But putting out a book is completely different.

It’s this thing that you’ve worked on for a long time. Everybody knows you’ve been working on it. And everybody is going to be asking how it’s doing.

Even if they don’t ask, your Amazon ranking is sitting there for all the world to see.

And it often seems that if it’s not selling in the first week, then you’re screwed. If the sales are still down in a month, then you might as well give up.

I have had so many conversations with authors that give up on their book and move on to the next project because it didn’t immediately start selling.

So today, I want to give you the two most important numbers you need to focus on during your book launch.

Book Launch Number #1: 365

I was at dinner a few months ago with Jay Papasan, author of the mega bestselling book The One Thing. This is a book that has sold well over a million copies.

I mentioned in passing that it usually takes a year for your book marketing efforts to really pay off.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” Jay said.

“Why’s that?” I responded.

“When The One Thing first came out in April of 2013,” Jay said, “we had a very successful launch. It sold well through the summer as my coauthor and I supported it with around 30 speaking events. But then after the holidays, sales started to slow down. Each week they’d drop a little more. But I stayed committed to the promotion. Month after month I was out doing interviews with anyone who would have me. I found fans on social and would offer to Skype into their office for a Q&A. I did everything I could and the sales kept slipping.”

Jay paused for a beat, then kept going.

“Until right around a year. All of a sudden, after a year of pushing the book, the sales started turned the other direction. They started going up a little each week. That continued for over three years before finally plateauing. And I’m still committed to promoting it every week.”

This is what you see in book promotion.

It usually takes a year of work for you to start seeing the fruits of your labor.

Books are strongly and slowly word-of-mouth driven.

Think about the books you’ve bought that have sat on your nightstand for six months before you finally read them and then tell someone about them? Think about the books you’ve put on your wishlist and then bought a year later? Or, six months after reading it, you finally tell your Facebook reading group about it.

Do not give up on marketing your book for at least a year — 365 days.

That is how long it takes to truly see your efforts pay off. If you stop before then, you’ll never get to see the true potential of your book.

Book Launch Number #2: 10,000

“The goal is 10,000,” Shawn said. “You have to get 10,000 people to read your book before you’re done.”

Shawn Coyne, the author of The Story Grid and veteran editor of 25+ years experience in and out of traditional publishing was giving me this advice based editing and publishing hundreds of books.

He had a lot of interesting math to back this up, but the point is this…

If your book is only ever read by 3000 people, that’s not enough to get over the tipping point. Even if it’s an amazing book, that won’t give it enough infecting power to keep spreading.

In Shawn’s mind, his goal as the publisher is to get 10,000 people to read the book and give it a chance. Once that has happened, you get to find out if the book is good enough to stand on its own.

However, if you give up before this point, you never get to find out if the book could have made it.

The Book Launch Trajectory

I like to picture an actual rocket launch when I’m talking about these two numbers.

The amazing thing about books is, once they have enough readers, they continue to sell on their own with little to no marketing for years and years. My book, Your First 1000 Copies still keeps selling well even though I haven’t actively marketed it in almost five years. Many of the books I’ve seen that launch modestly, but were able to sell 10,000 copies over the first 1-2 years, have kept selling more year-on-year with no extra marketing effort.

Books have a lasting power that other media doesn’t have.

Your job is to get your book into orbit!

That place where it just keeps going with no extra effort on your part.

That is where these two book launch numbers come into play.

Your focus shouldn’t be on the first week of sales, or even the first month.

Your goal is a) how do I keep promoting my book for a year so that I can b) get at least 10,000 people to give my book a try.

Once you’ve done that, you can hold up your hands, say a prayer to the muse and let fate take your book where it needs to go.

What to do next?

I often teach a training called The 10 Marketing Secrets of Bestselling Authors.

In this training, I teach the principles I’ve learned from working with dozens of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers over the last decade.

Here’s a couple of the principles:

1. Promote Influencers

Most authors make the mistake of approaching influencers by asking for something first. Sometimes this makes sense, but if you can start out by being helpful, it’s always a better place.

Many of the authors I’ve worked with have diligently used their platform to promote other authors. They review their books, let them guest post, have them on their podcast, etc.

When you start by helping influencers first, they are more likely to help you market your books in the future.

2. Two Things a Week

The goal isn’t to do a huge blitz of marketing all at once. This isn’t usually effective for authors and is extremely hard to maintain long-term. I’ve seen so many authors get burned out on marketing because they try to do everything at once.

Instead, play the long game.

Start doing two things every week to promote your book. If you do two things a week, that’s a 104 things a year. You’ll see things start to add up and have an impact.

Want to learn the rest?

This coming Monday I'm teaching my entire Book Launch Checklist.

Click here to grab your spot.

It’s easier to sell someone a book than to get them to read it.

While in the short term, selling books is helpful — you make some money, your Amazon ranking goes up — if nobody reads the book, it creates a long-term problem.

You can only market so much.

If you do everything on this website and in my paid programs to market your book, you will sell a lot of copies and get it out into the world… but it will only make it so far.

You don’t have the time or money to invest in continuing to push the book to hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

At some point, the readers have to take over.

My friends and business partner, Shawn Coyne, has been in the publishing industry for 30 years. He’s been involved with the publishing of many hundreds of books and even written a New York Times bestseller of his own.

Several years ago he wrote a post titled The 10,000 Reader Rule.

In it he says:

Exposing 10,000 people who care about the arena of your book gives you a chance that enough of them will actually read it and then recommend it to someone else. That word of mouth will keep the book alive from one year to the next.

Word of mouth is the only way a book eventually breaks out and keeps selling.

The Goal: Get 10,000 people to give your book a try.

It’s like a rocket ship.

If you give up on your book after it’s only been read by 5,000 people, your book never makes it out of the atmosphere. It’s going to crash every time.

But if you keep doing the work to get your book in front of 10,000 people, it makes it into orbit. From there you find out if it can fly on its own.

Should you give your book away?

I get this question a lot.

My answer is a question:

“Does it get you more readers?”

If you put book up perm-free on Amazon or download on your website will probably turn into Kindle-stuffing (people loading up their devices with free and cheap books that they never read).

Instead, if you can give your book away in a form that ensures they will actually read it… now that can be something!

Take a look at the promotion I am running for The Sand Sea.

We are getting two things in return for a free copy of the book:

1. An email address. Building an email list is the most important thing you can do as an author. This allows us to follow up with the reader.
2. Their agreement to read and review the book. This will greatly increase the likelihood that the person will both read the book and leave a review. I’ve tested it.

Should you give your book away?

Our goal as authors is to get 10,000 people to give our book a try. We want them to read the first page.

You never want to randomly give your book away to strangers.

However, if giving your book away is part of a bigger plan to get people to read the book, then I say YES, do it.

They’ve tried blogging or set up a Twitter profile, but haven’t really gained any serious following. They end up getting frustrated and feel like marketing is just a big waste of time.

The answer to the audience building question is simple, but not easy. You can’t wait for people to find your website, your instagram feed, or even your podcast. You’ve got out and find them. That’s called outreach.

