Work Less, Earn More · 2026-06-30 · 41 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
50 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Chandler Bolt built Self Publishing School into an eight-figure business by focusing on two core strategies: using books as a leverage tool for lead generation and partnerships as a customer acquisition channel. His flagship book, rewritten in 2021, generates roughly $7M annually and has produced eight figures in lifetime revenue. Unlike many online businesses that rely heavily on personal brand or ad spend, Bolt emphasizes playing to strengths - his being leveraged content and strategic partnerships. The business model combines coaching, online courses, and done-for-you services (cover design, formatting, ISBN management) for aspiring self-published authors. Bolt's approach to books differs sharply from traditional publishing: he advocates self-publishing on Amazon and other online retailers where 70% of book sales occur, giving authors control of IP and pricing. His partnership strategy generates $6-8M annually through virtual stages (podcasts, webinars) and in-person speaking engagements. The company publishes roughly two books daily across their author network. For entrepreneurs considering self-publishing, Bolt demonstrates how a well-crafted book functions as a high-value business card that adds legitimacy, creates lead pipelines, and serves as an on-ramp to paid services.
Yes - Chandler Bolt built Self Publishing School to $75M+ primarily through books as leverage and partnerships, deliberately avoiding heavy reliance on personal brand or paid advertising by playing to his core strengths.
Bolt's flagship book generates approximately $7M annually and has produced eight figures in lifetime revenue by serving as a lead magnet and credibility builder that converts readers into coaching and services customers.
Self-publishing is superior for business growth because 70% of book sales occur on Amazon and other online retailers, you retain IP and pricing control, and traditional publishers typically provide no marketing support or bookstore placement value.
Bolt generates $6-8M annually through partnerships by identifying who's already speaking to his target customers (podcasters, webinar hosts, in-person speakers) and adding value to their audiences through book giveaways and joint ventures.
Self Publishing School combines one-on-one coaching, online courses for leverage, and done-for-you services (cover design, formatting, ISBN) to serve authors at different willingness-to-pay levels and create ascending value ladders.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are real operational specifics scattered throughout (three-funnel structure, partnership revenue figures, the book-as-bait webinar mechanic) but large stretches are padded with backstory, platitudes, and the host narrating her own experience. The ratio of novel ideas to filler is below average for a 41-minute runtime.
all roads lead to booking a call. And so we have all kinds of webinars that we do and we got different funnels. Like there's our VSL funnel, there's our webinar funnel and our free plus shipping funnel
the book is strategy, the course is tactics
The core thesis - book as lead-gen asset, give away value to ascend buyers - is a well-worn concept in the online-business space, and the guest explicitly name-drops Russell Brunson's value ladder as his frame. The 'book as $5 business card' encapsulation is clean but not novel, and no meaningfully contrarian or first-principles argument is advanced.
it's kind of the classic Russell Brunson value ladder where, you know, there's the teach me to do it, show me how to do it, and then do it for me
give away all your best stuff for free, and people will pay you to sell it to them again
Chandler Bolt is a genuine practitioner who built a real business to eight figures over 12 years in a specific niche, which lends credibility; however, his domain (self-publishing education/coaching) is narrow, and much of the conversation stays at the level of a course-seller explaining his own funnel rather than a broadly applicable operator sharing transferable lessons.
we've done, gosh, 75 million over the last decade, maybe closer to 80 million at this point
company. Yeah, over 7,000. We publish about two books a day
The episode is stronger than average on concrete numbers - revenue from the book ($7M last year, eight figures lifetime), partnership revenue ($6 - 8M), events (40 - 70/year), and word-count targets (1,000 words/day, 30,000-word rough draft) - though all figures are self-reported with no external validation and some claims remain vague ('a few bucks,' 'five grand').
this Sucker published this five years ago, and it's brought $7 million in sales over the last 12 months
we'll do roughly 6 to 8 million dollars from partnerships as a whole
The host asks some useful tactical follow-ups (physical vs. PDF giveaway, dual CTA structure, partnership deal mechanics) but never pushes back on self-reported revenue figures, never challenges whether these strategies scale outside the info-product niche, and frequently redirects the conversation to her own experiences, consuming interview time without adding analytical value.
So could you give me some examples?
