How These 4 Bestselling Authors Turned Their Books Into Six-Figure Businesses

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so I’m going to Dive Right In I have three super simple case studies for you and I might even add a fourth but three super simple ones we’re going to start first with my client Pamela Moss Garrett she did her book legally Ever After you can see it beautiful book I love this cover one of my favorite covers that we we’ve done uh Steve did that who uh has been with me for going on 14 years uh doing covers for clients award-winning I I love her book Pamela is a estate planning attorney so she helps in particular young families that are wanting to be sure that their estate is arranged even if it isn’t a monstrous estate but it’s arranged so that their children are protected in case of any kind of of disaster I don’t know exactly what Pamela’s average client um lifetime value is but I know that many of the services that she provides start somewhere in the range of about $5,000 so what Pamela did and we met um when uh her book was originally done by us and then launched and we created just a simple plan that wouldn’t require any kind of tech which she wasn’t interested in doing and the plan amounted to uh two primary things number one was using the book for a source of referrals from her existing client base past clients that she worked with and number two creating strategic Partnerships with people that have complimentary businesses that would be a consistent flow of new clients and opportunities into her business now Pamela and I actually did a a workshop together where she laid out the the first 60-day stats of doing this so I can direct you guys to that Workshop if you’re interested in seeing it uh it was a Workshop just to attorneys but um she wanted to lay out what her statistics were the short version is what she did is she sent out two copies of her book to each of her past clients which amounted to a few hundred copies and of course you know the book can be printed for somewhere in the range of $4 or5 on Amazon depending on the length of your book right and whether not it’s color inside which it does not need to be of course color cover but it doesn’t need to be um you know more than grayscale on the inside and uh and so you know if you’re going to send out 300 copies of your book it’s still probably going to cost you ,500 or $2,000 to do that and that’s not something that you may be interested in doing immediately but it is something that you could perhaps do on some kind of schedule well Pamela did it immediately and within a few days of the first copies going out she started receiving calls for two different areas one was for referrals people that thanked her for a copy of the book and also passed on a copy of the book to a friend or a family member or somebody else that needed it but the other thing that that was very interesting to her which she was not expecting which always happens is when you have a happy past client that has already paid you money and that is uh happy with whatever it is that you’ve already done for them and you put something in their hand you know you’re going to be surprised that they have other needs that you can actually meet and so she had a number of clients past clients that called her and contacted her thanking her for the book but but saying hey we need to update our estate plan or we need to add this feature in or do you know uh or or can you help us with this uh you know particular facet of you know legal advice we need and if if you can’t can you direct us to somebody that can So within and this is all within the first 30 to 60 days of her launching her book so you need to ask yourself you know two questions the first has to do with uh whatever current clients you have that you’ve served do you have a database of those clients do you keep in touch with them regularly in some kind of real and personal and direct way I’m not talking about a canned newsletter that you know you buy from a newsletter company I’m talking about like real personal way that you are re-engaging with them if the answer is no to that then your book is a great way to restart that relationship and all you need to do is put together a simple letter that would go out with your book that you know basically thanks them for being a past client and lets them know that if they know anybody that’s interested in a copy you would be glad to give them a copy for free to pass on that’s simple now the second thing she did which I loved is she created several strategic Partnerships um what is a strategic partnership a strategic partnership is somebody that is complimentary to your business and not competitive so for State planning attorney that would be a financial advisor or a certified financial planner that would be an accountant CPA that would be maybe even somebody that U sells real estate or uh sells estate homes that kind of thing and so Pamela began a process of setting up 2 three four strategic Partnerships it’s very very simple I mean Pamela has an excellent reputation as I’m sure all of you do as well and so that excellent reputation was a nice door opener Pamela could could lead with her book as well and simply let people know hey what I want to do is I want to give you a stack of 10 or 20 books so that you have something that you can pass on that’s valuable to your client so after you uh you know fill in the blank do your uh certified financial planning session with your client and you ask them a a question about their estate plan and they don’t have one just give give them a copy of my book legally Ever After that’s it so it doesn’t take any additional work for your strategic partner to do that and in fact your strategic partner looks really good by passing on something of value which books are always viewed as valuable within the first 60 days of doing this Pam brought on 12 new clients uh at an average amount of $5,000 it amounted to $60,000 in brand new business in the first 30 to 16 days from two simple things that most of you can do strategic Partnerships and referrals okay so the two questions to ask yourself regarding case study number one is who is complimentary to my business that I could create and initiate a strategic partnership with ask yourself that question find those people initiate those conversations and the second question I’ve already asked which was really the first first question and that is are you keeping in touch with your current client base do you have a current past client base that you keep in touch with on a regular basis if yes then get them a copy of your book if no then get them a copy of your book and reintroduce some type of strategic process where you’re going to be reaching out to