Mike Koenigs is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, co-host of Capability Amplifier podcast with Strategic Coach founder Dan Sullivan and 13-time bestselling author, Mike is regular contributor to Entrepreneur and Forbes. He's interviewed, consulted and advised celebrity clients, billionaires and bestselling authors including Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, Richard Dreyfuss, Dave Asprey, JJ Virgin, presidential candidate Tim Ryan, John Assaraf, Brian Tracy and XPrize founder Peter Diamandis, among many others.

He's also ALL love. I met him a few years ago and he was so kind and welcoming and usually wearing red shoes. But that is NOT why I asked him to come on the podcast. I asked him to come on because he is a master at taking advantage of business opportunities and I knew he'd be able to talk about how he's done that with books.

And BOY has he done it. Bet you didn't know you could generate millions from a book. In this episode, he explains how. (And he also mentions that he has a video that can show you how; go to http://mikekoenigs.com/owo to see it.)

DO YOU WANT TO WRITE A MEMOIR? GRAB MY ONE-PAGE STRUCTURE GUIDE AT WWW.MEMOIRDOWNLOAD.COM

After graduating from Iowa State University with a degree in mechanical engineering, Paul Shirley embarked on a nine-year professional basketball career that included stops on three NBA teams, five teams in Europe, and several minor league outfits, some of which even paid him on time.

While playing for the Phoenix Suns, Paul started a blog that led to a book deal with Random House. That book, Can I Keep My Jersey?, was released to wide acclaim in 2007. Paul has since written for Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, ESPN.com and for FlipCollective.com, a website he started.

Paul lives in Los Angeles, where he runs a co-writing space called Writers Blok. His second book, Stories I Tell I Dates, was released in 2017 and developed into a podcast of the same name in 2018.

But more relevantly than any of that, he was the first person I've ever interviewed LIVE—yes, this episode was recorded in front of a live audience in Los Angeles. Considering the fact that it's nearly impossible to get anyone in LA to go anywhere at rush hour, I was blown away that people showed up to listen to two authors talk about book launches on a Friday night.

If you're looking for an incredibly funny episode, this is it. YES, a show about book launches can not only gather a crowd on a Friday night in LA but also make people laugh.

If you listened to the episode, you know that I promised you a deal at Paul's "writing studio" Writers Blok. All you have to do to get 30% off membership for up to 12 months is go to the Writers Blok site, purchase a membership and use LAUNCHPAD as a coupon code.

WANT MY FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR? GO TO WWW.MEMOIRDOWNLOAD.COM.

Originally from Dublin Ireland, David Nihill is the founder of FunnyBizz Conference, bestselling author of Do You Talk Funny?, winner of San Francisco International Comedy Competition, runner up in the Moth’s largest US Grandslam storytelling competition and the first-ever Irishman to have a special on Dry Bar Comedy. His work has been featured in Inc, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, Lifehacker, The Irish Times, TED, The Irish Independent, Today FM, and on TV3.

He and I met through friends a few years ago and I was immediately impressed not only with his barely indecipherable accent but also with how much knowledge he possessed about marketing, books and how to make them successful. This impression was only solidified when, a few days later, he sent me an email packed with all the strategies he'd used to make his book so successful that he was able to then sell it to a major publisher.

In this episode, we go through all those ideas and more. If you listened to the episode, you know that I promised I would give you the email he sent out to his launch team, which you are welcome to copy and steal (he will never know, unless he's reading this, in which case I say hi David!) You can get it by grabbing the show notes by going to https://www.launchpadpub.com/blog/david

WANT TO WRITE YOUR OWN MEMOIR? GRAB MY CHEAT SHEET BY GOING TO https://www.launchpadpub.com/memoir-download.

Dan Peres was editor in chief of Details for fifteen years, starting in 2000, when the title relaunched under his leadership. During his tenure, the magazine won many awards, including two National Magazine Awards. Before taking the editorship of Details, Dan spent nine years at W magazine, overseeing bureaus in Paris, London, and Milan. While in college, he worked as a copy boy at the New York Times and later as a research assistant at Esquire. He is the author of Details Men’s Style Manual. He lives in New York and has three sons.

He's also someone I've known since he first started at Details. As a freelance writer for the magazine (who also happened to worship every word published in it). I grew accustomed to allowing my month's rent to be determined by Dan's final decisions (if a magazine decided to kill your story because the editor decided the topic was no longer appealing, that meant suddenly getting paid 10% of what you'd signed up for). It's therefore fascinating to witness him joining the other side—learning what it's like to be at the mercy of an editor's whims and having to hustle to get people to care about your book.

In this conversation, we cover the whole transition...and also get into maybe WHY some of the Details decision-making was so impossible to predict.

WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE A MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? CLICK HERE TO GET MY FREE DOWNLOAD: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM

Courtney Friel is best known for her work as a news anchor at KTLA in Los Angeles, where she also hosts the video podcast “Keepin It Friel: Conversations on Recovery.” She previously worked as a national correspondent for Fox News Channel and hosted the “World Poker Tour." She has more than a decade sober and speaks on the topic all around the country. Courtney grew up in Philadelphia PA, but now lives in LA with her son and daughter. 

She is also the author of Tonight at 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News, which was released in January and which I am very proud to say Launch Pad published. The back story is, as follows: Courtney and I became friends back when we both lived in New York between 2007 and 2010. She was an anchor on Fox News and I went on a lot of the shows to talk about addiction and recovery.

At parties (she had some epic bbqs back in the day), she would corner me and ask me about what it was like to be sober. I didn't think much of it. In my experience, people who actually need recovery tend to avoid sober folks like we're cops or their moms back when they were in high school. All of which is to say I was very surprised when she told me, a few months after those inquiries started, that she needed to go to rehab.

Flash forward to a few months ago. During a tour at my housewarming party, I showed Courtney and a bunch of other people my recording studio. The next day she called and confessed that she had a book scheduled to come out but things had gone awry with her publisher. Long story short: my team and I jumped in, re-named the book, gave it a new cover, had Courtney record the audio version and voila, it hit the world.

The news cycle went crazy for some of the tidbits in the book (particularly the one about how Trump asked her to come to his office so they could "kiss") but it's the story of recovery that resonates.

In this episode, we get into all of that and more.

WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LAUNCH PAD FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM

Gigi Levangie is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including the recently released Been There, Married That. She's also the screenwriter of the hit film Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. 

WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LAUNCH PAD FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM.

Nicholas Erik is a science fiction and fantasy author who also writes in-depth marketing guides; this is, in fact, how I discovered him...when I stumbled across this epic guide to free book sites and then went down the amazingly informative rabbit hole that is his website.

While he’s launched over a dozen books in a variety of genres, he also specializes in Amazon, Facebook and BookBub ads. I liked this interview because it was straight-up technical…like you could almost say we were talking literature but doing MATH. 

WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM.

Jane Ubell-Meyer is an award-winning entrepreneur and former television/film producer (TV credits include Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight, among many others).

Annabelle Gurwitch is an actress, activist, and the author of the New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist I See You Made an Effort. Her other books include: Wherever You Go, There They Are, and You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up (coauthored with Jeff Kahn). 

She was the co-host of Dinner & a Movie on TBS and has appeared on NPR, The Today Show, CBS Early Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS, and numerous CNN and MSNBC programs. Her essays and satire have been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, AARP, Real Simple, Prevention, The Los Angeles Book Review, The Daily Beast, Time.com, Next Tribe, Lenny Letter, Hadassah and The Hollywood Reporter, among other media outlets.

She's also an extremely methodical (she might say obsessive-compulsive?) person—one who starts planning her launch as she comes up with the book concept. And she works it—making lists, checking them way more than twice, reaching out to people she knows and doesn't know and ultimately making it so that her books have no option but to be successful.

If you want practical steps on how to prepare both emotionally and literally for a release, this episode is packed with tips, tactics and other t-words!

WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? GET OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR BY GOING TO WWW.MEMOIRDOWNLOAD.COM.

Julie Reisler, Life Designer®, TV Host, Author and Global Brand Ambassador, is all about helping you to tune into your intuition to be your You-est You.  Julie is the author of the Get a PhD in YOU book series, a multi-time TEDx speaker, the host of The You-est You® podcast and a mindfulness teacher on the popular app, Insight Timer, with over 110,000 downloads.

Not enough for you? Julie also has a Master's degree in coaching, more than 12 certifications in mindset, leadership and wellbeing and is on the faculty at Georgetown University in their coaching program.

As someone who has launched books by hiring various consultants, Julie has a unique perspective. That's why I brought her onto the show to discuss the most effective techniques for a DIY-er who's specifically using their books to build up other aspects of their career.

WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR HERE!

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is the New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia: How the Show About Nothing Changed Everything; a history of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted; and Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live, and Love. She spent a decade on staff at Entertainment Weekly and has since written for many publications, including BBC Culture, The New York Times Book Review, Vice, New York magazine, and Billboard.

She's also an old pal from my NYC days; in fact, we used to host Readings & Rubdowns events where people would listen to writers read from their latest books while getting massaged.

In the ensuing years, Jennifer has become a huge author and in this episode, she breaks down, step-by-step, what makes for a successful launch.

WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? GET OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR HERE: www.memoirdownload.com

Dave Chesson is the creator of Kindlepreneur.com, a website devoted to teaching advanced book marketing which even Amazon KDP acknowledges as one of the best by telling users to “Gain insight from Kindlepreneur on how you can optimize marketing for your books.” Having worked with such authors as Orson Scott Card, Ted Dekker and more, his tactics help both fiction and nonfiction authors of all levels get their books discovered by the right readers. 