What do you typically use these days as your calls to action on your webinar?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Is your online business making as much as you hoped it would? If not, listen to my free private podcast series: Stuck at Zero: Why Your Online Business Isn’t Making Any Money (And What to Do About It) Want to grow your business without a massive personal brand or a big ad budget? Chandler Bolt did it - to the tune of $75 million - and in this episode, he breaks down exactly how. Chandler is the founder of Self-Publishing School, which has helped over 7,000 authors publish their books and has done over $75M in gross revenue. His secret? Books and partnerships. In this conversation, he shares the full strategy - including how one book has generated $7 million in the last 12 months alone.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Writing and publishing a book might seem like a kind of old school way to, uh, market. And you might think that these days we're past that and we are just going to focus on digital marketing tactics, Facebook ads, content marketing, social media, and all of that. But actually, even today, and perhaps today, more so than ever before, a book is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. When I was first starting my online business, I met this guy named Chandler Bolt who had recently, a couple years before, started a company called Self Publishing School. And he told me all about how I could self publish my book and use it to generate leads and even customers for my business. And I jumped in and I did that. And even though I didn't really have a business yet, it still, uh, generated over a thousand leads for my business. And those were people on my email list, many of which turned into, uh, my future customers. Well, that was about 10 years ago. And Chandler has come a long way since then. His business has grown over $75 million in gross revenue. And he has, of course, learned so much along the way. But he's still true to his mission of helping entrepreneurs to use self publishing to grow their businesses. And these days he also works with authors in all sorts of other niches and genres, including fiction, to help them to successfully self publish their books and make it be as successful and as profitable as possible. So I'm so excited to have Chandler come on the show today and share with us all about how he's built his eight figure online business and how we can use self publishing to grow our businesses as well.
Speaker B: We became entrepreneurs because more than anything, we want freedom. We want to be in control of our own schedule, income, and life. But unfortunately, that isn't always the reality
Speaker A: of being a business owner.
Speaker B: I'm Gillian Perkins and I'm on a mission to take back entrepreneurship for what
Speaker A: it's supposed to be.
Speaker B: In every episode, I'll share with you how to get the most out of every hour you work so that you can work less and earn more. Let's get to it.
Speaker A: Chandler Bolt, welcome back to Work Less, Earn More. It's been a minute.
Speaker C: It has been. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I think it's been a couple of years since we last talked. For those of, uh, you listeners who haven't heard Chandler's previous episode, I'll give you the tiny backstory. We met, like I want to say, about seven years ago at a conference down in San Diego, and we've kind of followed along each other's journeys Ever since, we've done a few podcast interviews on each other's shows, and it's been really interesting to. And just incredible to watch Chandler's business grow over the years. He was already shooting for the moon when I met him, but he was certainly under a million at that point. I know. And now he is over eight figures, so I definitely want to dive into all of that. Chandler, hear the wild story, find out how you did it. So one thing we were specifically talking about is how you've done this without a personal brand or ads. So zoom us out. Give us the big picture to start, though. Just tell us the. Yeah, that big picture story of how your business has grown over the years.
Speaker C: Yeah, I think when a lot of people think about. I, uh, don't know, when you look at the businesses in our space doing eight figures, they either have a massive personal brand and so it's all social media, or they've just spend almost all of their revenue on ads.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker C: And I mean, we just. I don't know, for. For whatever reason, we just kind of took a different approach. Mostly because I've sucked at both of those things. I've never really been great at it. Now we're getting better at the ads and the organic and the social media and the content. I was telling you before this, trying to get, uh, get on your level, uh, with YouTube, but we just play to your strengths. That's what I tell people. Watching this, listening to this. Play to your strengths, what are you good at? And where can you find leverage in your business? Now, obviously, for me, it's been really. Books and partnerships have been the two biggest things. And so the books give me leverage, give the business leverage, Give leverage everything we're doing. And then a lot of our early success was partnerships. So I think even how we met.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: Uh, was back Hal Elrod's event, if I'm not mistaken, in San Diego. And that was one of our first supporters and first partners.
Speaker A: Yeah. So explain to the listeners who have no, uh, idea what we're talking about, how you've grown your business with books, specifically. Because that might be a confusing one. And also the relationship between the books and the partnerships.
Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, we've done, gosh, 75 million over the last decade, maybe closer to 80 million at this point. But we use the books to bring in more leads, sales, and referrals. So that's the pillar of everything that we do. So, uh, my motto is, give away all your best stuff for free, and people will pay you to sell it. To them again. And so my books, and specifically this book here, has brought in roughly seven, uh, million dollars over the last 12 months, eight figures in the lifetime of this book. But we just point people to the book and we get as many people as possible to download the book, to buy the book, to read the book, to listen the book, and then they end up in our ecosystem talking to the team, all that stuff. And then I guess it's related ish to the partnerships just in the sense that we use the book to kind of grease the wheels of partnerships. And so when we're in front of any partner's audience or whatever, we just give away a ton of books. And that is kind of an on ramp to where people experience how we can help them and then they want to work with us as a paying client. But then the partnership stuff is just, it's all of your best customers are already, someone else is already talking to them. And so it's your job to find who's talking to them and just make it a win for them to put you in front of their audience. Whether that's on a podcast, whether that's on a, you're speaking at events, whether that's webinars. In the early days we did these big affiliate launches. That was kind of how we hit our first six figures and then our first seven figures was just doing these massive launches where we would line up all these partnerships and all you, uh, know people call that affiliates or JVs or joint ventures or whatever else. But that was kind of how we got the early traction.
