0:37

I read your book and that was enough for me . Not what you

0:39

say , it's how do you say what you want in the

0:41

fewest amount of words . That is the art of

0:43

writing , Like how do you get your point across

0:45

as clearly and as quickly as possible

0:47

. And so that was a huge , huge lesson

0:49

for me . If

1:00

you change one person's life with your book

1:02

. One person , it's all it takes and it's worth

1:04

it . I think everyone in their life should write one

1:06

book , because then you have a further heightened appreciation

1:09

for books and music and the arts

1:11

, because you realize how difficult it was

1:13

to create .

1:20

Hey , chandler Wolt . Here and joining me today is

1:22

Brian Lubin . Brian

1:24

is one of my new friends and

1:26

a client at selfpublishingcom

1:29

. Friend here in Austin , texas , super

1:32

sharp guy . You may have heard of his podcast

1:34

. It's called the Action Academy Podcast

1:36

and he also has a business by the

1:38

same name and so he's launched a podcast

1:41

. He's got a business Action Academy

1:43

helping people with real estate investing . He

1:45

comes from the corporate world and quit the

1:47

corporate world so that he could travel , create

1:49

financial freedom through real estate investing

1:52

. Now helps other people do

1:54

the same . This is

1:56

a fun fact . I saw in the research for this interview

1:58

Number eight out of 5,079

2:01

reps in a Fortune 500 sales

2:03

organization , so he's got some sales chops too

2:06

. He's the author of

2:08

the new book absolutely killing

2:10

it . It's called Passive to Passionate

2:13

how to Quit your Job , grow your Wealth and Turn

2:15

Passions into Profits . Video

2:18

version for the YouTube crew . I know

2:20

you got that covered nearby . Let's hold it

2:22

up . Let's go , baby Look

2:24

at that beautiful book , From Passive

2:26

to Passionate . He's already got , I

2:29

want to say , like 250 reviews

2:31

or something , 200 plus reviews .

2:32

Yeah , we're creeping up on 300 .

2:34

Yep Next stop . So welcome , brian

2:36

, great to have you here .

2:37

Dude , thank you so much for having me . Man , this writing

2:39

a book is the hardest thing I've ever done , and by

2:42

the end of this podcast episode , every single person

2:44

that's listening to this show , that has been listening

2:46

to this show , is going to get up off of their freaking

2:48

couch , off of their chair . They're going to start writing

2:50

the book . If they haven't signed up with you already , they're going

2:52

to , because we're going to shamelessly promote all of this

2:55

and everything

2:58

can quit their job , travel around the world , do

3:00

whatever they want to do and promote their book . If that sounds

3:02

fun , guys , buckle up . We're about to have a hell

3:05

of a podcast episode .

3:06

Let's go . We got work to do , so you

3:08

said writing a book was the hardest thing you've ever done . Why

3:11

did you do it ? Why did you decide to do it

3:13

, and how did you see this fitting into the

3:15

business that you're building ?

3:16

Yeah , so there's a macro answer and a micro answer

3:18

. The micro answer , the actual tactical

3:20

reason , is I just woke up

3:23

one night , legitimately , and

3:25

said it is time . It had come

3:27

from multiple , multiple

3:29

times of people that I knew

3:32

, liked and trusted , that were authors

3:34

themselves telling me wow

3:36

, you should write a book on that . Wow , you should

3:38

write a book on that . And while my normal podcasting

3:40

flow is talking about financial independence

3:42

, buying real estate , buying businesses this is my first

3:45

one talking about books . But I would start with

3:47

that as as , especially

3:49

if you're writing a nonfiction book , as a wonderful

3:51

tip for people listening , pay attention

3:53

to who tells you what

3:55

, and especially if they are in the

3:58

author arena already , if they see

4:00

an idea of yours and they say , hey , you should write

4:02

a book on that , you should listen . Because I

4:04

had multiple bestselling authors , including Amy

4:06

Porterfield , where I was on a podcast with her and

4:09

she said I talked about going from passive

4:11

income to passionate income . She goes . I got

4:13

goosebumps . She's like that is a book

4:15

and I said , well , if I write it , amy will

4:23

cover , and she goes , absolutely and everything . So it was wonderful . So I had a year and a half of

4:25

people saying that it's hard to find an original idea . You know more than anyone

4:27

and you guys have done a really wonderful job

4:29

of it . It's hard , especially in the nonfiction world , to

4:31

find an idea that hasn't been . You know , tried

4:34

, twisted 900 different ways and

4:36

so this was my spin on it to where it

4:38

was the my one unique thing that

4:40

I could talk about Passionate income , which is

4:42

what we coined , and we wrote the book on it . So that's

4:44

the micro . The macro was

4:47

I wanted a living , breathing , walking

4:49

, running , freaking business card for

4:51

my business , for the back end , and

4:53

we have so many people we only serve 10%

4:56

of even my audience . It's the top of the top

4:58

. Six-figure employees wanted to become seven-figure

5:00

entrepreneurs and we have thousands of people that

5:02

don't have access to the money to afford that , or

5:04

they don't have the time or they don't qualify for membership

5:07

. So I'm like our goal is to help a million

5:09

people . Just like you guys have a goal to publish

5:11

a certain amount of books , we have a goal of helping

5:13

a million people go from employee to entrepreneur

5:16

and in order to do that and reach

5:18

that end macro destination I was

5:20

like we need scale , we need eyeballs

5:23

, how do we get this ? And a book was the best

5:25

way that we could figure it out .

