Craig Tuch is doing God's work.
At least when it comes to the author who really wants Amazon reviews.
See, Tuch started a company called Hidden Gems that, among other author services, provides a way for authors to gather reader reviews for their books. As anyone who has managed an Advanced Reader Team can attest, getting people to follow through on actually writing the reviews they've promised is no simple feat. Hidden Gems to the rescue—with very reasonable prices to boot!
In this interview, Tuch broke down how he gathered a list of 15,000 avid readers who love to review, why it's good to have bad reviews and how sticky the Amazon review process can be.
IF YOU'RE A NON-FICTION AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Rich Goldstein is a patent attorney, speaker, host of the Innovations and Breakthroughs podcast and, most relevantly for this show, the author of the bestselling book The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent, which was published by the American Bar Association.
He's someone who understands through and through what a book can do for someone's business and in this episode, we got into all that as well as how writing a book changed Rich's career, why he sends a copy of the book to anyone who requests it and how writing a book could, theoretically, make an entrepreneur a cool five million.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
This solo episode is material from the book I'm currently writing (working title The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Preparing, Promoting and Profiting from Your How-to Book). I'm sharing it with you for several reasons:
1) If you're writing a how-to book, you need it. It is all about the WHY, WHAT and WHO of conceptualizing a how-to book.
2) I am practicing what I preach in this book, which is SHARE WHAT YOU'RE WORKING on with your audience so the people you're writing it for can give you feedback.
On that note, do you want ALL the advance intel about this book? In other words, do you want to be the first to hear about the latest tips and techniques when it comes to preparing for, promoting and profiting from your non-fiction book? Do you want to potentially be included in the book? PLEASE SIGN UP HERE. Excited to share the journey and all the exclusives with you!
SIGN UP FOR EXCLUSIVES ABOUT THIS BOOK IN PROGRESS HERE!
Alex Sanfilippo is the host of the top-rated podcast Podcasting Made Simple, the founder of PodPros.com, a software company focused specifically on the podcasting industry and the co-creator of PodMatch, a service that matches podcast guests and hosts together for interviews. That's not all! He also co-founded PodcastSOP, a project management tool that helps podcasters keep up with their episode releases.
You get it: the guy is POD OBSESSED.
So who better to come on the show to talk about how authors can book podcast tours? Everything he shared was fascinating but what I found especially fascinating is what he had to say about why authors should pass on opportunities to go on certain shows and why appearing on smaller podcasts can be way more beneficial than going on the big ones.
Good one! Don't miss it!
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Today, in this solo episode, I'm answering the five most common questions first-time authors have. They are:
Forgive me, that's four. I honestly thought when I recorded it that it was five. I am truly this bad with numbers. Good thing I can do words, no?
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
This solo episode is focused on 11 reasons every entrepreneur should launch a book. They are:
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
This solo episode is focused on the seven biggest mistakes first-time authors make. They are:
Listen to get all the deets!
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Scott Duffy is an entrepreneur and business strategist. He is listed as a “Top 10 Speaker” by Entrepreneur and has been named one of the “Top Influential People To Follow” by Yahoo! Finance.
He's also the author of three different business books on three different topics, from three different publishers and launched in three entirely different ways. When I was at his mastermind a few weeks ago, he articulated why entrepreneurs should launch books in a way that was clearer than I'd ever heard. That's why I wanted him on the show but what I actually got out of our talk was so much more.
In this episode, we got into the importance of subtitles, why authors should be featured on their book covers and how his most recent book launch was a disaster.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Jerry Stahl is the iconic author of Permanent Midnight (made into a movie starring Ben Stiller), among nine other books (among them, OG Dad, Pain Killers, I, Fatty, Perv, Plainclothes Naked, Happy Mutant Baby Pills, Bad Sex on Speed and his latest, Nien Nien: One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust).
A Pushcart Prize–winning author, Stahl’s work has appeared in Esquire, Vice, The Believer, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Times, among other places.
