In this episode of Don’t Write That Book, Mike and AJ continue to discuss launch strategies with a focus this episode on post-launch. You’ll learn about the reading slump, how to track sales from available sources, and why authors should connect with other authors to keep their books alive.
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Atomic Habits, by James Clear: https://a.co/d/ivufoOl
Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod: https://a.co/d/74r4xtN
E-Myth, by Michael E. Gerber: https://a.co/d/2nxvstQ
Giftology, by John Ruhlin: https://a.co/d/ben9bCe
Blowback, by Miles Taylor: https://a.co/d/gNhUgUL
The Long Game, by Dorie Clark: https://a.co/d/h4dcevB
Connect with AJ & Mike:
AJ Harper: https://ajharper.com
Write A Must-Read: https://a.co/d/4H0xQ7G
Free resources: https://writeamustread.com
Socials:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/AJHarperAuthors
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjanetteharper/
Mike Michalowicz: https://mikemichalowicz.com
All books: https://mikemichalowicz.com/books/
Socials:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/mikemichalowicz/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/MikeMichalowiczFanPage/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemichalowicz/
Don’t Write That Book – EP 15_ “MARKETING POST-LAUNCH” _ TRANSCRIPTS
Mike Michalowicz (00:01):
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. Welcome to another episode. I'm here in studio with AJ. AJ, it's awesome to see you back from your vacation.
AJ Harper (00:23):
My extra-long vacation.
Mike Michalowicz (00:25):
How long was it?
AJ Harper (00:26):
Three and a half weeks.
Mike Michalowicz (00:28):
Oh, I was about to say two weeks. Was it two weeks?
AJ Harper (00:30):
No. because I went to see my mom before that.
Mike Michalowicz (00:32):
Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. How's your mom doing?
AJ Harper (00:34):
She's doing great. She loves being in a nursing home. Who knew?
Mike Michalowicz (00:38):
Huh? She, that was her dream the whole time.
AJ Harper (00:40):
Not at all. But I think you know, she was living a solitary kind of life before that, and so now she is has her. She chose, she said, no, I don't want my own room. I want a roommate.
Mike Michalowicz (00:54):
Good.
AJ Harper (00:55):
She has all the nurses and CNAs that come and talk to her. She goes, she's got the other people in the, that are residents and she doesn't have to lift a finger. I mean, what?
Mike Michalowicz (01:08):
Yeah, she's catered to.
AJ Harper (01:09):
She feels delighted.
Mike Michalowicz (01:11):
Good, good.
AJ Harper (01:12):
Who knew here? I thought it was going to be a, I mean, she misses her hus, my stepfather. Yeah, for sure. He comes every other day. Yeah. Like clockwork.
Mike Michalowicz (01:21):
Mm-hmm. That's good. Like clockwork.
AJ Harper (01:24):
Well, oh, I didn't even mean to say that.
Mike Michalowicz (01:27):
Oh well.
AJ Harper (01:27):
That's okay. He comes every other day. That's okay.
Mike Michalowicz (01:29):
Okay. Yeah. Like when you're pitching our books
AJ Harper (01:34):
Yes. To our land on Madeleine Island, which I believe I've talked about on this podcast before because it's all I talk about.
Mike Michalowicz (01:40):
The pictures are breathtaking.
AJ Harper (01:41):
Thank you.
Mike Michalowicz (01:42):
And I love seeing your vision come true.
AJ Harper (01:46):
It is a slow process, but, and our family, we just say do the next thing and eventually you get there.
Mike Michalowicz (01:53):
Well, that's the perfect setup for my introduction to you. Okay. So, AJ Harper is my writing partner. Every single book that is under my name is a co-project we've done together.
AJ Harper (02:03):
Except for the children's book.
Mike Michalowicz (02:04):
Except for the, except for the children's book. That's right. And I wanted to share that lesson I've learned from you is to keep moving it forward in a way to better serve the reader, not just to produce. Meaning every time we're working on a book, it's like, is this serving the reader optimally? And if not, we have to move that forward yet another step. Mm-hmm. And I just admire that. And we've had some conversations where I'm, I just want to get it done. There's pressure from the publisher and your resistance. I said, no, no, no. We have to serve the reader best. And, and the proof is in the pudding. I appreciate that about you.
AJ Harper (02:45):
Hey, thanks. But I also appreciate that you're push me.
Mike Michalowicz (02:48):
AJ Harper (02:50):
We balance each other out. And incidentally, you can listen to the episode where we talk about Surge. Yeah. The book that she'll not be, it's like Voldemort
Mike Michalowicz (03:00):
AJ Harper (03:01):
No, it's a great book. But you know, we talked a little bit about it there, but I appreciate in you that you helped me see it's okay to, to move forward. We don't have to make everything perfect.
Mike Michalowicz (03:16):
And actually, we're going to talk about moving forward after our recording study for these podcast episodes. We're going to head out, hopefully grab a bite to eat, and talk about the next book. I proactively spoke with Penguin, but there's two paths we can take and we have thumbs up for either way.
AJ Harper (03:31):
Oh, you're teasing me now. So I have to wait till we record three podcast episodes. Right, right.
Mike Michalowicz (03:36):
Okay. Someone's once told me, when you're at a fork in the road, take it.
AJ Harper (03:59):
I think so.
Mike Michalowicz (04:00):
Why do you think so many people don't even think about it or discount it?
AJ Harper (04:06):
Well, lack of information. I don't think they understand the value of it. I think a lot of people don't know how books are sold. I think people have unrealistic expectations about how books are discovered. And then I think they decide that they, they have these sort of arbitrary metrics Yeah. And if they don't meet them, they kind of cash it in. Yeah. And finally just afraid of putting themselves out there. Yeah. Or, and also, oh, wait, not finally tired.
Mike Michalowicz (04:39):
That's a better choice of words.
AJ Harper (04:40):
But tired and fear of being standing out. So I cannot tell you how many authors will hesitate to post anything about their book, even when they have good news. And then when they do post, they don't put a link to purchase.
Mike Michalowicz (04:58):
Oh.
AJ Harper (04:59):
I'm always, I'm so sneaky just going into their little comment section, here's the Amazon link,
Mike Michalowicz (05:07):
And thank you for doing it. For those authors, we talk about this and Get Different, is, once you garner attention, you have a responsibility to direct the person to take action. Why do you think people are afraid or avoid mentioning or selling their book? Promoting their book?
AJ Harper (05:22):
Oh, I mean, I think it's probably that we need a therapist
Mike Michalowicz (06:01):
Yeah. Yeah. So they're embarrassed. And there's a lot of books out like there like that. There was one, I was at a presentation and I'll mention the guy's name, but I didn't like his style for this one presentation, but I think it, he does good work. His name is Steve Abado. He's kind of a local speaker on politics. And I saw him present in Mars County, New Jersey. It was a great presentation at the very end. He said, all right, you heard it. Go get my book. Buy my book now. And that was how he closed it. I was like, oh, that's so abrupt. It was such a turnoff, but at the same time, I admired that he was giving people direction. What I found the best way to pitch a book in any scenario, how I do it, is I say I hope this information I shared with you has served you.
Mike Michalowicz (06:51):
I've compiled my best thoughts in my book and spent a lifetime working on it. So if you're interested in that, it's available for you. And dollar for dollar is the greatest way I can serve you. I also then say the selfish reason. I say, and, and if you do decide to buy my book, it does support me. It helps spread the word to other entrepreneurs. It helps me generate an income that allows me to keep writing books. What I found so interesting in the feedback I get from people, they say, you know what? I was on the fence when you told me it would serve me. I wanted it, but I didn't know if I wanted it. Now, there wasn't this immediacy. And they said, the second you said, this serves you and what it does for you. Now, that moved me to taking to action.
AJ Harper (07:31):
That's interesting. Yeah. I hear you do it all the time, but I've never said that. I probably need to try that.
Mike Michalowicz (07:37):
Try that. Yeah. You know, I've helped pitch your books. Help I've enjoyed pitching your books and we've done some stuff together and I, and I say that the, the impetus for urgency and that's how you do it. So when it comes to the post-launch marketing, this isn't something that you do just the week after. Like, this is something that goes on for a real long time.
AJ Harper (08:02):
Yeah. It's, you need to re you need a free reframe. It's the long game. Anything in publishing is the long game. And I mean long with like five O's
Mike Michalowicz (08:13):
Dorie Clark's title for her book.
AJ Harper (08:15):
Yeah. Like Dorie Clark's title. Yeah. publishing is long. The whole process and getting a book to that tipping point where people, well, it starts to sell itself and you don't know where the sales are coming from. That takes can take years.
Mike Michalowicz (08:31):
Do you have any estimates, do you surmise what it takes to get to the tipping point where a book sells itself? Is there such a thing?
AJ Harper (08:40):
Well. No. I, I'd like, maybe I need to put that on a to-do list to try and figure that out. But every book is so different. Yeah. Every author is so different. And it depends if it's your first book or not. Yeah. It's just basically enough people have to be talking about it for it to reach that point. And here's what ha what happens. You sort of are gung ho about your book being out in maybe the month or two after it's out. And then you're, you're just kind of trudging along and not really getting as feedback anymore. Mm-Hmm. So maybe in the first few weeks after it comes out, people are saying, I loved your book, blah, blah, blah. You start to see some reviews coming in, but then it's a little bit of a slog. And this is like the crickets phase.
Mike Michalowicz (09:46):
Yeah. Here's my hypothesis is that when a book is purchased, about 10% of those people that buy the book will read it immediately and 90% will shelve the book for a period of time. You mentioned before we went live, you said, oh, you have, was it 40 novels?
AJ Harper (10:03):
It's about that.
Mike Michalowicz (10:04):
When did you buy some of those books? How long ago would you guess?
AJ Harper (10:07):
Okay, well, now I have to come clean.
Mike Michalowicz (11:20):
So some of those books you may have had for years, I presume, on the shelf. Right.
AJ Harper (11:25):
I mean, that's different too. They're novels. Sure. So if you buy a nonfiction book, you might do the same thing, though. I do. “I'm going to need that someday, I do.” Or you admire that person, or like what they have to say.
Mike Michalowicz (11:35):
I have a queue in audible of books that I plan to read. I have a stack of books at home that I plan to read. I bought Thomas Edison's biography, and realistically, I probably won't get to it for another year or two. I'm reading Washington's biography and I thought I'd go through it much quicker. But to your point, life events come up, other demands come. And for me, someone's consumption isn't necessary. It's leisure, it's hobby or activity. And that therefore can be delayed. And I think when someone buys a book in the moment, they may be inspired to buy your book, but then they have other priorities that, that take over. So that's my guess. 10% books get read immediately. 90% sit on the shelf for a period of time and, and some will get consumed. And a portion and probably a big proportion portion will never be read. Just for my own estimates, I was just cleaning out my closet. And I went through always books. I'm like, oh my God, I think I've had this for 15 years or something. Just, you could tell by the yellowing of the pages and stuff never cracked it and no relevance now. So I'm like, you know what? Let me donate this. Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz (12:41):
So
AJ Harper (12:41):
Don't write that book.
Mike Michalowicz (12:43):
No
AJ Harper (13:13):
Yeah. And you also need to keep your energy up while you're waiting for people to finish reading it. Yeah. You know,
Mike Michalowicz (13:23):
I think you, you host an event with your authors occasionally, and you'll invite me in pretty like every six months or so. It's
AJ Harper (13:30):
Called writing Sprint Marathon.
Mike Michalowicz (13:32):
Is that when we do in the evening? The one when I've showed up? Is that the, oh,
AJ Harper (13:35):
You mean Monday Night Reading?
Mike Michalowicz (13:36):
That's it. Monday night reading. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (13:38):
And you've invited me a few times. Yeah. Sometimes to, to speak a little bit too. And what I find is that some people write a book and, and they realize this took a hundred percent of their effort. It's, it is exhaustive. Mm-hmm. And then what I tell them is the hard truth. You have to put a hundred percent of your effort into writing the book, and then a hundred percent of your effort into marketing that book. I also think the marketing campaign has to go for years. For me it's ongoing. There's a front list book that I'm actively promoting, but the back list continually gets a push. Any opportunity, podcasts, interviews? Actually there's, I don’t know if I told you I'm going to be recording another pilot TV show. I have a meeting this afternoon with the production company. It just got booked, so it's
AJ Harper (14:28):
Oh, amazing.
Mike Michalowicz (14:29):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm excited. Who knows where we'll go. This is Nu Pilot number.
AJ Harper (14:34):
Yeah. Well, how many is this now? I
Mike Michalowicz (14:35):
Think this is the fourth or fifth pilot. So, so far four burnouts. One was the Discovery Channel. So close. But the reason for sharing that is it's a form of me to further promote the books to a new audience in a new way, or maybe the same audience in a way they haven't heard it before. So it's an ongoing relentless effort. Someone asked me, they said, how much time do you spend marketing books? I'm like, oh, eight hours a day. Every day like this. What we're doing right now that
AJ Harper (15:01):
Gives the, that, that's why people don't do it then. So they say, oh my God, I can't, I have a life. I have a whole business. I have a job.
Mike Michalowicz (15:09):
But if you write this book, you have to be devoted to getting the word out.
AJ Harper (15:16):
Yeah. But you know what, in with my students, I'm always saying, you don't have to be Michalowicz.
Mike Michalowicz (15:21):
AJ Harper (15:22):
Right. Because I mean, that's something that I count on with you and love about you, but you are a unicorn. Yeah. I would argue you're actually a unicorn from another planet. Oh, like a unicorn alien,
Mike Michalowicz (16:17):
I agree.
AJ Harper (16:18):
You know?
Mike Michalowicz (16:19):
I agree. You know, for me, it is a little difficult to believe this. Someone wouldn't devote themselves full-time to this, because you've written something that can serve the world.
AJ Harper (16:28):
But what if there are folks who still want to write this book? Yeah. This amazing book, but don't want, I mean, you've devoted your life to authorship now. Right. But maybe that's not going to be the thing. You know what I mean?
Mike Michalowicz (16:39):
Right. No, I agree. But it's, but it is a consistency. You know, what wakes me up excited to market yet another day is the unexpected emails that came in. I got one, oh, I got emotional already. There's this guy in the UK who's in his forties who said, basically he says, I need help. He's, I just discovered Pumpkin Plan.
AJ Harper (17:03):
Oh man. Pumpkin Plan.
Mike Michalowicz (17:04):
And he said, I, right before finding his book, he went back to his, his parents, he's in his forties, went back to his parents, he said, for his third loan, he calls it, you know, the bank of the parents. Oh. And he goes, his mom or mom, as he put wrote the check to him and said my, your my dad, you, you're his dad and her are so worried for him. They said, when we die, we don't know what you're going to do. Yeah. And he said he was just crying. And he's embarrassed. He's, you know, he, he's, it was a full dialogue of, of what he's going through. He said, he's, he's cried on the way home. He's embarrassed and ashamed. He's borrowing money. No one believes in what he's trying to do as an entrepreneur, but he does. And he goes, I, I desperately need help. And I hope the Pumpkin Plan can get me in that direction. Oh,
AJ Harper (17:50):
Oh, it will. It will.
AJ Harper (17:52):
Just do the things.
Mike Michalowicz (17:54):
Just do the things. So I just wrote back to him I said, I want you to know I'm proud of you and I'm proud of your parents. because His parents are supporting him, but also concerned for him. And that's why they're supporting him. So that drives you.
AJ Harper (18:06):
Totally. And I get that. And you have multiple, multiple books. So what are, we're about to start 11. Yeah. I think a person can still keep their book alive, even if they're not, even if they still have another business or a bunch of kids and another business
Mike Michalowicz (18:31):
Yeah. So let's go through some strategies then in post-launch. Yeah. one thing I want to do for framing is we, and we talked about in our prior episodes, pre-launch is leading up to the publishing week or weeks where you push a, a big push out the gate. You make a big push out of the gate. because You want to get that initial wave. There will be a cricket time while people consume the book. But that 10%, or whoever it is who do consume the book, start spreading the word. If you wrote this book, you wrote a great book, the Post-launch, you can, if you choose, replicate some of the launch activities on a periodic basis, you can announce to your list again, Hey, the book's still out here. Hey, here's some insights to the book that's out there. You know but I have some strategies I wrote down that I, I want to go through.
Mike Michalowicz (19:17):
You can do some automated things that aren't often considered. So these are a little bit kind of guerilla tactics, but one is the audio book, and we should dedicate an episode to audio just how to do audio. Your audio book. Read your own book. Unless it's a fiction book, there are certain instances where a professional voice is better. But reading your own audio book, you can do the inflection, the voice. You understand why you wrote what you wrote in the book. Invite people to buy the print book or the Kindle book, and just take a break from your reading and say, Hey, I'd love for you to get a print copy, and this is what it could do for you. And this is also what it means for me. So you can actually make that ask one time in your audiobook, and every time your audiobook sells, you can get a couple more sales.
AJ Harper (20:01):
That's cool.
Mike Michalowicz (20:03):
I do it. I also ask people in my audiobook if they're willing, would they be willing to give an honest review of this book? And I do it in the audiobook because then people hear it from your voice and they know it's a genuine ask. And I tell them, my selfish reason is the greatest way for other entrepreneurs to discover this book is from an honest review. And if you think this book sucks, the world should know that too. I hope it served you. I want your honest review. And, and it resonates with people. Mm-Hmm.
AJ Harper (20:30):
Most people Can I just, can we pause about reviews? Yeah. People just as they don't promote, they don't ask for the reviews. So somebody will reach out and say, I love this book. And then the author won't ask them to give an honest review. Yeah. So they might have posted about it on social, but then they didn't go to Amazon and leave a review. You as an author, have to go and ask them to do so,
Mike Michalowicz (20:54):
I was with Jay Papasan, he's the author of The One Thing along with Gary Keller. I've met with him a few weeks ago. He shared a technique. He was like, oh, this is so obvious. And I, I don't do it. He goes, you'll have people out of the cold email you saying, I love your book. He said, respond by asking. Thank you. Well, saying, first of all, saying thank you so much. Then asking, what did you like about it so much? When they respond, he says, that's a review. Then say, thank you so much. Would you be willing to copy and paste this into a review system? It's interesting, when you ask people to do a review on Amazon, there's a hesitancy when they, you ask them to tell you directly there's an opportunity and people do it. And now you can just get them to cut and paste that.
AJ Harper (21:32):
That's great. I've, I've wondered about why people are so reticent to do Amazon. I mean, why? We just talked about how I went on vacation. Yeah. None of the people. Okay. Maybe one, one out of maybe 10 of my friends that I've been going on this trip with for 25 years has my buds haven't left a review on my book.
Mike Michalowicz (21:52):
What the, what
AJ Harper (21:53):
You know
Mike Michalowicz (21:54):
What it is. Have you asked them?
AJ Harper (21:55):
Yes. Repeatedly in the group text. In the Facebook group? Yes. Personally. They're sick of me asking. They're probably going to name a cocktail after called Amazon Review at this point. Yeah, yeah,
Mike Michalowicz (22:07):
Yeah.
AJ Harper (22:11):
Here's the thing. People are nervous to write them.