5:27

Love that . Shout out . Amy Porterfield

5:29

. If you guys want to check out the episode with Amy

5:31

Porterfield on the Self-Publishing School podcast

5:33

, check it out . She goes behind the scenes on

5:36

how she used that book to . If I'm remembering

5:38

correctly , I mean she did a massive

5:40

launch . It might even have been a multimillion dollar

5:42

launch for her business on the heels of

5:44

her book , which is pretty crazy . You

5:54

talked about using the book to make a bigger impact and to scale for your business and we call it a

5:56

silent salesman . The book's out bringing back lead sales and referrals for your business . You

5:58

don't have to say a thing because you said it once and

6:00

then the book keeps saying it for a really long time . You

6:03

talked about the concept of passionate

6:05

income . What is that and what's

6:07

the path to that that you guys teach

6:09

?

6:09

Well , chandler , you're living it today and a

6:11

lot of people in the financial

6:14

world and I'll be careful not to make this a financial podcast

6:16

, even though we will talk about the back-end economics

6:18

of publishing books , because when I

6:21

was going through this process

6:23

and I was going through this journey as most of you

6:25

listen into this podcast I was very new

6:27

to this world . I said not only do I not know

6:29

how to write a book , how to format a book

6:31

, what does traditional publishing

6:34

look like versus self-publishing ? What are the economics

6:36

on the backend ? Where do I actually make my

6:38

money ? Because I'll tell you how much time I put into this

6:40

. It was 1,137 hours

6:42

is how much it took me . We went through 19 rounds

6:45

of editing . I had 274

6:48

contestants for cover design that

6:50

we finally narrowed down to the winning cover , which

6:52

you can judge a book by its cover

6:54

100% and it is very important

6:56

and by the end of it . If you put a dollar amount to all

6:58

of that , along with the investment in your company

7:01

, I probably spent well

7:03

over $10,000 doing this book , and

7:05

so we'll talk about the back end . But passionate

7:08

income is when you

7:10

are finally out of that job that you hate

7:12

and you have passive income . People have heard

7:14

of that Buy real estate , get rent

7:16

Okay , you don't have to do anything . Therefore it's passive

7:19

. But once you get to a point where you're out of your job

7:21

, then you're like now what ? And that's

7:23

where life begins . So

7:29

people are on this mad dash to be financially free . But you can do that in two years with

7:31

some concentrated effort . You have a whole lot of life to live afterwards . So , chandler

7:33

, what you do today , like you probably work harder than you've ever

7:35

worked before , but you love it , right ? Yes

7:37

, sir , and that's passionate income . So passionate

7:39

income is how do you get paid to do what

7:42

you would already happily do for free ? So the

7:44

Japanese call your IKA guy . It's the intersection

7:46

between what you're great at , what the world needs

7:48

, what the market wants , and what you love . So that's passionate

7:50

income . So I think we've talked enough about buying sticks

7:53

and bricks and buying all these freaking houses and businesses

7:55

. Man , I'm like if you want to open up a freaking coffee

7:57

shop , like , let's get you financially free so you can

7:59

go do that and not have to worry about profit . So that

8:01

is why we did the book . And another side

8:04

point that I want to steer the conversation towards

8:06

is a lot of people , when

8:09

I was writing it , said well , you're not going

8:11

to put your best stuff in the book , right ? And

8:13

this is a huge topic that we can hit on here

8:15

especially with the book and when it comes to content

8:17

, and I said no , you are wrong

8:19

. If

8:23

you want a book that is going to promote your business , you better put everything

8:25

in the book , your best

8:27

stuff in the book , and you better lead

8:29

with it , brother and sister , because if

8:32

you don't make your free stuff or

8:34

your low ticket stuff better than everyone else's

8:36

paid stuff , there's no chance that

8:38

you're going to get a client or an intro call . So

8:40

I'll pause there because we can go down that

8:42

rabbit hole really quickly .

8:44

Yeah , I love telling our , because our authors ask

8:46

about that all the time , right , is it ? Well , hold up

8:49

, you know , should I keep this out ? So they're kind of wanting more

8:51

and we'll tell them hey , give away all of your

8:53

best stuff for free and people will pay you to tell

8:55

it to them again . It's the best stuff . They

8:57

read it and then they realize , okay

8:59

, I read all this stuff from Brian . A he's credible

9:01

and legit , so I want to work with him . B

9:04

I don't want to actually do this myself

9:06

. I want to get his help , so I want to work with him

9:08

, or work with him Right , and so I

9:11

love that . We're values aligned on

9:13

that . Let's maybe backtrack

9:15

a little bit . At what point in the process of consideration

9:18

did you hear about us ? How did you

9:20

hear about selfpublishingcom and why do you ? Why

9:22

was it something that you're like , hey , I want to do , let's

9:24

work together ?

9:25

There's actually a really cool underlying lesson to this

9:27

, and it's called the reticular activating system

9:29

, or RAS for short . Whenever

9:31

you guys get clarity about what you

9:33

want or who you want to meet , you will

9:35

be shocked at how that

9:37

person appears in your life or that opportunity

9:40

. So

9:43

the instance is if you're buying a new car and you pull out of the car lot and you've got that car

9:45

, all of a sudden you start seeing that same car everywhere

9:47

on the highway , right ? So same

9:49

thing applies here . So I decided

9:52

I want to write a book , right , and I know nobody

9:54

in the publishing space . So I

9:57

was in Austin , texas , and I was just

9:59

telling the entire world I want

10:01

to write a book and

10:05

you had been on his stage speaking . He

10:07

goes oh , I've got a buddy that does that . He just

10:09

came and spoke . He's like let me introduce

10:11

you . And so he linked me and you up

10:13

, and then you and I also met , you know , I think

10:15

a week later I think it was literally this

10:17

time a year ago like South by Southwest

10:19

.

10:19

We met at like a Noah Kagan thing .

10:21

You're right yeah ironically , and

10:23

so at that point I was just

10:25

like I'm seeing this guy everywhere , Let me look into

10:27

him . And then I went through and

10:29

started listening to the podcast that we're

10:31

on right here and I started doing some research and

10:37

I was just like , man , I just need to get on the phone with this team . So that's where it started . If

10:39

you get really clear about who you want to be , where you want to go and who you're

10:41

looking for , you'll be really shocked at how they start

10:43

popping up .

10:44

And then at what point ? Because I feel like I remember us

10:46

meeting in March and then maybe you signed

10:48

up in August , september

10:50

area . What point was

10:52

it where you said OK , this goes from

10:55

this thing that I'm thinking about doing , I'm planning on

10:57

doing it too . It's like from the why to the

10:59

why . Now what ? At what point was

11:01

it where you're like all right , cool , it's time to start working with

11:03

it , with these guys , and

11:06

and you were full steam ahead , like what was ?

11:07

the trigger for that distribution . So and you were

11:09

a full steam ahead . What was the trigger for that Distribution ? So there's front end

11:11

, back end , so there's the art and there's the science , there's

11:16

the creative and there's the distribution . So I didn't need you guys to help me write the book . I

11:19

read your book and that was enough for me , because my business is Action Academy , that's what I

11:21

do , so I just chunked everything down . We

11:23

had an online course that we charged $2,000

11:25

for previously , which is the core of

11:27

the business , and I just took that . I already had the modules

11:30

. Basically , I was like okay , these are chapters

11:32

. So I broke it down into 24 chapters 2,500

11:34

to 3,000 words a chapter , 2,000

11:37

words a day . I'm sitting down . This is my time

11:39

block to do it . Let me get this sucker out and

11:41

let me get the first draft finalized

11:43

before I begin this journey with Chandler and the

11:45

team . That was my personal preference . I

11:47

know that you guys also take people that

11:49

are in the beginning of the journey , but for me , I

11:52

didn't want to waste my time . I didn't want to waste anyone

11:54

else's time . I was like let me get this first

11:56

draft out . So I'm not another one of these statistics

11:58

. The people that say could have , should have would have . Yeah

12:01

, and I don't do anything . And that

12:03

first draft , getting that thing ready , which

12:12

was hard , and then editing plot twist is harder . But getting that first draft good enough to where

12:14

I paid a lot of attention and did a lot of research and they said keep going

12:17

with your first draft until there's nothing else

12:19

that you can physically change about it . And then

12:21

that's when it's time . And then that day I

12:23

called your team and I said okay , let's go , I'm

12:25

ready to get this thing edited . Walk me through the process

12:28

. What does this look like ? Rest is history .

12:29

That's great . I'm ready to get this thing edited . Walk me through the process . What does

12:31

this look like ? Rest is history . That's great , and so I guess there's a couple of things I would

12:33

kind of highlight and call out there . First one if you don't have the self-discipline

12:36

of Brian , you should work

12:38

with us before you get your book draft done because

12:41

we can really help with that , and especially if you're

12:43

not clear , because I think you had a clear

12:45

concept and idea and you began with the

12:47

end in mind . A lot of people don't think to do

12:49

that , so they fumble around . They

12:51

A don't get their rough draft done , but then they

12:53

B write it , but they don't follow

12:55

the four Ps right , person , pain , promise

12:57

, price . So it's like they're not writing to a specific

13:00

person with a specific pain , making

13:02

a specific promise , and

13:10

so if you don't do that , well then we just we end up working together . You got to the first thing when you hop on a call with one of our coaches , we're probably

13:12

going to rock your world and you're going to be excited but then also pissed because now you got to

13:14

go back and rewrite the whole book . Right , and so

13:16

that would be like my kind of disclaimers for

13:18

folks who maybe aren't in that camp , like you were , Brian

13:20

, and then I would say the two call outs that you

13:22

had is a . Everything

13:25

gets easier and you start to see light into

13:27

the tunnel when you finish your draft . So that is

13:29

the milestone where we see I mean obviously

13:31

we've published thousands of books and

13:33

we see that milestone be the one

13:35

when someone finishes their draft they're going

13:38

to do the rest of this stuff because they now believe

13:40

that it's possible . But when they don't and that's

13:42

where most people fall into the camp when they don't finish

13:45

is pre-draft phase then they

13:47

don't get it done . And

13:49

that's why I always say it's so funny . It's kind of like exactly what you said the hardest

13:51

part is getting your draft done , because that's

13:53

really it's just the hardest part , because nobody or

13:56

because a lot of people don't do it , but the real hardest

13:58

part is the editing , and

14:01

it's only not I only say like it's not

14:03

the hardest part because most people don't get there . But

14:05

when you get there , there you realize this is way harder than

14:07

actually writing the book , because you

14:09

just kind of feel like you know , was

14:12

I drunk when I wrote this

14:14

? Like what is this ? It's like

14:16

I can't believe . I thought this was good , and

14:18

so can you . What are one or two lessons

14:20

that you learned in the editing process that

14:22

you might share with folks , that that can help them

14:25

navigate that better and and create a better

14:27

book ?

14:27

so , first and foremost , what you just said

14:29

I want to double down on and completely validate

14:32

. If I were to go back and

14:34

I had not done any content , I was not

14:36

already a business owner , I had not gotten

14:38

product market fit or I hadn't my idea validated

14:40

, I would 1000% recommend

14:43

using you guys from the get go , because

14:45

you need that guiding hand , you need that accountability

14:48

, you need that structure . The reason that

14:50

it worked for us , and me specifically

14:52

, was I'd already done 2000

14:54

videos of content . I knew how

14:56

to package content . We'd already spent 100

14:58

, 200 hours on making an online course

15:01

. We already had a business we were running and we knew exactly

15:03

who we were speaking to and I had them

15:05

paying me money already in my group , and so

15:07

I had that captive audience to really

15:09

go and just be like what do you need ? What

15:11

do you need , what do you need ? Over and over again

15:13

and if any of you , it

15:16

doesn't necessarily need to be your business , If it's an email

15:18

list , if it's your Instagram following

15:20

, ask them , ask them for help

15:22

, be like what do you want , what do

15:24

you need , and

15:32

then that's how you be able to validate the idea . Don't guess . If you guess , you're going to

15:34

do what Chandler just said go back and rewrite the entire book . I promise you same applies for business

15:36

. So for editing , first things we did is took out like the process of removal

15:38

is harder than the process of addition , emotionally

15:41

, because when you're writing you're just

15:43

trying to get to that 60,000 , 70,000

15:45

word count and so there's a lot of filler there . But

15:51

then as you're removing your yeah a , saying what the hell is I talking about here ? I'm

15:53

rambling , and then B , you also

15:55

have parts that you love , but then the editor

15:57

, you see a fresh eyes on it and they're

15:59

like this is garbage . You're like , oh

16:01

, okay , I was excited about that part , you

16:04

know and you don't need to take . You don't like the editor's

16:07

word is not law , but for the most

16:09

part they're pretty correct where

16:11

you can ramble and go off a different tangent . So

16:13

the removal is crazy

16:15

, because the game of writing is

16:18

. What I learned afterwards is not

16:20

what you write , is how , not what you say , is how

16:22

do you say what you want in the fewest amount

16:24

of words . That is the art of writing , like

16:26

how do you get your point across as clearly

16:29

and as quickly as possible . And so that was a

16:31

huge , huge lesson for me , because

16:33

in the beginning I was just blindly doing

16:35

it . So we did the professional edit . Then

16:38

we did what was it ? The copy edit . So we

16:40

did two rounds of that through you

16:42

guys , and then what we did was actually pretty

16:44

interesting . I mean , I got this one from Tim

16:46

Ferriss , so I chopped up the book

16:48

into individual chapters 24 of them

16:50

and what I would do is I would send each chapter

16:52

to two different people . One of

16:54

them would be the rookie , one of them would be the rock

16:57

star . So for our business

16:59

chapter on business acquisition , if

17:01

you want to buy a business , I sent it to

17:03

Walker Dible , who wrote the book like buy

17:05

, then build . And then I also sent it to a person

17:07

that was in the process of buying their first business . And

17:09

so I would talk to Walker and be like is this factually

17:12

correct ? Is there anything that you would add or remove

17:14

to this from a professional standpoint ? Then

17:16

I'd go to the rookie and I would say is there anything

17:18

that's confusing here or anything that needs to be elaborated

17:21

? Now , this is from a nonfiction perspective

17:23

, but that was the most

17:25

important phase of editing . That we did was

17:28

doing that because then we had both

17:30

sets of eyes on the things , and we had made

17:32

sure that it wasn't too complex . We

17:34

did that with each chapter and then , by the time

17:36

we finished , we had the polished product

17:38

.

17:38

That's good . I hope you're loving this episode

17:41

so far . So if you're serious about

17:43

writing and publishing your book , we would

17:45

love to chat with you and help create a

17:47

custom plan . All right , so all you need to do right

17:49

now is go to selfpublishingcom

17:51

forward slash schedule . Schedule a 45

17:54

minute consultation with one of the experts

17:56

on my team . All right , let's implement what

17:58

you're learning in this episode and let's see

18:01

how we can help with your book . Go to selfpublishingcom

18:04

. Forward slash schedule . I like that a lot

18:06

. You said how did you ? How did you phrase

18:08

that ? You said the rookie and the who .

18:09

And the rock star yeah .

18:11

Rookie and the rock star . Okay .

18:13

That's a fun concept .

18:14

So it's the beginner and the advanced and

18:17

kind of making sure that

18:19

it reads well for both of them , and that kind

18:21

of reminds me . It's a different concept but similar

18:23

in you know , in writing

18:25

written content on blogs and but it's

18:27

also relates to your book . Is it called dual readership

18:30

path ? Is you read for the

18:32

skimmer and then you read for the reader ? I'm

18:35

sorry , you write for the skimmer and you write for the reader

18:37

, and so some people are just going to skim that blog

18:39

post and you need to have headlines

18:42

and catchy images and graphs and stuff

18:44

so that it appeals to them . But then some

18:46

people are going to read every single word . So

18:48

you need that full detail so that it appeals to them . But then

18:50

some people are going to read every single word . So you need that full detail so that

18:53

it appeals to them . So kind of similar concepts on how to appease different markets

18:55

with a singular piece

18:57

of work . The other thing that I wanted to mention

19:00

or emphasize that you mentioned

19:02

previously is starting from an online course

19:04

. So if you're listening to this right now , if you're watching

19:06

this right now , you've already created an online course . You

19:09

already Wr book , created the draft of the book

19:11

. Yeah , yeah , you already wrote the book . You just didn't know

19:13

it yet because the way that you structured that

19:15

course and modules is probably the sections

19:17

, the lessons or the chapters probably

19:20

, and so you've got an unfair advantage

19:22

that you can go from course to

19:24

book . So I feel like that's kind

19:26

of We've talked about all the writing stuff . I'd

19:28

love to talk marketing . I know you

19:30

used our six-week pre-launch

19:33

and you executed it better than just about anybody I've

19:35

seen , at least in the last while . You got a ton

19:37

of reviews and just built a bunch of buzz for

19:39

the book . So how

19:41

did you lay out that pre-launch and what

19:44

worked the best in terms of maximizing

19:47

your launch and selling more books ?

19:51

So I just interviewed Noah Kagan on my podcast and he's a mutual friend and

19:53

he just did Million Dollar Weekend , so that was

19:55

a wonderful book and he had really good

19:57

advice that I would echo , which

19:59

is finish the race hard . By that point

20:02

, when it comes time to launch , that's when a lot of people

20:04

burn out and they kind of half-ass the launch . The

20:06

launch is everything . So

20:14

you need that last hundred yards of the of the race , like you better be sprinting that last 100

20:16

yards , and that's what I forced myself to do . I came down to the mark and it came down to the wire

20:18

and this has been , like you know , nine months

20:20

. It was like , basically , I did create like a

20:22

child here . You know , like over nine months

20:24

, you're working , you're editing and and finally

20:26

it's ready and you've got the cover figured out , you've

20:29

got everything set up on Amazon , and

20:31

so what I did is you know , there's

20:33

another quote I forget who said

20:35

it , but the quote is like do things that do not scale

20:38

. So we talk about scalability a lot

20:40

, but then when it comes down to actually

20:42

like doing the things that matter the most , they

20:44

are unscalable . So I could have hired a virtual

20:46

assistant , I could have had somebody in my team do it . But

20:48

I texted 5,049 people

20:50

personally and I know that number

20:52

because I put it on a spreadsheet

20:55

and every single day I'm like , all right

20:57

, I'm going to do 50 to 100 a day

20:59

. I'm just like I'm going to knock these people

21:01

out and , one by one , I was asking

21:03

them . I was like , hey , would you be

21:06

? I was thinking of you , this is actually

21:08

me , would you be willing to help

21:10

with the launch ? And I was strategic about who

21:12

I asked for help with the launch versus who . I

21:14

asked for a five-star review . So most

21:17

people . I asked for a review prior and

21:19

that was game changer because the

21:21

review is gold when it comes to a book

21:24

. And then I had an entire CRM

21:26

list that I made . I'm like , okay , who has podcasts

21:28

, who has newsletters , who has social

21:30

media following ? And then I was proactively

21:33

doing the Russell Brunson framework the Dream

21:35

100 , basically and Amy was included

21:37

on that to where I was going down this list and

21:39

I was making sure . Before it was time for me to ask

21:42

when I was in the first beginning process

21:44

of writing my book . I was like , who are the 100

21:46

people that could promote this book to make the major difference

21:48

and I was engaging with them once

21:51

or twice a week . I had it in my notes . I had an

21:53

alarm set like comment on Amy Porterfield's

21:55

post , like comment on this person's

21:57

story , like engage with them . And

21:59

Russell Brunson does this with his book launches as well

22:02

. So I did that for six to nine months

22:04

leading up to it . I was like , how do

22:06

I , how do I get in with these different

22:08

people on social ? Like this would

22:10

be a perfect person to help me promote it later . Like

22:12

you need to dig the well before you're thirsty

22:15

. You know what I mean . You need to lead with value

22:17

and authentic relationship before you have an ask

22:19

. So Alex Ramosi has a wonderful

22:21

quote the longer you can delay your ask

22:24

, the larger your ask can be . So I had

22:26

a lot of wells that I've been digging for four plus

22:28

years that I decided to

22:30

finally make that ask and then this was

22:32

the ask that I did . But tactical

22:35

advice for people is dig before

22:37

you're thirsty . Dig the well before you're thirsty . Make

22:39

that list of that top 100 dream people

22:41

that would promote your book , or the top 100

22:43

newsletters , or the top 100 websites , the

22:45

top 100 social media accounts . Pay attention

22:47

to those Go on your phone . Every single

22:50

person that you've talked to in the last two years should

22:52

know that you're publishing this book and you need their

22:54

help .

22:54

And .

22:54

Shannon . There's a really important point of all of this

22:57

that I want to hit on . This process was not

22:59

easy for me . It was single-handedly the

23:01

hardest thing that I've ever done in my life , which

23:03

sounds crazy , but the process of

23:05

me asking people for help was

23:07

like driving a dagger through my eyelids

23:09

. I hated it . And I come from sales

23:12

. I'll ask people for business all day

23:14

and I'll talk to people for business all day

23:16

. I'll get told no 9 million

23:18

times . I don't care , but the minute I'm asking

23:20

my friend for a favor , I feel like I'm a burden . Yeah

23:25

, and so many people that are listening to this are

23:27

in that boat where they're writing the book

23:29

or they're about to write the book or they're at their last

23:31

sprint of writing the book and they're like I want

23:33

to ask all my friends . But I feel like

23:35

a burden . And if you take one piece of advice

23:37

away from this podcast over anything , the piece

23:39

of advice that I would give to you is the piece

23:42

of advice that my aunt gave to me that kept me

23:44

going . When it was eight o'clock , 830

23:46

at night , and I was still texting . I said I can't do this

23:48

anymore . She goes , keep going . And it was this

23:50

she said by you

23:53

not asking for help , by you not

23:55

asking others for help , you are directly denying

23:57

them the ability to feel

23:59

the joy of giving help

24:03

. You are directly denying them the ability

24:05

to feel the joy of giving . Yeah , by you not asking for help , you are

24:07

denying others the joy of helping other people . And I was just like wow , and

24:10

I'll tell you , man , out of every single person

24:12

, 5,049 of them that

24:14

I texted did every single one of them reply no

24:16

. Did every single one of them help

24:18

with the launch ? No , but I'll

24:20

say the vast majority of them said

24:23

dude , thank you so much for thinking of me . I

24:25

would love to do this and , man , that

24:27

was the hardest thing for me to

24:29

do and I'm glad I did it . It was a really

24:32

valuable life lesson .

24:33

That's great . A couple of takeaways . There I mean individual

24:36

reach outs . If you've been listening to this

24:38

podcast for a while now , you've probably heard

24:40

that theme and you may have

24:42

skipped over it because it's not sexy . You're

24:44

like hold on , hold on Brian . I'm waiting for , like

24:46

the secret .

24:47

The email list .

24:49

The thing that's going to take me two minutes

24:51

and is going to sell thousands of books . But

24:53

if you again , if you go back

24:55

to all of the most successful

24:58

authors on the planet that have been on this podcast

25:00

and time and time again it comes up

25:02

the individual reach out and

25:04

doing those one-on-one outreaches

25:07

. And so that's what

25:09

I would encourage folks If you're in the launch phase , reach

25:11

out one-on-one to get reviews , reach out

25:14

one-on-one for support and I love that

25:16

reframe of people , love

25:18

to support and help it like . Think

25:20

about it , if I had a friend

25:22

who launched a book and they didn't tell me

25:24

about it , I would be pissed . I'm like

25:27

, what are you talking ? Like ? Why don't you just text me ? I'll

25:29

buy a copy , I'll leave a review , I'll post about

25:31

it , like whatever you need me to do . And so I

25:33

think , as a but I too kind of similar

25:35

to what you're saying , brian feel like a burden . I'm like

25:37

, oh yeah , I don't . Maybe they're going to feel

25:40

like I'm just too promotional or that I'm just

25:42

asking them for favors and all this stuff

25:44

. And people want to help . So if you're

25:46

in your launch phase , even

25:48

if you're beyond the launch phase , ask for help

25:51

, ask people one-on-one to help

25:53

with your book . Brian , what's

25:55

next ? How do you go from ? What

25:58

is the full year of ? We talked

26:00

about the one-year launch . So there's the one-week

26:02

launch , which I think you nailed . Then there's the one-year

26:04

launch , which is how do you make sure that you don't drop it like it's

26:06

hot and just stop talking about this book ? So what's

26:08

the plan for you over the next few months

26:10

, next , however long , to keep promoting the book

26:13

and then how

26:15

are you doing that in a way that's also going

26:17

to drive customers for your core business .

26:19

Yeah , so right now we are at

26:21

three , about three months , three

26:23

, four months post-launch People listening . We launched

26:26

on December 1st 2023

26:28

. So it was my birthday and we had a

26:30

cool little launch party too , which I would highly recommend

26:33

, highly highly recommend . I almost didn't do it so

26:35

I was like this is cheesy , this is corny . But then

26:37

everyone else said dude

26:43

, if you only write one book in your life , you're only going to have one book launch party . And I was

26:45

just like you know what ? You're completely right , and I'm so glad that I freaking did that . We had like

26:47

80 people show up in Austin , texas . It was super fun . But

26:49

, yeah , now we're coming up on four months

26:52

here and we've sold . I

26:54

think we're creeping up on like four or 5,000

26:56

copies , so I'm proud

26:58

of that . My goal for the first year

27:00

was 10,000 . So the first

27:02

year that's my goal is like let's move 10,000

27:05

copies . Come hell or high water , I'll

27:07

do whatever it takes to move 10,000 . And then if the

27:09

book is good enough , then that 10,000 will

27:11

take off . If you put it in 10,000 hands and it's

27:13

got the organic fire

27:15

that it needs , then it will spread . If

27:18

not , it's not good enough and that's okay

27:20

, keep going . You changed . If

27:22

27 people buy your book that's 27

27:24

people whose lives are hopefully better

27:27

for having read your book , that's already worth it , and

27:29

I'll tell you the economics here in a second

27:31

. But I had one gentleman that called me

27:33

and it was the first person that I didn't have

27:35

that was in my circle . So it wasn't

27:37

somebody that was just like a yes man

27:39

saying yeah , because you know , like they already

27:41

know me and they were friends , right

27:43

, it was a complete stranger . He called me and

27:46

he was just like dude , I've read Rich

27:48

Dad , poor Dad and Four Hour Work

27:50

Week and yours , your book , is up

27:52

there with those for me and I was just like

27:54

cancel everything , the race is over

27:56

. That one phone call was enough for me . Like

27:59

one person thought that , and I'm

28:01

just like dude , that made everything so worth it . So

28:03

you know you , just if you change one person's

28:05

life with your book one person , it's

28:09

all it takes and it's worth it . But to make things a little sexier

28:11

and to add like a headline to the podcast episode

28:13

, right , so I just didn't matter . Our

28:15

thing is $7,000 a year

28:17

as our membership , so

28:20

you don't really make that much money from book royalties

28:22

. It's

28:28

basically just enough for us to cover the cost of advertising on Amazon . That's all we really use

28:30

the royalties to do . We do about three books . Three or four

28:32

books for a book is what we make on paperback

28:34

and then audio book is a little bit more , etc

28:37

. Etc . But we had 15

28:40

direct signups for our business

28:42

. We've been tracking it . I tracked a double for this

28:44

podcast . That's $105,000

28:46

in recurring revenue within like

28:48

three months post book launch

28:50

. So I think that we

28:52

invested maybe 10,000 overall with

28:55

everything . So we 10x our investment

28:57

by doing this already and that's not with that

28:59

many . It was a good launch . I wouldn't say it's many . It was a good launch . I wouldn't

29:01

say it's like a otherworldly

29:03

great launch . The launch that I did is very attainable

29:06

by most people . It wasn't like

29:08

100,000 copies moved in the email

29:10

sequence . You know what I mean . It was like a couple thousand

29:12

copies . We made $105,000

29:15

of recurring revenue from that and that's just

29:18

now , you know .

29:18

That's incredible , especially in the first three months

29:20

. I mean so quickly any other economics

29:23

that you want to share how the book has helped

29:26

the business , or just any other

29:28

economics behind the scenes .

29:29

Yeah , let me share how I formatted the book . So

29:31

again , this applies more specifically to like

29:33

business books or for books that

29:35

you're using for a promotional purpose

29:37

for your actual service , or whatever you did

29:39

, my thing just happened to be I left a quarter million

29:42

dollars a year sales job to travel

29:44

full time around the world to build my own business Pretty

29:46

specific outcome , right . So

29:48

I'm like , all right , I'll write a book on that . So

29:50

what I did it was super cool is

29:52

, throughout my book , every single thing , every

29:54

single chapter is designed to lead

29:57

you to the email list or

29:59

to my podcast . So what I did was I had

30:01

these QR codes that I have situated

30:03

throughout the book and if I

30:05

was somebody that was writing a book , I would 1000%

30:08

use QR codes . So we

30:10

had different QR codes throughout

30:12

and it would be like hey , here's free

30:15

gift . Free gift is you know , we're talking

30:17

about seller financing and real estate . Here's a podcast

30:19

episode I did with my buddy that has $30

30:21

million of real estate , talking about how he did

30:23

this Like scan the QR code . Take you over

30:25

here . Hey , this is my Excel

30:28

tracker that I use to track my goals and that I use

30:30

to track the writing process of my book Scan

30:32

the QR code and we'll take you to get the Excel

30:34

tracker . So I think that was huge

30:36

. And then we have an offer , a direct offer

30:38

in the book , which is scan this QR code and you

30:40

get this , this , this and this , and like this is

30:42

how you apply for our backend business

30:44

. Like you need to optimize that . Don't just

30:47

put it in text . Like bring them into your

30:49

ecosystem . You need to collect the email address

30:51

, because the backend marketing is where a lot

30:53

of the dollars are made . I would share that , yeah

30:56

, and it's also a great way

30:58

to get on other podcasts and

31:00

to get your word out there . It adds

31:02

some credibility and validity to you , even

31:05

if it's not like a New York Times bestseller

31:07

. We hit Amazon bestseller number one

31:09

in real estate , self-employment , career

31:12

and , I think , career guides , so

31:14

that was super cool . But even though it's not like Wall

31:16

Street Journal or New York Times bestseller , those

31:19

authors still give you that nod of approval

31:21

where they're just like you're in the trenches

31:23

with me , like you did what it takes

31:25

, and I respect

31:27

that . So there's a respect factor . And then

31:29

the biggest way I see people make money from

31:31

books is speaking , which I'm just

31:34

now beginning to start my speaking circuit

31:36

, but that is the largest ways

31:38

for you to start doing keynote presentations

31:40

different places . So that's the backend

31:43

economics . But yeah

31:45

, dude , it's huge .

31:46

And the speaking plus books . I mean that's a

31:48

big channel for us . That was millions

31:50

of dollars in our sales last year Probably

31:52

. At least . I'd say at least 3 million

31:54

of our revenue last year was from

31:56

mostly the speaking team , but then also me

31:59

speaking in person and moving

32:01

books but then also turning that into paying

32:03

customers , I guess lightning round . Final

32:05

couple of questions for you , brian . First

32:07

one would be what was the most helpful

32:10

part of working with us at selfpublishcom and

32:12

what would you say to somebody who's thinking about it ?

32:15

Definitely the six week launch . So

32:17

, like before launch , having everything

32:19

broken down in the spreadsheets like sequentially

32:21

. It's hey , do this , then this , then

32:24

this , here's where you want to list , here's where we

32:26

advertise , here's what you shouldn't advertise

32:28

, here's how you set this up . It's like an entire Excel

32:30

sheet . Freaking love that . The editing process

32:32

was wonderful . If I were to

32:34

be doing another , like self-publish

32:37

, I would 1000% do this . There's

32:39

not anything else I would use , because

32:41

it makes more sense for you guys to just

32:43

be with the people that have already done the thing , like

32:45

that . But let them handle

32:48

all the rest of the stuff , because writing a book

32:50

is hard enough . It's super hard

32:52

and it's super worth it . I think everyone in

32:54

their life should write one book , because then you

32:56

have a further heightened appreciation for

32:58

books and music and the arts

33:00

, because you realize how difficult it

33:02

was to create , and then you put it out into the

33:04

universe and then you're like please don't tear this apart

33:06

, right ? So I

33:08

would highly recommend and endorse what you guys

33:11

do . Um , your team was wonderful

33:13

, everything , everything about it was wonderful

33:15

. And so now it's like up on amazon , like

33:17

I didn't set anything up on amazon

33:19

or anything like that , like they just set it up for

33:21

me and it's been super easy

33:23

.

33:23

It's cool , man . That's so great to hear . It's

33:26

fine . It's been fun seeing the behind the scenes of the

33:28

journey and I think it's just kind of crazy

33:31

from us meeting about

33:33

a year ago in person at randomly

33:35

at that event , to then you

33:38

working with us whenever it was August , september

33:40

somewhere in there , and then already getting the

33:42

book done and seeing the fruits of it . It's just like very

33:44

rewarding to me to just think about okay , cool

33:46

this year . Who are those people that I'm

33:48

meeting , that I'm going to get to talk to or

33:50

bring on the podcast over the next year , that

33:53

have already made so much progress

33:55

with their books ? I mean it's a lot of credit to you

33:57

because you took action on it right

33:59

. Action Academy baby .

34:00

Yeah .

34:01

We take action . So , on that note

34:03

, where can people go to find out more about you

34:06

? Where can people go to find out more about Action

34:08

Academy ? What's the best next step ? If people are

34:10

listening to this saying , hey , I'd love to check out what you're

34:12

up to . Check out the book .

34:13

Absolutely Check out Action Academy podcast

34:16

if you're into real estate , investing , entrepreneurship

34:18

, all that good stuff . We interview a millionaire every day

34:20

. Pretty simple . I've podcasted every day

34:22

for two and a half years . We've interviewed

34:25

, you know , I think , over 500 millionaires

34:27

on the show . We just ask them how to get financially free

34:29

and they just tell us . Pretty simple concept

34:32

. So Action Academy podcast is available everywhere

34:34

. And then on my Instagram , at

34:36

Brian Lubin , I'm posting there every single day

34:38

. They were up to a quarter million followers now , which

34:40

is insane to think about . I

34:42

guess I'm an influencer now I'm

34:44

up there , people respond to my DMs now that

34:46

are famous . So made

34:48

it . Mom call her and let her know

34:51

her child made it . And then , lastly , from passive

34:53

to passionate how to quit your job , grow your wealth

34:55

, turn your passions into profits on Amazon

34:57

by the selfpublishingcom team

35:00

. It is the step-by-step roadmap

35:02

how to quit your job , grow your wealth , turn your passions

35:04

into profits . We teach you the mindset , the methods

35:06

, the steps how to attract mentors , how to buy

35:08

real estate , all this stuff , all the way into

35:10

growing your own business while traveling

35:12

. So , from passive to passionate in

35:15

the Action Academy , that is me .

35:17

Game on Brian . Thank you so much , man

35:19

of me , that is me .

35:19

Game on Brian thank you so much , man . This is a lot of fun .

35:21

Thank you , buddy . Thanks for everything you do . Thank you so much for watching

35:23

or listening to this episode of

35:25

the Self-Publishing School Podcast . I know there's so many

35:27

places that you can be spending your time . There's other

35:29

podcasts that you can be listening to , youtube channels that

35:32

you can be watching , so thank you so much . It means the world

35:34

. Now I want you to do three things right now

35:36

. If you found this episode helpful I don't know if you

35:38

know this , but we've got a YouTube channel . It's a companion

35:40

channel to this podcast . All the video

35:43

versions of the episode are on the YouTube

35:45

channel . So , number one subscribe to the YouTube

35:47

channel . Number two , if you're listening to this podcast

35:49

wherever , whether this is Spotify , apple Podcasts

35:52

Number two , I want you to subscribe to this podcast

35:54

right now so you don't miss a future episode

35:56

. And then , number three , this

36:05

is probably the most important Leave a review on the

36:07

podcast . All right Reviews are super important and help

36:09

this podcast get discovered to people . So , number three leave a review

36:11

on the podcast . Thank you so much . I'll see you in the next episode .