Speaker A: Mhm. Mhm. So for those of you who are listening to the audio version of the podcast, the book that Chandler was holding up. Is his book published. When did you write that book, Chandler?
Speaker C: So the, I think the first version was maybe 2017. I did, I did. What we teach is an updated and revised version, which was way better because I read the old one and I wrote and we'd been in business for a few years. We published couple thousand books at that point. And I just went back and read the first version and I said, this sucks, I gotta do way better than this. And so I rewrote it. And then that was in 2021 and I mean it's become just a major pillar of the business since then.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And uh, for the listeners who aren't really familiar with you and your brand at all, touch on, do they need to go out and get a publishing deal to get this to work for them?
Speaker C: Don't get me started on that, Gillian.
Speaker A: No, no, no, no. Get into it a little bit.
Speaker C: Absolutely not. Traditional publishers suck. Uh, they bring no value to the table. Even if you can get a book advance, they're not going to do anything to market your book. What are they going to do? Get you into bookstores when nobody buys books in bookstores? 70% of all books sold are sold on Amazon and other online retailers. You don't need a publisher to publish on those platforms. And so self publishing is entrepreneurial publishing, putting the power back in the hands of the authors. It's betting on yourself. Sure, you cover, you take some of the risk up front, but you keep the ip, you keep the upside. A lot of the things that we teach around using a book to actually grow your business, you can't do those things if you traditionally publish because they control what you can and cannot do.
Speaker A: Mhm. So self publishing, you published that book. How many other books have you published?
Speaker C: Me personally, seven books.
Speaker A: Us.
Speaker C: Ah, company. Yeah, over 7,000. We publish about two books a day, so. So all day, every day we're publishing books.
Speaker A: Yeah. That's crazy. And uh, talk a little, just bit, just about like this opportunity of self publishing. And I know you've kind of touched on what it's done for your business, but tell us a little bit more.
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think self publishing a book is the ability to crystallize all of the thing, all of the best things that you know in your business into this thing. That then thousand, if you do it right, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people can go read that thing and be impacted by your work. And it's the best thing that you can ever do to grow your business. We call it leveraged impact. You do work, once you create a book, that book goes on to impact thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people. I'm holding your book here.
Speaker A: You were talking about rewriting your book. I was telling you beforehand, I, I need to do that. My book is off the market, that one. And I need to write a new one for my business because that book has nothing to do with my business, practically speaking. But it was still an amazing experience for me, you know, writing that first book, which by the way, I'm talking about my book sorted. Like I said, it's out of print right now, but I wrote that book and I want to say 2017, 2018, uh, May 2016.
Speaker C: Copyright 2016.
Speaker A: Okay, yeah, so 2016, so 10 years ago now. And at the time I had no audience at all. I barely had a business at all. I was just Kind of like barely starting to get my business off the ground, but I did. What Chandler teaches, or what he taught back then at least, has probably changed significantly. But doing that, you know, it grew my email list from 0 to 800 subscribers in a matter of just a couple of weeks. It brought in a few thousand dollars of revenue into my not a real business, and it just, like, paved the way to so many different opportunities and started to grow my network. It gave me the opportunity to get on podcasts. It was a really incredible experience. So, uh, you were talking, Chandler, uh, about giving away copies of your book, like, on webinars, and just kind of whenever and however and wherever you can. What do you mean exactly by giving it away? Are you actually shipping out books? Does it cost you anything to do this? Are you just giving them the ebook version?
Speaker C: Yeah. Which? Side note, I don't know if I told you this, Gillian, but I'm pretty. You're on our wall in our office over here. Yeah. Like a picture of your face, your book and everything.
Speaker A: Like my famous client.
Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to giving away books, it's a book is the new business card. And so we give it away in any format. And. And. And we give away the physical copy, we give away the audiobook, we give away the ebook. I mean, everything. You name it, we give it away in that format, PDF, whatever. But I think it's for us. It's. How do we just get someone to experience how we can help them? You know, that's so, so weird to me. People get. Get weirded out by giving away their book for free. They say, well, hold up. I spent all this time, this money. What do you mean, give this book away for free? And I'm thinking it is the best business card that you ever will have. And even if you give away a physical book, it's, you know, a few bucks for a business card. So it's, uh, you know, let's call it a $5 business card. That, I mean, brings in tons of great, really great leads. The best prospects, the best buyers are people who read the book. But then if you just go away the free version, when all of a sudden you're getting. I mean, we get hundreds, if not thousands of leads a month that are either free leads or we're getting paid to get leads because they buy the book and then opt into our stuff. And so we're just. I mean, it's just a, uh, pipeline of people that we're helping, and we're adding value to first, because a book hasn't inherent. It has inherent value, right? Because they would pay on Amazon or Audible or wherever else they would pay for that thing. We're just giving it to them for free. And so that's kind of our philosophy is, hey, how do we add value as much as possible as early as possible in the sales process so that if they can't afford to work with us, no problem. You know, you use the stuff that we teach in the book and we can still help you in that way. But if you can afford to work with us, well, awesome, then work with us after you read the book and you've kind of got a taste of it. And so it's just. It's the best business card we have.