But that's the official bio stuff. The stuff that really matters, at least to me, is that he is the wisest person out there today when it comes to successful indie publishing. Basically, he does the work so that the rest of us can utilize his techniques and systems.

The main takeaways are this: if you want to successfully launch a book, start your launch work the day you start writing; to cut down on haters, show readers you're human; and the right keywords and categories on Amazon can make the difference between bestsellerdom and obscurity.

Enjoy this episode and by all means, employ the techniques! Also, if you like it, please consider reviewing (or just rating!) I'm putting so much into this pod revamp and would be so grateful for any and all support.

WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? GET OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR HERE: WWW.MEMOIRDOWNLOAD.COM

In this episode of the podcast, Ian Harvie joined me on my couch to talk about his childhood in rural Maine, his journey to discovering his true gender identity, his recovery from alcoholism, and his new life in sobriety as a trans comic.

Author Sarah Hepola isn’t just a writer but the author of the biggest book about addiction since A Million Little Pieces (as a fellow author of a book about addiction, this pains me to write but only a little because her book is so God damn good).

Hepola’s memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, has been written about in seemingly ever publication known to man, clearly striking a chord among the recovery community and beyond. The Texas-based Salon essay editor has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Glamour, The Guardian, Nerve and Slate, among others, and is as modest about her book’s success as possibly only a Texan can be.

In this episode, we talk about the relative coolness of sobriety, crying every day, whether or not Tinder dating profiles should mention sobriety and if a best-selling book can actually make you happy, among many other topics.

Actress and artist Jemima Kirke came on the podcast. Yes, those are thrilling words to write. This is not only exciting because she’s luminous, talented and plays Jessa on freaking Girls but also because she has a history with substances that you don’t hear many people share about.

After a wild youth, which included multi-day benders and bouts of depression, Kirke showed up at her mom’s in early 20s, saying she was ready for rehab. She went from one treatment center to the next, finding enough fault with the program there for her to be kicked out (but not before meeting the man she eventually married, who happens to now own a sober living).

After years of staying sober and doing the 12-step thing, Kirke began to question whether the one-size-fits-all philosophy about addiction applied to her. And so she had a drink. Contrary to what she’d been told, nothing bad happened. That was a few years ago and in that time, she’s watched her career rise to superstardom and embraced motherhood (in addition to the two kids she has with her husband, she is also the step-mother to his kids from a previous marriage).

In this episode, we talk about self-hatred, rehabs just out to take your money and if meeting your future spouse in treatment is “trauma bonding,” among other topics.

DO YOU WANT TO SHARE YOUR STORY? DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR HERE!

What is there to say about Moby that hasn’t already been said?

The legendary musician, who burst onto the scene with his fifth studio album, Play, is also a DJ, photographer and soon-to-be memoirist (we all know he’s a descendant of Herman Melville, right?) And it’s not just his own music he’s had a hand in; the active animal rights supporter has remixed, co-written and produced music for many of the other greats.

But let's talk about how, in his 40s, he launched into a whole new life: after a bout with sobriety when he was a Christian, Moby developed this reputation as something of a puritan. But he was actually boozing it up, as well as taking plenty of recreational illegal substances, while he brought the party back to his place. It wasn’t until he got to his 40s and the hangovers started to get debilitating that he started to look at the possibility of sobriety. Now he’s years into the sober game and growing all the time. In this episode, he and I talk about deciding to get sober, relapsing, how unappealing the thought of having just a drink or two is and and the fact that people still come up to him on the street to thank him for the epic parties he used to have, among many other topics.

Georgia Hardstark has blown up since she and Karen Kilgariff launched the mega popular My Favorite Murder podcast.

But what was she up to before that?

This episode—a re-release from several years ago—focuses on exactly that.

So who is Georgia Hardstark?

Find out everything and more in this ep.

Bestselling author, ultra-endurance athlete, plant-based nutrition advocate and sober father Rich Roll has been hailed as one of the world’s fittest men. He also graduated from Stanford and Cornell Law and built up a successful law practice, all while drowning in alcohol. Then, after years of sobriety, he realized he was anesthetizing himself with food the way he had with drinking and what started out as a cleanse turned into—well, one of the world’s fittest men. Here, we talk about familial expectations, being an alcoholic in New York and the spiritual aspects of recovery as well as the tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, among many other things.

THIS IS A RE-RELEASE OF AN OLD EPISODE AS WE PREP FOR THE SHOW RE-VAMP (get excited)!

Marc Maron appeared on the podcast in 2017, back when the focus of the show was on addiction and recovery. This re-release covers his life BEFORE Obama strolled over to his garage for an interview, before he was starring on Glow...essentially when he was already huge but not the hugest.

The legendary comedian and host of the immensely popular WTF podcast needs no introduction but I'm giving him one anyway: Marc Maron has spent a couple of decades honing his craft, has appeared on Conan more than 40 times and is essentially the person responsible for putting podcasting on the map.