Summary: In this episode, you’re going to get a master’s course in book marketing.<br> Here’s what you’ll learn:<br> <br> * The #1 thing that helped Tucker Max sell over 3,000,000 copies of his books, and hit the New York Times bestseller list three times. (Think it was fame or media attention? Nope.)<br> * The story of how Tucker met Tim Ferriss right before the launch of The 4-Hour Workweek<br> * How Tucker knew that book was going to be a mega bestseller<br> * Book marketing strategies for some of our past guests<br> <br> If you’re an author who gets frustrated with all of the options you have for marketing your book, grab a pen and paper because you’re going to be taking notes.<br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Book-Box-Method-Groundbreaking-Publish-ebook/dp/B014EUTYGM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get Tucker’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Book-Box-Method-Groundbreaking-Publish-ebook/dp/B014EUTYGM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Book in a Box Method</a> on Amazon.<br> Check out Tucker’s company at <a href="https://www.bookinabox.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Book In A Box</a>. <br> <br> How did you get your start in book marketing?<br> I didn’t start in book marketing, I started as a writer.<br> You know, it’s funny. Authors ask me all the time for book marketing advice, and they say, “Okay, how do I get my book to sell?”<br> I always tell them, “You can’t.”<br> Then they get all confused and upset. They’re like, “What do you mean I can’t sell my book?! You sold all your books and you did all these tricks and media stunts. Tell me how to do that!”<br> What I have to explain to them is that none of that actually made my books sell. The reason my books sold is because I wrote things that people wanted to buy.<br> So I say that, I’m like, “Have you written a book people want to buy?” and they always say one of two things.<br> Either they say, “Yeah, of course man, just assume that the book’s amazing,” which usually means a book’s terrible.<br> Or they look at me dumbfounded, as if they had never even conceived of the fact that they should think about the reader.<br> That’s really the main problem with almost all book marketing, is that it does not start when it’s time to sell the book. Book marketing starts before you’ve even written the book.<br> You have got to conceptualize in your head, “Who is the person I’m trying to reach with this book and why will they care?” If you do not answer both of those questions very specifically and very effectively, nothing you can do will market a book.<br> <br> How can you test whether people are willing to pay for your stories or your information?<br> The way I did it was by giving my stuff away for free.<br> It’s very counterintuitive, but there are three things about free that really help.<br> <br> * People don’t value free very highly.<br> * It lowers the barrier to entry to zero, which makes it easily accessible to anyone.<br> * Because you’re not charging, there’s no other sort of weird information signal coming in.<br> <br> By giving it away for free, the other thing that really shows you if people care is if they share it.<br> If someone reads something of yours and shares it with people — especially with the type of people that the book is aiming to get in front of — that’s almost a foolproof indication that you’ve got something super amazing on your hands.<br> I think for people who like teach specific things, like informational nonfiction, is to ask do people come to you all the time for advice?<br> Do other people bring their friends to you for advice?<br> Do people ask you to come speak?<br> Do people tell you you should write a book? Not just two or three. Do you hear this a lot?<br> The best place to experiment with selling something is to the customer you want to sell it to,