Speaker B: If you've been listening to Work Less, Earn More for a while now, my guess is that, uh, one of your main motivations for listening to the show is because you want to figure out how to get your online business to make more money. Maybe it's already making some money, but you'd like it to be making more. Or maybe you're just getting started and you're trying to figure out how to get your business to earn its first few dollars. Well, helping you figure out how to do this is definitely one of my top priorities with Work Less, earn more. But I'll be the first to admit that it's only one of them. We talk about a lot of different aspects of online business here on the show and a lot of different stages. So while sometimes we talk about how to earn those first few dollars or how to get your online business to earn more, that's not what every single episode is about. But recently I realized that that is the main focus, the main goal of many of you when you're listening. So I decided to create a focused series on this specific topic, how to get your online business to make more money. So this new series is called Stuck at Zero. Why your online business isn't making any money and what to do about it. And honestly, this isn't just for you if your business isn't making any money. It's also for you if your business is making some, but not as much as you'd like to. We're going to be publishing this new series on a separate podcast feed so that it can, uh, be really clear and focused and you can start at the beginning and listen all the way through. So if you want to tune in to this new, limited, uh, private podcast series, just go to Gillian Perkins.com stuck and we will leave the link to that in the show notes for this episode as well. Again, the URL, though, is Gillian Perkins.com stuck and you can sign up to get access to that new series for free. Again, it's called Stock at zero. Why your online business isn't making any money and what to do about it.
Speaker A: Tell us more about the contents of that specific book that it seems like is your main, uh, $5 business card, right. That you are focused on giving away. What is sort of like the, the structure of the contents inside of that book. What sorts of things does it cover? Is it similar to what we might cover on a webinar? Like a very educational value packed sort of webinar? Um, and maybe you can even start to get into, like, after somebody experiences all of that value in the book, why do they still want to work with you?
Speaker C: Yeah, so I would say it's. It's very similar to. It's funny, we give away the video version of the book right away. This is actually one thing that really works. It works really well for us. For the beginning of the book, we say, hey, you don't want to read this book. You want to listen to it. Here you go. Get the audiobook for free. And if you'd rather have the video summary, well, then just, you know, go check out the video summary. The video summary is one of our best converting webinars that, that covers a lot of the same things in this. So it's absolutely educational value packed. The best books that are books that. I think a lot of times when people hear me say, oh, yeah, you know, it's a $5 business card, well, they assume that the content of the book is just sales and it's a sales pamphlet. Absolutely not. The book needs to be great. And so great that when they read it, they think, oh, my gosh, if I got all this for free or for 15 bucks, imagine what it would look like to work with them. And so I think that's why people then go on to work with us is because they realize, whoa, they've got a lot of great frameworks. They've done this before. And it's kind of the classic Russell Brunson value ladder where, you know, there's the teach me to do it, show me how to do it, and then do it for me. Well, you. We teach them how to do it, and then they realize, okay, I either need more help, so I want you to show me even further, or I don't have time to do this. I just want you to. I just want to pay you and then you do a bunch of this work for me. And either way that leads to them ascending to becoming a customer.
Speaker A: Mhm, mhm. So let's dive a little bit deeper into the self publishing school business model and specifically how you've been able to scale it so much over these last, you know, about 10 years. Has it been 10 full years yet?
Speaker C: Oh gosh, yeah, I think 12 years.
Speaker A: 12 years. Okay. Yeah. So uh, talk me through the different kind of like business stages that you've gone through and the main strategies that you used in each stage to get specifically, I'm thinking of the visibility, but also if your conversion strategy has changed over the years, that'd be interesting to hear about as well.
Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. So my guess is people watching this or listening this, you're either in startup mode, you're in, you know, validation mode, or you're in scale up mode. So startup mode, you're trying to get your first customers validation mode, you're trying to get maybe to six figures and then scale up mode, you're either trying to get to seven or eight. So I think there's kind of five core things, we uh, call it the five P's of the eight figure profit branch. Right. To get to eight figures. Now this works at any, any uh, any revenue amount. But I would say it starts with paying customers. So if you don't have paying customers, you don't have a business, you have a business idea. And so for a lot of folks that's the biggest first hurdle. But then probably you're selling your time. So then you have to re, you have to figure out how do I extricate myself from the delivery of this thing or from the just selling one on one time. And so that was a real early thing I had to figure out. And so then we had to bring in coaches and train those coaches and those were our best students became coaches. And but then there's product market fit it. So that's the second piece. So then that's okay. Not only are you just muscling it and selling it one off, but do you have something that people actually want and will repeatedly buy at scale? Then is there's profit. So are you able to acquire customers and fulfill on that, that thing profitably and make a profit in the process? Then there's people, you need people to scale and then there's process, you need people in process to apply to those things, to be able to scale scale to seven figures, eight figures. But to your point, you kind of got to Break it down and rebuild it at each stage. You get it. I mean, getting to six figures is kind of just survival. I'll do whatever works. How do I just get, you know, first customers or how do I just get people to validate that this is something that they want? And then I think you start to hit momentum now, either way, you got to find a way to get customers. So for some people, they start spending money on ads. For some people, maybe you go speaking, but there's, there's earned media and paid media. And so either you're going to go earn it and build out an audience, do content, create a book, uh, you know, YouTube channel, whatever else, social media content, or you're going to pay for it. And pay for it, you're just writing a check that's, you know, maybe you're doing paid ads, maybe you're doing sponsorships, maybe you're doing. Yes, it's kind of weird. It's like partnerships and affiliates are this, I'd say squarely in the middle of that of where you have to go do effort a lot of times to get people to say yes to a partnership. But then at the end of the day, you're really paying them per customer, likely, or some sort of sponsorship if they bring in customers. And so I think you just have to, at, uh, each rung of that ladder or at each piece, you just have to say, okay, how do I reinvent this? And it's. Change is the only constant. I mean, we've had to readapt the business model a bajillion times. We've had to, uh, you know, change all kinds of stuff because, you know, as much as I would like to say nail it once and then just keep doing it, no, you're gonna have people trying to put you out of business. You're gonna have a bunch of competitors pop up. I mean, we're in a very red ocean industry, I would say. And so everybody and their mother tries to get, tries to come in and compete with us. And there's a graveyard of competitors, by the way. Cause we can out, we can out execute just about all of them. But find what you're good at. Find your competitive moat. Keep reinventing yourself.
Speaker A: I mostly just want to hear more about like your business model and what's really been working for you. Maybe you can tell me about right now. What. Yeah, right now. What is the current business model you mentioned? You know, you have these affiliates and you're giving away the book. What is your go to strategy for getting the affiliates first? Of all.
Speaker C: Yeah. So I would say. So our business model is people pay us upfront, and we coach them through the process. And we. So it's. It's coaching course and services. So a lot of times people would think you're one or the other. We kind of combine all three into a delivery mechanism that helps get great results for our authors. So we coach them through the process. That's the one on one, and that's really great. And that's people who have done it. There's the course, which is, uh, you know, helps give us leverage, helps give our coaches leverage. And then there's the done for you services, which is all the annoying stuff that I think probably back when you work with us, we didn't do any of that stuff. Cover design, formatting, ISBN, all the things. And so that's kind of the business model. And then what's working, I would say, is the partnership stuff, which we just did a video on our channel with a section on the Chandler Bolt channel. We call it a $30 million partnership blueprint.
Speaker A: And.
Speaker C: But it's essentially finding someone who is speaking to your customers, finding a way to add value to them and their audience, and then creating a win in that for them.
Speaker A: So could you give me some examples?
Speaker C: Yeah. So, uh, there's. There's three channels, which is a lot of times it's. There's. There's virtual stages, and that's in the form of podcasts or webinars, and then there's in person speaking. So we'll do roughly 6 to 8 million dollars from partnerships as a whole. Now, some of that is we're doing a bunch of webinars with folks. Some of that's we're going on podcasts. A bunch of that is we'll go speak at 40 to 70 events this year. And a lot of that is not me. We've built out a speaking team, and so I don't have to be on the road all the time. And so. But to your point, can you give an example? It's we provide a win for them in the form of, hey, we will pay you per customer that signs up to work with us. Or sometimes the deals get a little bit creative where we'll say, hey, you're working on a book. Well, why don't you work with us? And then we'll do, uh, a training to your community, and then we'll pay you for every customer that comes in. And so we're gonna help you blow up your book. We're gonna help a bunch of your People in your audience write and publish the book. In the process, they're also doing it alongside you, which is really fun for them and for you. A little bit of extra motivation for everyone involved. And then we'll just keep cutting you checks for a long time. And so that's, that's kind of one example. I will set it up. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: And then, and then, uh, it's always value. I mean everything we do, whether we're coming in to speak, whether we're doing a webinar, giving away books, I mean it's just, it's gotta start with a ton of value added because it, it's a, it creates a true win win and it builds reciprocity in the mind of the partner and the mind of their customers or their people and their audience. And so it's never this big hard sale or pitch or whatever. It's, hey, let me teach you a bunch of stuff. Oh, uh, by the way, if you're serious about this, you should work with us, book a call with the team and we'll customize the strat and you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah. What do you typically use these days as your calls to action on your webinar? Do you have like a few different webinars you do like one for the course, one for the coaching, one for the done for you, or do you always have your webinars promote one of them and then you like value ladder the customers up after that?
Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So for us, I mean, maybe it's in some ways it's probably overly simplistic. In other ways it is, I don't know, I feel like it's, it's very trendy to hate on call like calls these days. But for us, all roads lead to booking a call. And so we have all kinds of webinars that we do and we got different funnels. Like there's our VSL funnel, there's our webinar funnel and our free plus shipping funnel. Those are the kind of the three main funnels that.
Speaker A: So you just do all the funnels?
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean you're like, why choose
Speaker A: one strategy when I could do all three?
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean more is more. But no, uh, those three work really well. So we do live webinars. And to your point, yes, there's, there are different, they're slightly different topically. Like last week, you know, I did a webinar to Jay Shetty's audience and that's a more purpose driven kind of book author. And then maybe I forget who I'm doing a webinar with tomorrow. But I think it's a bunch of business coaches. And so that's very businessy and using a book to grow your business. And so the end outcome is we're going to help you with your book. Now it could be any type of book. It could be fiction book, memoir, nonfiction, business book, whatever else. And so based on that, the in the on ramp or the webinar content will be a little bit different. But all roads lead to the same place, which is booking a call on that call. We customize a strategy and then pair them up with the product or service that's most helpful for them.
Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And so do you have like a dual call to action on your webinars where the one call to action is like download the free book or like here's a free copy of the book. And then the kind of ultimate call to action is book a call kind of.
Speaker C: I mean really I would just say it's one call to action, which is book a call. I mean that's the thing. But we give them a copy of the book for free if they show up and stay to the end of the webinar. And so it kind of all roads lead to where the book is, just helping us get more people to register, lower our cost per registrant, increase our show up rate, increase retention of the webinar. And then oh by the way, when you book a call on the thank you page, the book is there or if you stay to the end, we'll send you an email with a free copy of the book. And so the book is the bait, if you will. And the, and the call is the main call to action.
Speaker A: Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. And the book is the bait, but it's also a uh, further sales mechanism so they don't book a cult then, then they're more likely to in the future.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker A: When you give away that free copy as that if you stay till the end offer, is it a physical copy or a PDF?
Speaker C: PDF, yes. We give away the ebook or the audiobook because I mean as much as possible I want to, I want to add value but not add a crap ton of cost for me and for the business. And so really with the only place we give away the physical copy, I guess there's maybe three places. One is if we're in person speaking in an event. It's a no brainer. Those are really great prospects. And I mean that allows us just any event that we speak at, we just Get a bajillion leads and do a ton of revenue. And so that is a no brainer, I would say secondarily is our free plus shipping funnel that prints. So that is, you know, they're paying for shipping and handling. So it's. We end up losing money per book, like, you know, a couple bucks or a few bucks a book, but they cover a decent amount of the cost. Um, so that, uh, that's probably the second place. And then the third would be like a one off promotion. We've done stuff where if we have a strong, compelling reason why, maybe we add that as part of the funnel and it's a big revenue spike. And we just know, hey, we're going to end up spending five grand to, uh, send out a bunch of books or something like that. But it might do a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue, so it's worth it. And those are kind of like maybe the three places where we would use the physical copy of the book.
Speaker A: Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. So I think you've mentioned that you have written seven. Is that what you said? Seven books for your business. If you were doing this again, would you still write all seven of those books? Or has it really ultimately come down to just like this one book is the, the main thing and it's gotten you like it was 20% of the work that got you 80% of the results.
Speaker C: Uh, this book is definitely the 80. 20.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: But it's hard to say if I would go back and not do the other ones. That would be kind of like saying, hey, Gillian, you got this one video that just.
Speaker A: Okay. I thought you were gonna put my children, bring up my children.
Speaker C: I wouldn't do that too. Yeah. Think of your favorite child. Would you rather just go back and have only my favorite child?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: No, but think about your videos, right? I'm sure you've had one or two videos that have just popped off and added the most amount of revenue or the most amount of subscribers. And you say, oh, well, would you go back and do all those other videos or would you just do that video? And you'd say, well, I had to do all those other videos to get to that one video. I think it's kind of the same with, with my books is I had to do those other books to learn the process to get to the culmination of what ultimately has become the best book for me.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So if somebody is listening right now and they're thinking, okay, this makes a lot of sense, I would, I should probably write a book to help grow my, uh, business. What would be the first steps that you would recommend? And I'm thinking here of like planning steps basically, or is there anything they should do before they decide to write a book?