Mike Michalowicz (22:14):
Why do you think
AJ Harper (22:15):
They usually don't? And they don't want to disappoint you. Ah, so they don't know what to write. And so they labor over it. I once had someone say, I'm getting to your review. I just, you know, I'm still working on, I'm like, it literally takes me two minutes to write a review. Yeah. Yeah. People are nervous. Okay.
AJ Harper (22:34):
So I think it's helpful to tell people this is, you know, here are some ideas for how you can write a review. It doesn't have to, just stuff that seems obvious to you or to me is not obvious. Yeah. I don't need you to write. It's not a professional review was helpful for me to tell some people. So it doesn't need to be two paragraphs. It could be a couple sentences. Yeah. And then giving them little cool tips, like think about your favorite story from Ed and write about that. Think about your favorite pick quote. Give them some, some tips. But most of all, let them off the hook. Because if it's someone you know and you've asked them to leave it, they're nervous that you're going to go look at it. And then you'll judge them and they'll say the wrong thing. Mm. So I think we actually are probably asking more of people than we realize. And it's, if you make it easier for them, then you might get more.
Mike Michalowicz (23:28):
I like that. So maybe the J Pap technique gives that relief because they're only writing to you. Exactly.
AJ Harper (23:33):
Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (23:34):
Another technique, I'm, I'm trying to think of like some of these automated techniques to getting more sales. The ongoing sales out there that the post-launch is have a book page. So you can go to Profit First, the book.com as an example. That's a dedicated book page for profit. First on, there are links for free resources. The interesting thing is, even if people don't or haven't read your book yet, they may have heard of it and will want get resources around it. Give that in exchange for email. So you want to capture people's email actively, and then you can go for the ask. I think the mistake I've seen as people through their website just go for the ask. Like, oh, interested in Profit First. Here's where you buy it on these different links. That's the mistake. Because the chances of them buying it are remote.
Mike Michalowicz (24:23):
They, they may click on a link. They may go there and say, ah, I don't, I don't need, need it now. Or put it in the cart and never come back to it. Get the email. It's a currency exchange. It's something of value to them and, and something of value to you. And now you have their permission to email them and say, Hey, I need the resources. Do you have the book, buy the book? We get a lot of, of signups that way and a lot of sales that way. Another technique here is you can set an affiliate link with Amazon or these other providers. So we have, we lost it, and I can tell you a story about that, but we had an affiliate link with Amazon. So every time someone would, would get an email from us, they would register for the free resources we sent to them. And then we'd say, Hey, if you have, don't have the book yet, here's where you can get at Amazon. We could see who's clicking on it, and we could see the purchases actually being made. So use an Amazon affiliate link plus you get another dollar per book. Couple bucks.
AJ Harper (25:17):
Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz (25:18):
That,
AJ Harper (25:18):
That's not, or that one time that person bought a kayak or something on your
Mike Michalowicz (25:21):
Yeah. Have you had that? That weird
AJ Harper (25:23):
You did. You told me that. Oh, I
Mike Michalowicz (25:24):
Told you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. I was like, wow, you too.
AJ Harper (25:27):
No, not, not also the kayak.
Mike Michalowicz (25:30):
What's interesting is if you bring someone to the Amazon page and they buy something, even if it's not what you're pitching you can get credit for it. So yeah, someone bought a kayak. I'm like, wow, I don't understand the link. Like, like they're considering a Profit First book and they ended up with a kayak. But the reality of course, is not that linear thinking. This person was probably thinking about a kayak and said, oh, I should get Profit First. And ah, screw it. I want tog et my kayak. Like, you know, we think in parallel thoughts. So next way sell books. Did you, did you have something you wanted to comment on?
AJ Harper (26:06):
No, I mean, you, I, well I do, but you are on your automated kick. I don't want to interrupt your automated kick. Okay.
Mike Michalowicz (26:12):
Well, another thing to do is you can pursue sponsor relationships another form of automation. So who are the companies that would benefit from exposure to the same community that's buying your book? And I think this works for all genres of books, but for me, for example talking about our new book All in, it's for small business owners and leaders of, of small and big companies. And while I'm asking myself are who are the companies that would want access to that community? And then can I build sponsor relationships? A sponsored relationship can present itself in many ways, but one way is they buy books. So when I go to a speaking gig, it's amazing. I'll get hired for a speaking gig and then my agent will say, Hey if Mike's sponsor provides a hundred free books for your audience, is that something that you'd want? They just would want to put their sticker or name on. because They want to be in front of your audience. And I can't think of a single event that's declined that they're like a hundred books. So I get a hundred book sales, my sponsor gets exposure to his audience, and the event host is thrilled because they're getting an extra bonus gift.
AJ Harper (27:20):
Oh, that's a great idea.
Mike Michalowicz (27:22):
So that works well. Yeah.
AJ Harper (27:23):
So you've given a lot of different types of things that people can do that you have probably, I would say, a thousand more ideas people could do. I do. Yeah. Most people don't know how to cultivate a strategy around that. because It can feel like throwing darts, right? Yeah. Oh, let me try this and let me try that. Let me try this. I want to point out to people that I think you need to have some metrics. This is something that I learned from you, so you need to be able to track what's working and not working, or you're just going to give up on stuff. Yeah. And can you talk a little bit about how you track it? I mean, how often do you look at book sales? I think I know the answer, but I'm going to say it's every day.
Mike Michalowicz (28:02):
Every day. It is. Yeah.
AJ Harper (28:07):
So, so if you have a promo or something, you know, might be moving books, you'll track it more closely?
Mike Michalowicz (28:12):
We'll track it hourly then. So you, you can't track actual sales on an hourly basis. And the way we're set up through a traditional publisher with Penguin, I can't even check the actual sales on a daily basis, but I can check them on a weekly basis, but I can check on an hourly basis. Is the BSR the bestseller on Amazon? Yeah. On Amazon. Yeah. And that just indicates there's a translation to how your book is selling. So if we do something, we'll send out an email blast. We'll look on Amazon. Now Amazon lags behind maybe five to six hours it seems right now. And that changes, sometimes it's faster, sometimes it's slower. But we'll look after an email blast goes out starting six hours to 12 hours later and see how the ranking's going. And that's an indicator. What we do is we also have a download of weekly sales that Penguin provides us. Now, if you're self-published, you can just get it right through your, I think through your Author Central or through your distribution system.
AJ Harper (29:07):
You can get it on Author Central. You can get BookScan info, but Author Central,
Mike Michalowicz (29:10):
Oh, you can? Okay. Mm-hmm. So there you go.
