The Leg Method: How to Make Your Book into a Million-Dollar Asset ft. Anna David

So I'm excited to introduce this next person because she's incredibly talented, a dear friend. We're both in recovery for many years. She is also co-author of a book with me. Every book that I have written in the last, I don't know, 8 years or so, she has helped with. We have a book together called The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery, 'cause Hal Elrod had come to me and said, a lot of people are using the Miracle Morning for addiction. I'd like to do one with you. And I was like, well, I can't do this without Anna. And so she did all the writing. Hal just kind of put his name on there because it was a brand, but we really did the work. And she's incredible. She's helped some of the best writers take their messages and get them out to the world. And so she's awesome. So I had to say that before I officially introduce her. So here we go. According to a recent study, published authors can charge 37% more for the exact same expertise than non-published authors. authors. Few people understand that better than Anna David. She's a New York Times bestselling author who's spent nearly 4 decades in publishing, as well as a 3-time TEDx speaker and the founder of the hybrid book publisher Legacy Launchpad. Anna's title is The Leg Method: How to Make Your Book into a Million-Dollar Asset. Please help me welcome my dear friend, Anna David.

Well, Thank you. You will notice that there is a very sexy leg here, and perhaps like Joel, your first question will be, is that your leg? No is the answer. I am— so I'm here to talk to you about how to make your book into a million-dollar asset. It is highly relevant even if you do not have a book, even if you have no plans to do a book, because you're in this room because you have met A lot of goals in your life. But have you ever set a goal you were absolutely sure would change everything in your life and then you met it and it didn't? Not because you failed, but because it failed to have the significance you thought it would? Anybody?

Uh-uh.

And some liars. 'Cause I have. And every author I know has because We dream of the bestseller list, we dream of the signings, we dream of our name on marquees, and then we get there and it's empty because it's just a moment, and moments don't really matter. Whether you have a book or not, your marketing is not about moments but momentum, which is what leads to legacy. See, I had a book hit the New York Times bestseller list, and I could barely afford the cab fare to the party. And then I've had a book that sold 100 copies that radically transformed my life and brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in business. My book, Make Your Mess Your Memoir, I got on Good Morning America. I maybe sold like 8 books. But what I did with that moment, the momentum that I gave it, changed everything. Now, even if you don't have a book, the truth is, and this is a recent Inc. magazine story, The headline really says it all. The uncomfortable truth about PR right now: if the founder isn't visible, the brand usually isn't either. But it really comes down to what kind of clients do you want? A lot of people do social media marketing, and it's successful. But did you know the average household income of a Facebook user? Not bad, $75,000 to $95,000. The average income of the average YouTube user? Higher. $85,000 to $105,000. Now, do you know the average income of a reader? I'm going to tell you. Between $105,000 and $140,000 plus. You guys are all smart, so you know the plus can mean anything. Someone who could buy 5 planes from Henry. Now, I'm not the first person to point out that readers tend to be Pretty successful. There was a Business Insider story, a study of 1,200 wealthy people showed they have one thing in common, which is they self-educate by reading.

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.

