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Foreign.
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Welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Alex Strathd. He is the CEO of Shelf Life where he helps authors market books. After working with over 1000 books in 50 plus niches, you wanted to know what advice to give authors whose books weren't selling. Clients include Mike McCallowicz, Alan Dibs, Michael Bungastanyard, Tony Fadell, Reid Hoffman. He hosts his own podcast before the best seller with authors who have sold over 10,000 copies, which include Dan Pink, Kim Scott and others. But we're gonna talk about his book today before the bestseller, your proven path to book sales without wasting time and money. So Alex, welcome to the show.
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A
John, it's a dream come true being here, growing up with you as one of the marketing greats. To get to have a chat with you is pretty cool.
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B
Oh, I appreciate that. So I know the answer to this, but I'm just going to let you hit it out of the park. When I write a book, doesn't the publisher promote my book?
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A
You would think that is why we exist is because Seth Godin, I know, has a good statistic that, you know, authors spend 90%, 90% of the revenue is from their backlist and they only spend 2% of their their budget on actually launching new books, which is a statistic that every author should be listening to and thinking, oh, so I can't expect my publisher to actually market my book for me.
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B
You know, I've actually published, let's say I self published one book. Six books have been with major publishers. And I can say that not only do they not promote your book, they don't know how, quite frankly. I mean, they're pretty rooted in some ancient approaches.
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A
And that's how I came into this industry, was actually getting like, pretty much scammed by someone who was like, oh, here's what book marketing really is. And I was like, oh wait, I'm going to be our famous rich, you know, author tomorrow. Wow, that's fantastic. All I have to do is become an Amazon bestseller. Cool. And then you quickly find out that's not how you become an author.
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B
Well, and the other thing, of course, that I'm sure you're experiencing this, my first book came out in 2007. There weren't a lot of nonfiction books, quite frankly, particularly from, you know, marketers. Now there's probably been five titles that have come out since we started this show. I mean, it's crazy.
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A
There's a marketing book for every niche now. Like there was one, there was one book that I was marketing that is Crawl Space Repair. Like the, the. It's insane the niches that you find these days. But I love niches. I think niches are some of the best places to market well.
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B
So where do you find. We'll start with the mistakes. Where do you find people making a mistake? I know the biggest ones. They write a book and go, okay, now what?
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Probably.
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But what are some of the other common mistakes?
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I'll first start with a piece of education and it's how to think about your book. And it's a analogy that I actually stole from Ricardo Fayette of Reedsy. And it's. The book is a ship analogy, where essentially your book is a ship and how good your book is, is how. And how the word of mouth will spread for that book is how light the material of that ship is made of. So if you have a really, really good book, you have a really. I think I was reading your Wikipedia before this as well. You like your woodworking, so we'll use a nice wood reference here. You know, if you're, if you have a really good book, then it's a light piece of wood, right? So, you know, then your book, all that that ship needs is some wind in the sails and it starts to cruise along. If your book is made of lead, meaning it's a terrible book and people don't want to share it, then, yeah, you can strap rockets to the side, but the second you turn off those rockets, it's going to sink to the bottom of the ocean. So the first thing is to think about your book as a, as a ship. And so the next question you get is, well, how do I know what my book is made of? And the answer to that is by product testing it. So it's by committing to. And this is, you know, your question was, where do people actually start with their marketing? The starting point is picking a number. So that is the. And Bill Gladstone, who's the late former litter agent to people like Eckhart Tolle, Marie Kondo, Jack Canfield. His whole thing is that in order for a book to be commercially successful, you need to seed 20,000 copies into the wild. Now, if your book is about crawl space repair, the odds of you seeding 20,000 copies is pretty low, right? So you gotta realize that there's some nuance in here depending on the industry that you're a part of. Rob Fitzpatrick says that number only needs to be 1000. He's author of Write Useful Books. He focuses more on, like writing really, really Good nonfiction books. And the truth is the number is somewhere between 1,000 and 20,000, and it's up to the author to figure out what that number is.
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So, I mean, again, I'm trying to process that comment. So if I've published a book or self published a book, or I'm thinking about putting a book out, am I now? Then one of my first tasks is I need to get a thousand people who I think would be interested in this and send them a copy.
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A
That is one of the ways. So we call that free reader seating. And the. The. But yeah, essentially, once you have your number, what that is, is that's empowering. Because where most authors start in their book marketing is just talking to, you know, like, marketing salespeople of, oh, you need this program. You need this program. You don't really know what you're trying to achieve. You just kind of think that, like, oh, well, if I make the New York Times bestseller list, then my book did what it's supposed to do. Right, Right. And so just having an understanding of what you're actually trying to achieve with your book is that will solve half of your marketing issues. Because once you have your number, you break that down into, okay, I'm going to move 200 copies through podcasting, I'm going to move 100 copies through my email list. I'm going to move 200 copies through Amazon ads. Right. And then you actually break that seating number down into mini goals. And those are the different tools of book marketing that I talk about within the book.
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We've probably all encountered a book that you're like, this is really bad. Why is it selling so many copies?
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Yeah, yeah, the. One of my. One of my shocking things, it's kind of like, you know, Febreze didn't sell until a market figured out how to make it sell. Right? Like, until someone was like, oh, it shouldn't have no smell. It should have a smell because that indicates to people that the room is clean. Right? So, you know, at the end of the day, I think you can have a pretty mediocre book. And if you have a really good marketing strategy behind it, it's going to do a whole lot better than a book that has no marketing and is, you know, the best book in the world. And, you know, so that's one of the things I tell authors is like, you know, I know we have a fellow friend, Mike Michalowicz. He writes and get different. You know, are you like, you have a responsibility to market if your thing is the best thing on the market, you know, you're being selfish by actually not having a marketing plan behind that book. And there's a lot of authors would be best selling authors that get stopped because they're, they think that marketing their book is beneath them.
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B
I always make a joke of this. We're seven minutes in the show, I'm going to mention AI for the first time. So how is, how is AI affecting in your view, both the written word as well as the marketing component of marketing a book?
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I think what it comes down to is brand at the end of the day, you know, there's, and that's one of the big issues on Amazon right now is there's a lot of people selling courses for like make a million dollars writing AI created books or whatever.
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Books a day, right?
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Yeah, yeah. And it's like you can put those books up there, but you're still going to have the same issue that the regular author has, which is to market those books. Like. So I think that I'm, I'm not afraid of, you know, I think it comes back to your marketing, right? Like if you have a really good marketer who's empowered by AI, then maybe they'll start moving some AI books. But we're starting to look into using tools like make.com to automate like social media creation and posting based on like best practices in the industry. So I think make.com is a great low code platform for some people who are a little more tech savvy to start looking at. But I mean there's, there's lots of ways, you know, like we use ChatGPT to write our job descriptions. They, you know, like you have someone on your team that takes half a day to write a job Description. Just ask ChatGPT to ask you for a meta ads expert and hire them in the Philippines. Right. So I think there's a lot of things that like from on, on the surface level, ChatGPT can start to really help authors with, you know, where they don't have to know how to write a full on job description. They can have chat GPT do that for them. And then on a deeper level you can start using platforms like make.com to create workflows and go a little bit deeper with the tools.
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How important do you think it is particularly we're talking, I'm talking about nonfiction books, so business authors. How important do you believe that it is that most authors should also have a course and a, maybe a certification or a coaching program or something like that that actually comes from the book.
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Yeah, and that's an interesting. Because even fiction and nonfiction have entirely different business models that you're working with. Right. And so one of our first steps with authors is always to figure out what is it you're actually trying to achieve with this book. Because, you know, if someone who has a. And this is also like something you have to realize when you're bidding against people on, you know, a lot of the ad platforms. Like, you know, Amazon is oftentimes, especially in the nonfiction niche, you're bidding against people who aren't trying to make money on book royalties. They're trying to sell a 20,000, $100,000 course on the back end. So the days of making money through Amazon ads, it's one of the questions we get a lot. The days of making passive income with Amazon ads is over. Like very few books do that nowadays and very few traditional or self published authors. And I'm talking about self published to get, you know, full royalties are actually at that point in their, you know, in their book journey.
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B
So, so how does somebody who, like in my particular case, by the time I put my first book out, I had a huge email list. I, you know, I had actually been publishing other stuff online, a blog and a podcast and all that kind of stuff. So I had a decent live audience. How does somebody who, and let's jump to fiction maybe, you know, has no audience and is actually not known for writing Western literature, you know, romance novels, all of a sudden writes one. I mean, how does that person seed some, some readers?
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Yeah, that's, that's a really great question.
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And means it's a hard question, which.
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Does mean that it's, it's more challenging. So let me, let me try to make this as concise as possible. Cause I could ramble for the next. How much time you got, John? So when it comes to starting, I mean, you mentioned that the number one thing and the most important thing is always to have a newsletter list. That's the one traffic you control. You've had plenty of episodes talking about the importance of that, right? So when it comes to your email list, one of the best ways, and I, I, you know, I, I stand on the shoulders of great marketers, you know, so like Tim Grohl, who wrote your first 1,000 copies, you know, he has a great way to start your Facebook, you know, your, or your, your email list through Facebook, just reaching out to your friends and family one by one and saying, hey, I'm going to start, you know, writing about this topic. You know, would you like to come along for the journey and like, you know, if you're running ads, you know, to your webpage, you might get a conversion rate of like what, like 3% on your web, on your website, as if you're messaging people one by one on Facebook. Like start with finding 100 people to put on your email list. Start sending out like a new valuable newsletter each week and happy to dive into that if you want. But you know, I just start with like who are the people you know? And ask them, hey, here's what I'm going to do. It's kind of an experiment. Would you like to join and make that your first 100? So that's the first step. Any questions about like the email list side?
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No, no.
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A
Yeah, yeah, we have definitely already on top of that one. And the other way is, I'll actually use an example of a fiction author, John Strelecki. He's the author of Cafe on the Edge of the World. He's now sold over 8 million books. And he kid you not just went to chamber of commerce meetings and his book is somewhat of a fable if you haven't heard of it. It's kind of like the go giver sort of that situation that has like a deeper meaning to it that's easy to pick up on. Short read and he went to chamber of commerce meetings having one on one conversations with people until he had personally handed out 10,000 copies of his book. He has now sold over 8 million copies of his book. Clearly that worked. And so a genuine conversation, you like finding a local group that you can go to and hand copies out one by one with a genuine convers conversation. Now there's two. There's a way you can do this the wrong way and there's a way you can do this the right way. And I'll use an example, you know, I'm out here in San Diego if you couldn't tell by the mustache and the long hair. And we are, we have a Namaste yoga cliffside here on the ocean. You know, you can picture it, a beautiful, beautiful blue sky, you know, right. You hear the waves breaking and you know, a nice way to relax on a Saturday and Sunday morning. And this woman was walking by handing out post it notes that just had nice messages on them like you know you're pretty or like you know you're smart or whatever. And on the back of those post it notes was, you know, a Lincoln invite to grab her book. But like she was starting with value. She was like, would you like a positive Note. And of course, like, you know, it's also her, her audience. Right? Like an audience of yogis on a cliffside on a, on a Saturday morning at 10:00am is, is her demographic. And you compare that against. I was hosting a barbecue for a friend, you know, here at my, my apartment complex, and this man, I guess, saw a gathering of us down by the grill and walked down and began telling people about his AI book that we should all go by and read. Most, like, most of the people were like service workers, like baristas, no interest in learning about AI. And he's like, forcing AI on every. And it was the most uncomfortable situation. So, like, when you're having these conversations, be the first, not the second.
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B
Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. So if somebody's, I know there's wide ranges and variances on all kinds of. It depends. But if somebody's getting started with a nonfiction book, they've got a business as well. They're doing a couple of things. What, what's the team, the, the system, you know, the approach that kind of like, they need to be doing this, this, this, this kind of thing.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And I, I, I'm all for systems. Like, one of my favorite marketers, Alan Dibb, you know, random acts of marketing don't work. That's like, I will sing that from, you know, the mountaintops until the day I die. And so, you know, having VAs is great. You know, I have a whole section. You know, I talk a lot about bas, and I know you've covered a lot about bas as well. But the system is, start with your high number, break down into the little numbers, pick out the tools that you're, you're, you know, whether it's, and I've got, you know, a few of the tools that, you know, we've seen great success with is like, free reader seatings, like, finding people on LinkedIn. And so having a team member who is actually finding your ideal person on LinkedIn, on Instagram and messaging them one on one, saying, hey, hey, we've got this free book. Would you like, you know, a copy of it for free? And most of the time, like a free gift. Like, yeah, people are all for, you know, I know you're a fan of lumpy mail. Like, I love lumpy mail. And so, you know, that's, that's something that works really well. We're doing that with, like, Dan Heath right now that he just launched Reset. And so for him, like, that's already led to two additional. Like, one lady wrote back and was like, wow, I'm going to make this my like, book for the book. My book club of like 80 people. Right. It's like putting yourself a lot of the seating number that you, you pick is putting yourself in a position to get lucky. But like, I find that when it comes down to systems, a lot of the research is, can be outsourced. So like finding those people on LinkedIn, messaging those people on LinkedIn, like, you don't have the time to be there. Messaging these people one on one. And the great thing is, you know, like you mentioned, these people have businesses, if they have, you know, like you're essentially sending them like your business card at the same time. Like you're, you're, you know, it's a. Yeah, you gotta pay for shipping and handling or whatever. Even traditionally published authors will oftentimes be able to get a deal with their publisher for like six bucks. Always look at your author copy price if you're a traditionally published author.
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B
Well, I would also, I would also tell you those books cost them nothing. I always negotiated a thousand books that, you know, good that they gave me.
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That's great. Yeah, that's, I'm going to start using that. That's really smart. I didn't know you could, you could get away with that. Yeah. Having people who are doing the researching and the messaging. I think like anytime you're doing cold researching or cold messaging, like, that's a great opportunity to start bringing in an assistant for that stuff.
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B
Yeah. And that kind of thing can be had, you know, fairly inexpensively. I want to go back something you just touched on a little bit, putting yourself in a position to get lucky. I know you spent a lot of time in the book on that. You've even got a couple examples in the book. You want to, you want to share any Oprah moments.
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A
One of my favorite stories, and a lot of people don't know this is Robert Kiyosaki. Everyone's heard of Rich Dad, Poor dad, right. So what a lot of people don't know is that is how that book became the bestselling personal finance book of all time. And the way it was done was Robert called up his buddy who owned a car wash, and he said, hey, do you mind if I sell some copies of Rich Dad, Poor dad in your car wash? And his buddy was like, sure, whatever. There's. He is a bookstore of one at that point. There is no other, you know, like customers are looking over at, you know, at air fresheners to buy while they're, they're waiting for their car to get washed or they're using the unusable bathrooms at, you know, at car washes. And then they walk, you know, to the. Over the cashier and, wow, it's this personal finance book. Let me pick that up. I have a little time. Let me read it. And so one of the people who happened to walk through that car wash was one of the founders of Amway. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, whether Amway is a good company or what you think about, you know, Rich devos or anything, but the person picked this book up and loved it so much that he then took it to the other executives and he's like, this is a powerful tool for us to educate and empower our people. And so Amway started to fly Robert Kiyosaki all around the country to speak at events. And that book quickly became their bible. And he found his micro community. A lot of authors will find their micro community early on. Like, Mike McCallows did this with profit first. He was speaking on college campuses, and kids were taking home those books on spring break, and moms were picking up those books and reading and fixing their company's finances or the company business or the family business. And. And that was his following. And he never meant for the book to find. Find its way to those people. But, yeah, I mean, putting yourself in a position to get lucky is what a lot of that picking your number to begin with is doing.
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B
Yeah. And really, the seating probably, I mean, you have no idea who it's going to. I mean, maybe you targeted somebody, but you have no idea who. What their circle of influence is. And I think that's. It just becomes a numbers game at that point as you're, as you're kind of stressing, isn't it?
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A
And that's. And that's why, like, you know, people will be like, give away my book for free. And it's like, I. Well, first of all, like, a lot of people will put their book up for expensive on launch, and it's like, yeah, their mom buys it, their cousin buys it, their son buys it. But at the end of the day, like, are you actually solving for any of those people? So that's a big part. Are you actually solving the problem of any of those people? And so that's a big part of it, is your number has to consist of people whose problem you're actually solving for, because if you're not, then no one's going to get excited about your book.
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B
It was a book that I actually had the author on Here he's since passed away, but called Giftology by John Ruleman. He did what I thought was a really interesting thing. He. His book was published by a publisher, but he talked the publisher into letting him create a special edition of the book. It was hardbound, like kind of leather, you know, had, you know, gold lettering on it. And, you know, he sent out like, 4,000 of those. And it was in this really incredible package. And it just. People couldn't not talk about it. And it just really launched his book because he just got so much word of mouth before anybody really read it, just by the presentation. I.
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A
Packages can be a really fun way to do it. Brian Johnson, who recently really released Art and actually sent Giftology funny enough, like, two weeks ago to head out partnerships. And I was like this, like, do this. So it's funny that you bring that up, but the. Yeah. And he sent. If you're going to send. This is a little like, you know, people love these small little things. If you're going to do T shirts, John, make them the softest, most comfortable T shirt you've. You've ever worn so that people actually wear it. I have. So Brian Johnson sent me two of the literally softest shirts I own, and they've become my travel shirt. So I have walked through about, like, 30 airports wearing these shirts and been a walking billboard for this guy. So that's like, if you're gonna do, like, shirts for your book, make sure the title's on there and make them the softest that you could possibly make them.
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B
Love it. Love it. Well, Alex, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape marketing podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about before the bestseller?
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A
Yeah, I'm always up for a conversation. You know, we pride ourselves in, like, just having very honest conversations with authors and kind of like where they're at. We prefer to work with authors for years. So if we don't think, like, an engagement's gonna work out for more than, like, a small period of time, then, like, we'll tell you that. Yeah, reach out to us. Our website's getshelflife.com Feel free to shoot me an email if you have a question about book market, Alex, at getshelflife. Com. Yeah, check out our book before the bestseller on Amazon now.
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B
Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
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A
This is a bucket list item, John. Thanks for having me on.