, but we sound on this final note saying, it's going away and you gotta take it away. We, we took it away. Um, and I got feedback on my gosh, this AI is awesome because we, we've been using other capacities, uh, I think we went up to 55 books, and we did have people purchase that, and, but the people that were buying like 55 books were clearly entrepreneurs buying it for their teams. So what we did is we matched up as you went higher levels, knowing that if you had like, up to three or four books, it may be family, maybe you and your spouse, uh, your partner, maybe maybe someone else in the family kids or something. But at a certain point, we knew, you know, not many people have a family of 55 folks. Um, so, and I'm, I'm sure someone does. But so with the 55, it was like, oh, this is clearly a business purchase. So we oriented the business, the bonuses to business owners.
AJ Harper:
And then, are these people that are buying direct from you or proving that they bought it elsewhere?
Mike Michalowicz:
They're, no, they, they prove that they bought it elsewhere. The thing we did, Leslie and the team were really on top of this, was supporting multiple buying outlets. Mm-hmm
Mike Michalowicz:
Like it's a few bookstores that decide to buy, is it worth the risk? We depleted that instantly. So I went to back order status, which is kind of good and, and kind of bad. The, the good is like, Hey, we're moving books. The bad is it Dissuades a consumer for buying it. So, um, Leslie and Andrea Prudently had set us up to encourage people to default to bookshop.org, but we had the other links, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, all ready to go. Um, we would have people then submit the receipt wherever they purchased it. And then our team behind the scenes, it was Amy, but our team behind scenes was from processing the, uh, orders and sending out the bonuses.
AJ Harper:
Nice. So what about podcasts? Um, in the past, you've done, you've done it a bunch of different ways. You've done a ton of them right. At launch then you, you, um, you, you, the last couple books, you weren't doing quite as many of them at launch. What was your strategy this time?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, this time we did fewer but bigger. Now, the Ramit was an example. Jean Chasky had me on her podcast. So I, I spoke specifically to that space. Um, there was, and still is, the ones that I'm doing that are in the entrepreneurial space, because we're telling entrepreneurs that you need to fix your home finances. And if this works for you, realize your team probably needs to fix your home finances too. And you can be a gateway for that. But the one thing I, we didn't put in here is we started a newsletter exclusively for the, um, money habit. It's called, uh, Money Simplified. I think I, I wrote all, I wrote a full year's worth of content starting about three, four months prior to the launch. And, um, we invite people to subscribe. That has been big. It was a way for people to start getting this information, this knowledge early on, little tidbits and pieces.
Mike Michalowicz:
And then we use that newsletter when the launch hit, say the book is now available, my main list now has 195,000 subscribers. We used to add 2000 last week. Um, it's, and I can give, we should talk about strategies, how to build a list. Um, so it, I believe comparatively to, to most authors, it's a very large list, but that doesn't mean that's an engaged list, and it may not want this specific content. So we invited our entire list saying, Hey, if you wanna get weekly money tips, sign up here. That list, I think is somewhere between two and 5,000. Andrew knows the exact number, but that's the list that's super engaged. The open rates are over like 50%. And uh, sure enough, those are ones, when we announced it, we're a lot of clicks were happening.
AJ Harper:
So how many podcasts do you think that you, were you like a dozen 20?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna say in that range. Like, like, like probably 25 max. Where other podcasts I said I, I wanna beat the a hundred podcast appearances.
AJ Harper:
Mm-hmm
Mike Michalowicz:
And there's so hard to measure, uh, there, I think there's a long tail to podcast. You know, the number one episode we have for this show is our very first episode of, of Don't Write That Book. And, um, why is that the number one episode? Well, first of all, it's been out there the most, but when people discover this, they rewind and they'll start binging. And many people binge from the beginning.
AJ Harper:
They do binge, they binge so hard on this show,
Mike Michalowicz:
Bingers rule
AJ Harper:
Mike Michalowicz:
And, uh, we're not the only podcast that experiences that. So mm-hmm. When, when you, any, you know, our listeners appear on someone's podcast, you may have that episode, get a hit a year later. Um, it's likely, and, and when it goes live, so there's a surge when it goes live, but then there's this long tail, it keeps getting hits. So I don't know the return on these podcasts. Um, and I, it's hard to measure now, but I, but I think they're gonna be significant. The other thing we did as our own podcast, so I have, uh, a podcast called Becoming Self-Made Hit It. Um, we just renewed the season, so now we're actually have a scheduling call today. Um, interviewed j Jesse and Emily Cole. They're on the cover of The Money Habit, but the Money Habits mentioned in that show, and that helps tremendously too, having your own podcast.
AJ Harper:
I'm happy to hear that renewed. It looks, it looks like, to me that seems like what you should be doing.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. It's, it's such a joy project. Uh, we did, you know, I don't know if you made the introduction one, um, no. 1827 Beekman or something. They, they make soap.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. Here in New York. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, in New York. So I'm going up to their place. I talked with one of the owners, I don't recall his name at the moment. Love the guy. Funny, great energy effervescence. And just the story is Ridonculous.
AJ Harper:
Mm-hmm
Mike Michalowicz:
So we're going up there to reveal the story, and I'm gonna be milking some goats, so
AJ Harper:
That's cool. When are you doing that?
Mike Michalowicz:
Uh, we wait till the weather warms up, so I think it's gonna happen in May. Um,
AJ Harper:
Lemme know if I'm around. I might wanna come and just watch. Oh,
Mike Michalowicz:
It is the most fun day. Yeah. And I want it to be a little bit like a Mike Rowe episode of Dirty Jobs, where I kind of
AJ Harper:
Ha ha You wanna get in there with the goats?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, I wanna have like, uh, what do they call those things? The overalls, but like a rubber ones that go up to your chin. I don't wanna be covered with mud.
AJ Harper:
You wanna be, they're, they have the great hair products, right?
Mike Michalowicz:
Do they have gray hair products?
AJ Harper:
Yeah, I was talking to Jen Kem about it. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz:
Do they have regrow your hair products? I'll take all of it. Uh,
AJ Harper:
Okay. So we've got speaking your own podcast. Oh, I, no, I was doing speaking next. Oh, speaking. So speaking, you've been speaking to test the content for a while. Yeah. But now how does speaking work in terms of sales and the launch itself?
Mike Michalowicz:
Speaking has been the biggest change in promotion. I got a report from page two and there's all these bulk orders. Um, and there are events I'm speaking at, on average, the average event will have order a hundred bucks regardless of how big the group is. So if it's a 500 people I'm speaking to, or, uh, 50 or a thousand, they order, most of 'em are ordering a hundred. Uh, it's a no brainer for their budget. It's an extra two or 3000 bucks, which most speakers have a travel buyout. So if I speak for, I'm just gonna say a number. If I spoke for $10,000 a year, uh, on top of that, I probably have a travel buyout, which covers my flights and so forth. And that's, say 5,000 bucks or 2,500 bucks. Most of these events understand that there is a speaking fee plus a travel component.
Mike Michalowicz:
Um, so we say, listen, we're, we're going to eat the travel component and uh, we'll just swap that to books. So two to $3,000 budget is a no brainer for many events. Well, that works out to be a hundred books. And what they do at the event is they say, first a hundred people to arrive. You know, that's how they do it. Um, first a hundred people get there, get a, a copy of Mike's book. What's interesting is, I'm not necessarily speaking on the money habit at all these events. I will allude to it, but most of the events are, this is actually an interesting change recently, or most are profit first, but now many are best ofs like this. I'm still speaking with entrepreneurial groups, hands down the most. Um, when I say the most, like now, I can't think of a single event where I'm talking to, uh, employees of a company. Uh, maybe one event this year, actually I can think of. So I'm still speaking with the entrepreneurs, uh, and they want to know how to grow their business healthily. So the insert into the best of speech is your team has financial needs too. And if they're worried about it, that worry becomes your problem because they're distracted. How do you fix that? How do you help your colleagues?
AJ Harper:
Okay, so, but what about reaching the other, the rest of the audience? That's not your, so you're speaking for, this is all about your traditional audience. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz:
That should be determined. Like I, yeah, I, I don't, I don't know yet. Um, okay,
AJ Harper:
So it was not part of the launch.
Mike Michalowicz:
Pardon me?
AJ Harper:
Reaching that, reaching that audience in a speaking capacity was not part of the launch? It
Mike Michalowicz:
Was not part of the launch, no. Okay. But, you know, I think you're the one who said, like someone said, like when you, when you introduce a book, your launch is for 10 more years. Like every day's launch day. So that's definitely a spacing. Well,
AJ Harper:
Let's not freak everyone out. Every day is not launch day. Launch day. Your launch day was a 12 hour adventure.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, well that, that's the most unique thing I did.