Speaker C: Yeah, so I would say there's kind of two things. If you're, if you just think, if you're just getting started and just thinking about writing a book, there's two things I'd get really clear on. One is what we call this, the four P's of bestselling book. And so person pain, promise, price. The price is easy based on the format. But think about the person that you're writing to that this book would be helpful for. So maybe Gillian, even for your next book that's more closely related to the business. What's, who's the person that you're writing to? This should be someone you actually know in your real life. What's the pain that they have that they know that they have? And then what's the promise that you can make in the book? And so I would get clear on that and then I would use the framework that we teach called the more writing method, which is mind map, outline, rough draft editing. And so that's the process I would use to actually write the book. But you get clear on that first piece plus the mind map, which is really just spend 15 minutes brainstorming all the ideas around the topic for your book. Then you'll be off to the races and you can keep, you can kind of start making some real progress.
Speaker A: What's the process that you're having? Most of your clients these days use to write their books? And how long does it take most people to write their book?
Speaker C: Yeah, so, uh, our tried and true process is the more Writing method. So mind map it, outline it, and then you can either write it or speak it, or some people, you know, we always just say, hey, what's your, what's your strength? Play to that strength. And so maybe it's outlining and creating YouTube videos. Well then I would say, okay, well then let's make a, uh, 10 part series or let's make, you know, make all these chapters actually long form videos and then use that as the mechanism to create the rough draft of the book. Maybe it's speaking, maybe it's writing. Okay, so use that. Obviously with AI these days, you can use that to help accelerate some of the structuring of the book. I think that's really helpful for people. I'm not a big fan of just kind of just doing an AI slot book and that sort of thing. But use it to make a better book. Use it to mine and distill the frameworks. Use it to organize your ideas. Use it to pull stories like, use it to enhance. Enhance and write a better book. But that's kind of how I would think about it. And a lot of what we're teaching
Speaker A: and how long does it generally take?
Speaker C: I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Would you recommend people set aside for it?
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, to go through the full process. Most. For most of our people, it's nine to 18 months for just the writing. I mean, it could take as little as a couple weeks. It can take as much as a few months. I mean, it can obviously take longer than that.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: But we've got this thing called the 30 day rough draft Challenge. That's what a lot of people like to do. And they just say, hey, I'm gonna write for an hour a day for 30 days straight. It's kind of like 75 hard.
Speaker A: Yep.
Speaker C: But I'm just gonna, I'm gonna. I'm, um, just writing an hour a day for 30 days straight. And that's roughly a thousand words a day. So then at the end of that 30 days, they've got over 30,000 words written, which is most of the length of a book. And so now all of a sudden they've got most of a rough draft, maybe even a rough draft done in a month. So that's kind of the timeframe that, that, that people can do it in.
Speaker A: Yeah, that, uh, is what I did for that first book of mine that you have. There is. I wrote it in a month. About a thousand words a day. Yeah, it worked really well. I think, uh, for me, I got tired of the book by the end of the month because I was like, so all in it. And so then I spent the next month or two editing it and I hired a couple people to edit it as well. But I didn't really have the creative energy at that point to like add to it or make it better. I could only like, do. What do you call it, like copy editing. You know, typos, punctuation, and that sort of stuff. What do you have, what advice do you have for how I can maybe avoid that problem this next time around?
Speaker C: Yeah, I would say the better the outline, the easier the draft. And the better. And the easier, the faster the draft and the better the book. But what I would say is I would work with a really good content editor and I would, you know, pay them well, and I would so Then, then you have that breathing room where you send it to them, they've got it for a couple weeks, then you get it back. Yeah, that's kind of how I would think about it. And also, I mean if you're writing, if you're writing specifically to your business and it's directly related to your business, a lot of those things, I mean, because what can be creatively exhausting is working out frameworks or working out thoughts around a thing for the first time. That's the funny thing about a book, right, Is it forces you to distill your beliefs or opinions into the written word and into text. And so you're having to really wrestle with that and say, oh, hold on, I'm about to put this in writing. What do I think about this? And that's where I think when you're writing about stuff that you know and you're talking about all the time, you've done a bajillion videos on it, it's in your course, it's in uh, you know, your, your business and the stuff that you teach, it's a lot easier to then say, all right, let me outline this and then let me maybe even chew on that outline for a bit and make sure I've got that good out. Okay. And then now I'm working my way through actually writing the draft and it's a lot more easy and life giving because you've already kind of cleared your throat a little.
Speaker A: M. Mhm. What would you say to the person who sees the value in all this? And they see you at a great like visibility and customer development tool a book can be, but they are struggling with. What I'm thinking about is choosing the topic of the book because they're thinking if I make the book on exactly the same topic as my paid program, then people will choose to buy the 10 book instead of my thousand dollar paid program if they have the same promise.