He also wrote the HBO movie Hemingway & Gellhorn (which earned a Writers Guild Award nomination), Bad Boys II and the cult classic Dr. Caligari and has written on the TV shows Maron, CSI and Escape at Dannemora (for which he received an Emmy nomination).
So you get it; he's done a lot. So why does he hate promoting his work so much? And how does he promote his work in spite of that? Find out in our spirited, sarcastic and deeply salacious (no, it's not salacious, I was just in the mood to be alliterative) interview.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Jane Friedman has an icon in the publishing space. With over two decades of experience in the business, she is truly considered the world's leading expert on traditional publishing, self publishing and where the twain shall meet. She's the curator of The Hot Sheet, a biweekly paid newsletter, oversees a wildly popular blog and is also the author of The Business of Being a Writer.
In this episode, we discussed how important it is to know what you want your book to do for you, how to get bookstores interested in hosting you, the biggest changes in the publishing industry over the past year and so much more.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Bridget Sampson is a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, the author of Communication Secrets for Success and the co-author of Communication Training and Development. She's also a TEDx speaker who helps other people write and deliver their TEDx talks.
All of this made her the perfect person to talk to about how to convert your book into a TEDx talk, whether or not you should outline or write the talk out completely, how to book a TEDx slot, how many times to practice, what to wear and what to do if you bomb, among many other topics.
She also shared that people never seem to care that she was a professor for decades but they all care that she has a book and a TEDx talk. So get on it! It's easier than you think.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Peter Shankman is many things, among them a five-time best selling author, entrepreneur and corporate in-person and virtual keynote speaker who focuses on customer service. But in this episode I got him speaking about something so many of you ask me about: HARO, or Help a Reporter Out...the website he started (and sold to Cision many years ago) that helps so many authors get featured in mainstream media.
In this conversation, which happened in rapid fire while he was in the throws of salmonella, Peter shared with me how he started HARO accidentally, the best way to get a journalist's attention and why someone stealing a Yoo Hoo truck ended up being the best PR Yoo Hoo could get, among many other topics.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Bonnie Habyan is a communications marketing professional with an MBA in banking and finance. She's been a news reporter, a wedding DJ and even a Miss Baltimore Oriole.
But now she's taken on a whole new role: as an author. Her book, The World According to Bess, is a true love letter to her 90-year-old mother—a woman who can definitely give the Sh*t My Dad guy's dad a run for his money.
What surprised Bonnie the most about the book process is that, despite her history in marketing, launching a book is a whole new animal—an animal that requires as much of a plan as any other business...complete with KPIs, plans for how the book plays into ultimate business goals and much more.
So what has she figured out about a book business plan and what are her KPI's and plans? It's all in this episode.
GET EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO MY BESTSELLING BOOK BULLETIN (4 QUICK TIDBITS EVERY THURSDAY), BY GOING TO WWW.BESTSELLINGBOOKBULLETIN.COM
Elizabeth Lyons is the creator of the Book Writing Accelerator and a five-time author whose first book, which she wrote because she couldn't find another book on the topic and really needed it, sold over 20,000 copies.
As someone who helps aspiring authors write and publish books, she's become a bit of my comrade-in-arms the past few years, where we regularly text each other questions, concerns and the occasional (or not so occasional) gripe.
We have so many feelings and thoughts about publishing, in fact, that in this episode we delve into beginners luck, navigating self-publishing and much more before we get to the meat of it: what to include in your non-fiction book. She breaks down how to start (you write a letter to your reader [genius!]), how to approach your Table of Contents and how to see it through to the end.
Did I mention she's a mom of five and super funny?
You'll like this one, I promise. (Who are we kidding, you like love all of 'em!)
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Ben Mezrich has sold over 10 million copies of his books.