AJ Harper:
So it's No, no, but it's just, let's keep, let's keep selling for it
Mike Michalowicz:
Keeps selling. Right? So I, but I'm gonna look for those types of speaking engagements. It was, um, Simon Sinek who said, you can build a platform or you can build a product. Doing both is really hard. A product is something like a platform would be like an Amazon. They sell stuff and you can make a product for it. Um, but making a platform and selling a product too is very difficult. So which one do you wanna have? I have a product, which is the speech. I could try to build that community of people that are looking for that. But that is very difficult. So it's, it's easier to access a established platform and the platform has to benefit from the product. Like, do they want me to speak when that added value to them? So I, I just have to actively seek that stuff out.
Mike Michalowicz:
It exists usually rule of thumb. Just one last thought is the small started off with small groups. So there's big financial experts out there that have large platforms and, uh, I think the dental tendencies, oh, well, that's who I, I should be with and I should be speaking at their events and so forth. The reality is, until you've proven significance and that you bring value to them, why would they want you? It makes no sense. Speak to the small groups where, where the small, small groups that are, are meeting up and, and wanting this kind of content. Speak there and build your way up. So I'm gonna do the same thing. It doesn't matter how established you are somewhere else. This is a new start for me in speaking.
AJ Harper:
So what are some other things that you did that were different? One of the things I noticed that you did is you did a big push. Uh, you, um, you sold galleys.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh yeah, yeah.
AJ Harper:
That was early on. You did a 250 run of galley's collector's editions that helped you to bring in funds for marketing, I believe.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, I was looking to see by the books around me. I don't, um, they're,
AJ Harper:
Um, but that was mostly to raise marketing dollars, if I am right about that.
Mike Michalowicz:
But it builds enthusiasm. Yeah. So it was to raise marketing dollars. So I think I do that is really unique. I invite other authors to do this is the galleys or arcs, and I don't know if they're the same thing. ARC is advanced reader copy. Well,
AJ Harper:
It would be tech, technically they're not. Okay. But if I explained it to you, it would be such a geeky conversation. Okay. Okay.
Mike Michalowicz:
Mike Michalowicz:
Like, well, we do, well, what we do with these is we will limit, say 250 of these to be a first production run. So they're literally the first ones outta the box arcs. And then we stamp 'em as authentic and certified. And we tell people, uh, we have a collector's edition, which is the Arc. Um, it's autographed. It's the first version released before the book is coming out, which is usually three months away, minimally, six months away, maximally. It has content that won't make it to the final cut. So there's errors and typos and changes. So you can actually see a little bit of the rawness in it. And even some sections in rare occasions are excluded in the final print run. Um, and we were selling those, it was funny, historically we sold those for I think $50. I say, Kelsey, why aren't we selling for like a hundred dollars? Because that's kind of a buying threshold. Maybe not for individuals, but for entrepreneurs. And that's our main audience. So, so she changed it to that number and we sold just the same val amount of volume. We sold 200 something books. That's a lot of money. And we use that for, uh, marketing the book, uh, to support, uh, other purchase bulk buys and stuff where we're distributing the books, uh, to, to people that walk. So yeah,
AJ Harper:
I would just say, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, that's a cool idea, I think the reason you can do that, Mike, is because you have super fans. So
Mike Michalowicz:
Do, yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred percent.
AJ Harper:
If you don't have no platform when you have no following, I don't think that's a strategy for you. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz:
Your mom may buy one. Maybe your dad.
AJ Harper:
Maybe.
Mike Michalowicz:
Maybe. So I would say 80% of our buyers have bought press books. So listen, some of these people, um, have displays of these books at their home. And so doesn't, um, it's really, it's not, it shows that these books are significant to 'em. But I think what it is, is a book on a shelf, just like I have behind me, is a reminder of knowledge you've gained and commitment you've made. I don't think these books, mine are very much about me. 'cause, uh, because I'm a selfish best, but I'm displaying here 'cause I'm marketing my books if you're watching on YouTube. But, um, people that display him at home isn't because like, oh, I'm such a fan of Mike Mike's an amazing human now what it is, is I've made a commitment to myself to be financially independent and that I've read this book and I'm doing it. And that's my reminder. That book sits there because it's a reminder of knowledge I've gained. It's a commitment device to be honest. So, uh, yeah, I would say there's a group of super fans that display multiple books of mine because they've ha they've used those books have an impact in their life and they wanna stick with it.