Tim defines outreach as moving people from not knowing you exist to knowing you exist. 

The basic idea is to get yourself in front of an audience that someone else (called an influencer) has already built, wow them with your content, and invite them over to your email list.

Outreach is by far the most important marketing activity you can do, but outreach is a complicated topic. As the Dude from The Big Lebowski would say: lotta ins, lotta outs. 

And lots of stuff that can go wrong while you’re learning the ropes.

(I like to break down Outreach into seven manageable steps, you can read details of each step in this post.)

Sometimes clients come to me and tell me they’ve tried outreach in the past, and it hasn’t worked for them. When we dig deeper, we uncover some very fixable mistakes and boom, now they’re getting more yeses from influencers and better results from their outreach.

Here are the most common outreach mistakes I see and how to fix them.

Mindset mistake: Playing small

Let’s assume you already got over the biggest mindset hurdle, which is that you’re too scared to do any outreach at all.  The next mistake to look out for is playing small. You psych yourself up into sending ONE pitch. You never hear back. So you give up.

Outreach is a skill you develop by practicing it. And, it’s something of a numbers game. 

Just as we plant more seeds in the garden than we strictly need to account for those that don’t germinate, so too with our outreach efforts. You’ve got to commit to sending a decent volume of pitches so you can get a fair number of influencers to say yes. 

If you’re writing great pitches to the right influencers for your book, it’s realistic to expect a conversion rate of right around 30% or even better. I have a student with a memoir in my Outreach Intensive group right now and she’s leading the pack with 31 pitches sent and nine yeses in just a month and half of pitching. And that’s in the midst of a global pandemic. 

There are a few people in my current group who haven’t gotten any yeses. They are the same people who haven’t sent any pitches.

How to fix it: Commit to sending a good number of pitches within a certain timeframe. For students in my Outreach Intensive, I ask them to send a minimum of 25 pitches in the course of an 8-week program.

Aiming mistake: Not enough research

Many authors get overwhelmed at the thought of how to find influencers and only reach for the obvious. This is often because they haven’t given enough thought to their ideal readers. 

Knowing who your ideal reader is will lead you to your ideal influencers. If you define your reader as “women between the ages of 35-65” you’re thinking way too broadly and will struggle to come up with a concrete list of influencers. 

If you’re not targeting the right influencers for your ideal reader, you’re not going to get as many yeses. 

How to fix it: If instead you say, “a 43 year-old woman named Sue who lives in Portland, runs her own business, is obsessed with mindset, and has two kids and 5 chickens.” Now you can start looking at podcasts for women entrepreneurs, parents, meditators and urban chicken raisers. Take the time to develop an ideal reader persona, it will go a long way to guiding your outreach research.

Ask mistake: A terrible pitch

Here’s where the biggest mistakes with the most impact happen. Influencers are often inundated with pitches—and most of them are crap. They’re blanket press releases, or boilerplate emails riddled with poor grammar and include asks that are completely inappropriate for their audience, or just plain spam. 

How to fix it: Your ask needs to be super specific and customized for each influencer. I have a bit of an unfair advantage here, as I have a background as a freelance writer. If I wanted to publish an article with a magazine or a major website, I had to send a tightly targeted pitch that showcased not only my story idea, but also why that story would work for their audience and why I was just the person to write it. 

The exact same principles apply here. You have to have a very good sense of who you’re pitching and what type of content they are serving up to their audience so you can pitch them something that’s such a perfect fit and make the case for why you’re the author to do it. You want to craft a pitch that makes it no-brainer for them to say yes.

One of my clients applied the principles of a good, customized pitch and sent me this message: “This shit works!” She’d just gotten a “yes” from an influencer who thanked her for writing such a personalized pitch. This influencer wrote: “I’m impressed. You should see the onslaught of crap, AI-robotic PR emails I get for new books/authors. This was refreshing.”

Spending some time writing a good ask is the difference between being ignored and being accepted.

Delivery mistake: No call to action

Some authors go to all the trouble of doing great outreach, get yeses, but then don’t give any thought to how to convert the influencer’s audience into fans when they’ve got the chance. At the end of the article or interview, they fumble the opportunity they’ve worked so hard for. 

How to fix: Make sure you come up with a clear call to action for every piece of outreach you do and practice it. 

Your default call to action, one that’s always a smart choice, should be inviting people to get a sign up incentive (like a free story or checklist) by joining your mailing list. If you’re in the midst of a book launch, you can of course point them to buy your book, but I’d put the mailing list offer in there too. If you can get someone on your list, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to sell your book, and your next book and the book after that.

Mistakes mean you’re in the game — keep playing!

Yes, there are lots of ways to biff up outreach. It’s something that takes a bit of practice to get all the pieces right. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them instead of using them as an excuse to quit. Making mistakes means that you’re in the game and it’s staying in the game that matters.  

I had DECIDED.

This time I was going to read the entire book, build the system, and stick with it.

I picked up my copy of Getting Things Done, managed to slog my way through the entire manuscript, set up my system of inboxes, check-ins, lists, etc and practiced it religiously for…

Less than a week.

Can you relate to this?

Over the years, I’ve tried all the things. I’m read tons of time management books, implemented the Checklist Manifesto, signed up for the software…

And it all, always quickly fell apart.

Typical productivity systems do not work for writers.

Especially writers who also have to do stuff like marketing, hold down a real job, etc.

There are a few reasons for this.

1. We need space, not widgets and todos

Most productivity systems are focused on breaking big projects, into smaller tasks, into specific todos.

But that’s now how writing works.

It’s not about organizing every moment of every day to get the most stuff done.

We have to create space in our days that is specifically dedicated to not doing anything except for being creative.

If we over-organize our days, it will kill our creativity.

2. We need freedom, not constraints

If you require us to show up every Friday to do a 30-minute inbox clearing, it’s never going to happen. In fact, many of us will not do it simply because we don’t want the constraint of having to do it. #rebel

A productivity system for writers must not fail if we neglect it for a period of time. If we don’t organize or check-in for a few days (or weeks) it needs to give us that freedom to pick up where we left off.

3. We need to address emotions, not rely on logic

Much of the reason our writing doesn’t get done is because of fear. Or what Steven Pressfield coined in his book The War of Art, Resistance.

You can’t todo list fear. You can’t inbox fear. You can’t app your way out of fear.

If you are going to have a productivity system for writers, it must address fear and other emotions that come up when facing the blank page.

Too many productivity systems rely on cold, hard logic to get things done, and writing doesn’t work that way.

4. We need simplicity, not complexity

If it takes 352 pages to explain your system, it’s not going to work.

Hell, if it takes more than a dozen pages, it’s probably too complicated.

Again, this isn’t about over-organizing a million things we have to get done. It’s about creating a life that helps us get our writing done.

That’s it.

—

So what does this look like?

First, what are we solving for?

What is the Goal for a Writer Productivity System?

Too many times we start with this vague, “I need to get more stuff done” goal, but we don’t really know what that will look like.

Here is the question we should be asking:

How do you organize a creative life that allows you to produce and ship great work while staying sane, sober, free?

Every writing productivity question should be focused on answering this question.

Over the last 11+ years of trying out all the things, I ended up developing a system that works very well across personality types and helps writers make real progress.

5 Steps to the Perfect Writer Productivity System

Here are the five steps, in order, that every writer needs to go through.

1. Remove the Unessential

Where are the areas in your life that you are wasting time with no benefit? How do we remove this stuff so that it leaves more room for your writing?

2. Systematize and Automate the Essential

Even if we cut out some of the Netflix binging and Instagram scrolling, there is still a lot of stuff in our life that is essential but still isn’t our writing. We have to pay bills, care for our family, eat dinner, etc.

How do we make sure this stuff takes less time and mental energy?

3. Overcome Fear

We all tell ourselves that if we had more time we’d get so much more writing done. But then, if we figure out how to give ourselves more time, usually we don’t actually get more writing done.

Because the first thing that fills that new writing space isn’t writing, it’s fear.

We have to deal with the fear.

4. Do the Work

Once we get a handle on fear, we need a plan for how we are going to get the writing done. When is it going to happen? How much are we going to write each day? How do we know we “did it” today?

5. Ship the Work

Finally, it’s not just about writing our words, it’s about putting our work out into the world. This is where many writers get stuck.

We have to have a plan of how our writing starts making it out to actual readers.

—

How can you build this system for yourself?

Spend some time thinking through how you can tackle each of these five steps.

Building a system to ensure you get your writing done is as important as the writing itself!

Normal life is suspended. Many people feel discombobulated and anxious. We don’t know what’s coming. (This is actually always true, we’re just not usually as aware of it.) 

Yes, it can be sad and frightening to watch this crisis unfold. 

But, given the dualistic nature of our existence, much good can come of our current situation. 

For example, many people will learn to properly wash their hands, Italians will teach us all the value of group sing-alongs from balconies, and you, dear writer, may be able to use the time to make serious progress on connecting with a wider audience.

This is not selfish! We need your stories more than ever—to make sense of our surroundings, expose injustice, or to just escape for a few hours.

And consider, writers have always been opportunistic AF. Whenever something bad happens, it only takes a few minutes for us to fantasize about turning it into fodder for our writing. 

The good news is; sharing our work as widely as possible has the power to benefit the world. This is our MOMENT. 

And to seize the moment, we need to get out there (figuratively, of course) and do some outreach.

Influencer outreach is where the marketing magic happens.

Tim defines outreach as moving people from not knowing you exist to knowing you exist. You’ve got to get in front of people who've never heard of you, but would probably enjoy your book. 

In this time where we need meaningful connection more than ever, it’s up to you to do  the reaching out. You can't wait around for your book to be found. (Well, you can, but you shouldn't expect to move many copies that way.) Without outreach, your audience will grow at a snail’s pace. Therefore, outreach is where authors should be putting 80-90% percent of their marketing energy. 

But outreach is a pretty big topic. To help break it down, I've created a 7-step outline for all the components you need to do outreach successfully.  

7 Steps to Outreach Success

Step 1: Get Your Mind Right.
Outreach is the scariest part of book marketing. It’s pretty certain that in the course of your outreach efforts, you’ll be ignored and rejected. But outreach also delivers a high return on your investment of time and energy. 

You've got to deal with your own fears before (and during) walking this path. Without tackling your mindset as your first step, you may inadvertently sabotage your own efforts either by giving up when things get scary, or coming from a needy, desperate place that will turn off potential readers. 

Keys to a good outreach mindset:

• Be willing to be uncomfortable at some points of the process.
• As Tim says, assume the best of people who ignore or reject you. You don’t know what’s behind their decision, so don’t attribute it to some dark motive.
• Remember that virtuous actions have virtuous results. Come from a place of wanting to add value to the world with your book.

For more on mindset, you can read my post on changing the story you tell yourself about marketing. 

Step 2: Set Clear Goals
Too many of us get sloppy about goal setting. We may be game to try some outreach, but we don’t want to quantify it, because we don’t want to set a number we don’t end up hitting and feel like a failure. By the result of not setting goals is not really getting anywhere.

I encourage my clients to set big, outlandish goals as well as smaller actionable goals that can help them get to the bigger goals. Your big goal might be hitting a NYT or WSJ bestseller list, but you aren’t going to hit them without setting smaller outreach goals.

Get clear on the amount of outreach you plan to do, and your timeline for doing it so you don't stall out. In my outreach intensive group coaching program, I ask my authors to create a list of 50+ influencers, and send 25+ pitches over the course of eight weeks. Then I recommend plugging time into a calendar to achieve specific goals. What I’ve seen with my clients is that it’s far more effective for them to add two hours to their calendar to “add 15 influencers to spreadsheet” or “write four pitches” than it is to classify that time as simply “outreach activities.” If you're too vague, your directionless brain will wander off to check Twitter.

Once you’ve set your goals, share them and invite people to keep you accountable. 

Step 3: Take Aim
You shouldn't be flailing around trying to tell EVERYONE about your book. You need to target your ideal readers, which means pausing to figure out your reader persona. 

I really can’t emphasize enough what a valuable exercise this is, and too many authors skip it and just create their outreach plan based on a vague set of demographics. A “college educated woman age 35-65” is not nearly specific enough. Knowing exactly the type of person who should read your book will help you focus your outreach efforts, find the right influencers and make decisions about what content to create for them. 

Step 4: Research
Now that you know the type of audience you're looking for, it's time to figure out how to find them. This means doing the unglamorous work of scouring the internet to figure out where your target readers congregate and who the right influencers are. An “influencer” is simply someone who has built trust with an audience and can impact their book buying decisions. 

When you first start your research, you’re likely to feel like you’re stumbling around a bit. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It’s definitely jumping down a rabbit hole, but with a specific purpose. 

You are looking for influencers who've built a tribe of people who’d benefit from what you have to say. Start by googling keywords related to your book and coupling them with “podcast” or “blog.” (Obviously, for now we need to focus on digital outreach, not in-person events.) For example, let’s say you want to focus your outreach on podcasts and let's say your book is a memoir about raising goats off the grid. You’d want to google things like “off the grid podcasts” or “urban farming podcasts.” Then you’ll explore the search results and use a spreadsheet to keep track of possibilities that need further exploration. 

Make sure whomever you’re thinking of pitching is still actively creating content (when’s the last time they published an episode?) and that the audience size is worth your time. And there’s no “right” or “wrong” audience size. It’s totally up to you. Many authors prefer to start with influencers who have smaller audiences so they can get comfortable with outreach without the high stakes of being on Super Soul Sunday. Save Oprah for later.

Another approach to this research is to interview one of your actual readers who match your ideal reader persona and find out who they consider influencers, then add them to your list. 

Step 5: Cultivate
Once you know some influencers for your ideal reader, it's time to start cultivating a relationship with them. Ideally, when you reach out to an influencer for help promoting your book, it shouldn't be the first time they've ever heard from you.

Follow them on social media and start liking, commenting and sharing their content. Or send them an email thanking them for what they do or linking them something they may find interesting without making an ask. Use your empathy skills. Figure out what would be helpful to them and then do that thing. You’ll get on their radar as someone who’s helpful and friendly.

Step 6: Ask & Follow-up
To maximize your chances of success, it's important to create a win-win opportunity for both you and the influencer. Influencers need great content to keep their status as influencers. You can help with that. This means customizing each pitch to make sure it's easy for the influencer to say yes. 

Not only should your pitch be a win-win, it should be very specific and highlight the fact that you’re familiar with their work and have given your possible contribution some serious thought. 

It’s a mistake to offer something like “I’d love to come on your podcast and talk about my book.” Nobody cares about your book until you tell them WHY they should. It’s much better to offer specific entertainment, such as: “I’d love to come on the Urban Farming podcast to tell the story of how Gertie the nanny goat saved my life during a thunderstorm.” Or specific information, such as “I’d love to come on the Urban Farming podcast and share with your audience the top five mistake people new to raising goats make.” Of course, you’ll be mentioning your book in the course of all of this, but that’s not what will drive people to read or listen.

Your pitch, while customized for each influencer, can use the following template:

Hi [influencer],

My name is [your name] and I’m the author of [book title] which [social proof such as awards, positive reviews, number of copies sold*.]

I’m a fan of [name of their podcast, website, social account, etc] and particularly enjoyed [example of their work and a specific reason it appealed to you].

I noticed you sometimes have guests on your [ podcast, website, etc]. If you think it would be a good match for your audience, I’d love to [specific pitch, tell them exactly what you’d like to talk about or write about based on your research of what would benefit their audience.] [Explain why you’d be a great person to do this due to your background or the content of your book.]  

Thanks for your consideration. Let me know what you think.  (If you definitely want me on, you can use this link to book a time: [link to booking app].)

Best, 

[your name]

(* If you don’t have anything like this, you can simply say it’s a book that helps people do something or would appeal to a certain type of person because of a certain factor)

Once you send the pitch, if you don't hear back after a few weeks, go ahead and follow-up. It's quicker to follow-up on an ignored pitch than it is to research and write a new one. (But only follow-up once so you don't make a nuisance of yourself. You want a reputation for being awesome, not being a pest.)

Step 7: Deliver
Once you get a yes, (and you will if you consistently do your research and write killer pitches!) you need to deliver the goods. Whatever you've agreed to provide the influencer, be it a blog post, a podcast interview, a joint giveaway or whatever, you need to go in prepared, professional, ready to delight your influencer's audience and make an elevator pitch that invites them to your email list.

Rinse and repeat those seven steps for the rest of your career — or until you have the audience size you want.

In the process, you’ll not only sell more books, you’ll also build meaningful relationships that will help you feel connected and make a difference when the world seems upside down.

I’ve got all this time, what should I do with it?

Is it rude to try to market right now?

Am I going to annoy people if I do outreach?

In this article, I’m going to walk you through do’s and don’ts of how to put a book marketing silver lining around this world crisis.

You Know What Most People Are Doing… Nothing

Usually, when you’re trying to promote something, you’re competing with thousands of other little unknown distractions in people’s lives. However now, for the first time, you know what everybody is thinking about and what most people are doing.

While, yes, this outbreak is affecting people's lives and keeping them busy. The sick, health care providers and others are very busy, most people are social distancing and sitting at home with not a lot going on.

Knowing that is powerful.

So how can you make progress towards your book marketing goals during this time?

Follow these rules…

Rules for Book Marketing During COVID-19

Here are the rules I’ve come up with to grow your platform and sell more books while being respectful of the crisis going on in the world.

1. Do a lot of outreach

If you’ve ever wanted to connect with an influencer, now is the time to do it. If you’ve wanted to interview someone for your podcast or blog, they probably have time now. If they have ignored you in the past, try again now. If you want to be a guest on a podcast or write a guest post for a blog, reach out.

There are two hard things about outreach:

1. It’s time-consuming.
2. People are busy and unresponsive.

Well, during this pandemic:

1. You have time on your hands.
2. People are way less busy.

Use this opportunity to reach out to people you’ve always wanted to connect with.

2. Acknowledge But Don’t Apologize

On the 17th I got an email from my mortgage broker wishing me a happy St. Patrick’s Day. It had zero mention of the current pandemic.

It was weird.

I logically know this was an automated email setup months ago, but it was still weird. All it needed was one sentence at the beginning acknowledging what was going on but still wishing me a happy holiday and it would have been fine.

In everything you do — sending email promotions, outreach, etc — give simple acknowledgment at the beginning and then move on with what you are doing. Don’t apologize (you’re not doing anything wrong) but don’t try to ignore the elephant in our collective room.

3. Figure Out a Win-Win

I talk about this all the time. There is always a way to make your marketing a win-win.

Even when you are directly asking people to buy your book, it’s a win-win. They get this amazing story and knowledge for a few bucks. That’s a great deal for both of you!

In this case, how can you tie your marketing into what is going on? Here are a few ideas:

1. Start a social distancing book club with people (that includes your book). You can have daily/weekly meetings on Zoom or Skype to discuss. This will give isolated people a way to connect.
2. Run a “boredom promotion” where people can get your books at a discount.
3. Partner with other authors to promote a box set of all of your books.

People are feeling isolated, stir-crazy, and bored. How can you help them with one or more of those problems while selling some books?

4. Start Something New

Have you been putting off starting your blog or podcast? Have you been wanting to get ahead on your email newsletters?

Now is the time to start something new.

If you’ve wanted to start an interview-based podcast, now is a good time to get a bunch of guests (see point #1 above) and you can bank a lot of episodes so you can start off ahead.

Plus, if you’ve always been overwhelmed by how to start something new, now you have the time to dig in and figure it out!

—

A few days ago I was really freaking out about COVID-19.

While I’m not too concerned about the health aspects, I was spiraling about money and book sales and being cooped up in my house for weeks or, potentially, months.

So, as I do, I started journaling about it and realized I could look at this as an opportunity.

Yes, I’m cooped up inside, but that means I have time to do things I’ve been putting off.

Yes, everybody is dealing with COVID-19, but if I really believe my definition of marketing — creating long-lasting connections with people and being relentlessly helpful — then now, more than ever, I need to focus on marketing.

Your books are here to help people. You are here to help people.

We need that now more than ever.

Don’t be afraid to step out and work on your author platform and book marketing during COVID-19. You have the time to learn it and people will be open to it.

Where To Start

Here are two resources to get you started:

• Author Platform 101 Program – This is the start-to-finish walkthrough on setting up your author platform and beginning book marketing. It also includes monthly Q&As with me to get your questions answered.
• How to Build an Author Website in 1-hour – Still don't have your author website setup? In this free training I walk you through exactly how to do it.

A fiction author wants to start a platform. Let's say he's a scifi author. So he sets up a blog and email list. He starts writing about the craft of writing. He discusses creating the characters, editing, second drafts, and so on.

It's pretty exciting. He starts building a readership. His email list grows. People leave comments. Everything is going great.

Then it comes time to launch his next novel.

He follows all the advice about running a successful launch and then…

[crickets]

The book barely sells.

What went wrong?

The author built the wrong audience.

In the above case, the author has built a following of other writers — NOT of sci-fi readers.

This is the same problem I had with the launch of my first novel, The Threshing.

I have a big 50,000+ person email list here at booklaunch.com.

However, I've built that email list around book marketing… not young adult dystopian novels.

So when I promote my book marketing books and programs, they sell great!

But when I launch my novel to the email list, I sell 200 copies.

200 copies!!!

With 50,000 subscribers.

What to do?

Just starting? Build the right audience.

If you're just starting out, the goal isn't just to build a platform. It's to build a platform with fans that will actually buy your book. 

The process is this:

1. Identify your ideal reader(s).
2. Find places where they congregate online and in-person.
3. Create content that will attract them to your platform.

If you skip step #1, you're going to build a platform for a random set of people who are not going to buy your books.

[I specifically built Author Platform 101 to help you with this problem.]

Doing it wrong? Pivot or Branch.

Let's say you've been building your audience and you realize you've been doing it wrong. Or, you're like me, you built one audience for a specific reason, but now you're doing something new.

You have two options.

Option 1: Pivot

Keep the same platform, just change it to the right topic to attract the right people. Don't try to do this gradually. Send out an email, post it on your blog, etc. Announce that you were talking about topic X and now you're focusing on topic Y, then just do it.

You'll have some people unsubscribe or stop paying attention, but it's fine. They weren't going to buy your books anyway.

If your platform is small and relatively new, I recommend this option.

Option 2: Branch into Something New

If you've built a successful platform around a topic that is providing income and sales for your other books, there is no point changing everything. For instance, I'm not shutting down this website or changing it completely over because I am doing different stuff with my writing.

Instead, I've started a new platform at runningdownadream.com. It's small and just starting out, but it gives me a place to promote my projects that aren't book marketing without distracting or splintering this platform.

If you have an established platform on a topic but are working on an unrelated project, I recommend this option.

Dont waste your time.

If you're going to go through all the work to build a successful author platform, make sure you are focused on attracting people that will actually buy the books you are writing.

If you're not sure where to start, I highly recommend my Author Platform 101 program.

In my book Your First 1000 Copies, I outline a proven three-part framework that any author can use to build their platform, connect with readers, and sell more books:

1. Permission – Communicate with your fans in a way that gets their attention and drives them to action.
2. Content – Offer free content and spread it widely and freely.
3. Outreach – Move people from not knowing you exist to knowing you exist.

If you can accomplish these three interconnected levels, you will build a thriving author platform full of fans excited to buy your next book.

But so many things can distract us and get in our way while we're on the road to building our platform. While some of those things are important, most aren’t.

So often, we tell ourselves a task is important, just so we can dodge the real, hard work of what we really need to be doing.

Doing the Right Thing

A while back, an author wrote to me and asked if he should overhaul his website with a new WordPress theme he had found.

I took a look at the website. While it wasn’t the most gorgeous site I’ve ever seen, it was getting the job done. It had an email signup, his books were displayed prominently, he had an author bio and was offering free content.

My question to him: “How much traffic are you getting to your website?”

Another author wrote to ask if she should start buying Facebook ads to get more people to “Like” her Facebook author page.

First, I had her read my post on the myths of social media.

Then I asked, “How many authors have you reached out to in order to create mutually supportive relationships?”

Then there was the author who was agonizing over what he should give away to new website visitors, so they’d sign up for his email list. He kept changing his free ebook—rewriting the hook, uploading new versions, etc.

When he asked me what to do, I asked, “How many podcasts have you pitched, to have you on as a guest?”

There are always tons of things you can spend your time on, but almost all of them – 99.9 percent – are a complete waste of your time.

Creating Long-Term Connections

Another question I received recently:

“It seems like nothing will work without Outreach. So why do you talk so much about Permission and Content first, when none of it matters if new people aren’t finding you?”

Here’s why . . .

Think of your website as a bucket.

For most authors, the bottom of that bucket is full of holes.

People come to your website, check out your books or read a blog post, then immediately leave.

They flow into your bucket all right — but then they drop right out of the bottom.

That’s because you’ve created no connection with them, no way to stay in contact long-term.

Once you figure out how to plug those holes in your bucket, things will start changing for you.

If you make the #1 goal of your website getting people on your email list (Permission) by prominently displaying email signups that include a great offer, you’ll start getting those visitors to sign up.

That gives you long-term access to communicate with them.

Then once your website is set up to get people on your email list, you start putting up compelling Content that gives people something to interact with.

A reason to come to the site in the first place.

You’ll start seeing even more of your site visitors signing up for your email list.

Only then is Outreach useful.

If you do Outreach before plugging the holes of Permission and Content, you’re just pouring more people into a bucket with holes. They’ll drop out of the bottom, and you’ll never see them again!

However, once you have plugged the holes in your website . . . leave it alone!

And focus on Outreach.

Focus on finding groups of people that don’t know you exist and introduce yourself to them.

Solving Obscurity With Outreach

At this point in your platform-building, your #1 problem is Obscurity.

If nobody knows you exist, it’s going to be really hard to sell books.

You could have the most gorgeous, engaging website that gets 100 percent of the people who visit to gladly give you both permission to stay in contact with them AND buy a copy of every book you’ve ever written.

But if nobody knows you exist, it will all be for naught.

Here’s why . . .

Once you have your Permission and Content set up and working – even if it’s not the absolute best it could be – it’s time to move on to Outreach.

Outreach is the scary part. It’s the most ambiguous part.

It’s the part that requires us to reach out and face rejection.

So when it comes time to do it, we often shrink back and distract ourselves with things that aren’t important — like fiddling with our website, fixing the header on our Facebook page, or reading about successful social media marketing.

Here’s the deal — the plan that works, and that will save you months of wasted effort:

1. Get an email list set up with an email service provider, and display your email signup prominently on your website.
2. Regularly put out compelling free content on your website. Then, once that's done:
3. Spend the rest of your time on Outreach and solving your obscurity problem.

Then be honest with yourself, and only do the kinds of Outreach that may actually move the needle.

Doing What Matters

I’ve been working with a friend of mine as he’s been getting his platform off the ground. We’re talking starting from zero.

The first part was pretty straightforward.

He wrote out a series of helpful emails that people get when they sign up for his email list.

Then he used a WordPress theme to get his website up, put an easy-to-spot email signup on it, and started blogging regularly.

While this work wasn’t always easy, it was crystal clear in terms of what needed to be done.

Digging a 50-foot ditch isn’t easy, but how you go about it is pretty straightforward.

And then he hit Outreach. The hard, ambiguous part.

He struggled, pressed into the fear, tried several different things.

He despaired a few times. He wanted to quit.

His first 45 subscribers came in slowly.

Then last week, one of the dozen or so things he’d been trying finally started to work.