AJ Harper (29:11):
Every Friday.
Mike Michalowicz (29:12):
Every Friday there. So weekly we import that into a spreadsheet. And so we have a spreadsheet that shows all of our book sales per book per week. And it shows how we're trending. And right now, I think we're just shy of 3000 books a week across all our titles. Ongoing sales.
AJ Harper (29:30):
What do you do with the information? When do you know you need to tweak something?
Mike Michalowicz (29:34):
Well, if, if there's a dip. So when Covid hit as an example, it's interesting. You just see the Sudden Dip. We're like, okay with the change messaging or get the word out in a new way. We, and I don't know if this is true for other authors, but within four cycles, within one month, we recovered back to normalized sales after Covid. So there's a group,
AJ Harper (29:54):
because you, you put, you created a new strategy that you're actually still using.
Mike Michalowicz (29:57):
Yeah. So the one of the, yeah. And this is one of my favorite ongoing strategies. And I just, we were talking about Hal Elrod before, and I don't know why I'm shocked. We know the same people sometimes. I didn't know you were friends with him.
AJ Harper (30:08):
I don't think we're, I mean, it's not like we're best buddies, but Yeah, I did. I, yes.
Mike Michalowicz (30:14):
How's my people? Like he's, he's saying I like how lame humors me
AJ Harper (30:17):
For those who don’t know who he is. He wrote Miracle Morning. The Miracle Book: Miracle Morning, which is a absolute bestseller.
Mike Michalowicz (30:26):
Two over 2 million copies sold
AJ Harper (30:27):
Self-Published. Yep.
Mike Michalowicz (30:31):
He's about to come out with a mainstream book.
AJ Harper (30:33):
The, well, he had several publishers who wanted to publish it. It's, and he never said yes until what was it last year?
Mike Michalowicz (30:43):
Yeah, yeah. New cover. He showed me beautiful design. It's through Ben Bell as the publishing house. It's launching December 12th of this year, 2024. So it depends when, I'm sorry, of 2023. December 12th, 2023. So depending when this one goes live, it may actually already be out. He's, he's cut from the same cloth as me. He's a weirdo. He's hyper
AJ Harper (31:21):
Yeah. That would never happen to me.
Mike Michalowicz (31:25):
Just Me. And how he's so my people. He's so my people. I love him. Good guy. And you know, one thing that's interesting, I hope he doesn't mind me divulging this because I did talk to him about the other publishers and his success, success of his book. He's like, it's never been about the money. He's like, I got to be of service. He's like, I was not going to do a deal with anyone until I knew this would serve more people more deeply. I'm like, freaking how freaking L Rod.
AJ Harper (31:50):
Yeah. And he's, how I identify with him is I talked to him about, you know, what did he feel was really essential in getting his book to that success. And he was cheering a bunch of stuff with me and all of it's great. Yeah. But all of it was stuff I knew. Yeah. And then finally he kind of, he paused and he said, you know what? I just stuck with it for 10 years. Yeah. And that, that was the money quote for me that I tell my students now because it's, this is what we don't do. Yeah. And, you know, he was relentless. He was doing what you do. Yeah. Which is the grind, pushing, pushing. And it doesn't feel like a grind when you love the book and you're in service. Correct. But it's really about not giving up on the book any, even if your book came out two years ago, as long as it's a book you're proud of, you know, it makes a difference. You can do these post-launch activities anytime. There's no, you didn't miss a boat. I think people think, oh, I let it sit for too long. I don't know what to do to revive my book. But you can actually pick it back up. It's more about just dedicating yourself to getting the word out and being relentless in serving people through the book.
Mike Michalowicz (33:01):
Agreed. Agreed. So the strategy I was talking with, how about, and the strategy I used when Covid happened, and a strategy I think is perhaps my most effective selling mechanism right now is webinars. They're, they're still very effective. I know people are webinar out, but webinars, what I do specifically is I will do it with other authors. So I was talking with Hal about doing this, and we've come up with a strategy. I'll do it with two other authors. So it'll be myself and two other authors. We all promote to our communities. So we build a collective pool of people that attend. Then we host the event. I act as an mc and interview the other two guests. Now we make sure that the subjects we're talking about, the books they've written are complimentary, but not necessarily direct. So Hal writes about The Miracle Morning. I'm writing a book about All in, which is leadership, but part of great leadership is, is being great yourself. So there's a correlation half. So we, we, and it's just sharing ideas. It's a free event. The last one I did, we had just shy of a thousand people on the live webinar on Zoom, which by the way, crashes Zoom. That was a real problem. Zoom just died. So even though it can support that many people, but we recovered.
AJ Harper (34:20):
And in the middle. How did you recover, by the way?
Mike Michalowicz (34:23):
Well, we sent out an email notice to everyone immediately saying, well, during the live event, because I think it was Kelsey sent out a notice saying, we're having technical difficulties. It's because Zoom is overwhelmed. We have such demand for this that we will be doing a share of the recording and we're going to do another broadcast at a future date in
AJ Harper (34:42):
Okay. Just curious.
Mike Michalowicz (34:43):
Which riled up people to want to be there. Because they couldn't get on. They were getting bumped. It actually built a scarcity. Mm-Hmm.
Mike Michalowicz (34:54):
Midway through I say, Hey, are you getting value out of this? And you would look at the chat and hopefully everyone says yes. And sure enough it's cascading. And this is great and tips and strategies. And I say, the authors here are volunteering their time, and they're here to be totally of service. I'm going to ask you something and it's totally your option. Do you want, if you want to be a service to these authors, they, including myself, have written books on this subject. And then I, same thing. This is the greatest dollar for dollar value we can provide for you. It's everything we know. It will serve you and it will serve us if you get it now. Because when a group of people are buying a book on Amazon or whatever the platform is, the algorithms notice, and it starts propagating and promoting the book aggressively because they have sales momentum.
Mike Michalowicz (35:38):
So if you're willing to buy the book now, it actually supports these authors if you are willing to do it, and you do it, post that. You bought the book on in chat. So I can thank you personally. And then you see pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And it starts popping up. And I'm thanking people. It's the, the most genuine, truthful, authentic way of selling books. We've consistently gotten 30% of the room in the moment buying the book thousand. That's 300 books per person, each person's, you know, that that's, that puts you in the top thousand books, BSR ranking on Amazon on any given day. If you can do 300 books in one day. Mm-hmm. So it's a big effing deal. And then I do these repeatedly. It's not just one webinar. I do, I think we have three or four lined up. Andrea now is, is heading this at our office, but three or four per one per month for three or four months lined up to do this.
