Lean Marketing for Authors: How to Get Bigger Results with Less Effort with Alex Strathdee

Alex: [00:00:00] it's a whole lot easier of a question to ask yourself is, how do I implement podcast booking over the next 25 weeks versus. Oh, my goodness. How do I market my book? Right? It's getting way more specific with your question, which is then what's going to allow you.

You're breaking it up. It's like the Navy seal approach of like, okay, well, what needs to be done now? Right? Like, what's the next step? So That's how book marketing needs to change. It needs to come. Go from this really, not transparent, endless amounts of marketing programs

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Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast where we break down strategies and tactics to help you get bigger results with less marketing.

Today, I've got a very special guest. He's been a little bit of my secret weapon behind the scenes. I constantly get asked, why has my book done so well? And a large part of it is some of the advertising work that we do on various platforms. And Alex is my book Adsman. He's a lot more than that, but as you'll find out in the episode.

So welcome to the episode, Alex [00:01:00] Strathdee. How are you, man?

Alex: Allan, you're a legend. Your book was doing very well before we came along. We just helped you keep it going. So I appreciate the intro there.

Allan: Oh, thanks man. So, look, every single day I get asked, how do you write a book that sells so much, that generates so much demand. We're over a million books sold now worldwide, translated in about 40 different languages. So it's been a really cool ride. Now you've seen the behind the scenes of not just my book, but Tons of authors you work with maybe actually just for the audience breakdown What do you do for authors and what do you do for books?

Alex: Sure. Absolutely. And I have a list or not list of my shelves behind me. And there's different shelves that mean different things. These are all obviously books that helped me in my business. Yours goes between clients shelf and books that have helped me in my business. You can see yours on the top here.

And then these are some of our clients here behind me. So, everyone from Michael McGee's near of the coaching habit. We've worked with Kim Scott of radical candor worked [00:02:00] with. Joseph Nguyen, don't believe everything you think, the Michael Watkins, the first 90 days, you know, the list goes on. We've been really fortunate to see the behind the scenes of a lot of what's going on, which is now, this conversation comes from. Up until this point. We have really focused in on what we believe is one of the most effective ways to move copies, especially while you're asleep, which is Amazon ads.

But, as we were talking a little bit before this, Allan, when you're trying to market a book, just running Amazon ads is like just trying to use a hammer to build the house, right? You need a whole toolkit. So we are in 2025 we're rebranding as shelf life.

And that is to reflect the fact that, where our goal is to build a whole house for an author, not just provide the hammer.

Allan: And so, one of the questions that keeps coming back in my mind, it's not as simple as just, hey, an author writes a book, and then we can run a ton of ads to sell a ton of copies, because ads tap out at a certain level, and for some authors, it seems to, tap out a lower level for other, [00:03:00] authors and other books.

It taps out at a higher level. So what is it that makes ads extremely effective for some books and not so much for other books? And like, what's the difference?

Alex: That is a great question. There's 10 different ways I could take that. essentially what it comes down, the best way, I'll bring it a little level deeper. to the author's goals for that book, right? So, what is successful for one author might not be what success looks like for another author.

Also, obviously, the size of your niche, you know, don't believe everything you think, Joseph Nguyen, his book is anyone could pick it up and read it, right? Versus, a marketing book, I don't know if a vet, who's, clipping dog's nails every day, unless they're starting their own business is going to pick that up, So it's a smaller niche. Right. So, you know, obviously that plays a factor, but, where you tap out, it essentially depends on your economics and what you're trying to get out of your book.

Allan: So, we had Joseph Nguyen the podcast earlier. Really, Really smart dude. And I believe he just hit the New York times bestseller list as well. So, well done Joseph. And we'll [00:04:00] link back to the episode that we did with him. so I get what you're saying that, hey if you've got a smaller niche, you'll sell a small amount of copies and all of that sort of thing.

And I accept that, but there are even books in the same niche that will tap out at, different levels so depending on, they'll hit a ceiling and ads really, like more ad spend won't really help them. Like, it's not like, okay, the more ad spend we pile on, the more books we'll sell.

It doesn't scale in a linear fashion, does it?

Alex: No, it doesn't. There's a lot that goes into that. The Amazon algorithms is also how well a book it's a, an annoying chicken or the egg problem because the better a book is selling offline. Like, part of the reason why Joseph has been so successful with his Amazon ads is because of a lot of the off Amazon activities that he's been doing that's led to organic sales.

Amazon then sees, Oh, wow, this is a book people want. They show the ads more is a simple way of putting it right. So how much you tap out can I also have to do with your other marketing activities? You know, It's just speaking with an author this morning Catherine Duncan of a great book, Everyday Awakening, [00:05:00] who's relying.

Almost solely on Amazon ads right now for her results. And so we've tapped out at, like, moving, X, I don't want to divulge her number specifically, but, moving X amount of copies, right? And, you know, it's much, much lower than, the amount of copies that you or Joseph moves.

And the book really isn't all that different from Joseph's book to some degree. I mean, it has, Joseph really knocked it out of the park with his title. But that's where, she's like, what else can we be doing to sell more copies? And, the ads are firing on all the cost per reader is, not really sustainable.

And so the question is, how can we make it sustainable? And so it's, okay, what can you be doing off of Amazon now? Cause that's where we need to focus. We've figured out what the limit here with Amazon is. And so now it's, we need to go back and influence the Amazon algorithms to basically view your book more favorably and also give them more data, right?

Cause Amazon's different from other pay per click platforms. where they actually make money when a book sells. They don't just make money when someone clicks on an ad. And so they're actually really interested in showing the right book to the right person. The more you can give them data through sales by your ideal reader, the more they can go out and figure out [00:06:00] who your ideal reader is themselves.

Ha

Allan: mean, A lot of people have asked me the same question and my answer is really ads are an amplifier. So if your book is already doing really well, the ads will amplify that. If your book is not doing great then ads may help a little bit, but it's kind of like, like any microphone, right?

So if if I sing and I'm a terrible singer, I'm just going to amplify. I've got really bad singing and it just makes things worse, right? So I just become a loud, bad singer. Whereas if I'm a great singer, which I'm not if I'm a great singer and I amplify my voice, well now that makes things better and I can reach more people and all of that sort of stuff.

So, that's the way I viewed it. And that's led me to really spend a lot of time analyzing what creates a bestseller. What are some of those elements that really makes a book get traction? I've looked at it at, through a hundred different lenses and, there are some books that are written in a very dry academic style [00:07:00] that do really well, then there are books that are written in a very casual way that do really well then there are books that are super niche that do really well, then there are books that are super wide that do really well I mean, I've got some of my theory and I'll share some of that in a moment, but what are your thoughts of, having seen behind the scenes of so many authors, what are the elements that really make a book fly versus, maybe mediocre or go nowhere?

Alex: A lot of people who are listening aren't going to like this answer, Allan. It comes down to, honestly, their level of expertise. So I found that 1 of the big biggest indicators is have they taught that topic, not just their expertise, but actually teaching that thing to a group of people in a room because they figured out where people get stuck when they try to teach that.

Like, you can study something all day long. because a book is a communication tool, right? You're trying to communicate thoughts to someone else. And if you haven't had a lot of practice at communicating that thing to people, then I found that you don't really understand where [00:08:00] people are getting stuck in your messaging.

And you don't know what the best analogies to use are, right? And so that's one of the things that I found to be one of the biggest indicators of whether a book is going to be successful, is how much has someone actually taught that topic outside of their book?

Allan: Okay. All right. I'll give you some of my answers. Cause I mean, I've got a whole note in my writing file that, what are some of the things that are really make a book a bestseller? What are some of the things, and we've actually got an episode, how to write and promote a bestseller.

So we'll link to that as well. But some of the, factors that I've seen is that it's something that when you read, or hear the title. It instantly says, I want that. So, you know, I think about stuff like the four hour work week, right? I think about stuff like the obstacle is the way, and a lot of times there's a contrarian element to it.

Like the four hour work week oh, well, I usually think of it as a 40 hour work week, or the obstacle is usually the thing that stops me, but no, [00:09:00] the obstacle is the way and things that are like slightly contrarian, the life changing magic of tidying up, wow, okay, something as small as tidying up can be life changing, so, the title and really encapsulating maybe a little bit of a contrarian topic in the title and communicating that super clearly.

So it doesn't have to be explained. I think that is super key.

Alex: Well, you did that with the One-page Marketing Plan, right? Like a marketing plan is known to be this huge, lengthy document, you know, and you're saying, wait, it's one page. So, I mean, that's that alone is a great example of that.

Allan: Yeah. Yeah. So to me, it's like if you want to do well on short form social media, they say the hook, right? The first three seconds of whatever you say. So the keeping people hooked in. And so the hook, or you might call it the concept of the book or the, certainly it must be encapsulated in the title.

Cause you've got to remember, even if you've got the world's best book, like you've written an amazing book, you're the world's leading expert at it, you know it inside out. If [00:10:00] someone didn't buy the book. they're never going to know how good the book is, right? And they're going to buy the book based on the title, the cover, maybe the description, but really those few words.

And I agonize over those few words in the title and the subtitle more than anything else, because I want to know, is it absolutely instantly clear what this is? And then Being clear what it is, I want people to say, Wow, I really want that. I really want a One-page Marketing Plan. I really want Lean Marketing.

so same as people think, Hey, I want a four hour work week, or I want the life changing magic of tidying up, or whatever it is.

Alex: Pat Flynn has a really good analogy about this, where he says that essentially, whatever you're teaching or whatever it is you're talking about you need to, that's the medication that you're trying to give to someone, right? You know, it's kind of like sugar pills, right?

You know, There's a reason why, you know, a lot of medications are covered in like a sweet Cody, sweet coat it's because you got to give people what they think they want, as the [00:11:00] packaging and on the inside is where the actual medication is, right? so it's, it's essentially, you got to give people the message that they need to hear, but you need to package it in a way that they want to hear it.

Allan: The other thing that I think is super important is just really simplifying and breaking down a topic. So I was in Nashville in August, hanging out with a bunch of authors at Donald Miller's Place and we spent two days together and that was a really cool time, but one of the things I noticed I was looking around the room, and I'm looking at you wrote that book, so I was chatting to Hal Elrod so he wrote the Miracle Morning, and so Very simple book.

It's like wake up early, meditate, set your day right. And, or exercise or whatever, right? The concept is nothing revolutionary. Like we, we all know a good habit in the morning is a good thing, but he really broke it down in a really simple way. He's now got an app that's doing really well for him.

That takes people through the whole framework. So giving people a framework and a way to take something [00:12:00] that they really want and break it down in a simple way. Really powerful as well.

Alex: Yeah, Rob Fitzpatrick, he's, uh, to me, another one of these book marketing legends, and, he has a book called Write Useful Books, and, there's many concepts in it, but when you talk about simplification, the average New York Times bestseller back in, the 80s was like 400 pages. Today, it's 200 only pages, right?

Like, people are wanting simpler, they're wanting shorter, they want to get the message across. And so, you know, the less someone has to go through the weeds to get to your message, the better it's going to do.

Allan: Well, I mean, books are getting even shorter. Like for example, Joseph's book is pretty short. Phil Jones who wrote exactly what to say. Very short book. I think that's, it's like under a hundred pages. And so you really want to account for every word you want to make every, the editing is where the real heavy lifting is.

I often say the book is about 40 percent done once you've finished writing. And that was definitely the, my experience with Lean Marketing. My manuscript was a 120 Thousand words, which would've been, I don't know, like, [00:13:00] like 600 pages or whatever. So it was insane. So I spent so much time cutting. I cut probably 40% of that.

So I think we ended up at about 70,000 words, which is still a long book. Really. If I'm doing another book and I'm planning another book, I think I'm going to go closer to 40, 000 words now, really make it a lot tighter. Just cut out all the unnecessary. And with Lean Marketing, I really did spend so much time cutting and cutting.

Do I need this chapter? Do I need this paragraph? Do I need this story? Do I need all of that? And so I feel like I did the shortest book I possibly could because it, It is an expansive topic marketing implementation, but really just being able to communicate a topic very simply, simple language, have the right stories, the right analogies, give people a framework that they can use in practice and in real life.

And I think you've got a lot of the bones there of a bestseller and you really need that. that big concept or that big hook, so what's the kind of unique thing and [00:14:00] especially if someone can use that in their everyday life, like, for example, I think of Seth Godin's The Purple Cow or The Blue Ocean Strategy or The E Myth, so they're little novel phrases that someone can now use in real life The other thing I think about is giveability.

So what's a book that you can give someone who's got a particular problem or there's some trigger in their life? So, maybe someone's doing really well, but you want them to go to the next level. You might give them good to great, or maybe someone's gotten pregnant you give them what to expect when you're expecting, right?

So having those trigger books that are good to give and good to receive at a particular time in your life.

Alex: Trigger, that's a really good way to put it. Yeah, it's like an event related marketing, right? I mean, that's, I feel like that in and of itself could be a whole chapter about book marketing.

Allan: Well, Seth Godin said something interesting. He said physical books. They're really just a souvenir. I mean, people are mostly reading now [00:15:00] on Kindle or on audio or whatever. And so physical books, a lot of the value of physical books is being able to give them to someone and, or sit them on your bookshelf where everyone can see them.

So, I mean, I'm sure many people still read physical books and we sell a ton of physical books as well, but the giveability factor of saying, Hey. You've got a marketing problem. I read this book, The One-page Marketing Plan. Here you go. This is something that can really help you and it's a nice, neat package.

Whereas if this was like maybe 20 different blog posts and then a YouTube video or whatever, there's no neat package that you can just give someone and say hey, go through this and this'll help you. So I think that's, another factor. Is it a neat little package of information that's easy to pass on to somebody?

Yeah. And it has genuine value. And we've all been conditioned from childhood to feel books are special, you don't just toss a book in the bin or whatever you keep books forever, right? Even if a book you may have never read still will sit in your bookshelf. Very rare that you just get a book and just toss it in the [00:16:00] trash.

Yeah,

Alex: and then to bring it back to, you know, you're talking about with the first step is get someone to read the title, you know, and talking about getting people to actually read a book. The 1st step is to get someone to read the title and then say, oh, I like this title enough to now open the book.

And I like how you think about each step of the. Marketing or the customer journey just to get to the end of the book, because I think there's some statistic out there. That's like 80 percent of people who pick up a book. We'll never finish it. And so it's the same reason with like, authors who are putting a review ask in their book.

You know, You don't want to wait till the end ask for a review. You want to put it halfway through and ideally right after someone's had like an oh, wow moment. But if you can work backwards in the reader journey and say. Okay, like, what are the steps I need to go through? Well, first, they need to open, look at the title and say, do I want to open this book?

Then once they've opened the book, what's the first page? If they're reading a bunch of, praise, for your book, it's like, well, maybe they then get interrupted. Like, you gotta think about, like, they have a nagging child or like, like someone that's constantly trying to pull their attention away from that book.

And if that 1st page isn't like, Oh, my goodness, I need to get to the 2nd [00:17:00] page, right? Like, the goal of the 1st paragraph is to get them to the 2nd paragraph. The goal of the 1st page is to get them to the 2nd page. So all the 1st chapter is to get to the 2nd chapter. So if you're thinking about the customer or the reader journey along that whole way, then there's gonna be a much more likelihood of someone making it all the way through the end.

Because you're not just thinking of, Oh, I need to write my memoir in this book, and it's all about you. It's making it about the reader.

Allan: It's what we call in copywriting the greased slide. So the whole goal of the headline is so people read the sub headline, the whole goal of sub the headline is so people read the first paragraph and so on. The other thing that I found is making a book very easily readable. Uh, One of the things I noticed about Atomic Habits is he has very short chapters.

So you feel like you're making, but you're not. Progress. So a chapter may be, just a few pages and then you move on and it's very easy to read. Whereas sometimes a book can be excellent but it's just slabs and slabs of text. It feels hard to get through. So, that's definitely a [00:18:00] factor in getting the book read.

Having said that a lot of people worry about, did people read my whole book and all of that sort of stuff. A book has a lot of value. even if someone actually never read it. I mean, I even look at my Kindle or my bookshelf and there's a ton of books that I'm intending to get to.

And maybe they've been sitting there for a year or more than a year, but I feel good knowing that, Hey, I've got a pipeline of stuff that, Hey, it's going to help me solve this problem or whatever else. Maybe it's not for right now, but I've got a solution in the pipeline.

So a lot of times I'll suggest to authors to really front load their book, put the good stuff Right at the front, because, if we looked at a kind of readership curve, it would probably dwindle down and down as the book goes, simply because people get busy, time, business and life and everything get in the way.

But yeah that's my view on how to structure a book, really keep it very easily readable, short chapters, easy to follow, lots of stories. [00:19:00] That's the other thing I think, and, I set a theme for myself for every year. For 2025, my theme is a book. storytelling. I'm going to become a world class storyteller.

I think I'm okay at it now, but I'm going to become a world class storyteller, both in, speaking and writing in all different formats. And that to me is the master skill. And I think that's going to be one of the master skills going forward, becoming a great storyteller.

Alex: Another thing that I've seen put in books that's working more and more, and I actually somewhat got validated for this chatting with Joseph. It's hilarious putting quotes in your book, and there's many different authors who do this, but putting a quote in every chapter, and, some people will say, oh, it's overdone.

Come on, like, get some new quotes. We've all heard those quotes before. But a lot of the especially online social media marketing that is done you know, a lot of the posts that Joseph's done through his Instagram sponsorships, have come from people who are actually taking a photo of the quote in his book and sharing [00:20:00] the book and with that quote and it sells, hundreds or thousands of copies.

So quotes inside the book too, you know, standout quotes, people just love quotes,

Allan: do you mean quotes that he's written or

Alex: He's quoted someone else, so it's not even a quote by himself. He's just reciting, some quote in his book from someone else. And that's the piece that someone gravitates towards and it, but it associates in their mind. It associates that person that quote in their book, right? So, like, for me, one of my favorite quotes it's by this guy down in Melbourne, Australia.

For maybe forget the name of him, but he says, random acts of marketing don't work. Just kidding. Obviously that's you, Allan, but it's people really do just, like, even if the quotes not by you, just having the quotes in your book by that's relevant. I also think it can be great, great inspiration for the chapter you're about to write.

There's many editors, I'm going through the arc reading right now with my own team, which, for those of you that aren't too familiar with the process, your advanced reader copy. So I've about 60 people who are reading through my first draft and giving me feedback. And it's so funny because, there's the marketing side of it and you're writing to think about the marketing it.[00:21:00]

But I have this 1 person on my art team. That's an editor. She's like, she's in charge of book awards and, just very. Decades in the industry and she's like, Oh, come on. Those quotes are overdone. Like, take out all the quotes. I don't get the point of it. And it's like, she's just not a marketer and it's like, yeah, it's one of those things you just have to say.

I appreciate your feedback, but I've seen, there's this guy, Joseph Nguyen, who just made the New York Times list, self published author. Obviously, now working through Authors Equity, and he said that a lot of the success on his social media has come from people taking photos of the quotes that other people have said written that he's included in his book.

So quotes, I think, be used really well for the marketing of your book, even if they're not by you.

Allan: almost the second last or the last draft manuscript of Lean Marketing, I still had it in the book. I had each chapter started with a quote. So framing that chapter. The reason I took it out in the end, Because one of the things that I did to review the last few edits of my book, I had AI, I used a tool called Eleven Labs [00:22:00] to read back my book and Eleven Labs has a very realistic narration voice.

I mean, for the actual audio book, I used a real narrator, but from and I wanted to hear what my book would sound like because a lot of people listen to my books. It's very popular on Audible and in audio format. And one of the things I found is that having that. somebody else's quote at the start of every chapter, it threw the context out a little bit and, and it was sort of broke the flow a little bit.

So even though the quotes were really good really relevant. So what I did, the quotes that I really loved that I wanted to still be in there, I put them in the body of the text where they would be still relevant. But they wouldn't break the flow because the flow between chapters, I felt, I don't know, maybe it was just me and I was pretty pedantic and I, I listened to my own book probably five or six times over because, I'm a perfectionist and I wanted it to flow really well.

And yeah, in the end it was kind of a difficult decision because they [00:23:00] were really good quotes and they framed the chapter really well, but they just broke the flow of the book. In my opinion, so the ones that were super critical that I really thought. I've got to include, I put them into the body of the book.

So that was my view, but I know a lot of authors do that very successfully and Joseph obviously has as well. So next thing I'd love your opinion on, and I mean, you've obviously seen that, in real life. Now we've talked about ads. Ads is obviously some paid ads is something that obviously moves books, subject to the things that we've discussed.

So whether the book is actually good, whether it hooks people, all of that. What else moves books? Like, because a lot of authors now thinking about, Hey, do I bother with PR? some are like, PR is just like dead or whatever. Do a podcasting, podcast guesting, all of those sorts of things.

Again, I'm happy to share some of my thoughts, but I'd love to hear what is the stuff that really moves books.

Alex: Yeah, well, there's a couple of things, which [00:24:00] one, your timeline can't be, I'm going to put everything into launch week and then give up on my book. That's. You've got to be looking at like, the three to five year launch plan. You know, I was actually listening to a couple episodes of your podcast before this, Allan.

And, you know, I know you had Michael Michael Bungay Stanier on and he was talking about, he thinks of launching a book, like launching a business. He knows it's going to take two, three years for the book to actually, start to have those legs. There are a couple, a of specific tools, which, our goal as a company is to always identify, luckily we're able to work with some of the top tier authors in the world.

And to identify the tools that they are currently utilizing to move copies, and then to be able to, provide that to authors who are too busy to enact those themselves. Because there's a lot of messages out there that don't get heard simply because the author becomes the expert in their topic, but not necessarily the expert in book marketing.

The number one thing that I'm seeing move copies right now. And this is being used by James Clear. This is being used by Joseph Nguyen is shifting how you think about book marketing in general. And this is the big theme of the book is, Bill Gladstone, who's the [00:25:00] late literary agent to people like Eckhart Tolle, Marie Kondo, Jack Canfield.

He'll tell you that, or, he told you that in order for a book to be commercially successful, you need to move 20, 000 copies into the wild. I like to think of a book that's been moved into the wild as a book that is in the hands of someone who is actually going to be, whose problem you're actually solving for, right?

I'm sorry, but your mom's purchase doesn't count. She's not going to read the book and then tell anyone else, right? And so when it comes to, this concept of seeding copies and Bill Gladstone said that number is 20, 000. Rob Fitzpatrick, he's another person I mentioned who I love to follow along in the book, Marketing space.

He says he wrote the mom test, which is sold, at least a couple hundred thousand of copies. He said he initially seeded a thousand copies through events. And we can talk about, the reason why he only need to seed, a thousand copies through events because you're targeting just micro communities.

Topic of a micro community. It's fascinating to me, and we can touch on that too. But basically when it comes back to is as an author, the way you need to shift your thinking about book marketing is, oh, I'm gonna try and hit the New York Times list, or, oh, I'm gonna try and hit the USA today list.

[00:26:00] Obviously, the Wall Street journalist is no longer around, but it might be coming back you need to be picking a number. A number that you commit to seeding copies into the wild. cause there's going to be endless amounts of time and money for you to commit to marketing your book.

And if you don't have a goal in mind, a tangible goal, then you're just going to be throwing, you don't actually know what you're doing. Like the amount of times that the main reason that we end up parting ways with authors is because they don't know why they started working with us to begin with. And so it's getting really clear on your goal.

What are you actually trying to accomplish here? Right now, Joseph. For Don't believe everything you think, he was just chatting with him last week, and he has moved 20 to 30, 000. He's lost track 3 copies of don't believe everything you think to get that book.

Generate now having sold over a million copies. So it's shifting this thinking of. Oh, I need my book to be profitable or oh, I need, like, why aren't people buying my book? You have, you're essentially selling an undifferentiated product with zero brand, a lot of starting authors when they release their book.

And so you have to realize that what you're starting from is the need to actually just any way you can convince [00:27:00] people to open and, you know, and read your book. And I think there's a difference between seating a book into the hands of someone. Who's open to that message? It's really important how you do that.

Like, for example, there's 2 different authors who I recently saw, you know, either approach me or someone else with the book. the 1st is, I was hosting a cookout here at my apartment complex and this guy approached me, came down this group of me and, maybe 10 to 15 friends hanging out.

And he tried to pitch a soul in his AI book, apparently he sits up in his apartment and he sees this cookout area and whenever he sees people gathering, he comes down and pitches them his AI book, right? Talk about a group of people that do not want his message at that time. Versus, you know, we have Namaste Yoga here in San Diego where, this guy teaches Cliffside Yoga, Saturday and Sunday every weekend.

And this lady walked around handing out post it notes and on the post it notes were a message of positivity and on the back of that post it note was hey, you know, if you like this message, you can find my book here, right? It is so in line. The people who are at yoga are generally open minded, positive people.

So 1, she knew the person that she was targeting there [00:28:00] and 2, it wasn't in your face. She wasn't like saying, hey, buy my book by my book. She was saying, here's a message of positivity. Oh, and by the way, you know, if this interests you, you can take a step further, right? So, that's the 2 things I will say, you want to make sure that when you are seeding copies, you're not forcing copies, into people's faces and doing it the wrong way.

But, all in all here, what's working right now is focusing on the seeding copy message. And the most effective tool, I think, is actually micro influencers. So, like, Joseph will literally just DM people 1 by 1 on Instagram saying, of people who follow accounts that are similar to his message.

And say, Hey, can I send you a free copy of my book? And so we've actually started replicating that and doing that for a lot of our authors is , reaching out to one by one through DMs on Instagram or Facebook, or a TikTok and just saying, Hey, if I see you follow these accounts, you might like this book, it's a New York Times bestseller, some credentials around it.

Would you like a free copy? Just give us your address. We're handing out X amount of copies to readers. And it's also an excellent way because then you can build that contact and then potentially go back to them in a couple of weeks for a review as well. So obviously there's limits on how many [00:29:00] people you can message each day.

So be aware of those, but that's the number one mini tool right now is feeding copies through micro influencers. And, we've spent over 50,000 so far on influencer campaigns, big influencers, and oftentimes you might only see a dozen copies actually get moved. So I wouldn't waste your money with the big influencers.

I would just literally see if you can get your cost per reader, you know, handout, book for 5, 6 bucks to for shipping and printing and get that in the hands of a reader who's likely to read your book.

Allan: I love that. We actually did that in the early days of the One-page Marketing Plan. We'd find a YouTuber who reviews books to send them out a copy. We'd find a blogger or whatever. And when you say seeding, you mean mainly giving it out for free, right? So, hey, I'm going to give out a thousand free copies to, targeted communities and things like that.

Is that right?

Alex: When you're starting out as an author, correct, right? Once you have a brand, such as yourself, Allan, and, you've got other marketing activities that are going to help you launch that book, then, you don't necessarily, need to do that. But like I said, even some of the, two of the top non fiction authors right now, James Clear of Atomic Habits and Joseph [00:30:00] Nguyen are still willing to cede copies for free.

So, don't let your ego get the best of you on that one.

Allan: Yeah, that's good. That's good. like I said, I did in the early days, but we haven't done that in a while. We're still running some free book campaigns, but I think that's a good idea. And I actually heard, I think it was Donald Miller who shared this story around at the author's meetup where he essentially did the same thing seeded StoryBrand early on, but one of the suggestions was to do it in a close knit community where everyone else sees that everyone's got the book.

So I think they did it at universities or some university campus or something similar to that, so like, everyone's carrying around a copy of his book, and so it feels like, hey, everybody's, either buying or getting this book or whatever, whereas just doing it very scattergun approach is maybe not as effective.

Of

Alex: tap into, you know, FOMO, you know, it's fear of missing out. Where everyone sees there's 2 reasons why that micro communities work really well. And that's why we tell people to focus on, like, [00:31:00] communities or, those places that people hang out like churches or book clubs or, like groups of people who interface with each other or, for example, speaking events, right?

Those are people who are usually at a conference together. And so they're gonna have time to talk to each other and get excited and probably connect long after the events over. the two reasons why that works is because, if everyone's reading this book, I should probably be reading this too, you know, if one person tells you to read a book, you might consider it.

If five people are telling you to read a book, or you see they're reading it, then you're probably going to read it, right? and then the other side of it is the fact that it's an echo chamber, right? If the books again, a lot of this depends on if the book's good. I'll bring up a little analogy to help people think about that.

If you don't mind, Allan. And I learned this from Ricardo Fayet of Readzee. I think you might have probably connected with him as well. he wrote that essentially your book is a ship and how good your book is how good the material that your ship is made out of. Right?

If your ship is made of lead. It's going to sink, meaning if your book is bad, like, it's going to sink at some point. If your book is made of like, really [00:32:00] light, effective wood for shipbuilding, I'm not a material science major. So, by no means do I know exactly what that is, but, a really light wood that, the book's going to be afforded really quickly.

Right. So that's how good your book is. How that ship propels forward is your marketing, right? So you can strap rockets to the side of your piece of lead and, It's going to move. Yeah, you're going to sell copies, but the second that you turn those rockets off, that ship is going to sink like a piece of lead, right?

As if your ship is is really light, and let's say that, you're doing podcasting porch for this example, let's say that's blowing wind into the sails, right? even when that wind stops, if your book is good, it's going to continue to move forward for a period of time without the wind, right?

It's going to keep moving forward at least a few, feet. So the interplay of marketing and how good your book is. I love that analogy for unpacking, how that is. And so, when you think of a lot of these marketing activities and that's, the ax factor that goes back to what we discussed in the beginning of this episode together.

Is how good your book is. And that is not the science that I'm in. I'm in the science of, do you want to blow wind into the sails or strap rockets? And how [00:33:00] long do you do that for so that you can know, okay, I've done enough marketing where if this book was good enough, or, this ship was light enough, then it should continue to propel forward.

And if it's not, yeah. Then it might be time to cut your, you know, either move on to the next book, or it's giving yourself at that point, permission to stop marketing. And then, and that's why I think it all goes back to this number that you need to commit to of how many copies are you going to move? And then, you can definitely lower that number.

If you're seeding into micro communities, because of those 2 factors we just mentioned, which is FOMO. And then, people are getting excited about your book, which is The X Factor. If it's a really good book, and if you can seat a micro community of a thousand people, that in and of itself is gonna, do the rest for you.

Allan: and it can be heartbreaking for an author to, because I mean, writing a book you're so front loaded with effort and time, I mean, my book Lean Marketing was about two years of my life, and that was just the concept, the writing, the editing, all of that. And then after that, the launch, that's really when the work starts where, you know, when you start advertising, when you start reaching out to people, and by the [00:34:00] time you've launched, you're almost sick of it.

Like I'd listened to it, maybe five or six times, I'd read it and edited it, like, I don't know how many times, a dozen times at least. Gone back and forth. It's been like literally the thing that I've been doing for the last two years of my life and like, like, I never want to see or know about this ever again, but you have to, because now you're getting on podcasts.

Now you're speaking about it. Now you all of that sort of thing. So, a book is almost, and we're talking about the type of book that is like the cornerstone of a thought leadership business. We're not talking about, I mean, there are books that you can just use as a lead generator. You can have a ghost writer, write them or whatever, or produce them quickly.

And they're just like a, maybe a PDF or something that you print on demand and you just give away. And that's totally fine. That's a strategy as well, but I'm really talking about a nonfiction book. That's going to be the cornerstone of your thought leadership. Strategy that's going to be part of your personal brand.

So that's something that you really want to think of as maybe a five to 10 year project. And that's the way I think about a lot of authors are like done the [00:35:00] book, done the launch week. Okay. Onto the next project. And nobody, in any business would ever think about their core product, their flagship product in that way, Apple wouldn't launch an iPhone and like, okay, cool.

We're done. What else should we do? No, that now we're marketing it. Now we're creating apps for it. Now we're distributing it to different people. Now we're getting people to review it. Now we're thinking about the next edition of it and all of that sort of thing. So it really is your core flagship product as a thought leader.

Alex: Yeah, and that's why I want to educate better is because I'm not coming from a place of being an author who's always been successful or an author that is, or just someone that, you know, as always have it figured out. I come from a place of I entered this industry as a, thought leader in college kids getting jobs and interviewing and all that stuff.

And I released a book with a co author of mine and we thought we had made it. We paid someone for an Amazon bestseller status, which now, for those listening, you don't need to pay for that. If you're in the right category and you get 16 people to buy your [00:36:00] book you're going to, but you can become an Amazon bestseller just from that.

And so, you know, when it comes down to, I released a book, I expected people to, buy this book. I thought, Oh, I'm going to retire because there just isn't a whole lot of great education out there about science and, what it actually looks like to release and market a book.

And so, there needs to be a number, like you said, Allan, When you've put so much heart and soul and time into the writing and editing of the book, and then you have to like market it, like what a sick joke. But unfortunately, you know, if you do that without thinking about, the actual marketing or having an understanding for the marketing, then, you know, it could actually become a trap where, because you're so attached to it, and we've seen this time and time again, we had an author who paid 100, 000.

I saw a receipt, that he sent me, with the invoice breakdown of what he paid for it to market his book. And I, I just felt bad for the guy because 80 percent of that was for admin tasks that wouldn't even move the book. And so, if you're spending such, it can become an endless time and money pit.

So if you don't really understand, first of all, why you're marketing the book, and then two, the science behind marketing the book, it can be this [00:37:00] confusing, never ending journey where you just hate the whole publishing world. And then, you know, it might stop you from writing your next book or getting that book out there, which, who knows, could have a huge impact on the world.

And God knows that we need some improvement right now.

Allan: Yeah, and you're 100 percent right. I've seen that time and time again. I was just talking to another person who was writing a book earlier this week, and he sent me the quote that somebody in the publishing industry had sent him about all the stuff. And I mean, I sent him a nice text message, and I'm going to get on with a call, on a call with him later in the week, just because I want to help him out.

But I said, look, man some of the stuff, yep, absolutely. You know, Nice typesetting good cover design, all of that. Yep. Yep. Yep. But like 80 percent of the stuff that they're telling you they're going to do is going to move, approximately zero copies of the book. So a lot of it, I'm a little bit down on traditional PR.

I don't think it really moves a lot of copies unless maybe, you get on some national kind of platform. I think even then depending [00:38:00] on what the book is, it's got to be some very wide appeal sort of topic. But my view is that traditional PR is not as effective as it once was. And in fact, it's almost ineffective at the moment.

Have you seen any good traction with traditional PR and press releases and all of that? How, what do you view? Yeah

Alex: I interview, you know, authors who have sold more than 10, 000 copies on my podcast. Right? And, anyone from Daniel pink to, Bessel van der Kolk of the body keeps the score, I've asked him that's 1 of the questions I always ask at the end is, if there's 1 thing you can go back and not spend money or time on, what would it be?

like most, I would say it's not even 80%. I would say it's like 95 percent of the time. The answer is traditional PR. So I don't think traditional PR and most of the, and I think, there's a couple of ways that you can go about it in, in a smart way. So I'm not saying, to get logos and, stuff like that.

Like there's some reasons, you know, some people are interested in raising their speaker fee, which to say, Oh, I've been featured on all these platforms. Right. So I'm not saying it's not, it's not like, don't [00:39:00] consider it. I'm just saying like, understand that, you know, I think that it's working against you.

If you don't understand what you're doing with it. And then, but I have seen, you know, like, and especially podcasts, a lot of people get burnt out on the podcast circuit as well, because, they're told all podcasts are going to move copies. And then they go on a bunch of podcasts. They don't actually move copies.

I found that unless your message is really aligned with that audience for example, we have 1 of our clients. He's actually 1 of our board members to Ed rush. He's a local here in San Diego to. I know the backend sales of his book. And so I'm constantly seeing, what is he doing and what is that doing to sales?

He had this blip of like three, 400 sales in a day. And I texted him and I was like, dude, what did you do to move all these books in one day? And he was like, I went on this one podcast. I think it was actually, it might've been a YouTube channel, actually, Allan, which I know, you've seen some success with.

And it was, his book is called God Talks, right? Um, I'm not necessarily religious, but I'm, I support anyone, I support people and their messages. And, I think there's a definitely a time and a place for religion. He, and so he went on this this, very religious podcast and the message is just [00:40:00] so aligned with the audience.

And the audience was, at least a couple thousand, right? So, I watched him just, I mean, it just went bonkers. And so, unless your message is really aligned, like, you can even go on good morning America and, I've heard that might only move 100 copies of your book, or maybe none at all.

So, what's really important is just like, if there's a slightest misalignment. in your message and the podcast the old podcast audience, then, it's just not going to move books. And so that you have to really make sure that the message you're sharing is, the right audience or else it can be a complete waste of time.

Allan: I agree with that I've been on many podcasts and I can attest, there, I've been on some very big podcasts that don't necessarily align with my audience much and haven't seen much traction. And I've been on some smaller podcasts that very aligned with what I do and that created tons of traction and we tend to get a pretty good feedback loop because a lot of my books have resources that you can download.

So we can tell when someone says, Hey. Heard you on this podcast. I downloaded your One-page Marketing Plan. Really enjoyed it, whatever. So, we've [00:41:00] got a little bit of that feedback loop where we know where something got a lot of traction versus something that didn't.

Alex: Yeah, and listen notes if you want to go somewhere to do podcast research, let's say you're maybe doing your own podcast here. I highly recommend a platform called listen notes that even gives you, the best way you can, sort of determine how big a podcast is. They give you like a listen score can of course, like anything, it can be gamed, just like Amazon ratings.

If they have a lot of people who have less left podcast ratings. The way I like to think about is if on listen notes, if you're in like the top 0.5% of podcasts, that means that it's a podcast that at least has like a thousand or more followers. If it's not the top 10%, it means it's usually either a new podcast, like I know Lean Marketing, you know, I know, you just shifted your focus over for this one.

Um, I'm not sure what, what the percentage is, but like I can speak to like, My percentage, right? Like before the bestseller, we're said as like a 1. 5%, top podcast, you got to remember there's 2, 3 million podcasts that are logged on listen notes. And so even a top 1. 5 percent we have around 200 listeners, like, very [00:42:00] genuinely, that is what makes a top 1.

5%. And I wouldn't if it's more than top 10%, like I said, it's either probably a new podcast, or it's just 2 dudes, talking to each other in a garage, but that's why I like to point people is, take a look at listen notes. If it's a top 0. 5%, they have some sort of listening.

If it's top 10%. There's at least a handful. And if it's outside of that, like I said, it's either new or, they just haven't or there's no, not really much following for it. So,

Allan: Cool. So, assuming your book is good we've talked about paid ads as an accelerator. We've talked about seeding your book to relevant communities and making sure that relevant communities are, hearing about the book relevant podcasts. What else moves the needle for book sales?

Alex: so the, where I would go from having that big number, right? So I mentioned anywhere from 1000 I think 10, 000 is generally a good number for you to. Test and see like, okay, am I seeing some traction additional traction on my book? Then I'll maybe go for 20, 000, if you've seated 10, 000 copies, you're not seeing any additional organic copies come in, the book [00:43:00] probably might not be the strong enough messaging, or you might not you're losing readers somewhere along that reader journey.

Right? The next phase of once you've picked that number, break down that number into sub numbers. So come up with your tool. So that could be anywhere from, your street team. It could be paid promotions, running Facebook ads, running Amazon ads. You know, It could be speaking at events. It could be the Instagram influencer account I mentioned, but then break down into, okay, I'm going to move.

400 copies via Facebook ads. Okay. I'm going to move 2000 copies via Amazon ads. I'm going to move 500 copies via podcast booking, right? So we're getting on podcasts. And so once you have your big number, then you want to break that down into the little numbers. And then, Allan, what I love is your system ties thinking and, sort of, like I said, random acts of marketing don't work.

And so what you want to do then, once you have your sub numbers is break that into how many weeks before your launch uh, you know, you can call week and I like to label them. So, like, week 0 is the week that you want to launch your book. if your book's already out and you're listening to this and you're like, well, my book struggling, I'm actually trying to figure out how to get it back to life.

That's fine. Week [00:44:00] 0 is today. Right? And then you want to start. Okay. what are the systems that I need to create these different tools to, these different tools in my tool belt? Like I said, Amazon ads is a hammer podcast, getting on podcast is your wrench and then you work those out, right?

So, for a week right now, it's week 0. Let's say that your book is or let's say you're on, you got 10 weeks before your book launch, right? So work backwards. What are you going to do during week negative 1? What needs to happen for week zero for four podcasts to go live during week zero?

What do you need to be doing during week negative one? Maybe it is coordinating to make sure that those podcasts are going to go live the next week, because you probably shouldn't be recording those podcasts during week negative one. Maybe you're recording those weeks those podcasts in week negative three, negative four.

That's where you want to start plotting out, okay, what am I doing in each single week? leading up to, and so, where I would take, you've got your big number, you've then got your little numbers for each of those different subtasks before you then list those out in the weeks, come up with every line item of each of the steps that need to happen in order for that [00:45:00] to then go live.

And if you don't know how to do it, that's fine, go back and listen through Allan Dib's podcast, go back and listen to, self publishing school podcast. Go back and listen to, before the bestseller, they'll break down all these, different ones will list out all these different ways to go about these different strategies uh, or just, Google online or shoot Allan and I a message here, right?

Like, what, we've done this stuff. We can, help break it down. And so then, once you have your list, that's where you start to then spread those out over week, negative 1 week, negative 2. And so it really is a systematized way of thinking about your marketing. Where, it can be very overwhelming, especially for people who aren't necessarily project, management oriented, or, not good at breaking down the details.

So this is my goal here is to provide here is how you come up with your first of all, you create the right goals to market that book. Here are the tools that you can choose from. I like to say Don't pick tools that you're not suited to. So let's say you don't like speaking like Nick Trenton.

this other book that's sold a half over half a million copies. he literally doesn't do interviews. I know, because I've tried to get him on my podcast to do an interview. And he's like, sorry, mate, like, I love what you're doing, but I just don't do interviews. I don't like them..

[00:46:00] And like, clearly, his book has been successful. So just because other authors are doing that thing doesn't mean you need to do those things. And it also, if you don't stick to the things that you're choosing, then, like that guy down in Melbourne, Australia, says, random acts of marketing don't work.

If you're not actually going to stick to that thing for at least a year or two, it's not going to give you any value. And so you want to make sure that you are picking things that are inherent. so much. To your skill set, and, or making it so that it does fit your skill set. So like Rob Fitzpatrick, he hates monologuing into a camera and so putting out videos.

So instead what he does is he just records the casual conversations that he has with his friends around the topic or clients of his, that he has around the topic and uses that for his social media. And that way he's not forcing himself to do a, a monologue video series or anything like that.

He's making it fit. his lifestyle, right? And I know a lot of this stuff you talk about in Lean Marketing, Allan which there's definitely some overlap there and, hearing that you cut it down to just about 40 percent of what it was makes me feel very special because I know you included my pitch to you, which is how we first met, you know, a couple of years ago to [00:47:00] have you on our podcast.

So that's cool that you included that.

Allan: Well, it was a good pitch. So yeah, you are right. I do talk about this in Lean Marketing. I say it's a lot easier to, and you'll get a lot more return out of leveraging your strengths rather than trying to make your weaknesses a little bit less weak. So, really leverage whatever modality. If it's speaking, some people have the gift of the gab, a podcast is perfect for them, or some people love video or either short form or long form, and they'll just do that all day long.

Great. Leverage that. For myself, I find the written word is my strength. So for me, it's my email newsletter, it's written platforms like LinkedIn, it's books. So you want to leverage your strength. You don't want to work on I mean, you do, I'm not saying you don't want to work on your weaknesses, but a lot of times you'll get a lot more return out of really leveraging your strength rather than trying to make your weaknesses less weak.

True.

Alex: right? So, like, and in the book, I try to go through all the tools at your disposal, [00:48:00] at least the ones that I know are somewhat currently working. And so that's where you want to pick, okay, like, here's the three or four tools that I'm going to use. I'm going to expect to move the next amount of copies under each of these, tools.

And then, work backwards from there and say, okay, now I implement, how do I implement each of these tools? And it's a whole lot easier of a question to ask yourself is, how do I implement podcast booking over the next 25 weeks versus. Oh, my goodness. How do I market my book? Right? It's getting way more specific with your question, which is then what's going to allow you.

You're breaking it up. It's like the Navy seal approach of like, okay, well, what needs to be done now? Right? Like, what's the next step? So That's how book marketing needs to change. It needs to come. Go from this really, not transparent, endless amounts of marketing programs that you can buy into that aren't, it's like an author trying to build an author website.

Like, I get sent author websites all the time of like, Oh, I have this really good author website. I had built for like 20, 30, 000. And I'm like, well, like where's the traffic coming from to that website? And it's like, don't invest in, and I have a great team around me. I'm really lucky.

Now, one of our team members, Laura Russell, [00:49:00] You ran all of paid media for Blackstone publishing for three years. She, she says that we never want to be house poor, right. Which is where you have all the fancy bells and whistles, but nothing's actually producing for you. And so, that's the the author website is like, unless you know how you're going to drive traffic to your author website, don't go build yourself a big, fancy website.

Allan: 100 percent true. So no surprise, you're coming out with your own book called Before the Bestseller. You've also got a podcast by the same name. What's the upshot of that book and how's that going to help an author?

That's

Alex: we've talked about, and it's funny, I was chatting with David Jenyns on his podcast last week, and, like, Allan, you could have written this book, David could have written this book, like, Joseph could have written this book, the difference is just my passion and love is specifically around nonfiction book marketing.

And so, that's why, and I get to see from all of you guys, and then take the best of the best and put it into this book, right? and, I wish one of you had written this book for me when I'd come along, right? So, like, I'm writing the book. That I wish I had when I came into this space.

And it's also going to be, it's like very meta [00:50:00] because It's a book about book marketing. Right? So you can follow along with the journey and see if I either succeed or fail because of this book. It doesn't do well, then. It clearly shows that I don't know my stuff. So this book either has to do well.

So if you want to see, okay, is Alex actually, is he full of shit or is this actually, is he know what he's talking about? Look at the success of this book and feel free to follow along with my journey. you know, We'll see if, this book does really well, which, we have a lot of really great plans.

Another one I'll drop you with real quick is Andrea Woltz and Richard Fenton wrote a book called Go For Now. And they have sold over half a million copies of that book now, and it's because what they've done is send out packages, bulky mail gets opened, right? That's a great phrase.

And so they sent packages to to leaders of teams at various companies with a letter explaining who they are, what the book's about and saying, specifically for sales team saying, How many copies of this book do you want, for your audience? And, it's a very short book. It's like, like 60, 70 pages.

So obviously if you send someone like a manual, they're probably not going to read it, but it, because it's so short, it [00:51:00] resonated so well, and they've now sold over half a million copies, almost exclusively through that tactic. So we're actually going to take this book and send it to every single publishing company, a couple of copy copies to every publishing company.

saying, how many copies do you want for your authors? And try a similar tactics. So take a look, follow along with the tactics we use, we'll be writing about them over at Get Shelf Life uh, which is going to be our new website in the new year uh, we're having designed and on the cheap, you know, we're, we're a million dollar company and we are, getting our website created for a couple thousand dollars.

Don't, think you have to spend 20, 30, 000 to create like a, an author website. It's just not worth it. And yeah the, basically the goal of the book is, the first part. Really, I take you through why you lose at book marketing, which is why, what Allan and I talked about with, the micro communities and, understanding, your goals going into it.

And then I walk you through the various and then why, like, how you need to essentially pick a big number The 2nd big part is really all about. Okay. What are the tools at your disposal to actually see those copies? Okay. And then the third part is all about creating that timeline and starting from week zero, working backwards to week, negative 25, negative 50, and then forward to 25 [00:52:00] and plus 50.

So that's the framework for the book, but it's basically the book that I wish I had when I entered this the book, the publishing industry.

Allan: Well, I think they're the only books anyone should write is the book you wish you had. And that was very much the case with both Lean Marketing and the One-page Marketing Plan. They were the books I wish were around. So I think that's a really good benchmark. Alex, it's been such a pleasure speaking with you.

You've got a lot of wisdom. You've helped so many authors get their message out and amplify and impact the world. So I want to thank you for that. Where can people find out more about you? And we'll of course link to everywhere that you are.

Alex: I appreciate the kindness check out the book on Amazon uh, you know, if you're obviously a listener of this podcast, and this is, you know, watch what I, Do not necessarily always what I say is, this is the perfect audience to purchase that book where, you know, on, on Amazon, if they see, oh, okay, people who are interested in marketing or buying this book, that's going to help the Amazon algorithms and the Amazon ads are going to do a whole lot better.

So just think about that, you know, [00:53:00] in where you're, getting, sending people your book, you're like, I could be much more profitable selling books, on my website or whatever, have you. But I want to influence those Amazon algorithms. So think about, influencing the Amazon algorithms.

Check that out. Our website is Get Shelf Life. Allan, this is a full circle moment for me meeting you a few years back. You know, It's always so lovely sometimes when you get to meet your mentors and they're exactly the people you followed for so long, and they're exactly like you think they are.

I'm truly blessed to be able to follow along with your journey. I've learned a lot. I think I almost got sick of writing about you in my book because you're mentioned so many times, so I'm excited to get you a copy. And yeah, I just really appreciate you spending the time with me.

Allan: Oh, thank you, Alex. Much appreciated. Thanks for being on.

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