How to Get a Celebrity Endorsement for Your Book

A few words from a respected voice in your industry can go a long way to help you sell a whole bunch of books. But how do you get those words? Stick with me. Hi, I'm Julie Rodd, founder of Book Launchers, a fantastic company that will help you write, publish and sell a nonfiction book that grows your business and builds your brand. How do you get that big name to endorse your book? I'm talking about that celebrity or. Or that authority name in your industry. How do you get them to say, this book is awesome? Here are the steps. Number one, write your list, your dream list, the names of the people you know, every single one of your readers know about. I'm not talking Jennifer Lawrence or Jerry Seinfeld. Just because pretty much everyone knows their name doesn't mean they're going to give you the street cred you need to sell your book. I'm talking about names in your market. For example, if you're in the podcasting space, everybody probably knows Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas. Dumas. Hopefully. I'm saying John Lee Dumas. Dumas Finance. Robert Kiyosaki, David Bach. David Chilton. I put that one in for my Canadian friends. Although his book the Wealthy Barber is decently known in the US too. Health and fitness. Jillian Michaels, Tony Little. Come on, remember him. You can do it. Am I aging myself by putting that one in? Alright, now, it's tough for me to tell you who the big names are in your industry because I'm not in it, but hopefully you get the picture and you know exactly who I'm talking about. Next is to also go to the people who are known, but not by everyone, but they're highly respectable or they're highly accomplished. The goal here is to make a great big list. Number two, pull out a mirror, look in the eyes of that face looking at you and tell your inner critic to shut it. Shut it. Please be quiet. Check that ego. Check those fragile feelings at the door and. And remember that you've written a book that is going to help people. You owe it to yourself and those folks you can help to do everything in your power to get this book out there. And borrowing credibility from others is part of the process. Number three, go through your list and figure out who you can get connected to without cold contact. Who do you know that knows someone on that list? You'll probably be surprised at how connected you actually are. You can do some of the snooping via LinkedIn and Facebook. Thank you. Social media stalking. You can see who's connected to the people you want to connect with, but also ask folks you know. You have to be creative, resourceful and intentional about seeking them out. Then when you're connected, Number four, write a short to the point and personalized personalized letter or email. Why do you want their endorsement? What have they done that you admire or appreciate? In this initial contact, you're not sending the book. You're not going into great detail. Write what you're looking for an endorsement and why. Tell them the hook of your book and why your book matters. If they're willing to check out your book, ask how they would prefer to get your book. You can send it via PDF and that's the ideal because you can send it to them a lot earlier in the process. But some people really do want to see the physical print version. Let them know your timeline and hopefully you've given them more than a month to read your book and provide this endorsement. Now some people are going to come back and say can you give me some examples of what kind of endorsements you want? And here's your opportunity to be strategic. Think in advance about some of the objections people might have to buying your book. It could be time, it could be money, it could be that they feel like they've seen it all before. So think about these objections and have some drafted endorsements that address these objections head on. So you do want to have three or so examples, but do not send these examples unless you're asked. Number five Once you get one or two endorsements from the warm contacts, research the contact information for your dream connections. So social media is okay if you can't find anything else. But try to get deeper contact information than that, then you're going to hit repeat on the same as above, except you're going to take your best endorsements to date, ideally the name with the most credibility and say Professor Joe said this book will become the next textbook in their college for this subject. New York Times best selling author Joe Smith said this is the best book he's read on science and business since his book Bottom line, Borrow the credibility from those folks to get the new people that you don't know to pay attention. When you get the endorsement, thank them and when your book comes out, send them a thank you and a signed copy of your book. Who knows, they may even send a note on social media, but you might be pushing it to ask for that because you've already got gold from them in the form of endorsement recapping. Number one, brainstorm. Number two, tell your inner critic to go for a hike. Number three, get warm contacts. Number four, personalize your contact and get your first endorsements. Number five, go for the big fish in casino talk. Get the whales. Number six, be grateful and show appreciation. Let me know who you land endorsements from in the comments below or who your dream endorsement would be from. If you like this video, hit that thumbs up button and subscribe so we can hang out again soon. Turn on those notifications so you know when a video comes out and then we can hang out. See you on the next video.