them on a regular basis because if you’ve done a good job with them and I’m sure you have if they’re happy with you and I I certainly hope that they are then guess what they’re going to have more needs that you can meet meet in the future and they don’t want to go looking for a new person they already found you you just have to stay in front of them okay that is case study number one which I don’t know by the way um Pamela has since been on the Drew Barrymore show with her book legally ever after her book has exploded hundreds and hundreds of reviews thousands of sales I don’t even know what the numbers are right now I know that she’s working on her next book which we’re going to be working with her uh together to launch it publish it you know do the Medan PR uh Drew Barrymore show has 2 and a half million viewers per episode she had a 20 minute segment on Drew Barrymore so I’m just giving you a little slice I’m not telling you you need to be on the Drew Barrymore show I’m telling you all you need to do is find a strategic partnership that works for you and use your book to generate referrals that is what Pamela did and it worked like gold okay case study number two is I hope you can see this is my client Jennifer Edgars she wrote the book resilience we’re actually working on book number two with Jennifer right now Jennifer’s story is very simple Jennifer is a consultant to the SE Suite of Fortune 500 conversations or uh Fortune 500 um CEOs CFOs Coos that kind of thing so she’s a consultant working within their organization to help them to reach new levels Etc and when she wrote her book uh resilience the idea of writing that book was she understood how valuable every single conversation was with the right person okay now why is that well because Pamela’s average client pays her 50 to $100,000 for a Consulting contract or agreement now that could be over six months it could be over a year it could be over a couple of years so every single right person that she has a conversation with that is framed appropriately meaning that they are look they are looking at her through the frame of she is an expert on this topic I am talking to an expert on this topic every conversation that she has with the right person that sees her as an expert is worth gold so Jennifer’s um idea was very simple and something that we’ve discussed and something that I’ve taught on many many times she sent over a period of two years she sent 200 copies of her book to potential clients now these were people that perhaps she met at a conference and exchanged business cards and she said I’m going to send you a copy of my book these are people that she never met before but but she perhaps worked a Consulting contract within that company and organization and so she wanted to introduce herself to you know that new division lead or the vice president of that section of the company and over a 2-year period sent out 200 copies now that is on average two a week now I don’t know that she sent an average of two a week I mean I I know it’s an average of two a week cuz two years 200 copies right but I don’t know if she sent 10 one week and then nothing for the next I don’t know how she did it but imagine that you just have let’s say some type of program uh you’re a consultant like Jennifer is and your clients are very very very high value and all you want to do is be framed in the white right way and you want to be able to have a conversation with those potential clients if you do that and you use your book then you’re going to have more opportunities than you’d ever have before just networking or hoping that you’re going to be connected to the right people I did a 30 or 45 minute long podcast with Jennifer Jennifer reported that she did over $500,000 in new Consulting contracts directly from these 200 copies of her book being sent out a half a million dollars it was after that podcast that Jennifer started working on book number two it was about I don’t know six months ago or something like that now so the question to ask yourself is who do I need to talk to that that person should see me as the expert now you know open up your frame a little bit maybe you don’t sell a $100,000 Consulting package to the seite okay well could you would it be valuable for you to speak to a conference or organizer because you are a fantastic speaker and you would like to get a speaker fee of 10,000 25,000 Etc maybe you’ve gotten that in the past but you’re struggling to do that now well what conference organizers or or event planners are having events on your expertise you don’t know who those people are meaning that you’re not in a regular conversation with them but if you put your book in their hands now you have the right frame so ask yourself and expand your mind ask yourself who do you need to talk to that is what Jennifer did Jennifer asked herself who do I need to talk to because every conversation that I have is really golden and valuable because if it’s framed in the right way it could lead to a $50,000 engagement $100,000 engagement or even more in Jennifer’s case 200 books led to $500,000 I know everybody wants to sell a million books I get it I get it I get the excitement of selling a 100,000 books or a million books or whatever but the real real ity is especially for someone like Jennifer she didn’t need to sell a million copies of her book and that’s why we always say look be as narrow as possible with your ideal client because just a few hundred books can make you a million bucks if they’re put in the right hands and you have the right offer so Jennifer resilience who do you need to talk to all right case study number three case study number three this is my client Wes Watson some of you don’t know most of you probably don’t know who Wes is Wes has millions of followers on social media Wes is rough uh he is not everybody’s uh favorite taste um Wes was in prison for 10 years and he came out he started making content and his YouTube channel and his social media exploded as I said millions and millions of followers and he came to me because he wanted to get his book done he wanted to tell his story but even more than that he wanted to crystallize his process of helping other people to have an un unbreakable mindset a non-negotiable mindset which he does with himself so we helped him with this book and launched it now if you have a social media following now yours may not be as large as Wes’s is and today this is like three years this later this month is three years since we published and launched uh Wes’s bestseller you may not have 200,000 followers or 300,000 followers which is what I think Wes had at the time now he has millions of followers you may not have that many but if you have 10,000 if you have 