AJ Harper:
You remember that story I told you about the person I was on a call with just like a connection call like you do for networking. And she saw that I have, right now, I have Clockwork Profit First and the Money Habit Up, but I think I had Pumpkin Plan or All In or something up. It's always behind me on my shelf. I love it. So you can see it. But she said, I see you're also a fan of Mike Michalowicz
Mike Michalowicz:
Do a little Googling
AJ Harper:
Before a discovery call.
Mike Michalowicz:
That's so funny. That's so funny.
AJ Harper:
Anyway, that was not the conversation went south after that for sure.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that now.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. Okay. So any other, any anything else that really stands out? We did this differently for this launch in terms of getting pre-orders or on during launch week? Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz:
There was
AJ Harper:
Besides the 12 hour event. We're gonna get to that.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, The 12 hour event. Yeah. Which the insights were fascinating from that. So, um, we did get bulk buys. These were businesses buying it for their offices. Um, here actually as I got this note from Erin, I dunno if you can see here. It says, uh, can you please sign these 650 book plates? So I have a box here, here's the box and here's the book plates. I've been signing for the last, uh, week, all these different book plates. Uh, because that's a bulk order from, from a business that wants, uh, every book autographed. What's not, what's interesting about a book plate is you don't have to have the actual physical book. You just assign these little plates and they stick it in there. So it's a, it's a more efficient way to do that. So bulk orders to corporations had some effect. Um, some positive effect.
Mike Michalowicz:
I maybe I'm prematurely sharing this, but the numbers of book sales we have, it is really hard to get. I was actually text emailing with Leslie yesterday at PA page two, and she's like, well, we believe that the number of sales in Amazon somewhere between 1800 units to 2,500 at Amazon, for example, like there is 700 books that necessarily aren't accounted for or aren't reported yet, or whatever. It's, this is, well, we have bulk orders, we have direct orders, we have all the electronic copies and so forth. So my belief is the all in from the launch was somewhere between 7,000 and maybe 8,500 books, um, when counting all formats, digital, electronic, and print. But we won't
have the numbers. I thought we'd have the numbers by now. It it's taking a lot time to assemble that. The, um,
AJ Harper:
So let me stop you there 'cause we were gonna get into the Metro, but since you started talking about it, I remember at Launch you thought it was a different number. So is it, is it, what were you tracking at launch when you were saying, oh, we hit this threshold?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, so what track, what we do is we, we were, uh, assigning our bulk orders. We knew prior to the launch, we had 5,000, over 5,000 bulk orders. We only got reported numbers of print books to us. But we also know that correlates on a percentage basis. For me, audiobooks actually outsell print books. So like, okay, so if we sell for every one print book we sell, we're likely selling 1.05 elect, uh, audio books. And probably 10 to 15%, maybe even 20% of the print books are electronic. So we weren't getting the, you can't get that information live. So we're integrating those numbers and giving our best guess, uh, to what, what the number was. Um, okay.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna actually, I well, let's get to my rest of the metrics later. Yeah. Is there anything else besides the 12 hour deal for launch that you sticks out? Like we did this differently this time?
Mike Michalowicz:
Um, I don't think so. Oh, oh, yeah, of course. A massive thing we did, I did this with Fix this next is because we have a certification behind this. So we're, we have Money Habit Mentors, so people can go to Profit First Professionals. That's the organization I'm a co-owner in. And we license out the right to teach Profit First. Now we're integrating the licensing of the Money Habit. And, um, we invited PR first professionals or other, if they wanted to get an early certification, they could do it by buying bulk books and get their name inserted in the book.
AJ Harper:
Smart. So they were already certified and this is an and an additional certification
Mike Michalowicz:
If they chose. Yeah, we had, I wanna say 15 to 20 people sign up for that. Um, they're listed in the first print run of the books, and some people bought for, uh, lifetime printing, uh, that they're in every single book. And some people just bought the first print run, so you could, you could join a higher quantity and you get the certification in integrated. That was actually our, it was a massive form of distribution. I did a, uh, a live book reading at a, uh, local bookstore just, uh, last week, or this actually earlier this week, uh, it's called Chapter one in, uh, Mendo or Mars Plains. But one of our certification certified people, Kim Logston showed up. She bought a hundred books. Well, I think what's interesting is when you, you get people to invest in a certification, particularly early on, they're also vested in, in the success of it. And Kim, she's amazing. And some of the other folks were active promoters beyond what I was doing because they want it to be successful. So that was a really effective strategy too.
AJ Harper:
Awesome. And so then you also did the big 12 hour book event. Now I wanna just pause for everybody to listen. We're doing a deep dive on bulk buys. We're gonna do a deeper dive on influencers, specifically how do you make the ask, which is a request we got from listeners, and we also talked about this one in an earlier podcast. We would do this for you. So we're gonna combine that and we're gonna do another deep dive on the 12 hour-hour
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Michalowicz:
So the, the 12 hour launch was from 8:00 AM Eastern time to 8:00 PM Eastern time. On the launch day, I interviewed or had present over 50 individuals, uh, from my network, some personal finance experts. But I think the most appealing thing was, um, people that were not financial experts, but had a perspective. Remember Kelly Ruta talking just about the mindset you came on, talked about the journey of writing a book and invited those influencers to bring in their audiences. We had, there's so many numbers. It's hard to remember. I wanna say minimally 2000, but I think it was more like 3000 registrants, maybe even 4,000 registrants for that. Um, during the show, the live show, uh, we were pacing around five or 600 live viewers at any given time. Then we had a huge tech crash. We'll talk about that, uh, in the detailed episode.
AJ Harper:
I was on when it happened.
Mike Michalowicz:
You were on when it happened. That's right. Yeah. Actually, you were the person on when it happened and we recovered. And, um, to me that was the rallying moment. Like, you put all this work in and it falls apart. You have two choices. You can say, you know what, we've, we've done everything we could. Maybe we're done. Or you can say, no, this is, this is something we're gonna see through and we're gonna do it bigger and better. And the team bounced back with such an extraordinary effort. It was unbelievable. We'll, we'll talk about that.
AJ Harper:
Well, so let's talk about the team then. Let's, let's shift gears then and talk about team. Who was on your team. So I, I really want everyone to take in that you had, I think you have two teams. You have your own team at the Michalo-verse
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah.
AJ Harper:
Offices, but then there's also the page two team. And the page two team is way more invested in engaged than a typical publisher. Oh
Mike Michalowicz:
My gosh. Are you kidding? Like,
AJ Harper:
It's like a night and day situation, right?
Mike Michalowicz:
My best launch with Penguin. Um, two weeks after the launch, I got a Bobblehead in the mail. We sent you a little gift. No kid, no joke. It was my own, it was a bobblehead of me. And that was their participation. And 'cause I'm not saying that to be negative or facetious, but that's the truth.
AJ Harper:
And a lot of nos, every time you would ask them for stuff.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh yeah, everyone was a no. Yeah. Page, listen, I pushed Page Two, the hybrid publisher, and they gave me a couple nos too. I got no, we, we
AJ Harper:
They did, but they gave me a Canadian no, like I, but I was on the calls and
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh my God, how did they danced around?
AJ Harper:
Uh, you just not really wanting to say No,
Mike Michalowicz:
I know to mainstream
AJ Harper:
Felt that your idea was good,
Mike Michalowicz:
I know, I know, I know, I know. But they were extraordinarily supportive. They were on every single call. They were coordinating with our side. When a publisher works in concert with an author, you can move mountains. And, and that's what happened for us. I, the, the launch was not what been as successful. So they had dedicated, dedicated individual as Leslie Boole on their side, the page two side. And we had dedicated individual here, Andrea Conway, and the two were in constant contact on what are we doing? How can we support this?
AJ Harper:
But who else was on the different team? So Kelsey from your team, Andrea was dedicated to it, but you,
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, so Andrea is the Andrea Conway. On our side is, uh, leads the marketing efforts for, we call it the Michalo-verse, like all the Michalo-brand. But for the launch of the book, this was her primary project. Um, backing her is Kelsey for more the technical integration, the logistical stuff. Now Kelsey is the president of our company, but handles logistics. Amy was fulfill handling fulfillment. Um, Jenna was, and always does, manages our copywriting communications, um, response to readers and users. Erin, uh, leads any of the scheduling and organization, which is a bear during a launch period. Like, oh, Mike, you have to be on this podcast and you gotta be here and you gotta do that. Adayla, was handling our, uh, podcast promotions and media, just keeping kinda the engine running behind the scenes. Don't Write That Book. She was working with, uh, uh, Laura and the team at your Sade on your side. Um, and then we, and then that was just our, our immediate and employed team. Um, Corde was doing some work. She's also works for us behind the scenes, but then there's also the extended contractor. There's this guy who's named Guy who's doing all the web media and stuff under the tutelage of Andrea. So there, there's a big team
AJ Harper:
And they, and Marco
Mike Michalowicz:
Mar, uh, Marco was awesome. Marco did the coordination of, um, Marco and Aiden. Um, Aiden McKay and Mark and Marco, uh, Cantana, Cattani, gosh, so many names. He was, they were doing the coordination of the, um, the 12-day event. All the logistics leading come to that, that, that's herding cats. Then on the page two side, but I don't want people, my fear here is now people are like, oh, you need a thousand people on your team. Everyone's part-time, um, on my team. Secondly, except for Kelsey, secondly, you can, um, just do elements of this. This is, this is 18 years in the works. So this is just the team's built. And, and that's the size of,
AJ Harper:
I think it's important for them to see, you know, I want, I don't want, uh, 'cause here's what happens is if you don't have the kind of numbers that you get and a person is kind of, you know, putting this together with DIYing it or whatever, you need to understand that, that you might not be able to get those numbers if you don't have that big team. So it's a reason, not a reason to freak out if you don't get the numbers. I just want people to have some realism about
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, that's true.
AJ Harper:
And it, and plus you can get a lot of team members. If you, um, maybe get interns work with students, like there's, there's options.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. Aiden, Aiden for example, was an intern for us. Marco was a contractor. He came on just for this one project.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. So then it's not just Leslie on the team. Whenever I was on that call, there was at least four people from page two on the clock.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, the, the most actively engaged was with Ronnie. She was our liaison for just the books creation and, and seeing it through Leslie led the marketing, um, Trena and Jesse. But Trena was involved in the marketing too. Uh, I met with her face to face a few times, and then they had, uh, uh, oh gosh, I can't remember the names. So someone new who was there and left. Had
AJ Harper:
A couple new people too.
Mike Michalowicz:
Some new people. But yeah, they had a, a team there. You know, basically the publishers handling fulfillment, distribution, getting the word out to certain outlets that we don't have as easy access to editorial content libraries. And we're doing more of the grassroots, the, the author campaign. And, and you want those two working in synchronization. I think one great indicator that was working well was as we're approaching, there was a lot of nuance around how many books should be printed, where they should be distributed. And we didn't get it a hundred percent right. But we got way writer than we would've, um, and now than emergency, but we were already prepared for this before the launch. We said we had to do an emergency, emergency expedited print run. So we are about a week away from the, the launch, and we get a call from page two saying, uh, we're suggesting another 10,000 books printed, um, within a week of the launch. And they're a hundred percent right. And we did that. And so now we're we're,
AJ Harper:
It's so helpful because they're tracking that all the time. Yeah, they're, yeah, they're tweaking that all the time so they can get as close to accurate as possible.
Mike Michalowicz:
Exactly.
AJ Harper:
Exactly. They probably would've said to you back in the day, Mike, what are you doing getting 20,000 copies of the toilet paper entrepreneur
Mike Michalowicz:
Dude's crazy.
AJ Harper:
Yeah, this dude is bonkers,
Mike Michalowicz:
Bonkers. And, and probably the best thing I ever did, uh, the the wrongest thing I've ever done.
AJ Harper:
But not everyone has your stamina. Most people would've ended up burning those books. Honestly.
Mike Michalowicz:
That's a shame. That's true. No, no. Where
AJ Harper:
You're nontypical. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. So our first print run for this book was fif, just to give you contexts. I've been in this for, you know, I'm saying 18 years. I don't even know if it's the right number. I'm maybe, I was picking some outta the year, but,
AJ Harper:
Well, we've been there working together for 17 years.
Mike Michalowicz:
Okay, so 18 years. So, um, this, yeah, it is 18 years. So the, this book run, the first print run was 15,000. Now we're doing additional 10. So within the first th basically the book's existence and two weeks later we printed more. So within that time span, 25,000 books have been made available. It's, it's just over
AJ Harper:
So one of, um, get into a little bit more of the metrics. So you, you told us about the total sales. Did you meet the goal you set for launch?