Within a couple of days, he’d popped more than 100 new subscribers. Now he’s following up on that by offering more free content, to drive that number even higher.

I’ve seen this pattern before. He’ll be at 500 subscribers within a couple of months.

It takes work. It takes trying and failing. But the reward is worth it.

The end result? Direct connection to a few hundred and then thousands of fans, who aren’t just visiting your website once or twice.

They’re excited to buy your next book.

Most writers I talk to haven’t created a reader persona for one of two reasons.

Either they don’t understand the benefits of creating one, or they’re experiencing Resistance (with a capital R) about marketing in general.

Allow me to persuade you that creating a reader persona is an activity that can unlock your marketing like almost no other.

But first, let’s back up a bit and explain what I mean when I talk about an ideal reader persona.

It’s basically a character sketch of a person who will be absolutely delighted with your work from the minute they read the jacket copy. 

Quite simply, it’s the imaginary version of a real person who was meant — dare I say, destined — to find your book.

Do you really need a reader persona?

As writers, we have a lot on our plate. Maybe we’re writing a new manuscript, revising an old one, working a day job and raising kids all at the same time. The thought of sitting down to dabble in what may seem like marketing busy work isn’t that appealing. 

Can you skip creating a reader persona? Yes. You’re a grown-up. You can pass on any tasks you don’t want to do, including paying your taxes and feeding your dog. 

But there are consequences for choosing not to do something. 

In the case of creating a reader persona, deciding to skip it can have the following consequences:

• Feeling stuck. You won’t know where to go next with your marketing and therefore won’t do much of anything.
• Wasting time. You’ll spend hours trying to reach people who aren’t interested in your book.
• Wasting money. You may dump money on ads or promotions that aren’t targeted correctly.
• Watered down marketing that doesn’t speak to anyone. If you’re trying to appeal to everyone instead of to your ideal reader, chances are your marketing isn’t going to be very interesting to anyone. 
• Frustration over lack of sales. Without a clear idea of your target audience, it’s likely that looking at your monthly numbers puts a knot in your stomach.

The magic of knowing who you’re looking for

Knowing exactly the type of person who should read your book will help you make key decisions and save you some serious time. 

Suddenly, you know where to look, what language to use and what content to deliver.  

Once you have a clear picture of your ideal reader, your marketing can almost magically coalesce around what that reader cares about, and therefore it’s much more likely to catch and hold their attention.

“But, my book is for EVERYONE!”

When we resist creating a reader persona, we often do it because our hope is that our book will appeal to everyone and we don’t want to limit ourselves. 

Your book isn’t for everyone. Truly. I don’t know the first thing about your book, but I do know that it’s not for everyone. 

How do I know that? Because one-quarter of U.S. adults surveyed last year hadn’t read even one book in the past twelve months.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has sold upwards of 107 million copies. I think we’d all be happy with that sales figure.

There are 327 million people in the US and 7.5 billion people in the world.

Harry Potter is not for everyone. Your book is not for everyone. Don’t try to market to everyone.

Creating an ideal reader isn’t about leaving people out. It’s creating an opportunity to saturate a core audience with a message that delights them so they will rave about your book and help it spread.

Minimum viable audience

The goal is to find what bestselling author and marketer Seth Godin calls your minimum viable audience—the bare minimum of people who will LOVE your book and help it succeed.

If you look at Harry Potter, that series went supernova before the internet had really even taken off. How? Booksellers liked it and they spread the word. That book was hand-sold to a certain kind of kid. Those kids went nuts over it and that led to phenomenal success.

Let’s look at another example. Steven Pressfield wrote a little book called The War of Art.   

That book has sold 500,000 copies. 

It was aimed at writers. Writers were the minimum viable audience. 

Writers ate it up and spread the word to other creative types and then to entrepreneurs and other groups. 

You can start with one minimum viable audience and then move to another and another. But few authors can try to hit multiple audiences at once and get any traction. 

Let’s talk about Resistance for a second

Since we just talked about Steven Pressfield, who coined the term Resistance (with a capital R) to explain the sort of dark inner force of self-sabotage writers and artists so face, now’s a good time to talk about how to deal with it in this marketing context.

There can be lots of reasons for Resistance to marketing. Sometimes we have a bad definition of marketing—we define it by its worst examples—so we decide we don’t want to sully ourselves.

But really, when it comes down to it, I see that many writers think that if they don’t try very hard to market their book, they have a ready excuse as to why it’s not selling. 

Many people feel like it’s better to not try than to try and fail. This is because we don’t want to feel the feelings that come along with failure, so we think we’ll avoid the feelings by not doing the thing.

BUT, if we’re willing to feel any feeling, there’s no limit to what we can do.

Resistance is completely disabled when we agree ahead of time to be willing to feel anything that comes up and act anyway.

Look at some of the most successful authors—they’re willing to feel rejection, they’re willing to tolerate haters, they’re willing to do interviews and put themselves out there. They still feel the discomfort and the resistance, but it doesn’t rule their actions. 

They’re willing to feel things in order to get where they want to go.

So, let’s keep that in mind as we look at how to create and use a reader persona. Let’s be willing to feel any feeling as we try to fulfill our potential as writers by finding our ideal readers. (For more help with author mindset, read this post.)

The research phase

Seth Godin tells us the #1 question we have to answer is in our marketing is: “Who’s it for?” 

This is the whole idea behind reader personas. But how do we figure that out?

Using comp titles

We can start by answering the following questions:

• What’s your genre?
• What are some comp titles?
• How is your book different?

Let’s answer those questions for the two books we’ve talked about so far. (And keep in mind this is a fairly subjective process, so you don’t need to email me to tell me all the ways you disagree with my assessments here. This is just to give you an idea of how to approach your own book.)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 

Genre: Fantasy and Action/Adventure

Comp titles: Lord of the Rings; Chronicles of Narnia; The Wizard of Earthsea

Who reads those books? Children who love to escape to magical worlds

How is HP different? Went from middle grade to YA in one series; revival of fantasy when fantasy was kind of dead…

The War of Art

Genre: Nonfiction Big Idea Book

Comp titles: Bird by Bird; the Elements of Style

Who reads those books? Writers who want to improve their craft, or people who want to be writers

How is WoA different? Focuses on battling Resistance, not improving writing skills

You can get a great sense of your ideal reader by investigating some of your comp titles. 

Head over to Amazon or Goodreads and read all of the five-star reviews. What sense do you get of people who loved this book? Can you glean their age, interests and worldview?

Now visit the author’s website and social media channels. Does this author have an engaged fan following? If so, poke around the profiles of some of those fans. What information can you glean about them? You should be able to tell their rough age and some of their other likes and dislikes based on their profile and what they’re sharing online.

Interviewing an actual reader

There’s really more than one way to do this, so let’s look at another method of doing research before you start building the persona.

In episode 31 of the Book Launch Show, Tim shared a story of how he created a persona for his book Your First 1000 Copies and his Booklaunch.com website. 

He based his ideal reader/customer on an actual client. He even went so far as to address every email he drafted to her, and then deleted her name just before sending.