20,000 if you have you know a few thousand followers then the question you have to ask yourself is how do I get my book my content into the hands of my followers and that’s what Wes thought and that’s what Wes did so Wes started talking about his book of course that was our plan right like we need to talk about your book on social media I mean you have your message and every one of your messages has a theme that’s related to in the book so use the themes of your book within your message and direct people back today his book has a thousand reviews a th it sold tens of thousands of copies and as average sales price ranges between 13 and $15 and you know how Amazon Works he keeps most of that and that doesn’t even include Barnes & Noble and iBooks and all the other places he’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars just in royalties and remember what I say about royalties I always say the same thing thing to everybody about royalties right if you expect nothing then you’re not going to be disappointed you’ll be happy and I told that to Wes but I said look with all your followers if we do it right you’re going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars just from royalties alone besides that the number of people that have come to him for his coaching programs has exploded as well because of his book so what if you have the question if you have social media followers all you have to do and think about is how do I use the themes of my book to direct my content and then direct people back to my book to buy it now I hope also you’ve done what we teach within the book and that is make sure that you have next steps at the end of each chapter because you don’t want people just reading your book you want people reading your book and then coming back to you for your programs coming back to you for your coaching coming back to you for whatever else you’re selling that’s exactly what they’ve done with Wes so one book a thousand reviews tens of thousands of sales hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties because of the size of his following but forget the size of his following if you have any followers you need to think how can I teach the content of my book and then direct people back to my book so that they can get a copy for themselves and then come back to me after they read it to buy my coaching buy my services buy my programs Etc okay that’s the third case study I’ll give you one more I wasn’t going toh give you four but because the fourth is me but might as well right so my first ugly book that I wrote 16 years ago life after debt for my financial services company I had no idea what I was doing with that book I only knew from Dan Kennedy in particular that I should write a book and then I should use that book in every way possible to get in front of my ideal client that meant trying to get on real media because social media wasn’t that hot in 2008 20 9 so real media was still important um it’s still important now but it was much more important even than it is now uh get uh this book get my book to my email list which was very small just a few hundred maybe a couple thousand people use the book for speaking engagements Etc so what did I do well I didn’t have a lot of money you may or may not know or remember my story but I was just coming off a a pretty devastating um financial crisis because of of the real estate crisis and because of where interest rates had gone and because we couldn’t close loans and and and couldn’t sell real estate and all that you remember what it was like during the financial crisis of 2008 2009 all the way into about 2012 so when I wrote this book the very first thing I did was I sent it to local radio stations and asked them if they would like a financial expert on to talk about finance and to talk about the issues that are going on with the financial crisis nobody bit except for one radio station but I went on that radio station and I did a five minute or so live segment and I actually had to you know in those days I actually had to go down to the radio station which was kind of cool at the time and you know sit there with the onair talent and do the interview and I did the only thing I knew to do we didn’t have a lot of Technology we didn’t have a big funnel built or anything like that uh didn’t even know what most of that was certainly not relative to what we think of funnels today so after at at the end uh the onair talent will always ask so how can people get in touch with you uh how can you know people reach out and get more information and I said because I don’t even remember if I got advice or I just heard somebody else had done this but I said if you want a free copy of my book life after debt after you’ve heard what I’ve had to say for the last 5 minutes then I will send it to you no postage no shipping cost nothing I’ll send it to you for free just call my office and I gave the telephone number that’s it that was it there was no F I didn’t send him to a funnel I didn’t know that was the funnel the funnel was me saying do you want a copy of my book and if if they raised their hands and said yes then to me that was enough of an indication that these were people that I could help I didn’t know if we would give away three or 300 I had no idea I didn’t know what I was doing I did that and they replayed this is the very first day and this is both fortune and God’s grace and his favor on me but that very day the very first day they replayed that interview and it was about 6:00 at night I’m still in the office hustling trying to make something happen and the telephone rang and I answered it you know financial services this is Rob and the person on the other end and I tell this story in my book publish remote Pro the person on the other end said is this rob you know the author of life after debt uh I just heard you on the radio and that led to about a 20 or 30-minute conversation and that was our very first client for my financial services company it led to about a $6,000 opportunity for my company and from that day on we used the radio and gave away the book for free we were giving hundreds of copies of the books away for free using radio and every resource we could we didn’t even charge a shipping cost and all people had to do was call our office that way we could have a conversation with them that was it so would something like that work today I don’t know why not uh it depends on if your offer has a mass Market appeal mine did and it was right for the time it depends on other factors but all we’re really talking about is get a free copy of the book and if you’re interested call this telephone number or if you’re you’re interested fill out this form or if you’re interested comment below talki