Become a BEST-SELLING Author | David Hancock

We've been on the New York Times list 29 times and in the USA Today and Wall Street Journal list over 100 times. What we did with Her Secret— and there's nothing on the planet that gives you the subconscious level in the minds of the public, the authority of having written your own book. The best time to start marketing your book.

Are books still relevant in 2023?

The reason why we're so successful— but he did end up teaching me something that absolutely transformed my day job as a banker. But then ultimately, my career. Writing a book is an— it feels like an entrepreneurial solo event, but it doesn't have to be.

David, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are we feeling today?

Absolutely incredible. And Nick, man, thank you so much for having me. I'm a huge fan. Honored to be here, brother.

I'm a huge fan too. I know Luke is as well. So before we jump in, pretend our audience has no clue who you are. Tell us about Morgan James. Tell us about David Hancock. Tell us about your books. Just give us the whole story.

How much time do we have?

We have as much time as we need. I know there's a lot to unpack.

Oh my gosh. Well, I'm grateful. So I'm just a— I'm a humble guy who really, really loves the power of a book. So I was a banker back in the '90s, fat, dumb, and happy. Never ever imagined doing anything else. And I realized at one point, even though I was becoming a top producer, I mean, it was just wonderful, but I realized I was competing with 1,000 people in my community alone, all offering the exact same product and service. I mean, doesn't that sound familiar? And I'm like, how do I stay relevant? How do I stay on top? I wasn't sure. And at the same time that painful reality was coming together in my brain, my bosses were leaning into me going, you know, David, Why don't we hire more people like you and you manage a team of yous and let's really do you big? And I'm like, I don't even know why I'm successful. How can I do that? So I set out for the first time in my, in really my life to study for me. You know, I dropped out of college. I mean, I barely passed high school. I was too busy chasing soccer balls and my now wife of 34 years. So I guess that's a good thing. But I'm like, I have no clue why I'm successful. So I deep dived into anybody and everybody I could find. I mean, I went to Tom Hopkins, I went to Zig Ziglar, I bought their courses, I implemented their stuff. I mean, Bill Backrat, Todd Duncan. I mean, you name it. I, I was with him. I was studying him, and I implemented it all, and all of it worked. But none of it worked, if that makes sense. I mean, I sure I fine-tuned a little bit of processes, and I might be boring you by now, but I hired a couple assistants, and I earned a little bit more money. I went home from work maybe half hour early, but nothing really gave me that this is why you're successful kind of thing. I was just able to kind of improve. But it wasn't until I discovered a book called Gorilla Marketing that ended up changing my life. So funny. I mean, I was out looking for this kind of stuff but never found Gorilla Marketing. One day I came into work and a copy of it was on my desk. I lovingly call it the second and a half edition because it was like between the 2 major editions. It was like, I think it was a Gorilla Marketing in the '90s and literally what that was in the '90s. And I read the book and I was like, wow, I'm a gorilla and I didn't know it. I was leveraging my time, my energy, my imagination and building relationships and helping others realize their goals and creating value for what they're looking for. And just, it wasn't the $100,000 a month that we were spending in advertising. That's a lot of money now. It was a heck of a lot of money back then. But I knew that's not where my business was coming from. So, I mean, I just really loved guerrilla marketing. I deep dived into anything with the letter G and M in it. It was just wonderful. And in one of the books, Jay Levinson, Jay Cameron Levinson, he said, if you need help, email me. And I'm like, like, I've only seen that one other time. Bill Bachrach did that in his book Values Based Selling. It changed my life. But with Jay, it was something like, hey, just email me at jay@ jvue@aol.com. I just gave everybody Jay's email address. He passed away in 2013, so don't wait for a response. But I emailed him and he responded and he was like, yeah, I'd love to help you out. And we just developed this rapport. I hired him as a coach. So I went from spending $100,000— what was the question again, Nick? Oh, I'll get there, I promise. So I went from spending—

Take your time because you are fascinating and I think everybody else will find you fascinating too.

Oh man, I appreciate that. So I went from spending $100,000 a month in marketing advertising to about $10,000 in Jay's mentorship fees or coaching fees. And it was amazing. No, he didn't necessarily teach me anything that I didn't get out of the books or didn't already kind of know that I was doing. I just didn't know what it was called. It was very affirming. But his accountability, his stories were very motivating. It was just, it was amazing. But he did end up teaching me something that absolutely transformed my day job as a banker. But then Ultimately, my career, which is kind of why we're talking today. So he said basically in a short version, he spread it out because I'm paying him $10,000 a month, of course, because he's a smart businessman. But he basically said, hey, David, if you want to charge more and negotiate less, I mean, like you had me charge more. I mean, who doesn't want to charge more for what they're offering, right? Seriously. He said, if you want to charge more and negotiate less, you've got to keep doing what you're doing because you're building trust. You've got consistency. He says, but you, you need to keep doing what you're doing because it's working. But you need to add one more thing. And I'm like, what is this one thing?