And, by the way, that’s not even the impressive part. The impressive part is that he sells EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS BOOKS as a movie or TV show; in fact, if Hollywood isn’t interested in the treatment, he doesn’t even write the book.
Mezrich has gotten into this position because of a chance encounter with some MIT students, which led to his writing Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which led to Kevin Spacey snapping up the film rights before the book was even out, which led to the book spending over 60 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Then there was his book, The Accidental Billionaires, which David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin jumped on as Mezrich was writing the book and which, of course turned into the multi award-nominated movie The Social Network. (Mezrich is the only non-fiction author to have two adaptations open at #1 at the box office.)
He’s written numerous other books, including Bitcoin Billionaires and The Antisocial Network and is also a consulting producer on Billions. Oh, and his most recent book, The Midnight Ride, has an NFT component that already has over 3500 owners.
So how does this happen? How does a former struggling novelist become Hollywood’s go to guy pursued by designers who want to dress him for his book tours? And what is the secret to finding the sort of story that makes Hollywood salivate? It’s all in this episode.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Mike De Luca has, arguably, more experience than anyone else out there when it comes to turning books into movies: three of the four times he's done it (for The Social Network, Moneyball and Captain Phillips), he has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and the one time he wasn't nominated for one of his book-to-film adaptations, it was for a little movie called 50 Shades of Gray. He's done several other million things in his career, including discovering Paul Thomas Anderson and David Fincher and running New Line studio at the age of 27.
But in this episode, we focused on the process of turning a book into a movie—including how producers find out about the books they end up adapting, how much control the author has over the movie and how much money they can make, among many other topics.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Paul Angone had an extremely unusual journey to success as an author.
First, he tried to sell a book. For eight years. Nary a bite.
Then a blog post he dashed off went viral. Very viral. From there, he was able to sell a book based on that blog post to a publisher. The problem was that he had to finish it in a month.
Well that book and the next have sold over 100,000 copies and launched a massive speaking career.
But that's not even why I wanted to have him on the podcast. I wanted him on the pod so I could Interview him about the process of turning his book into a course.
Listen in on this mega inspiring conversation about how courses and books work symbiotically—and how your reality may end up being even bigger than your dreams.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
While Jeff Kober is a terribly successful actor—having appeared on The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, Shameless, New Girl, NCIS: Los Angeles, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ER, 24, The Closer and Criminal Minds, among many other shows—it is only one of the many things he does. In fact, although he's a good friend that I adore, I will admit right here and now that I've never seen any of his acting. Sorry, Jeff! But that's because I think of him primarily as a gifted meditation teacher and writer.
And I am selfishly so grateful that he recently turned his daily newsletter into a book, Embracing Bliss: 108 Daily Meditations. See, for many years, I read his newsletter religiously every morning before meditating and I pretty much curse Jeff every day for making me have to look at my phone to access it. I'm an addict, people! I can't help but get sucked into some stressful email or Instagram rabbit hole when I was just hoping to take in some spiritual truths, Damn it! Well, now that he's made these brilliant daily thoughts into a book, I have no one but myself to blame if I go down an internet rabbit hole before meditating.
You can grab your copy of his book of daily thoughts here. You will not regret it—I ordered multiple copies because I plan to give it out as gifts. But before you order it, do listen in on our conversation so you can learn about his process for turning pre-existing content into a book; it involved spreadsheets, consultations with a colleague and a whole lot of reflection on what people respond to (spoiler alert: musings on relationships and love).
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Jesse J. Anderson's journey to bookdom is unlike any other guest I've had on the show.
For one, he's not launching a book to help build his business.
Also, that book—Refocus: A Practical Guide to Adult ADHD—hasn't launched yet. In fact, he hasn't even finished writing it.
Why, then, you may ask, would I have him on the show?
Well, part of the reason is entirely selfish: he's writing a book in public and I want to write my next book in public so this is simply a shameless attempt to get some intel.