If you have access to an actual reader, ideally someone you don’t know well who’s told you how much they love your book, ask for a brief call with that person so you can use them as a basis of your reader person. 

By asking about favorite books, you can discover comp titles. By asking about where they spend their time online, you can figure out the best social media channels to focus on. By asking what podcasts they listen to, you can start creating a list of podcasting influencers to target.

Best of all, by the end of the conversation, you’ll have a very clear idea of how your ideal reader talks and thinks and therefore how to talk to them.

Let’s build this thing

Now that you’ve done the research, you can start to build a reader persona. 

Tim's cohost on the Book Launch Show, Valerie Francis, gave us a killer example of how to build a reader persona in episode 34. (You can download her spreadsheet here.)

Now, before you start rolling your eyes at all this detail, I want you to remember what you already know as a writer: There is power in specificity.

(Tim says he even pictures what his ideal readers wear and what color hair they have.)

So start plugging in the details of your ideal reader. You can do this in a spreadsheet, or a document or a piece of paper, but actually do it. Don’t just think about it.

You want to include demographics and psychographics (another hat tip to Seth Godin here). You need to get inside this reader’s head and understand how they see the world. 

Example persona for The War of Art:

Name: Dylan Aarons

Demographics

Age: 43

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: White

Religion: Non-secular jewish

Location: California

Occupation: Business Analyst 

Relationship status: Divorced

Education: BA

Income level: $120,000

Children: 2

Leisure time per week: 8 hours

Psychographics

Biggest problem: Wants to write but gets stuck easily

Favorite book: On Writing

Favorite movie: Glengarry Glenross

Goals: Finish a novel

Political affiliation: Democrat

Favorite media outlets: NPR

Hobbies: Cycling

Values: Creativity

Habits: Goes for a long bike ride every Saturday and listens to podcasts during commute

Social media use: Instagram, Twitter & Reddit

You can also take all this information and write it up in narrative form, like a character sketch, and bring it to life even more.

Using the persona

Now, if you’re Steven Pressfield (I know, you wish) when you sit down to do your marketing, you can think about Dylan. 

You can design a reader magnet that will help him solve his biggest problem, like a free course on breaking through Resistance, for example. (Which happens to be exactly what Steven Pressfield offers new subscribers.)

If you’re writing a newsletter or crafting an article, you can speak directly to Dylan because you know what he cares about.

If you want to find Dylan online, you’re going to head to Twitter, Instagram and Reddit.

If you’re on a podcast, you’ll want to say the things that Dylan needs to hear.

And once you’ve got the Dylans of the world raving about your book, you can move on to the next almost-as-ideal reader. I recommend developing 2-4 personas and refining them over time. 

Again, the point of a reader persona is to help you find the people who will become raving fans of your work by being ultra specific. People different from your reader persona will find your book and love it, too. 

You’re just using your persona to get your foot in the door. Find your ideal readers. Delight them. And they will spread the word. 

As with all books, a lot went into getting it published and out in the world. One of the hardest things for a lot of authors is getting blurbs.

It’s hard to know who to ask and how to ask. It feels weird because there’s not a big win-win. This important person has to read your book and then come up with a review.

When it was time to start getting blurbs for Running Down a Dream I sat down and made a list of everyone I wanted. I whittled it down, reshaped it a bit, and came up with five people. I had backups, but these were the main five I wanted.

I ended up getting all five to say yes.

When I showed this list to a buddy of mine, he said, “That's ten years of relationship-building right there.”

And he’s right.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through each blurb, how I asked for the blurb, and what you can learn from the process.

Let’s jump in.

Ryan Holiday – The Acquaintance

I’ve been following Ryan a long time. He’s been in the book marketing space for about as long as I have and worked for big name authors like Tim Ferriss, Tucker Max, Neill Strauss, Tony Robbins, and many more.

He’s also written seven books including Trust Me I’m Lying, Growth Hacker Marketing, The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Perennial Bestseller and his latest, Conspiracy.

I wanted Ryan to blurb my book because I’ve always respected the way he chooses to live his life and the methodical thoughtfulness he brings to everything he does. He’s the type of writer I aspire to be.

We talked on the phone once five or six years ago, but that was the most contact we had even though we ran in a lot of the same publishing circles.

Then about a year a half ago after I’d written the first draft of Running Down a Dream, I reached out to Ryan and paid his full hourly rate to talk to him for an hour to get some help on my book.

Afterward, I did all of the homework he recommended and sent it back to him within a couple of days.

From there we kept in light touch, and he even allowed me to write a guest post for a site that he helps out with. As I made progress on the book, I would send him short updates. I also sent him notes letting him know how much I liked Perennial Bestseller and other things he had written.

My goal here was to stay in touch with someone I respect. I started by paying for his time because I want him to know that I respect what he does and it’s worth whatever he chooses to charge for it. From there, I would just follow up from time to time. I don’t keep a schedule, I’m not trying to get anything. I just like having connections with people I respect.

Then earlier this year I read Ryan’s newest book Conspiracy and was blown away. I spent most of a weekend actively hiding from my family so I could finish it. Afterward, I invited him to be a guest on The Story Grid Podcast. At the end of the interview, he asked how my book was coming. I told him it was just about done and he said, “Well let me know if you need a blurb or any other way I can help.”

And so, when I asked him for a blurb a few months later, he agreed, and here’s what he sent.

“Running Down a Dream is a book about how to do the thing most people want to do but tell themselves is too scary, too hard, too unlikely. Tim Grahl is not some once-in-a-million-years genius. He’s an ordinary person who has managed to do what most ordinary people think is impossible. That’s why you should listen to him.”

— Ryan Holiday, New York Times bestselling author of Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle is the Way

Lesson: In the publishing world pecking order, Ryan ranks far above me. He’s written multiple NYT bestselling books and is a highly sought after publicity and marketing expert. And so I approached him with this in mind. I paid for his time up front instead of asking for a favor. I emailed him occasionally, never requiring a response and always keeping it short. And in all of this, I wasn’t doing it because Ryan was a big-time guy that I thought could help me. It all started with my respect and love for his work. All good “networking” or outreach is simply connecting with another human over a shared interest. That’s it. If Ryan had been unable to blurb my book, no big deal. I just enjoy getting to learn from him in any capacity. Always bring this attitude to relationships and it’s impossible to be disappointed.

Derek Sivers – The Cold Ask

Derek Sivers is the founder of CD Baby, frequent TED speaker, and author of the book Anything You Want. I have been a fan of Derek’s for a very long time. His short, straight-forward writing has had so much impact on the way I live and make decisions. You should spend a day reading every one of his articles. It will be a day well spent.

Over the years I had emailed Derek a couple of times. I even recommended one of the books he ended up putting in his book notes section. I’ve read his book Anything You Want at least six times. I even met him once at a conference and ended up in the group lunch that he was a part of, but I was so nervous I barely said a word to him.