Mike Michalowicz:
No, we, 10,000 units is what we wanted to sell for the first two weeks. Um, and I think it's best case, 8,500, worst case, 7,000. So no, we didn't, we surpassed our... 10,000 has a reason behind it. But we, we did surpass our floor, which was 5,000. Um,
AJ Harper:
Okay, that's good. Yeah. You already kind of told us about the breakdown of the sales in terms of how many were bulk sales. We kind of already got that. You won't know necessarily all the different breakdowns yet in terms of format with the way that everything reports. It's such skiwankas. It's just like a, it's dizzying.
25
Mike Michalowicz:
It, you know what, I, I gotta now acknowledge, uh, the traditional folks like Penguin McMillan also does this, but, but Penguin, their reporting is freaking good. Like, I didn't know how hard it is to accumulate this stuff. So I was jaded like, Penguin can do it, I can do it better. And it is really hard. There's so many different reporting sources. It's convoluted. There's books that are put into inventory and then could be returned like
AJ Harper:
So is there anything in light of that you didn't quite make your goal, that you would've wanted to do differently now? Like what do you, what do you say, Hmm, I probably should have done this or that?
Mike Michalowicz:
I probably have done more with book bulk sales. Um, for sure. I think, no, I wouldn't have done this, but it would've gotten me over. The goal is that the call in the favors, again, to the folks I know, like Michael and Don and, uh, Jillian, like all these different people and say, Hey, can, can you help me out? But, um, that would be calling in a favor. It'd almost be an artificial push over that, that hill. So I don't know if I wanted that. Um, the bulk sales, I think I could have done a better job with that. I understand it a little bit better now, and I would've done that.
AJ Harper:
That's cool. 'cause we have a whole episode on that coming up. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. We'll dig into that.
AJ Harper:
What about reaching out to, you know, finding those readers, as you was say, you was just a little throwaway comment you made earlier that you didn't do that speaking to, or outreach to this new readership. Aside from working, trying to get all existing, uh, personal finance influencers to work with you and interviewed them and such, but do you think maybe some outreach to individuals and gaining visibility in that area earlier might've helped?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, maybe. Maybe. You know, the other thing is I have an ongoing business. Like I need to also sell my other books just effectively. So at the risk of abandoning or not catering or coddling my existing readership base, that's a, that's a major risk. So the question that I have is how do I stay with, how do I expand or sit on the shoulders of these great entrepreneurs or, or have them help me as opposed to shifting audiences? And I, I gotta do more study around, um, fellow
authors who have done this. But what's interesting is there's some or many personal self-help books that are ranked as entrepreneur books, but I'm like, really? But they're considered entrepreneur books because the author very tactfully served the entrepreneur and built a self-help for everybody, but sold it to the entrepreneur and is perceived as an entrepreneur's book, but it's consumed by everybody. So I don't understand that a hundred percent. I understand it logically, but not on execution. And that's what I'm trying to figure out and do.
AJ Harper:
So talk to me just briefly, you know, right now, what are you planning to do next? I mean, do you have a new set of goals or, um, are you still kind of in the downtime afterward where you're just starting the dust settle or?
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, so another thing that works really well, uh, is webinars where I bring in, I shared a strategy before a couple fellow authors. So what I think the strategy is, and we're trying it out, is actually less about personal finance and more about good habits that personal finance are part of. So, um, I just talked with Nir Eyal. Do you know him? He wrote the book Hooked.
AJ Harper:
I do, I do know him.
Mike Michalowicz:
So he heard about The Money Habit. He was connected to me through a mutual friend, we're actually speaking later today again. And he's like, oh my God, I want in on that. He's coming out with a new book that's launching next month. Um, and I don't remember the title, but I remember he said the book moves people from limiting habits to liberating Habits.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. He is been working on that book for a few years.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. So we were just talking last week and we're gonna talk again today. How can we do something where the Money Habit and his new book? Do you know the title of his new book? That's a shame. I don't know.
AJ Harper:
I don't remember.
Mike Michalowicz:
Okay, well, let's, I'll google it real quick. Um, but we're we're, oh yeah. Beyond Belief. So we're coordinating that, and I think that's gonna be an important strategy going forward, is I want to get a constant stream of these webinars going because they're highly, highly effective in moving books, but also getting audiences in that never heard of you before and linking these books together. My dream is that his new book Beyond Belief, as a Frequently Bought with the Money Habit, or vice versa, the Money Habits frequently, frequently bought to support each other. So that's what I'm moving toward.