AJ Harper (36:32):
So this, okay. So let's, let's pause for a moment. because You know, eight hours a day versus one webinar a month. Yeah. Most people can do one webinar. Yeah. You can go into your network. It doesn't have to be people who have books on the exact same topic could just be related. Yep. That's a doable thing.
Mike Michalowicz (36:52):
Totally. Is doable. Yeah. Totally is doable. You know, the majority of my day is interviews on other people's podcasts. That's something you should do. Creating my own content for social media, doing stuff like we're doing now. Like this, you know, we're going to spend three, four hours today doing this. It, what I'm trying to do with this collective, these collective things is, is constantly have a presence out there that's of value to my community.
AJ Harper (37:19):
And by having the metrics in place, you can notice, is this something that's working or not? Yeah. Is this, is there no ROI on this? You don't, you don't want to, you want to be smart about it. Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz (37:28):
Exactly. Exactly. If you can key things, it's the best. Like, and this one, this show is not key. Like if I said, Hey, if you're enjoying the show, you should get, Get Different. It's the perfect book to compliment marketing your own book. And I truly believe that to be true. You know, use this code don't write that book.com/uh Get Different. That would be the best way to key it. because Then I can point right back to, oh, this show generated that result. Yeah. I'm, we're not doing it in this show.
AJ Harper (37:57):
Yeah. But I, you also bring up, you're sharing different strategies. Yeah. Podcasts, webinars content, and then some automated stuff that's happening. All of those things connect. I mean, we could give, we could do, I, I don't know. We could have a whole podcast just about marketing the book. Mm-hmm. The point is these are all different types of things. I think people get stuck doing just one thing and hoping that will work. Yes. And I, they also get stuck in their network. So I see this with my authors all the time. They're doing a good job of posting on social and connecting, but it's the same people seeing them all the time.
Mike Michalowicz (38:39):
Oh, yeah.
AJ Harper (38:40):
So you've got to think about who else can I get to, to get outside of my network? Yeah. Yeah. You get in front of more people.
Mike Michalowicz (38:49):
One of my favorite stories around this was not with books for SI interviewed, I can't remember if you were on those calls with Brian Smith, the founder of Ugg. I was not. Okay. So I interviewed him over two days. It was a couple days. And but you and I had a lot of dialogue about him. So he's the founder of Ugg. The perception for many people is Uggs this billion dollar brand. And they got popular because teenage girls wore their shoes, their boots. The reality is, this brand started in 1970 x, 76 or something. Brian came to the US with the intention of, he went to California to see what the in Vogue style was, and he was going to bring it back to Australia, his country. But when he was here, he was shocked to find that they didn't have anything to keep their feet warm. So these surfers are surfing out in the cold Pacific Ocean, and then they're running back in from a set trying to warm their feet up by the fire or wrapping in towels. And he's like, why isn't anyone having Ugg? That's what they actually call him in Australia. So then he bought some boots from Australia, him shipped here and started to sell them. Took time. He got traction in the surfing market. But to your point, it becomes this kind of incestuous market. You're, you're talking to the same people over and over.
Mike Michalowicz (40:06):
So then what he did, he asked the smartest question, who's the next community or who's another community has the same problem? And what it was, was skiers, the, the problem was cold, wet feet. He said, that's the problem. They have cold wet feet. They want warm dry feet.
AJ Harper (40:23):
Simple, simple.
Mike Michalowicz (40:24):
So he says, who has cold wet feet? He goes, well, skiers after running their, their feet are all sweaty. Maybe snow kicks in there. It's, it's, they're cold. You want your feet to warm up. Ice hockey players, same problem. So then he started going to these communities and he got massive traction there and started to expand out. It was Brooke Shields who then wore the boot on the cover of like, people Magazine or something in 2000 who then made it a fashion statement. And that was not the calculated move by him. That was an opportunity that presented itself and you know, leaned into that and it became a billion dollar brand. So, you know, what we have to ask ourselves as authors is that community you're initially serving, who else has cold, wet feet?
AJ Harper (41:08):
Yeah.
AJ Harper (41:09):
You know, I like to I like to have my students say, think about what's the change I want to see in the world because of this book? So through this book, I'm trying to make this change. And then who can help facilitate it? That’s the question. So instead of thinking about how can I get more people to read it, which is just a crazy making question for your head, for your brain. Ask yourself who can help you make that mission happen? And then connect with those people to get word out about your book. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there's all sorts of groups, organizations companies that are serving your reader as well. Yeah. And so it's thinking about how can you provide value for those organizations, collaborate with those organizations, those groups, et cetera, to get in front of those people.
Mike Michalowicz (42:05):
I, I call I think the best groups to go after, I call them ignored audiences. But I, first I want to give the counterpoint. I, when I work with some authors and I talk about endorsements, I'm like, who do you want me endorsed by? And I'm like, before you tell me, I'm going to write down a list and let's see if any anyone on the list, Brene Brown,
Mike Michalowicz (42:28):
It ain't going to happen. And if it did happen, you're going to get a modicum of value from them. It's the ignored audiences who are the most compelling. So who are the audiences that aren't being served right now, who are desperate to be served by what you have to offer and reach out to them? You may be welcomed in. One thing I did and continue to do to promote my books is, is consider audiences that my contemporaries aren't actually speaking to. For two or three years. I went to Jamaica multiple times a year. I, I've been in every major city. I've driven across the mountains just to speak with the j Jamaican entrepreneur, no other American author that I know of was doing anything like what I was doing. And so in this quote unquote little country, I was being received extremely well. They're buying this, the English book from amazon.com. They're buying the same stores. And we could see, because you can do it on Author Central, it tells you where people are buying from Yeah. Out of the country. You're like, oh, it, it didn't say Jamaica specifically, but it's like, oh, there's a little movement happening down there. Mm-Hmm.
Mike Michalowicz (43:40):
I could have made that exact same effort in New Jersey where I live, and I suspect it wouldn't have had nearly as many as significant results because it, it's a red ocean here, as they say in that book.
AJ Harper (43:52):
And you can, if you get in, if you get this other area that other authors aren't serving, you can then automate your work in that area. So you can get a toehold in, start automating that. Move on to the next one.