I wanted Derek to blurb my book for two reasons. First, Derek is known as a musician, speaker and, entrepreneur. I thought it was important to have a blurb from someone that wasn’t “just” a writer. Second, I respect Derek’s work so much that it would be personally meaningful to have his name on my book.

The problem was, I had no real angle to ask for the blurb. I didn’t know him well enough to lean on our relationship (in fact, he didn’t realize until after doing the blurb that we had exchanged emails and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember meeting me… I was pretty unmemorable at that moment) and I didn’t want to come at him sideways through a mutual friend.

So I just asked.

I sent him a short email telling him about the book, why I thought he would like the book and dropping in the fact that it was being published by Steven Pressfield’s publishing company.

And then I just asked.

I figured the worst he could do is say no.

But he said yes, and I sent him my manuscript, and he sent back this:

“What does it really look like to succeed? Slow, painful, terrified, stumbling, humble, and persistent. Tim’s amazingly vulnerable story convinces you you’re not alone in your struggle, and shows a path through it.”

— Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, frequent TED speaker, and author of Anything Your Want

Lesson: If you don’t have existing relationship, just be straight forward and ask for the blurb. Keep the email short, give a good reason why you think the book is a good fit for them, and then let it go. If they say no, that’s fine, just move on to the next one.

Steven Pressfield – The Idol

I first found Steven Pressfield through his book The War of Art. It was one of the most meaningful books I’ve ever read. From there, I went on to read almost all of his non-fiction, and still make The Authentic Swing a yearly read for me.

Five years ago I connected with Shawn Coyne and we started The Story Grid Podcast. Shawn has been an editor for over 25 years and has been Steve’s editor for almost that long. They are now partners in Black Irish Publishing.

Through my work with Shawn on Story Grid, I got the chance to talk to Steve a few times. We recorded a couple podcast episodes together and I helped them on the behind-the-scenes marketing and systems for Black Irish.

Each time I interacted with him, I was more impressed. He loved writing and writers so much and constantly looked for more ways to help them.

Eventually, when it came time to start figuring out how to publish my new book, Steve and Shawn both agreed that they would like to publish it through Black Irish.

The idea that Steve would want to be a part of one of my book projects seemed absolutely surreal and when he also offered to blurb it, I was over the moon.

“Full disclosure: Tim Grahl is my own secret guru for exactly the stuff that Running Down a Dream is about. My own book, The War of Art, was about the concept of self-sabotage as it afflicts us as writers and artists struggling to be our best professional selves. Tim’s book is the workingman’s tool-belt. His gift is to show us in nuts-and-bolts, no-nonsense terms exactly how to navigate this crazy life and how to actually Get Our Stuff Done. Indispensable!”

— Steven Pressfield, New York Times bestselling author of The War of Art

Lesson: It’s honestly hard to pull a lesson from this one. The way I came to meet Steve was a such a circular, long route that it would be impossible to recreate. If anything, I would say “always seek to help first.” Shawn and I started the podcast together because he needed help with the platform for his book. I spent a decent amount of time helping Steve and Shawn with behind-the-scenes stuff for Black Irish. All while never expecting anything in return. It’s true what Zig Ziglar said so many times… “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

Barbara Corcoran – The Celebrity

Barbara Corcoran is easily the most independently famous person I got to blurb my book. She has been an investor on the popular show Shark Tank for nine seasons, is a well known real estate investor, and the author of several books.

I first was connected with Barbara by a referral from a previous client. I began working with her before she was on Shark Tank and, actually, met her for the first time the day she flew back to New York City after auditioning for the show for the first time.

I worked with Barbara and her team on several website projects before parting ways amicably. She has always stood out as one of my favorite clients. She was so caring and straight-forward with me. Plus, when my wife and I were visiting New York one time, she had us over to her apartment and bought us broadway tickets.

So when I thought about the people I knew who I would feel honored to have blurb my book, I, of course, thought of Barbara. The problem was, I hadn’t talked to here in seven years. And in that seven years, she had gone from famous to famous and I was just a website guy she had worked with a long time ago.

I wrote and rewrote the email to her assistant several times trying to think of the best way to ask for the blurb. Finally, thinking about how much I appreciated how straight forward she always was about everything, I decided to do the same.

I wrote her an email with the subject line “A favor” and simply told her how much I appreciated and respected her and asked if she would blurb my book. That was it. Her assistant said to send it over, and a few weeks later she sent me this:

“What I love about this book is that Tim tells the truth. He not only shares his wins as he pursued his dream, but also his devastating failures. Everybody faces challenges when starting something new and this book is the secret sauce in overcoming them.”

— Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group, author, and Shark Tank investor

Lesson: Don’t be afraid to ask. There is every reason for Barbara to say no to blurbing my book and I fully expected her to. And yet, she said yes. I am constantly amazed by how much people really do want to help other people, and appreciate dropping the pretense and just asking.

Daniel Pink – The Client

Daniel Pink is my longest standing client. He was one of the first authors to hire me and we worked together for many years.

Honestly, this was the easiest ask for me. I have known Dan for a decade and felt comfortable enough to ask him as a friend. Of course, if he had said no it would have been fine, but I was pretty sure he would say yes.

I wanted Dan to blurb my book for an obvious reason. He’s a very well known and successful writer in the self-help, business book space. I know there are a lot of people that respect him and know his name, and his blurb may put them over the edge to give my book a try.

But I had a personal reason too.

Running Down a Dream is about the struggles I went through to build the creative life I wanted. I share a lot of dark stories.

Dan knew me for most of this time. Of course, he wasn’t privy to all of my personal struggles, but he gave me a lot of support and advice when I was a young entrepreneur drowning in doubt and insecurity. Having Dan blurb this book felt special because he was the only one out of the five that had worked with me and known me the longest.

Here’s what Dan said about the book:

”I’ve known Tim for a decade, but I had no idea what a skilled storyteller he was. In Running Down a Dream, he shatters the mold of a typical self-help book by offering a fresh perspective — and an array of life-changing advice — on creativity, success, and happiness.”

— Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive

Lesson: Keep the blurbs personal. Don’t try to get the biggest, a-list names to give you blurbs. Focus on people you respect and are meaningful to you. I think this, more than any other, was why I got five out of five yes’s.

How to Get Blurbs: The Takeaways

1. Start now building relationships with people. Of course, I’ve built relationships with far more than these five people. Cast a wide net. Connect with people who share your interests. Stay connected over a long period of time and always focus on being helpful first.
2. Be direct. Don’t beat around the bush, send long, wordy emails, or give a dozen reasons why they should blurb your book. Just send a simple email telling them why their work is meaningful to you and why you think your book is a good fit for them. And then just ask.
3. Make it mean something. Pick people that are meaningful to you and your work. Don’t just pick a-listers.
4. Don’t have expectations. Assume everyone you ask will probably say no for very good reasons. It’s not a slight against you. You are not allowed to take it personally.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask. The worst someone can do is say no or not respond. No big deal. Make the ask and trust them to make the best decision for themselves.

Getting great blurbs for your book can help you catch the attention of new readers, but it can often be hard to know how and where to start. Follow the lessons in this article to get you started.