AJ Harper:
So no set sales goals set for the next year or anything? You haven't set those yet?
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, actual numbers. Um, yeah, listen, we wanna do a hundred thousand books a year that, that's the standard for Profit First. That's the standard for everything that we, that we want. The, it's an unreasonable expectation. I would say most of my books have sold over a hundred thousand units, but only one I think is over two 50 or more, which is Pumpkin Plan and firstly only went over a million. So, um, a hundred thousand years. A big ask. I will tell you there, there's a, a text I wanted to read to you that I got that may be the indicator that this book, the Money Habit has potential to be the bestseller. Like, uh, like, like Private First. And it came in from Eric Peterson. So, just to give context, Eric is a guy I know, uh, through a mastermind that we are in together, but he, well, a, a jolly and wonderful guy.
Mike Michalowicz:
He doesn't just reach out to pat in the back. It's always specific. So this text came in from Eric and he says, just finished Money Habit and had to text you directly. Absolutely. Amazing book. My wife is listening to audiobook now, and we have been having some great conversations about money since we both started. You're truly gonna change lives with this book. Thank you. To me, when I got that text, I was like, from Eric, I was like, yes. That's what, if we can, if I can, if we can trigger that emotion in people and that conversation and that transformation for people, this book will be a book that, that can do that million plus units sold.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. I have some ideas by the way.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, good. Oh yeah. I want to hear 'em.
AJ Harper:
I maybe I'll bring 'em up in context of these next few. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz:
Let's do that.
AJ Harper:
Let's do that. Yeah. I have some, I do really want, I know you, I know it's hard with the body of work that you have. You have all these books that are entrepreneurial focused and here we have the Money Habit, and I really do feel you need to lean into communities that you wouldn't normally lean into. And also, you said something on the, at the bringing it back to the Monday night reading, which we, we kicked off this call talking about, you started saying, um, sort of a new mission and you, you always talk about ending eradicating on poverty. Poverty. Then you said, I've never heard you say it before, but you said it last night. And I, it's like, I I I, I think I'm on, I think I'm just wired after 17 years, be like, that's what Mike says now. And just like, click, click and it stays in my brain. I
Mike Michalowicz:
Don't remember the exact word. Was it financial independence?
AJ Harper:
No, you said, I want to eradicate emotional poverty.
Mike Michalowicz:
Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
AJ Harper:
Yeah. You did. Yeah. And I thought, oh, okay. I was 'cause you have to bridge now. Yeah. You have to bridge it. Yeah. And so, um, some effort has to be put into that. And I really feel strongly that there's a lot that you could be doing that's completely outside of your comfort zone of where you sit with the people you know, and you know your network. And I think that's, I you wanna meet that a hundred thousand goal, I feel like you need to be branching out from that.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah, no, that's a great catch. Yeah. I don't remember exactly how I said that, but I do feel that emotion building in me.
AJ Harper:
Yeah. I think it's connected to the way what you, the book's promise is to never have to worry about money again. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz:
Yeah. We gotta wrap things up. We're almost in an hour in.
AJ Harper:
Well, we had to, it's huge. And that's, we have to break down. We're gonna break down a bunch more a the next one. I can't remember. What's the next one that we're, well,
Mike Michalowicz:
We're gonna ask, uh, how to ask other authors for support. So yes, I, I'm really excited about that because it is, I I'm on the receiving side of this and I would say 95 or more percent of the time, it is the worst ask on the planet. It's like, not only do the people not get what they're intending to get, they burn a bridge.
AJ Harper:
Been there too.
Mike Michalowicz:
Hey, um, as a listener to the show, if you haven't gotten the money habit yet, I'd be really be honored if you check it out. Why not Get It with the greatest book on the planet. Write a Must read by AJ Harper. Also go to aj harper.com. Last night I experienced the power of her network. There was 60 plus live people there attending live office.
AJ Harper:
We, we had over 80 people.
Mike Michalowicz:
Over 80. Oh, when I saw the number, it was merely 60, which blew my mind away. You can be part of that community and it's authors supporting authors, which is extraordinary. If you have a topic you want us to talk about, if you wanna share a story like Kristen Wheeler did at the top of this show, if email us at hello@dwtbpodcast.com. We'd love to hear it as a grand reminder. Don't market that book market, the greatest book you can.