Mike Michalowicz (44:06):
Yeah. Totally. Totally. Do you mind if I go a couple over a couple more strategies? Okay. So, and of course I just, I turned the page on mine. So we talked about Cowe webinars. Another great way to sell your book is sell other people's books, which sounds so basic. And I came across this by happenstance. I'll give you two stories. One was, E-Myth is a book that I believe every small business should read. I sent out an email to my community saying, if you've never heard of E-Myth, or you've heard of it, but haven't bought it, you've got to buy this book. That's all I said. And I got some thank yous emails back and so forth. And no, I hadn't heard this book. And I looked on the E-Myth page, I was curious, and I saw his numbers improve on the BSRs. I'm like, oh, maybe that was us. And then something shocked me next morning, it said, frequently bought together. So I was at the E-Myth page. It said, E-Myth plus Pumpkin Plan. I'm like, what? I didn't tell my audience to buy the Pumpkin Plan. I didn't even think about it. I just was genuinely promoting E-Myth. And I think when people are buying that, some people say, oh, you know what? I haven't bought Mike's book yet. I should buy that too. So what's so interesting about authorship is when you promote someone else, if they fall in love with that other work, they fall in love with the genre, they're more likely to buy your own book. Mm-hmm.
Mike Michalowicz (45:24):
The second story is with Giftology by John Ruland. I write Giftology, I was impressed by the concept. I I love the book. I never met John, didn't know anything about him. I did the same thing, kind of knowing that, oh, when you promote other people's books, it kind of links you together. So I sent out an email blast saying, if you haven't read Giftology, you’ve got to read this book. I, I do believe in it that much. A month later, there's a Ring of the doorbell and there's like this huge box for me and Krista, my wife. I'm like, what is it? Open it up. It's all these Ginsu, not Ginsu knives. Cutco knives.
AJ Harper (45:58):
Oh,
Mike Michalowicz (46:00):
And on there, this is true story.
Mike Michalowicz (46:02):
This is the, a funny little vignette on there. It says like, you know only the, the people with Unwavering Faith will succeed. Or, you know, some of these quotes. And I look at like, oh, this's such a nice gift. It came from John Ruland. And some of these quotes, I'm like, I’ve got to say, these are kind of cheesy, but in my own head I'm like, these are cheesy quotes. But this gift was so nice. I called John Ruland. I said, John, I got this wonderful gift from you. He said, yeah, I heard you promoted my book. He's like, I had to do something for you. I'm like, this is amazing. He goes, what do you think about those quotes? And I'm like, oh, they're great, John. They're really, they're really good. He's like, yeah. He goes, I pulled them from all your books. They were, oh no, they were my quotes. I was like, oh my God.
AJ Harper (46:42):
Oh no. Yes. Oh no.
Mike Michalowicz (46:44):
So embarrassing. And sure enough, I just read your…
AJ Harper (46:48):
Your own quotes.
Mike Michalowicz (46:49):
They're my own quotes from Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He read my books, extracted the quotes, and put them on these knives,
Mike Michalowicz (47:05):
That spawned a relationship with John. I love John Ruland. That has connected me with countless other authors. because John and I now get together regularly. He's the one who turned me on the J Papasan, who I mentioned along with dozens of other people.
AJ Harper (47:21):
I think that's one of the most important long-term post-launch strategies, which is author relationships. Authors are not your competitors, they're your peers. You're in it together. And the more you support authors, the better your life as an author will be. You are going to hear about stuff. You're going to, I mean, just on a base level, you're going to hear all the inside baseball stuff about publishing. Yeah. You're going to know who to avoid, who to call, what's happening. You want to switch publishers. You want an agent, you want this, you want that. Now you have a posse you can go to. Yeah. That's really important. You don't want to be alone, but also these are the people that are going to be there for you when you need someone to host your, host, your launch, they'll be on a panel with you when it's your book birthday, you're going to see them automatically post about it because they're part of your network. Yeah. They're going to hook you up. Yeah. Yeah. You can also do co-marketing things together. You can do the webinar, like you just said. It's, it's crucial part of marketing that a lot of authors overlook.
Mike Michalowicz (48:28):
And I invite you to build relationships with authors that are not just in your genre. I got connected with Miles Taylor, have you heard of the book? Blowback? Mm-hmm. Okay. So he wrote Blowback. He was in the Trump administration and was the whistleblower. And the consequences, the, the risk he took. And I remember just listening to the story and talking with him, and I said, regardless of someone's political affiliation, the fact that you had the courage to stand up for what you believed needed to be said at the risk of your life is the most American thing you can do. The most patriotic thing you can do. Anyone who stands for what they believe to be true is, is patriotic and does it in a way without invoking harm. Right. He did in a way of revealing truth, but without invoking harm. Now I have a dialogue with him and, and hopefully this will bloom some form of friendship. What's so fascinating is I'm learning more about authorship from him than I do my immediate contemporaries, because it's a whole different genre.
AJ Harper (49:32):
Yeah. Publishing is not a monolith.
Mike Michalowicz (49:35):
Yeah. It is not.
AJ Harper (49:36):
There are completely different cultures within different genres. Yep. There's, you know, when you're in the thought leadership space, that's its own animal. Yeah. And even within fiction, literary versus young adult, for example, fantasy versus romance, all of this, even within the fiction categories, different realities. Yep. Different you know, silent codes of conduct. All kinds of things that you wouldn't even think about. Also different experiences with publishing. Yep. So it's important to talk with other authors for sure.
Mike Michalowicz (50:13):
I'm heading down to Australia for a couple of speaking gigs, and I hopefully I'm going to sync up with Adam Wallace. He is one of the top selling authors for children's books. How to Catch a Leprechaun, How to Catch a Unicorn, How to Catch…. Amazing success. And, and to your point is to break out of this, this vertical or this myopic vision. A couple other ideas I have for you. Local PR is so underutilized, it's such a ma massive opportunity. Didn't you share that story of like the Black Rose or whatever that guy was at, at Walmart or Walgreens? He was selling his book. No,
AJ Harper (50:51):
It was at Kroger's.
Mike Michalowicz (50:52):
Kroger's, yeah. So that spawned itself, but you can effectively inspire local media. So reach out to your local newspaper and say, Hey, authored a new book. It's a good human interest story. It's a, it's a local person. Done. Good story.
AJ Harper (51:10):
Yeah, for sure.
Mike Michalowicz (51:12):
Don't pitch that you have a book and you want the world to buy it. Pitch the human interest story. I never thought I could be an author and discover I actually can be. And maybe there's other people in our community who can be too that type of anger.
AJ Harper (51:24):
Also, if you have a story that you tell within a community. So for example, we've never done this, but we talked about clockwork earlier.