Mo uh my client that we help do million dooll coach with this is what he does with his book and he uses social media he talks about his book he shows an image of his book and then he says if you’re interested in getting a free copy of my book million dooll coach comment coach below and it’ll get you know 30 50 80 200 people that will comment below coach and he gets them a free copy and it doesn’t cost him a because it’s a digital copy a PDF copy you can do any of this without building a funnel you can do any of these things without you know understanding all the technology or uh what or how Facebook ads work or Google ads you you can do all of that but you need a couple of things in place let me talk about that and then I’ll end and I’ll answer any questions that you have you need a couple of things in place one thing that I hoped you noticed with all four of these case studies is that every single one of these people was really clear on what they sold how they sold it and it was a higher priced sale every single one of these situations these people were not like building their business like building the you know the parachute a after they jumped out of the airplane I’m not saying that there’s not a place for that I’m not saying that that hustle and you know trying to figure it out as you go is is a bad thing I’m not saying that at all I’m just saying be if that’s the case if you’re not really clear on what you’re selling if you haven’t sold it before if you’re starting a brand new business right brand new on the back of your book then be patient be patient with yourself be patient with the marketplace you have a lot of things to figure out you have more to figure out than just how do I get the book in the right person’s hands you have to figure out the whole thing of what am I selling is the price point right does the market really want it am I communicating it right etc etc etc the one thing to notice was every one of these people knew what they were selling they weren’t guessing it was a high ticket sale as high as 50 to 100,000 in Jennifer Edgar’s case resilience uh as low as you know $45,000 in my case uh as well as uh in Pamela Moss Garrett’s case and with Wes Watson yes he was making money from the sale of the book but that’s because he had a very large social media Market uh social media following that he could Market to but he also sells very high level 105 $25,000 coaching programs from the book also so that’s number one every one of these people knew what they were selling they knew what the process was they were really really clear on it number two every one of these people had some figuring out to do right even with knowing all of that when Pamela took the first step of sending those books out is it going to work right out of the gate I don’t know uh I I don’t remember how many she sent immediately I don’t think it was 300 right out of the gate probably should ask ask her or go back and listen to the video training that we did together because maybe she mentions it but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t hundreds right away uh you know test create a process create some systems don’t just be like the person that tries Facebook ads and spends a couple hundred bucks and then says well Facebook ads don’t work for me that’s not true you don’t know if they work or not yet be patient understand that there’s a a process you have some figuring out to do one of the things that we do uh and talk about when it comes to people that want to speak and use their book to get speaking engagements is you should set up a system I I’ve said this in training for 10 years where you’re sending out five books a week five books a week it’s not expensive to send five books a week out in fact you could hire a VA and and print and ship five books a week and it’ll cost you hundred bucks to do that not very expensive but you’ve got to find who to ship them to you’ve got to have the right message to that person whether it’s an event planner an organizer right or somebody that runs a an association of some kind or somebody that heads up a big event that you want to speak at and guess what after three months of doing this not much may happen and then in the fourth month you may get a $40,000 speaking opportunity and won’t it be glad won’t you be happy that you didn’t quit in the third month so create a system you know this will work you know if you can get your book into the right person’s hand that you need to talk to and then follow up with them follow up have your virtual assistant follow up with a phone call try to get you an appointment so that you can have a conversation and look if someone sends you a book in the mail and you’re running a conference and this person is a speaker on a topic that’s of interest at your conference of course you’re going to talk to them of course you’re going to give them the time of day of course you are but even if you don’t somebody will two out of five one out of five three out of five so there are are the four examples and the things that you need to think about okay the examples again Pamela M strategic Partnerships and referrals Jennifer Edgar’s resilience that’s all about getting your book into the right person’s hands Wes Watson using your following if it’s 500 followers or 500,000 followers thinking about how to get your content and your book into the hands of your ideal client and then last but not least uh my I didn’t know what I was doing let me give away the book and then have a conversation and see if we can help somebody just that simple give away the book have a talk see if you can help Okay okay I have a call in three minutes you guys are awesome four case studies for you today and you don’t need a tech skill you don’t need to know how to do a website you don’t need to know what a funnel is you don’t need any of that stuff um I hope this was helpful to you please please please take action on on this stuff even do it imperfectly like Steven shared I didn’t even write a note in the book write a note if you’re going to send a book write a note but if you don’t that will probably even work uh all you’re doing is getting your amazing book into the right people’s hands and I promise you it will make a difference so thank you guys thanks for your trust in me and bsp don’t forget Thursday’s call love you all and hope for the absolute best for all of you and uh feel free to email me Lynn and uh think about your questions for next week if this is something that really resonates okay then then don’t go chase another shiny object later or tomorrow think about okay well what do I need to know and we’ll talk about those things next week have a great week everybody bye

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