Nick Hutchison describes writing and launching his book Rise of the Strategies (launched November 1). He built the manuscript by testing topics with his Book Thinkers community and iterating based on feedback. For the launch he focused on three main tactics—scheduling 100+ podcast interviews to release around launch week, partnering with two dozen book-review pages for advance posts, and posting book content to his personal Instagram to reach friends/family—plus additional tactics (preorder giveaways, bulk purchases). He inserted calls-to-action in the book (example on page 63) asking readers to leave reviews. Hutchison also explains his positive experience working with Book Launchers and recommends trusting their expertise as a first- or second-time author.
Questions this video answers
November 1 (year not stated in the chunk).
Over 100 interviews.
About two dozen.
Approximately 10–15 podcasts per day for a few days.
Page 63.
Chapters
My book is Rise of the strategies for mastering your reading habits and applying what you learn. So over the last six or seven years, I built a marketing agency called Book Thinkers that has a large social media following. We review books and as a result, I've received hundreds and hundreds of the same questions. Hey Nick, how did I choose the right book for me in the world of personal development? Skill acquisition, problem solving, or how do I take effective notes? How do I read faster? How do I implement more of what I'm reading? How do I retain more? And so I didn't have a resource to point people to, so I decided to write one on my process and this is the result of that. So it just launched on November 1st and the feedback has been fantastic. Treat the book like a minimally viable product and collect feedback during the process so that I didn't assume what the reader wanted to read. I involved everybody in my community so I would create content, video content related to the subjects that I was teaching in the book, and I would measure how my community responded to those subjects. Did they find them interesting, useful, helpful? Did they have follow up questions? Was the message clear and easy to understand? And if it was, I would double down and keep it in the book and if it wasn't, I would rework it. I do have a company that focuses on sort of the intersection between social media marketing and books. So there were sort of three things that I focused on for the book launch. Number one was podcasts. I had over 100 interviews in the world of personal development and nonfiction books that I recorded in the months prior to my launch. And I asked every one of those podcasters to hold my interview until my launch week. So as the book was getting ready to come out in late October, I'd have like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 podcasts coming out per day. And then as the book was actually launching, I had 10, 15 podcasts coming out a day for a few days and I had each podcaster order a copy of the book. So I think that helped a lot. These are people who order books on Amazon all day long, every day anyway, so I think it was kind of the right Amazon profiles pre ordering copies of the book. Strategy number two was book reviews. So I do have a book review page. So obviously we were pumping the book out there. But I also worked with probably two dozen other book review pages to get them advanced copies of the book and have them post about it at least on their stories. And again, I'm getting the book in front of the target reader. I know that the target reader exists, exists in these social media communities. And I'm creatively working with the hosts of each one of these communities to get the books posted in advance of the launch. And then number three, I started my own personal Instagram. I had my own personal Instagram page, right? So it had no book related content on it. But I had my team come over and film a bunch of book related content and I started to put that out there for friends and family, like people that aren't in the book community already. They're just looking at my personal life and my travel and stuff like that, friends and family. And I started to put book content out there for them as well. So I think those are the three main things that I focused on. And there were other strategies that I had, books in lieu of services and bulk purchases and a pre order giveaway and stuff. But I think that most of my traction came from the first three things that I mentioned. Make it feel like somebody leaving a review is good for them. So I think there's a little bit of an art and a science to this. I'll go deeper into that in a second. But I'll show something that I think is a little unique on page 63 of my book. If everybody can see it says, please stop and review this book and I'll just read the copy to everybody. If you're enjoying this book and finding value in what you're learning, please leave a review on the platform where you purchased it. There is no better compliment to an author than a positive book review. Positive reviews help. Books rank better on the platforms that sell them and give potential readers more insight on what they can expect to learn. Plus, a review creates some good karma. And who couldn't use a little of that? Thank you. And so that's inserted 60 pages into the book after I've provided enough value for somebody to leave a review. And then there's another call to action later in the book for a very similar thing. So not only did I put that in the book, which I think is creating a lot of reviews already for people, I don't even know who they are. They're just random names. But then as far as friends and family and business partners and customers are concerned, I just asked. I'm reaching out to these people. First it was, can you buy a copy of the book? And then it was, hey, I hope you're enjoying it so far. I'd love if you could leave a review. And I would follow up if people didn't respond to that text message. I Would just follow up a couple of times. Not pushy, like review, review, review, but like, I genuinely want to know what you think so far. And then people would respond and I would say, great, here's a link to my Amazon page. Can you just post that on Amazon as well? In reality, Julie is the reason that I wrote the book. So yeah, I, I didn't have anything ready to go, maybe a little bit of an idea, but it changed quite a bit. So I didn't come with a manuscript, I didn't come with an outline. I just said, hey, I'd like to write a book. And this seems like the right place to do it. So the journey has been great and I'm so happy with the finished product. You know, working in the book space. Authors, they love their books, right? And authors are very opinionated. It's their story, it's their advice. And so I work in the social media space and so I'm, I'm kind of in the same seat that Book Launchers is. Sometimes I'm over here saying, here's my educated opinion. Having been been in the space and worked with so many people, this is what I think you should do. But at the end of the day, it's up to the author. And so I went into this experience knowing that Book Launchers knew a heck of a lot more about writing a great book than I did. And so, yeah, I sort of had to put the ego aside, I think sometimes and default to their expertise. And I'm happy that I did. And so to keep my recommendation short and sweet, it would be that Book Launchers knows more than you do as a first time or second time author because they work in the space full time and they know it's best and they care about the outcome just as much if not more than you do. Because, Julie, your entire business is dependent on the success of these books and the quality of the books that are coming out. And so, yeah, just follow the recommendations, follow the process, try to remove your ego for as long as you can. Observe things from a third party perspective and collect feedback along the way and listen to it. I've really enjoyed working with Book Launchers. Our project started a couple of years ago now and I'm super happy with the results. So that's my story and as you can see, I've got raz of the reader on the hat as well.