Speaker C: Uh, have you ever, have you ever read a book and then bought some from that person?
Speaker A: Yeah, I think most of us probably have at some um, point.
Speaker C: I mean I think it, it, I think it makes someone more likely to do business with you, not less. And it, it is an approachable on ramp. So I mean my personal philosophy is, is give away all your best stuff for free and people will pay you to tell it to them again. And I, I think it's very scarcity minded when people start to think, well hold up, I'm not like that's in the, I need to keep that in the paid program or I need to. Whatever. They're different. So the book is strategy, the course is tactics, or the coaching or the whatever is tactical. And so of course, everything that we teach in our, uh, programs, of course it's not in this book because a bunch of it would be impractical to do so. Right. I mean, it would just not make sense because if I did the click by click on Amazon or if I told you some cutting edge Amazon strategy, well then by the time you read this book, it's gonna be outdated. So the book is very strategic. It is a lot of, if not all of, uh, our best high level strategies. And then the tactics, the customizing it to the person, that is what happens in the course and in the coaching and in the programs. I don't know if you heard the bell.
Speaker A: Yeah, apparently lunchtime
Speaker C: life change. That's our life changing bell. Uh, so, uh, you change your life, you ring the bell. So sorry about that.
Speaker A: Okay, well, okay, we're running up on time here, Chandler, but to wrap this up, I would love for you to kind of maybe give like a recap almost of, uh, for people who are not previously familiar with this idea of using a book to grow their business. Um, can you just kind of recap what the strategy there is on, like how a book can get you visibility?
Speaker C: Yeah, I would say a book is the. Well, actually I would take a step back. We talked about earlier in the episode, the concept of leveraged impact, right? Doing work once, creating this thing that goes on to impact thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people. If you're struggling to grow your business, it's probably because you lack leverage. You are, you're doing a bunch of one off effort and it's one to one instead of one to many. And so the whole concept is what if you take the best things that you know, you put them into a book and then you create the best asset that exists, which is a book. You look at all of the most successful entrepreneurs pretty much that you can think of, especially in this space. They've published books and they point to those books. And those books are the best thing that they do that grows their business. Because it takes people from browsers to buyers, and it might just be 15 bucks, but now they're a buyer, they're in your ecosystem, they're learning from you. And then you use that book to accelerate and uh, ascend people into the things that you do. And so what I love about it is that it gives leverage. Sure. With prospects, with customers, with people who are thinking about doing business with you. But it's also, I mean, it's onboarding for our customers, it's onboarding for our employees. It is the single best asset that we have in the business. It splinters off into content. It, it's, it's the hub of everything. And especially in an age of AI where you need kind of structured source material that you can then use for all the stuff in your business. Well, a book is the best way that you can do that. And yes, it's cumbersome. Yes, it's, you know, it's going to take you a good amount of time and money and energy to do this thing. But when I just look at the assets that I have in my business, I can't think of another asset that I have in my business that is as powerful as a book. That was a similar time commitment. It's like, okay, I'm spending 50 grand a month on ads. Well, as soon as that month is over, those ads are. I mean, it's. That, that's not still existing. But meanwhile, I spend, you know, 10 grand, whatever, on this book and a few hundred hours. And I, I mean, this Sucker published this five years ago, and it's brought $7 million in sales over the last 12 months. I mean, it just keeps going. And so, anyways, I could get, I could go on this for a long time, but I bring so much leverage to what you're trying to do in your business.
Speaker A: Very well said. Well, let's wrap this up here, Chandler, but thank you so much for everything you shared with us today. Where should listeners go if they want to learn more about these strategies that we're talking about today?
Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you for having me. This has been really fun. I would say, um, two things. Uh, we're building out a lot of media stuff, content stuff. So if you want content, check out the YouTube channel, self publishing.com. we are like 40 subscribers away from a hundred thousand subscribers over there.
Speaker A: Very nice. Congratulations.
Speaker C: I mean, we're not, we're not at 7:50 yet. Uh, Chandler, uh, Bolt Channel is all about scaling to eight figures. So you can check out content over there or on Instagram. And, uh, then we created a link for you guys. Self publishing.com forward slash. Gillian, if you want to book a call with my team and see if we can help with your book.
Speaker B: Perfect.
Speaker A: Well, thank you so much. Great to have you here.
Speaker B: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Less, Earn More. Now, here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of this episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do, make sure you tag me Illianz Ah, Perkins, so I can see you're listening. Sharing on Stories is going to help more people find this podcast so this they too can learn how to build their business in a way that allows them to work less and earn more. And if you really love the show, head over to Apple Podcasts right now and leave Work Less, Earn More a review to give it a boost and help even more people find it. Okay, let's wrap this up. I'm Gillian Perkins, and until next week, stay focused and take action.
Speaker C: Sam m.
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