Episode #05 : Become a Best Selling Author with Tyler Wagner
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In this episode of The Richer Geek podcast, I’m chatting with Tyler Wagner, the founder of Authors Unite and the bestselling author of Conference Crushing, a book designed to help business people and entrepreneurs maximize their ROI at networking events, conventions and conferences.
Tyler feeds his passion for helping others spread their message with the world through the written word by helping them publish and market their first bestseller.
In this episode, we chat about…
Why writing a book is one of the best ways to be seen as an expert in your field
How using your book as your new business card helps establish credibility and trust
What types of authors benefit most from the services a company like Authors Unite can
provide
(We also discuss the type of author Tyler won’t take on as a client – and why.)
Tyler’s Top Tips
Keep the end result in mind – knowing what you’re hoping to accomplish helps guide your decisions.
Have the right expectations – getting rich off of book sales is not generally a realistic goal.
You get what you put into it – the success of your marketing depends on your willingness to leverage that foundational work to make connections.
+ Read the transcript
Welcome back to the Richer Geek podcast, I am so excited to have Tyler Wagner on with me today. And Tyler and I met about a year ago was actually on his podcast, which is called the Business Blast podcast. And then through that process came to understand, you know what Tyler does and how I think he can bring a lot of value to this conversation, especially as we've had some other folks talk about books that they've written and self published. And we'll have Tyler kind of give us some overview of how that doesn't have to be as hard and you can get some help in that process. So Tyler, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me on. It's cool to be on the other side of things.
I would love for you to kind of share a little bit of your background and how you got started in the whole book writing world.
Yeah, for sure. So it was actually it was kind of by accident, in a sense, I'll start back to like college. So I was in college. And it just didn't really feel right to me like getting a diploma. I never wanted to work corporate. So after about two years in college, I decided to drop out. And then once I dropped down, I started to go to all these conferences like I would reach out to conference coordinators and ask them if I could basically come to the event and help them like, clean or organize or whatever they needed in exchange for me being able to come and like network and meet the people. And it works really well. So my first book is called conference crushing. It's about how to network at events. That's that's what I wrote it on. And the reason I wrote it is because the mentors that I had found, I told them that Listen, I think I can do public speaking, I'm a pretty outgoing guy. And they're like, Okay, well, the root word of authority is author, you're a 20 year old dropout with $80,000 in debt, so you don't really, you know, you're not a prime candidate to be hired to speak to people. So if you want to be like viewed as an expert in the field, one of the best kind of ways to do that is to write a book on said topic. So that's what I did. I wrote it on conferences, because I felt like I had kind of become an expert at it at the time, you know, like I was going to all these events that were typically five to $10,000 a ticket, and I was going for free just by reaching out creating a relationship with the coordinator and helping out behind the scenes. So either way, I wrote a book on it - it hit best seller on Amazon did really well. And then what took off a lot quicker than my public speaking career was helping other people with books, a bunch of people start reaching out to me and asking me how I did it. So it kind of like happened by accident. And I kind of stumbled upon it.
Okay, so what happened was, you went through all whatever the all the steps and all the kind of minutiae to get the book published. And then it was a success. And now, you realize you could probably make that a little bit easier for people.
Oh, yeah, definitely. It's not your first time, unless you have somebody like walking through the process, it was kind of a nightmare.
And you kind of touched on this when one of your mentors said, hey, you've got to be seen as an expert in something. So you kind of share it a little bit of you know, that led you to write this book. Why should our listeners consider writing a book? What have been kind of the benefits of impact just on the book itself?
Yeah, for sure. So I mean, this is going a cliche now, but it's like the book is the new business card. So I do think like, it is way better. If you can give somebody a book instead of a business card, then you're like actually adding value with your with your gift right there. So I think it's really good in that way. Another point is like, if you stick two people next to each other, they have the same exact attributes, but one is an author and one is not. I think that the author, typically, just on paper, it looks a lot better, I will say to again, go back to me 20 year old drop out, like I really did not have an expertise. And I would say anything, maybe just basketball from playing when I was a kid, but really how much and the perception of it. You know, like when I walked into a room at these conferences after the book, and people had heard that I was like an author and better yet a best selling author, the view was completely different, like I was taken seriously immediately. And I didn't have to, like build that credibility or trust anymore through conversation. It was already there, you know. So I think those are some of the benefits like a book and making some money like book sales, but not not typically, it's not going to make you rich or anything from book sales. But as far as like using it as that business card, and providing a bunch of value to your target customer and kind of using it as your as your foundation to getting people interested in what you offer, like high end consulting, or a membership course. Or maybe you have a software product, whatever it is not where it can actually turn into a very profitable front end piece.
Best Selling Author, what what did it take? Did you have to do a lot of, you know, guerrilla marketing around that. How did that come about?
Yeah, that's a great question. So there's actually there's a lot of different marketing that goes into it, like Facebook ads, building a pre release list, launch group, there's a lot of different things. My for my first book, I didn't do a lot of those, because I had no idea what I was actually doing. What I more did is in the book that I wrote, I had built up a lot of relationships, and actually mentioned a lot of them in the book. And a lot of them were way further ahead than I was, you know, like million dollar businesses they had following, had clout. So by the time that I launched my book, a lot of them not all of them obviously been a lot of them, like tweeted or did a Facebook post. And it all came together. And I call it concentrated impact the way the bestseller lists all work a little bit differently. There's four major ones, Amazon, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. So my first book was Amazon. And the way that works is really you just want to get as many sales as possible in one day. And then you'll get a huge spike, and then you can hit number one. So I had enough my influential people share my book that that occurred. And then I was able to achieve that.
Okay, yeah, I always wondered. And I didn't know, I didn't know all of those details behind us kind of fascinating.
So there's a lot more in a typical launch, just to clarify just when I didn't know what I was doing. So that's how it worked out for me. Yeah. Just having other people with a big following share.
Okay, yeah, kind of, you'd leverage a grassroots kind of approach, but now probably with authors unite. And actually, maybe we should just kind of go to that a little bit. What are the set of services that authors unite provides?
Yeah, so we're basically done for you publishing and marketing. So we can help you hit the major lists that I just mentioned. And again, they are all very different. So like, if you want like Wall Street Journal, like that's a lot bigger on a campaign, a marketing campaign and a lot more book sales that you would need to achieve that list than you went for, let's say Amazon, right. So it's a little bit different. But it includes things like we take care of your Facebook ads, we build your book website, we actually build the entire back end for you. So like if the book is the front end, and you have a membership course, like what would be in the middle of that as a webinar funnel. So we use Click Funnels for that. And we build that and then do the Facebook ads for you. We get you on podcast interviews, there's these things called ebook sites that a lot of people don't know about where you can like pay these ebook sites a fee. They have a huge mailing list of targeted people in different niches. So that's one of the ways to get a huge spike in sales, as well as you'll pay all these different ebook sites. And then like a few million emails will go out in my small time frame about your book. And then you can get a huge spike in sales as well. So that's some of it.
Does that include getting your name and bio and all that into places like Goodreads and some of some of those sites?
We show authors on Goodreads, we don't do good reads for them. But we show them how to leverage there's actually good reads is amazing. Especially for like getting reviews on your book, it may be the best platform ever to do that there's like a part on Goodreads, or the people want to see that know what good reads is. In the top like left center, if you click it, it goes down says people. And you can see like the people that review the most of there's like a whole list of them. And you can click each one and like they usually have their website or contact information. And these are people that actually want to be contacted to review your book, because that's one of the biggest challenges for authors is getting reviews, which if you want to sell books, I mean, that is one of the things that you need to have is just like consumer psychology, if you go to Amazon, you see a product that has like two reviews on it, that there's no trust, like you're probably just going to skim right over that, you know, so Goodreads is how you can get into the hundreds, maybe thousands. If you don't have a huge like raving audience like Gary Vaynerchuck or something you know that you like puts it out, he automatically gets a ton of reviews. Goodreads is a good way to connect with reviewers.
Oh, that's interesting. I love good reads. I actually use it for recommendations. I love how you can you know, I'll put in there. This is the book, this is the kind of style that I like I give this five stars. And then I get recommendations of similar books on the same topic. So but I never paid attention to it. Maybe that's all coming from that kind of crowd based review.
Yes. Yeah, my angle and it just because I've been I've been doing it for six years now. So my I think I'm like a little skewed, like my way of thinking is always on the marketing. So like Goodreads is really for my understanding like a platform for like readers to connect with each other and like share stuff about different books. And it's a lot more than that. There's like book clubs in there. But for my angle to help our authors, I'm like, Hey, here's an audience of people that love reading and like want to review your book. And it's hard to find people that actually want to review books because it takes time and you don't get paid for it. But that is a place where there's tons of those people. So you can really help authors if they leverage it.
Interesting. So you talked about you handle the full scale from the editing, to publishing to marketing? What is the process usually involved and know you you kind of have an application process you're maybe vetting and kind of deciding if successful book before you accepted? Or how does that work?
Yeah, so it's either me or two people on my team that will like feel the consultation call. So we do have an application and then a 45 minute like consultation call to see if it is a good fit. Our primary type of author is personal development, or business like a nonfiction author. And that's because they'll typically have a back end, really that call is to find out what's your desired end result. So if somebody like hops on that call, and is like, hey, like, I want to launch this book, and I want to become like a millionaire and you know, hit bestseller, and you know, just live off and Puck sales, then we will not take that client on. Because we know that they will not be happy with the end result. But sometimes we get a cause sometimes people are like, Hey, listen, you offer all this great stuff. We don't want any of it. We just want to be able to put bestselling author next to her name. And we're like, Okay, great. Like you're going to leverage that as a brand. This is a good partnership, let's do it. And then other people come on, and they know that they want the book as a front end. And they need that back end system. Like a lot of people struggle with Facebook ads, like a lot of people don't know how to do them appropriately. So that's a big value add. And then the sales funnel is a big value add for people. So if they have a back end, it's typically a good partner for us, if they're just trying to make money with book sales, typically not a good partner for us.
Okay, that makes sense. So, what are some examples of, you know, successes that you've seen or and folks that you've worked with, besides your own?
For sure, um, so first one that comes to mind and author named Jolie dawn, so she coaches, women entrepreneurs, and helps them basically do I believe it's their first five figure launch? So they're very like in the early stages of their, like consulting or coaching businesses. And we launched her book and are you familiar with the book The Alchemist?
Okay. So it's a very, like, very famous personal development book. And we got her book number one in front of that. And so it's, it's like, I don't want to say it's up there with the Bible. But it's almost like it's very, very well known personal development book. So that's like a big success story for us. And it really helped her grow her coaching business, she has multiple six figures now. And before, I think she was in the high like five years back when we first did the book. Another one's Jason true. He wrote a book Social Wealth, his books done extremely well. He's kind of like a unicorn, he's actually sold over 40,000 copies of his book. So he actually has made a lot of money from his book alone. But again, obviously, we share that as a testimonial. But we're always upfront with the people on that call, like, this is a unicorn do not expect these results. And they actually went he went wild. Like after we did the launch for him. He leveraged everything that we had done for him. And he got over 500 podcasts, TV, and like radio shows. So he just went on, like a wild tangent. You know, just leveraging it. Yeah, I think yeah, those are those are two that are coming to mind. We worked with over 300. So we have a list on our page, one on the box and my authors and stuff. So we have a good amount.
Do you think there's a difference? And I know that Authors Unite, you're focused on, like you said, kind of personal development and more of like a business book. Do you think that process is just very different if you're trying to write a fictional book?
Well, typically, I mean, just the main difference is the fictional book doesn't really have a back end, we kind of say, like, to our authors, it's almost like, it's up to you, in a sense, if you get your ROI on this or not, because like, we're going to at least him it's business and personal development, like that guy that, you know, did the 40,000 plus copies, like, we did everything we did for him to get him to bestseller. But obviously, like we're not working it like in a sense to get people on 500 shows, you know, I mean, like, That's outrageous. But from what we did from him, he took that foundation and ran with it. And then he made it something way bigger. So I think everybody we work with how to that potential to take the foundation we built for them and really scale. Whereas a fiction book, the only way that they're really going to get that financial return is one of their like, that unicorn, right into just like takes off because we'll get them that immediate exposure. Like if they hit USA Today bestseller, like they're going to hit mainstream outlets, you know, I mean, they're going to get exposure. And in the book, the story connects with the readers it could take off, and they could just make a killing, it's possible, but they don't have that back end. You know, they don't have that high ticket sale, and it's like five or 10 grand or that course that's like $500 or $1500 dollars, all they have is that book sale, it's like 10 to 20 bucks, and you need a lot of those to get the return on investment. So did that answer the question?
Yeah, so interesting, kind of the differences between the two. So what advice would you give to someone who's considering writing a book, you've kind of already told us like, why it's good, and it's good for consideration. But what other advice would you give?
I used to, is almost same within business, right? Like, you just want to have the end result in mind. So you know, knowing going into it, like for some people, like I said before, for some people, it's just an ego thing, you know what I mean? Like, they just want a best selling author next to name for like, ego reasons. And like, if that's the case, then that's fine, then write the book. And you can get the best seller and yeah, there you go. There's your your title, you know, whatever you want. Some people are like really want, they're like ROI, like they're doing this to produce more income. So then I'm like, okay, we have to start backwards, let's build the back end. And it had the book be the funnel that goes into it. Some people like just want to write, they have no interest in business, my recommendation for them is you need to definitely write more than one book. Like, I know, people on Amazon that they've written so many like Kindle books, and a collection of like 50 to 100, Kindle books. And they actually do pretty well passively, like they'll make five to 10 grand, if not more a month, just from their books. But like, they took time crafted amazing books, they're doing Amazon advertising, there's a lot of different elements that go into that. But you're typically not going to get there off of just one book, you know? Yeah, most people definitely are not lovers of writing most people, it's a big struggle for them. So the book is more the foundation for their business. So once they're done, they're like, well, I don't want to do it again. But now I have it.
So that's great advice, have the end result in mind. And the other kind of themes that I've heard, as we've been talking, are have the right expectations, right. And also, you get kind of what you put into it and the amount of effort that you're going to kind of do on your own once you've learned or work with your team on the specific techniques and marketing itself.
Yeah, I guess the last thing I'd say is, maybe for some people, it's just a passion project. Now, and if that's the case, then I would just recommend, like, you know, do the publishing, but don't you don't need to spend all this time money on marketing, and I'm back and you know, it's just for passion, like, just write it and get it out there. And not to not, you know, maybe you don't even do the bestseller thing doesn't matter toyou.
I was thinking how interesting it is, if you are and you talked about kind of two people in the room, even if you're, you're not planning to do a ton with it, you have something you want to say right. So you do have something that you want to kind of get out there and convey. But now you've got that on your resume. I think there's there's massive value in that too. If a company is looking at multiple candidates, and they have a candidate who's written a book, that's, you know, somewhat relevant to either the industry or to business or something like that, I think that would absolutely make you stand out as well.
Yeah, no, I can definitely say another thing that my company does is these collaborative books. So it's like 100 people on one book, and they just write one chapter, and then we publish it. And you're technically like a co author then, but a lot of my friends, like they put that on their resume and it has like helped them get jobs, just having like that author, like just being able to say you're an author, and just from my own experience, like, and maybe I'm a little biased, but like, it changed my life completely. Like I can't even imagine, it made everything in my life easier. You know, like to be able to speak at conferences, if you're an author, it's so much easier than if you're not, you know, so I just go back to my 20 year old self and was very lost when he dropped out of school, had no idea what I was going to do. I wrote a book kind of on a whim, just like trusting the guidance of some people. And then it gave me like, gave people a view of me not allowed me to progress a lot quicker in my career that I wouldn't. have without.
Ah, that's fascinating. I mean, and I think that was very gutsy of you to just in the very beginning to say, Hey, I'll work for you. If you let me attend this conference and go around and meet people. That's just, it's a great story. It definitely shows that you know what you want to go after, or at least you want to go after something and you're learning and you're trying to absorb and soak it all in? Where can listeners stay in touch with you or or learn more about Authors Unite.
It's authors unite. com or I guess if you want to email me directly, it's Tyler at authors unite. com - the email.
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ABOUT TYLER WAGNER
Tyler Wagner is the founder of Authors Unite (authorsunite.com) where he takes people through a 3 month program in helping them write and market their first bestselling book. He has helped people create passive income, become leaders in their field, start businesses from their books, and much more. He is also the bestselling author of Conference Crushing, a book designed to help businesspeople and entrepreneurs maximize their ROI at networking events, conventions and conferences.
Tyler is a leading authority in helping others publish and market their first bestseller. His passion is in helping others spread their message with the world through the written word. He helps people accomplish this through his programs, coaching, and professional speaking.
You can check out Authors Unite at https://authorsunite.com/ or email Tyler directly at tyler@authorsunite.com.