AJ Harper (51:33):
You write about the Jersey Shore. You write about Jersey a lot. I do In your books. But you write about the Jersey Shore. You could actually have done something with local newspapers in the Jersey Shore where you guys go for vacation and probably gotten a local, because you have a story in there. Yeah. So, or if you interviewed someone from there. So that's the other thing. You are interviewing people. They have a story in the book. They have their own local. Yep. So maybe there's a, you can help facilitate another piece that isn't even, that's featuring the person in your book who's in, but still mentioning your book.
Mike Michalowicz (52:07):
Yeah, totally. Featuring other people is a great strategy. Talking about when you're traveling, wherever you go, you can contact that local newspaper. I'm going down to Long Beach Island and the Beach Comer contact them and they say, Hey, author coming to town. Mm-Hmm.
AJ Harper (52:36):
And also local bookstores and libraries. They often will want to do an event with you, or they actually have a direct line to that local media. Yeah. So it's actually might be faster for you. They have, they can get the editor that's their friend that they have lunch with on Saturdays on the phone to come cover the event. Love it.
Mike Michalowicz (52:52):
Yeah. couple other ideas jumping around, but I just want to give, I want to pack people's information.
AJ Harper (52:58):
It's a grab bag today.
Mike Michalowicz (52:59):
It’s a grab bag. When it comes to the ongoing post-launch activities. You can write, revising, expanded editions of your book. It is a great way to refresh a book.
AJ Harper (53:11):
That isn’t a small thing.
Mike Michalowicz (53:13):
I know. I think it, maybe it's not.
AJ Harper (53:14):
It's actually harder.
Mike Michalowicz (53:15):
Should we do a full episode about it?
AJ Harper (53:17):
We're going to, we need to do a whole episode on it. It's not a small thing.
Mike Michalowicz (53:20):
Okay. Well now the topic's a small thing.
AJ Harper (53:24):
But, but it, it does revive.
Mike Michalowicz (53:26):
There's some book authors. Well, I guess the title necessitates it that come out with it annually. The 2024 guidelines too, you
AJ Harper (53:34):
Know. Well that's because maybe they need to keep current with something specific. Yeah. Their industry requires it. Yeah. Like for example, writer's market has to come out every year because guidelines change. Yep. You could also do other things though that are simpler.
Mike Michalowicz (53:48):
Like what?
AJ Harper (53:49):
You could come out with a workbook. You could come out with a, an annual journal or a quarterly journal Yep. That connects to that book. That's less work on your part, but keeps it moving.
Mike Michalowicz (54:01):
New cover. Just simply a new cover design. New cover. Mm-Hmm.
AJ Harper (54:17):
It was the same stuff. Just because they felt like changing it. You have to pay more.
Mike Michalowicz (54:22):
And I did. I did. But it even says same, same old formula. Nothing's effing changed. Same ingredients. It's probably even a smaller container. Charge more. But we, we have the same opportunity with our books. You can, you can, depending on how you've published, you can add or revise the introduction. You could do a new introduction. You could do a bonus chapter at the end. If you can't do a full revise and expand edition, you can do some modifications to the existing content too.
AJ Harper (54:47):
Yeah. And don't forget that what your book starts to feel old to you. But it's new to the person who hasn't read it yet. That's right. So to keep, keep remembering that. So maybe there are, you know, you can reintroduce people to some of the same marketing techniques that you used at launch a year or two later. You just dust them off, change them a little bit. Roll it out. Maybe you did a challenge. Maybe you did something like reboot it, get it going again.
Mike Michalowicz (55:16):
Anniversary dates, you know, the, the birthday dates. Put in your email signature. You know, my new book or celebrating one year in the market. My gosh, I am shocked how many authors don't have their book displayed over their shoulder when they're on a zoom call. Many do, but a surprising number don't.
AJ Harper (55:34):
Or if they do, this is the pet peeve. Pet peeve. It's tiny. You can't see it. Cannot see it. My, one of my, this is an, an inexpensive thing you can do, get a high res, you make, make sure it's the high-res version that's for poster size. Get a poster size no smaller than at least, you know, you want it to be at least two feet tall. Yeah. Print it out. Kinko's. Have them order the kind that's foam backed on foam. Yep. You could be fancy and get a frame for it. I'm not that fancy. Get the double stick tape. Stick it to the wall.
Mike Michalowicz (56:12):
Right over your shoulder.
AJ Harper (56:13):
It's right behind me. And because I needed to be big enough for people to see it,
Mike Michalowicz (56:17):
You can't miss it. How I did it, I wrote about it and got different is I use a tree, a display tree. What I wanted to do was do something that differentiates and, and immediately tracks people's attention. Because it's odd you to see a tree with books sitting in it. So you can do it in multiple ways, but for God's sake, have that visible. Alright, I don't want to grab back too long. It's, it's, we've been talking for almost a second.
AJ Harper (56:43):
We could grab, we could just do have we, maybe that's what we need to have regular marketing grab bags.
Mike Michalowicz (56:49):
Grab bags. But the essence of this is you need to keep the marketing going. There will be a day that the tipping point comes for me. I, I think the tipping point, the, the outward indicators are when I see on social media people talking about the book and maybe tagging the book or me, and I have no idea who they are. That's just in a way that I see it being expressed. Some dude talked about clockwork yesterday, or two days ago. Some, I don't know, some guy on social media like, “Hey, Mike Michalowicz said blah, blah, blah, and you’ve got to do this.” And then the next day, so if it came out two days ago, he was yesterday a major podcast reached out and said, Hey, we saw so-and-so talking about clockwork, we'd like to interview Mike about this. To me, that's kind of a tipping point. The thing is, I don't think a tipping point, at least for me, is now this cascade of, of increasing sales. Maybe that does happen for some authors, but for me it's just that the, the flywheel is spinning and if I stop, it's going to keep spinning on its own, but it'll still slow down. So I continue to put energy in it. That's how I see the tipping point.
AJ Harper (58:03):
Yeah. I mean, the tipping point is when enough people are talking about it that you don't know where all your sales are coming from.
Mike Michalowicz (58:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically it. Yeah. So track your numbers now. You got strategies, but really hope you enjoyed this episode of Don't Write that book. A couple things I want to ask you. Do visit our website. We got some free materials for you. This is how we get you on our email list and then, you know, sell you our books. Now, not necessarily, but it's a good way for us to stay connected. So go to DW tb. Don't write that book podcast.com. That's dw b podcast.com. AJ and I are also answering any questions you have or, and we'd love to get your feedback on subjects and ideas we can talk about. So go to hello or email hello@dwtbpodcast.com. Thanks for joining us for today, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. As always, don't write that book. Write this one.