If you're wondering what "writing a book in public" even means, you may want to go back to the Rob Fitzpatrick episode, where he breaks down the process he documents in his book, Write Useful Books. If you don't have that kind of time, I'll tell you: it's essentially getting feedback from your readers while you're writing the book. Jesse is in fact doing it using software Rob designed for that very process and, as of this recording, he's about three-quarters of the way done with writing.
Jesse has also built up an impressive Twitter following by releasing Twitter threads of book chapters—a topic he dove into in detail.
When he's not writing books in public, Jesse is a designer and developer who has made it his mission to help others better understand what ADHD really is.
WANT 4 QUICK TIDBITS EVERY THURSDAY TO HELP YOU GET YOUR BOOK LAUNCHED? GO TO WWW.LAUNCHPADWEEKLY.COM.
Elle Griffin is the Editor-of-Chief of Utah Business and a freelance journalist and co-founder of Cryptopia, a web3 festival that debuted in 2022.
But I most wanted to talk to her about how she's brought her books into the Web 3 world. See, she's not only crowdfunded a novel using crypto but she's publishing her next novel as an NFT series on Twitter.
I first became aware of her through Jane Friedman and began subscribing to her Substack. Then I came across this story in Hacker Noon about how she was selling chapters of her book as NFT's. I wanted to know more. And so I reached out to interview her and now my brain is on fire with ways writers can enter the Web 3 world. Yours will be too once you listen to this.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Lee Richter is a business, leader, visionary and entrepreneur since the 1990’s who has built and sold several multi-million dollar companies. Lately she's been schooling me on the whole Web 3.0 space—in particular how authors can get into the NFT world.
And that's exactly what we talked about in this episode. She broke down different tactics authors can take—whether it's writing special intros to certain copies of the book, sending physical copies of the book to your NFT buyer, including a free speaking gig along with the digital asset or anything else.
Perhaps more important while it's still only one percent of the population that's engaging in the Web 3.0 world: she tells you how to dip your foot in the water. (Hint: first you approach it as a buyer and then as a personal seller before even trying to mint an NFT for your professional life.) And if you're going "WTF, I don't even know what Web 3.0 MEANS," good news: she defines it at the top of the episode.
To learn more about Lee and the NFT world, go to Go Ask Lee or Global Leaders Collective.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
This may be the most useful podcast I've ever released. That's because it's with a guy who's an expert on something EVERY author wants: getting people to recommend your book.
His name is Rob Fitzpatrick and he's a former programmer who dropped out of grad school to go to YCombinator with his first startup.
It's that background—along with his nearly decade and a half of experience as an entrepreneur—that helps make sense of the fact that he's the guy who's seemingly cracked the code on how to write a book that everyone will recommend.
He breaks down his process in his latest book, Write Useful Books, and we also get into our decidedly unique story of how we met (in short, he quoted my interview with Chris Voss in Write Useful Books and I didn't see that he credited me and I fired off an email and anyway, listen to the episode and you'll hear what happened next).
But that's far less interesting than the methods he describes in this conversation—including how to find beta readers, what to ask them and how to use them to craft a book that's DEEP (Desirable, Effective, Engaging and Polished).
How sure is he that his process works? Well, the results speak for themselves. His monthly earnings from his three books are roughly $25k a month, with 1000 copies a week being sold, and, in his words, "growing pretty steadily."
I am not being hyperbolic when I say I think this is the most useful interview yet. (Even more than the Chris Voss one Rob quoted!) If I were you, I would literally study the transcript below. (That's what I'm doing.)
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM
Becky Robinson has helped launch over 150 books. Now she's launching her first traditionally published book of her own—and it's all about having a lasting impact on your readers.
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Listen in on my "booktervention" with rehab owner Tim Westbrook about the book he needs to write—and how it will grow his business.
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GirlZ Interrupted co-hosts and authors Zara Barrie and Dayna Troisi on how to turn an online audience into an audience that buys and reads your book.
IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM