On Good Authority: Publishing the Book that Will Build Your Business

Originally from Dublin Ireland, David Nihill is the founder of FunnyBizz Conference, bestselling author of Do You Talk Funny?, winner of San Francisco International Comedy Competition, runner up in the Moth’s largest US Grandslam storytelling competition and the first-ever Irishman to have a special on Dry Bar Comedy. His work has been featured in Inc, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, Lifehacker, The Irish Times, TED, The Irish Independent, Today FM, and on TV3.   He and I met through friends a few years ago and I was immediately impressed not only with his barely indecipherable accent but also with how much knowledge he possessed about marketing, books and how to make them successful. This impression was only solidified when, a few days later, he sent me an email packed with all the strategies he'd used to make his book so successful that he was able to then sell it to a major publisher.   In this episode, we go through all those ideas and more. If you listened to the episode, you know that I promised I would give you the email he sent out to his launch team, which you are welcome to copy and steal (he will never know, unless he's reading this, in which case I say hi David!) You can get it by grabbing the show notes by going to https://www.launchpadpub.com/blog/david   WANT TO WRITE YOUR OWN MEMOIR? GRAB MY CHEAT SHEET BY GOING TO https://www.launchpadpub.com/memoir-download.

Re Perez is a seasoned Brand Strategist, International Speaker, Author and CEO of Branding For The People.   He's also someone I met last year and adored from the get go.   As the founder of a leading branding agency that builds and manages brands for funded startups, high-growth entrepreneurs, Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies, and expanding small to midsize businesses around the globe, Re's shared his insights at numerous conferences.   And with his book, Your Brand Should Be Gay (Even If You're Not), he's sharing them with you.   He also shares, in this interview, the strategy he used to increase pre-orders—namely offering a series of bonuses to anyone who ordered ahead of time. His strategy—offering consulting calls with him and his team to those who ordered multiple copies—resulted in the book launching to #1 immediately.   WANT TO WRITE A MEMOIR?? DOWNLOAD MY FREE GUIDE TO HOW TO DO IT HERE>>>https://www.launchpadpub.com/memoir-download

Dan Peres was editor in chief of Details for fifteen years, starting in 2000, when the title relaunched under his leadership. During his tenure, the magazine won many awards, including two National Magazine Awards. Before taking the editorship of Details, Dan spent nine years at W magazine, overseeing bureaus in Paris, London, and Milan. While in college, he worked as a copy boy at the New York Times and later as a research assistant at Esquire. He is the author of Details Men’s Style Manual. He lives in New York and has three sons.   He's also someone I've known since he first started at Details. As a freelance writer for the magazine (who also happened to worship every word published in it). I grew accustomed to allowing my month's rent to be determined by Dan's final decisions (if a magazine decided to kill your story because the editor decided the topic was no longer appealing, that meant suddenly getting paid 10% of what you'd signed up for). It's therefore fascinating to witness him joining the other side—learning what it's like to be at the mercy of an editor's whims and having to hustle to get people to care about your book.   In this conversation, we cover the whole transition...and also get into maybe WHY some of the Details decision-making was so impossible to predict.   WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE A MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? CLICK HERE TO GET MY FREE DOWNLOAD: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM

Courtney Friel is best known for her work as a news anchor at KTLA in Los Angeles, where she also hosts the video podcast “Keepin It Friel: Conversations on Recovery.” She previously worked as a national correspondent for Fox News Channel and hosted the “World Poker Tour." She has more than a decade sober and speaks on the topic all around the country. Courtney grew up in Philadelphia PA, but now lives in LA with her son and daughter.    She is also the author of Tonight at 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News, which was released in January and which I am very proud to say Launch Pad published. The back story is, as follows: Courtney and I became friends back when we both lived in New York between 2007 and 2010. She was an anchor on Fox News and I went on a lot of the shows to talk about addiction and recovery.   At parties (she had some epic bbqs back in the day), she would corner me and ask me about what it was like to be sober. I didn't think much of it. In my experience, people who actually need recovery tend to avoid sober folks like we're cops or their moms back when they were in high school. All of which is to say I was very surprised when she told me, a few months after those inquiries started, that she needed to go to rehab.   Flash forward to a few months ago. During a tour at my housewarming party, I showed Courtney and a bunch of other people my recording studio. The next day she called and confessed that she had a book scheduled to come out but things had gone awry with her publisher. Long story short: my team and I jumped in, re-named the book, gave it a new cover, had Courtney record the audio version and voila, it hit the world.   The news cycle went crazy for some of the tidbits in the book (particularly the one about how Trump asked her to come to his office so they could "kiss") but it's the story of recovery that resonates.   In this episode, we get into all of that and more.   WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LAUNCH PAD FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM

Gigi Levangie is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including the recently released Been There, Married That. She's also the screenwriter of the hit film Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon.  But that's not all! Her novel Starter Wife was made into a USA miniseries and series starring Debra Messing and her novel Maneater was made into a Lifetime miniseries starring Sarah Chalke.      But she's not all work! In fact, she's one of the most fun and hilarious writers I know. She's also lived several lives—not only has she raised three batches of kids (long story) but she was formerly married to prolific producer Brian Grazer and now has a hot French husband.     As an author who gets a lot of attention whenever she releases a book, Gigi isn't someone who employs all the newfangled marketing techniques involving newsletter lists, CTA's and funnels. But while she still does the old school promotional things, like going on TV when her books are released, she's open to embracing the new. Call this episode an intervention of sorts, where I all but force her to promise me she'll add a newsletter sign-up to her website.   WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LAUNCH PAD FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM.

Nicholas Erik is a science fiction and fantasy author who also writes in-depth marketing guides; this is, in fact, how I discovered him...when I stumbled across this epic guide to free book sites and then went down the amazingly informative rabbit hole that is his website.   While he’s launched over a dozen books in a variety of genres, he also specializes in Amazon, Facebook and BookBub ads. I liked this interview because it was straight-up technical…like you could almost say we were talking literature but doing MATH.    WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM.  

Jane Ubell-Meyer is an award-winning entrepreneur and former television/film producer (TV credits include Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight, among many others).   She taught at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology for seven years and is a speaker and mentor to authors and entrepreneurs. These days, she sits atop Bedside Reading, a program that places books by the bedsides in luxury hotels and in the media. She's also the most out-of-the-box thinkers I've ever met when it comes to getting a book out there.     I mean, would YOU have connected a successful launch to your BANK or Walmart? Me, neither.     DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO TO WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM FOR OUR FREE GUIDE.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which is being adapted as a television series with Eva Longoria. In addition to her clinical practice, she writes The Atlantic’s weekly “Dear Therapist” advice column and contributes regularly to The New York Times and many other publications. She is also a TED speaker, a ​member of the Advisory Council for Bring Change to Mind and advisor to the Aspen Institute. A contributing writer for the Atlantic, she has written hundreds of articles related to psychology and culture, many of which have become viral sensations. She is a sought-after expert in media such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, CNN, and NPR’s “Fresh Air.” Learn more at LoriGottlieb.com or by following her @LoriGottlieb1 on Twitter.     She's also someone I've known for over a decade (we first met at a dinner in LA and then the next time we saw each other, it was when we appeared The CBS Morning Show together years later...btw, I Googled for the clip, thinking in no way I would find it but oh my God here it is. I couldn't bring myself to actually watch it because watching something I said on TV when I was probably exhausted—that show taped EARLY—overly made up and nervous? No, thank you!!)     Anyway, she's a prolific writer but she has OUTDONE herself with her latest book. It's the kind of book that inspires you to go back to therapy (at least that's what happened to me), have a deeper conversation with your boyfriend than you've ever had (me again) and burst into spontaneous tears in Trader Joe's if you happen to be listening to the audio version while shopping (er, yeah me of course it was me).     I was thrilled that Lori agreed to talk to me, given that she may be the busiest writer on the planet right now (in addition to her full therapy practice, she gets roughly 100 queries a week now from people looking for a therapist; this in addition to her freelance writing career, TED talks, podcasts, TV shows and the sort of balancing act one must do if their book has been on The New York Times bestseller list for the past NINE months).   In case it's not obvious, I love this episode. And I loved her book so much that I will almost tell you to read it before you even listen to this. But who am I kidding, I love downloads! Listen to this and then grab the book if you haven't already.   WANT TO MAKE YOUR MEMOIR INTO A MONEYMAKER? GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LAUNCH PAD FREE GUIDE: WWW.MEMOIRMONEYMAKER.COM.

Annabelle Gurwitch is an actress, activist, and the author of the New York Times bestseller and Thurber Prize finalist I See You Made an Effort. Her other books include: Wherever You Go, There They Are, and You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up (coauthored with Jeff Kahn).    She was the co-host of Dinner & a Movie on TBS and has appeared on NPR, The Today Show, CBS Early Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS, and numerous CNN and MSNBC programs. Her essays and satire have been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, AARP, Real Simple, Prevention, The Los Angeles Book Review, The Daily Beast, Time.com, Next Tribe, Lenny Letter, Hadassah and The Hollywood Reporter, among other media outlets.   She's also an extremely methodical (she might say obsessive-compulsive?) person—one who starts planning her launch as she comes up with the book concept. And she works it—making lists, checking them way more than twice, reaching out to people she knows and doesn't know and ultimately making it so that her books have no option but to be successful.   If you want practical steps on how to prepare both emotionally and literally for a release, this episode is packed with tips, tactics and other t-words!   WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? GET OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR BY GOING TO WWW.MEMOIRDOWNLOAD.COM.

Julie Reisler, Life Designer®, TV Host, Author and Global Brand Ambassador, is all about helping you to tune into your intuition to be your You-est You.  Julie is the author of the Get a PhD in YOU book series, a multi-time TEDx speaker, the host of The You-est You® podcast and a mindfulness teacher on the popular app, Insight Timer, with over 110,000 downloads. Not enough for you? Julie also has a Master's degree in coaching, more than 12 certifications in mindset, leadership and wellbeing and is on the faculty at Georgetown University in their coaching program. As someone who has launched books by hiring various consultants, Julie has a unique perspective. That's why I brought her onto the show to discuss the most effective techniques for a DIY-er who's specifically using their books to build up other aspects of their career. WANT TO WRITE AND LAUNCH YOUR OWN BOOK? DOWNLOAD OUR FREE GUIDE TO WRITING A MEMOIR HERE!