Now, as Joe mentioned in the intro, recent studies proved entrepreneurs who write books can charge 37% more than their non-author competitors. I was actually quoted in the Entrepreneur story about that, where I said, if a founder doesn't have a book, they might as well be invisible. Now, the money that you can make does not translate Always to the authors. New York Magazine recently did a story on anonymous sources on what do people make who live in New York. And they did like a dog walker, an influencer, and one of those people was a New York Times bestselling author. So, what did that person make a year? $49,000. And by the way, only $30,000 of it came from the book advance. The rest was from retreats and narrating their own audiobook. Now, this isn't just anonymous people. I know someone who sold 150,000 copies of her book, almost as many as Randy. Well, guess what? We were so jealous of her. We were all so competitive. How did she sell so many books? Well, she sold that many books because she had spent a decade building up her profile on social media, like Substack, podcasts, all of it. Now, she recently did a Substack on what did she make selling 150,000 copies of her book. And this is over 6 years. She did it traditionally, so she had to subtract for agent, she had to subtract for the editor she had to hire, she had to subtract for the publicist she had to hire. She made over 6 years $87,000. Now, how hard is it to do what she did? Well, 0.4% of books sell 100,000 copies or more. So it's kind of hard. So if we are not playing the right game, if everybody's obsessed with how many copies can I sell, What's the right game? Well, my friend Alex Strathdee, who's a book marketer, he's playing the right game. He did a book called Before the Bestseller. His goal with the book was to seed 1,000 copies into the marketplace. His goal, you could say, was to not sell books. So he gave them to prospects, he gave them to people who would know prospects, he gave some to me. And what happened? People started sliding into his DMs saying, I'm integrating the suggestions from your book, I'd love to chat. People start— they started applying for calls and saying, I read your book and I would love to work with you. So Alex understood something that I understand and that it's taken me way too long to understand, and that is about legacy and how momentum leads to it. And the sexy leg actually has an acronym, and it stands for leverage, elevate, and grow, which leads to legacy. So I'm going to give you examples of each. Leverage, the L. Best example I know is someone named Dan Nicholson. He's a CPA. He's a financial leader. And when he did his book, Rigging the Game, he was— we were super focused on showing his lens, how he thinks, and why his approach is different. Because yes, readers are buying your book to get your information. But what you can give and no one else can is your lens. And then once the book was done, he was super proactive. He sent print copies to every prospect. If somebody set a sales call, he made sure they had the PDF— I'm sorry, before. So I sneaked. What were the results? He was able to raise his prices by 30%, and he saw a 10% increase in close rates. Now, he's a super mathy guy, so I was like, well, what does that mean? And he told me it was an additional 7 figures in revenue. So the E. Let's go to the E part of the leg, elevate. Best example I know is somebody named Bonnie Habiat. She wrote a book called The World According to Bess, which was this ode to her mother. You remember Shit My Dad Says? Now picture the feminine, nice, cute version. And it was to her 92-year-old mother. And we were able to release it on her 92nd birthday. And she passed a few months later. After this book came out, Bonnie is like, I want momentum. Where do I want to take this message? And her dream was a TEDx stage. But, you know, doing a book is going to make you more attractive to a TEDx booker. But, you know, that's not just— you can't just send them a book.

Right.

So she said, what is my one burning idea? What is my book's message? And it was, tell the people you love that you love them before it's too late. And so what did she do next? She did all the research. She put Google alerts for TEDx in certain cities. She worked with professionals, people who had booked people on TEDx, people who had trained people to do TEDx talks. And she practiced obsessively. So, what were the results? She made it to the TEDx stage. But not only that, her talk now has over 400,000 views. It went viral, and it gave her a whole new mission. So then we have the G for grow. Best example is somebody named Matt George. He did a book called Nonprofit Game Plan. Now, he was the CEO of a nonprofit in Illinois, and he was done. He wanted to do something else. So he did this book. It came out at the beginning of COVID Terrible, terrible timing. But he created the opportunities for himself. He brought this book everywhere he went. His very first consulting client, the guy sitting next to him on a plane because he carries it on every plane he goes to. He sought out people who could help him grow. He went and he met— he wanted to meet Kevin Harrington, he showed up and Kevin started bringing him around, coined him the nonprofit prophet, made him the opening speaker for all of his speeches. He went and gave his book to Mark Victor Hansen. Who Joe knows. And Mark Victor Hansen asked him to carry the torch for the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise. Every time he saw somebody who was, like, well-known or people might care about, he shamelessly had them take a picture with the book. Not because he was shameless, but because he knew the book had information that could help people. I don't speak sports. Apparently, this is an athlete. This is an example of what he did. So, So what else happened to him? Well, he ended up hosting a PBS business show for 4 years where he got so many clients that he too set up a 7-figure business. He went on a 61-city tour. And now he teaches at Harvard Business School. Now I'm not saying that if you do a book, this is the result. I'm not selling you snake oil. There's a key to all 3 of them. To what Dan, Bonnie, and Matt did. They made moments into momentum. They took one relationship and made it 5. They took 5 opportunities and made it 10. So my message to you is stop asking, how many copies will I sell? Or if you're on social media, how many followers am I gonna have? How many likes am I gonna get? Not how many people will see this, but start asking, how can I use it to leverage, elevate, and grow? Because what we put out there isn't the win. Legacy is. Now, my call to you, if you've published a book, it is not too late. It is never too late. Ask yourself, how can I give it legs? If you haven't published a book, you have no interest, how can I give my other marketing efforts legs? Because that sexy leg, leverage, elevate, and grow, leads to legacy.

Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you wanna get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you wanna watch some more videos that'll be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead, they're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you. Watch 'em.