How Alinka Rutkowska Helped 91 Authors Achieve USA TODAY BEST-SELLER Status

This YouTube presentation (hosted by Joe Polish) features Alinka Rutkowska explaining how to achieve USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller status. Key points: being an Amazon bestseller (category #1) is relatively easy because there are >10,000 categories and rankings refresh hourly (often achievable with <100 sales in a narrow category). USA Today is a more prestigious, "fair" list with only 150 weekly slots and requires roughly 6,000 U.S. sales in a week (about 500 sales on non-Amazon retailers required as well). Wall Street Journal is similar but smaller (roughly 10 slots per week in each of seven categories) and typically requires ~3,000 U.S. sales. The New York Times list is editorially curated and less predictable. Rutkowska states she has placed 91 authors on the USA Today list, cites examples of career impact (higher fees, more bookings), and outlines practical launch assumptions (example: Amazon page conversion 50%, click-through rate 2% → implies ~600,000-email reach to generate 6,000 sales solo) and partnership strategies (e.g., pooling multiple authors/influencers). The talk includes calls-to-action to download Leaders Press launch materials and Joe Polish briefly promotes his free book.
Questions this video answers
91 entrepreneurs
Around 6,000 copies in one week (U.S. sales only)
150 slots every week
About 500 sales on a retailer other than Amazon
About 3,000 copies in one week (U.S. sales only)
Chapters
So how do you add this accolade to your title? Well, first you need a book. And this is the easy part, because you can totally outsource it. Think Crystal Byrne, Dean Jackson or myself. Use any one of us. We can all help you write a book. We all have a different approach. And the purpose of this talk is for you to discover how you can become a best seller once you have a book.
What do all of these things have in common? Now listen carefully. An Oscar award, a Grammy award, a Nobel prize, a Super Bowl MVP trophy, USA Today best selling book, a World Series MVP trophy, induction into the hall of Fame of football. If your answer is all of those have the fact that the person who did these things is extremely outstanding or an authority or a high achiever, then your answer is correct. There's one other thing. All those things are physical. And so yes, we're in the digital age. But something physical where you can curl up on your couch and read it still is old school and still has a huge impact. Now unfortunately for most genius network members, you may not be earning a Nobel Prize or an Oscar or named MVP of the next super bowl, but you do have a great chance, in fact, a chance that tips the scales in your favor to have a best selling book or becoming a best selling author. Author is short for authority. And so listen to the next 10 minutes, lean forward. Because our next speaker has had over 500 entrepreneurs share their stories and has been through the world of her publishing house Leaders Press and she's achieved the USA Today best selling status for not 11, not 51, not 81, but 91 different authors. You know the names of the most prestigious books on the USA Today and the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. And once you make these lists and opportunities can come your way. The a trophy. And so from request for you to speak, that's what authors do, if you're a best selling author, to establish you as a results leader, not just a thought leader. And in your profession, if you have a book that is a bestseller, it does give you an unfair advantage, which is fair for you, unfair for everyone else. Great things happen and they will if you have a best selling book and there is not just the content to writing the book, but the context of making it a bestseller. And our next speaker has cracked the code on that. Most people don't have a clue on how to achieve bestseller status. There are great books out there that don't achieve bestseller status. But in the next 600 seconds and just 10 minutes, you will learn how in her first 10 minute talk. She helped us overcome the resistance to writing the book. Creating the content. Now she's going to share some of the little known information and strategies on exactly what it takes to create the title of USA Today. That's different than Amazon bestseller, but USA Today or Wall Street Journal bestseller. Now her title is how you can earn the title of a USA Today or Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Please help me welcome Alinka Rukhovska.
Thank you, Alex. Don't go away. I'm gonna. How many of you have a best selling book? Wave your hand if you have one. How many have a best selling book? Alex, what does that look like?
It looks like a bunch of my sayings and getting a bunch of people to buy it on Amazon and bribing them to make me bestseller status. That's what it looks like for me.
All right, I mean, how many of you, okay, how many have a USA Today, Wall Street Journal or New York Times best selling book? What's the percentage of the hands up? I see three, Alinka, and six on the last one. All right, so that's what we're going to talk about today. Let me share my screen. To those of you who said yes, you have a best selling book, I say, congratulations. You know the power, authority and credibility that comes with being a best selling author. And to those of you who said no, I say, why not? When adding bestselling author to your signature increases your visibility, your attractiveness as a speaker, as a consultant, it allows you to raise your fees and leave a legacy that will continue being desirable long after you're gone. As you've heard in the intro, having not just a bestseller, but a USA Today or Wall Street Journal bestseller is like having an Oscar or if you're an actor, if you're an actor, an Oscar or if you're an athlete, being the most valuable player, it's a door opener. It's the most coveted title. It's your claim to fame. That's what bestseller means in the business world. It opens doors for you just like it has for BJ Fogg, Ben Hardy, James Nestor or Robert Cialdini. So how do you become a best selling author and what do the different lists mean? Well, some of you know this already. Many of you will finally get the explanation you've wanted for a while. My goal for you today is for you to evaluate how adding best selling author to your signature would impact your business financially. You might end up like this gentleman doing snow angels in money. This is business Success secrets. My publishing house, Leaders Press launched it to USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller in March. One of the authors, Tamra now, says, there are very few people who can say they are a USA TODAY bestselling author, and I'm blessed to be in the few. Another author, Tomika Holyfield, said that after becoming a USA TODAY bestselling author, she doubled her speaking fee and she's getting booked on twice the number of speaking gigs she was before. This is quitless. We launched it to USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller status in April. One of the authors, Anita Plack, said that being a USA TODAY bestselling author is a huge achievement and people now treat her differently, making the authority coming from the title palpable. This is Vanessa o', Connor, a college professor and. And she said that becoming a USA TODAY bestselling author instantly elevated her status among her peers.
Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.
So how do you add this acolyte to your title? Well, first you need a book. And this is the easy part, because you can totally outsource it. Thank Chris o', Byrne, Dean Jackson, or myself. Use any one of us. We can all help you write a book. We all have a different approach. And the purpose of this talk is for you to discover how you can become a best seller once you have a book. So let's analyze the different lists and the requirements to hit them. Amazon. Being an Amazon bestseller means becoming number one in a category. And I'm not saying number one in nonfiction, which is one of the two categories, fiction and nonfiction. I mean, something like if you drill down deep enough and you know where to look, you'll find something loosely related to the topic of your book and you will get to number one in this category. With a modest number of books sold, how many categories are there? Take a guess. 10,000. More than 10,000? Yes. More than 10,000 categories. And how often does the status change? Every hour. Best selling status on Amazon changes every hour. How many sales do you need to become number one in a category? This changes on Amazon all the time, but less than 100 sales will get you to number one if you choose it well. So being an Amazon bestseller is not a gold star like the USA Today, which we will look at now. USA Today is a completely different beast. Why? Because instead of tens of thousands of slots changing every hour, you only have 150 slots every week. So how many books do you need to sell to be in one of those 150 slots? Around 6,000 should do the trick. In a week, only US sales count. So if you're international, you need to focus on U.S. sales and your place of residence doesn't matter. I live in Italy and as Alex told you, I've put 91 entrepreneurs on the USA Today bestseller list from all over the world. You need to have about 500 sales on a retailer other than Amazon. It has to be a paid book. It can be either a solo book or an anthology. And the placement is very fair because it depends exclusively on the number of copies sold. Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal is very similar to the USA Today list in that it's a fair list. There are only 10 slots every week in seven categories. Instead of 6,000, you're likely to hit the list with 3,000 sales. Only US sales count. Your place of residence doesn't matter. It needs to be available in more retailers than one. It must be a paid book. It can be a solo book or an anthology. And placement depends on the number of copies sold in genre. So again, it's a fair list. The New York Times is one of the most recognizable lists, but very few people know that. You might get enough sales to be on it. But the editors will not include you on it because they don't like your publisher, they don't like your topic, they don't like how you spell your name, they don't like your face, or they don't like the fact that you don't like avocados. So which one is the most coveted and fair? That would be the USA Today. So let's explore the two ways that you can get on it. Let's make a few assumptions for you to do it yourself. Let's assume that your Amazon page converts at 50%, meaning that half of the people that land on it buy your book. Remember, you need to sell 66,000 copies. Let's assume that your click through rate is 2%, meaning that 2% of the people on your list will click through in your email and will see your Amazon page. That means that you need a mailing list of about 600,000 subscribers to achieve 6,000 sales. Do you have a list of 600,000 U.S. subscribers? If you don't, let's look at other options. You can partner with others. So if you don't have a list of 600,000, you can partner with 30 people who have a list of 20,000. What you do is you come up with a topic that 30 of your influencer buddies can write about and you make sure that they commit to mailing multiple times during launch week. Plan it well and you might just be able to hit the list with this approach. Unfortunately, I've seen many of such attempts fail, the number one reason being lack of buy in from the co authors because they go after a shiny new object at the time of launch. So what do you do now? Well, first you need to be outlining your book. And to help you get started yourself, I have a direct download for you made specifically for Genius network members@leaderspress.com genius outline plus it has all the information on how to achieve USA today and wall Street Journal bestselling status and all those numbers I shared with you earlier. So how do you become a USA Today bestselling author? There are multiple ways. And what's the best one? The one that will get your book and your name on the list. And I can tell you that the authors who have achieved the status said it was the turning point in their career. And it can be for you too. Okay.
I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on. Thank you.
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