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

Jerry Stahl is the iconic author of Permanent Midnight (made into a movie starring Ben Stiller), among nine other books (among them, OG Dad, Pain Killers, I, Fatty, Perv, Plainclothes Naked, Happy Mutant Baby Pills, Bad Sex on Speed and his latest, Nien Nien: One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust). A Pushcart Prize–winning author, Stahl’s work has appeared in Esquire, Vice, The Believer, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Times, among other places. He also wrote the HBO movie Hemingway & Gellhorn (which earned a Writers Guild Award nomination), Bad Boys II and the cult classic Dr. Caligari and has written on the TV shows Maron, CSI and Escape at Dannemora (for which he received an Emmy nomination). So you get it; he's done a lot. So why does he hate promoting his work so much? And how does he promote his work in spite of that? Find out in our spirited, sarcastic and deeply salacious (no, it's not salacious, I was just in the mood to be alliterative) interview. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Jane Friedman has an icon in the publishing space. With over two decades of experience in the business, she is truly considered the world's leading expert on traditional publishing, self publishing and where the twain shall meet. She's the curator of The Hot Sheet, a biweekly paid newsletter, oversees a wildly popular blog and is also the author of The Business of Being a Writer. In this episode, we discussed how important it is to know what you want your book to do for you, how to get bookstores interested in hosting you, the biggest changes in the publishing industry over the past year and so much more.  IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Bridget Sampson is a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, the author of Communication Secrets for Success and the co-author of Communication Training and Development. She's also a TEDx speaker who helps other people write and deliver their TEDx talks.  All of this made her the perfect person to talk to about how to convert your book into a TEDx talk, whether or not you should outline or write the talk out completely, how to book a TEDx slot, how many times to practice, what to wear and what to do if you bomb, among many other topics. She also shared that people never seem to care that she was a professor for decades but they all care that she has a book and a TEDx talk. So get on it! It's easier than you think. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Peter Shankman is many things, among them a five-time best selling author, entrepreneur and corporate in-person and virtual keynote speaker who focuses on customer service. But in this episode I got him speaking about something so many of you ask me about: HARO, or Help a Reporter Out...the website he started (and sold to Cision many years ago) that helps so many authors get featured in mainstream media. In this conversation, which happened in rapid fire while he was in the throws of salmonella, Peter shared with me how he started HARO accidentally, the best way to get a journalist's attention and why someone stealing a Yoo Hoo truck ended up being the best PR Yoo Hoo could get, among many other topics. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Bonnie Habyan is a communications marketing professional with an MBA in banking and finance. She's been a news reporter, a wedding DJ and even a Miss Baltimore Oriole.But now she's taken on a whole new role: as an author. Her book, The World According to Bess, is a true love letter to her 90-year-old mother—a woman who can definitely give the Sh*t My Dad guy's dad a run for his money.What surprised Bonnie the most about the book process is that, despite her history in marketing, launching a book is a whole new animal—an animal that requires as much of a plan as any other business...complete with KPIs, plans for how the book plays into ultimate business goals and much more.So what has she figured out about a book business plan and what are her KPI's and plans? It's all in this episode.GET EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO MY BESTSELLING BOOK BULLETIN (4 QUICK TIDBITS EVERY THURSDAY), BY GOING TO WWW.BESTSELLINGBOOKBULLETIN.COM

Elizabeth Lyons is the creator of the Book Writing Accelerator and a five-time author whose first book, which she wrote because she couldn't find another book on the topic and really needed it, sold over 20,000 copies. As someone who helps aspiring authors write and publish books, she's become a bit of my comrade-in-arms the past few years, where we regularly text each other questions, concerns and the occasional (or not so occasional) gripe. We have so many feelings and thoughts about publishing, in fact, that in this episode we delve into beginners luck, navigating self-publishing and much more before we get to the meat of it: what to include in your non-fiction book. She breaks down how to start (you write a letter to your reader [genius!]), how to approach your Table of Contents and how to see it through to the end. Did I mention she's a mom of five and super funny? You'll like this one, I promise. (Who are we kidding, you like love all of 'em!) IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Ben Mezrich has sold over 10 million copies of his books. And, by the way, that’s not even the impressive part. The impressive part is that he sells EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS BOOKS as a movie or TV show; in fact, if Hollywood isn’t interested in the treatment, he doesn’t even write the book. Mezrich has gotten into this position because of a chance encounter with some MIT students, which led to his writing Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which led to Kevin Spacey snapping up the film rights before the book was even out, which led to the book spending over 60 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Then there was his book, The Accidental Billionaires, which David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin jumped on as Mezrich was writing the book and which, of course turned into the multi award-nominated movie The Social Network. (Mezrich is the only non-fiction author to have two adaptations open at #1 at the box office.)He’s written numerous other books, including Bitcoin Billionaires and The Antisocial Network and is also a consulting producer on Billions. Oh, and his most recent book, The Midnight Ride, has an NFT component that already has over 3500 owners. So how does this happen? How does a former struggling novelist become Hollywood’s go to guy pursued by designers who want to dress him for his book tours? And what is the secret to finding the sort of story that makes Hollywood salivate? It’s all in this episode. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Mike De Luca has, arguably, more experience than anyone else out there when it comes to turning books into movies: three of the four times he's done it (for The Social Network, Moneyball and Captain Phillips), he has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and the one time he wasn't nominated for one of his book-to-film adaptations, it was for a little movie called 50 Shades of Gray. He's done several other million things in his career, including discovering Paul Thomas Anderson and David Fincher and running New Line studio at the age of 27. But in this episode, we focused on the process of turning a book into a movie—including how producers find out about the books they end up adapting, how much control the author has over the movie and how much money they can make, among many other topics. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

Paul Angone had an extremely unusual journey to success as an author. First, he tried to sell a book. For eight years. Nary a bite. Then a blog post he dashed off went viral. Very viral. From there, he was able to sell a book based on that blog post to a publisher. The problem was that he had to finish it in a month. Well that book and the next have sold over 100,000 copies and launched a massive speaking career. But that's not even why I wanted to have him on the podcast. I wanted him on the pod so I could Interview him about the process of turning his book into a course. Listen in on this mega inspiring conversation about how courses and books work symbiotically—and how your reality may end up being even bigger than your dreams. IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM

While Jeff Kober is a terribly successful actor—having appeared on The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, Shameless, New Girl, NCIS: Los Angeles,  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ER, 24, The Closer and Criminal Minds, among many other shows—it is only one of the many things he does. In fact, although he's a good friend that I adore, I will admit right here and now that I've never seen any of his acting. Sorry, Jeff! But that's because I think of him primarily as a gifted meditation teacher and writer. And I am selfishly so grateful that he recently turned his daily newsletter into a book, Embracing Bliss: 108 Daily Meditations. See, for many years, I read his newsletter religiously every morning before meditating and I pretty much curse Jeff every day for making me have to look at my phone to access it. I'm an addict, people! I can't help but get sucked into some stressful email or Instagram rabbit hole when I was just hoping to take in some spiritual truths, Damn it! Well, now that he's made these brilliant daily thoughts into a book, I have no one but myself to blame if I go down an internet rabbit hole before meditating. You can grab your copy of his book of daily thoughts here. You will not regret it—I ordered multiple copies because I plan to give it out as gifts. But before you order it, do listen in on our conversation so you can learn about his process for turning pre-existing content into a book; it involved spreadsheets, consultations with a colleague and a whole lot of reflection on what people respond to (spoiler alert: musings on relationships and love). IF YOU'RE AN AUTHOR, YOU NEED AN ELEVATOR PITCH! GET YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH TEMPLATE AT WWW.BOOKELEVATORPITCH.COM