I want to write it down.

I wasn't ready, or he wanted to spread it out, or both. Who knows? And then the second thing he said to me, probably in another month, was, you know, hey, David, if you wanted to have those clients that you wish you could do business with— now, I think we all have those. We used to call them these whale of a clients, the big clients that you wish you could do business with. I had those celebrity real estate agents because I was a mortgage banker. So celebrity real estate agents, big CPAs who knew where all the money was, or high-powered attorneys who had the most expensive of houses, that kind of stuff. Sure, I had those people and they weren't returning my phone call. So I like, yeah, I can resonate with that. He said, well, you got to keep doing what you're doing because you're, you're leaving a legacy, you're having an impact, you're doing the right things, but you need to add one more thing. And I'm like, Jay, what is this one thing? Well, he didn't tell me yet. And then he went on to say, David, if you wish that one day the media would reach out to you to talk about what's going on in the business. Now, back in the '90s, Man, it was always something going on in the mortgage business. Yesterday the rate was 7%, tomorrow it was 11%, you know, it'd be 9% today for an hour. Then, you know, it was just, it was ridiculous. So there was always something going on in the banking business. And he's like, you gotta keep doing what you're doing because you're, you're, you're actually becoming, you know, the authority in the space. And he said, but you need to add one more thing to secure that authority. You know, at this point I'm like, whatever, I'm not even paying attention now, you know? And he said, David, you need to write a book. And I'm like, seriously, I was both crushed, appalled, embarrassed, and anxious at the same time because like, who am I to write a book? You know, I barely passed English. I dropped out of college. What the heck do I have to say? I don't even know why I'm successful. What on earth could I write? But he was so gracious, so loving. He was an amazing individual. He just nurtured into me that I am somebody, you know, that I had something good to say and I was doing things different than my peers and, and I was giving. And I just— he helped me flesh out an outline and I ended up writing the book. I ended up writing the book in like 30 days. I didn't realize that was a hard thing to do. Now, I had to get a great editor, of course, but I wrote in 30 days in probably 15-20 minute increments, sitting on the couch with my bride in the evenings after a stressful day. I mean, mortgage banking was very stressful. You know, every transaction had 9 other transactions attached to it. So if my house didn't close, well, there's 10 families that are on the street tonight. It was, it was very stressful, very profitable for me, but it was very stressful. But writing about it all and helping from that, that consumer mindset, it was very fun to do. I really enjoyed it. And I ended up getting it picked up by a publisher. Now, it wasn't Houghton Mifflin who was publishing the original Guerrilla Books back in the day, but I did get picked up by a New York house. And oh my gosh, in less than 8 months, all the things Jay said would happen happened. I doubled my income and all I did was I just raised my fees and nobody negotiated with me anymore. It's like, what if I was probably giving it away too much before? And sure enough, people that would never give me the time of day were begging to get on my calendar. Now I swallowed my pride so I could take their money and add value to them, of course. And then sure enough, the media started to call me. Like, I, I always knew that there were these bobbleheads on TV, and I listened to them and watched them occasionally, but I never really imagined that I'd be one of them. But I was the only local person in the area that was vetted by a third party who had the authority to talk about a topic, and I was entertaining because, you know, I could laugh at myself by myself. And we just had a great time. So all these things Jay said was happening. It was amazing. But unfortunately, there's a but. But I had no relationship with my publisher. I mean, I got a decent deal, but I wasn't involved in anything. I had no input in the COVID no input in the title, no input in the subtitle. I didn't even like the book when it came out. And when I got my copies in the mail weeks before my pub day, they added 3 chapters to the book. Now, it was good, but I could have written that if they just asked. And then it just, the book was doing well. It certainly helped my career, but just that relationship was lacking. Every time I called them because I wanted to order books or I had questions, they're like, who are you again? Like, seriously, I'm David Aikok.

Come on.

And I can only buy 500 copies at a discount. I had to pay retail beyond that. And as a guerrilla marketer, I give like you guys. You guys give so much value. I just want to commend you guys because what you're doing is just so selfless. And I know know you're getting blessed because of it. So, that's a great thing. But I know you didn't start this to create what you guys have now. So, you guys are just amazing. I want to honor you guys. And I forgot where I was going, but I just had no relationship with the publisher. In fact, I had to get permission from my publisher every time I wanted to do a talk. And I started to get out on that speaking circuit about the book and the topic and so forth. And as my career grew, the book sales grew. And then one day, the publisher reaches out to me and says, okay, it's time to do your second book. And I'm like, I don't think so. And not with you, I'm not kind of thing. And then they reminded me, like, on page 35 of the contract was that they locked me in for 3 books and I was committed to them. And I'm like, I didn't have it because I never imagined ever writing one, much less 2. So I want— I've still got this great relationship with Jay. He's still my coach. I go to him and I kind of whine like, I want to do it. And he said, you got to. I said, man, and I just kind of almost blurted out like, well, only if you co-author it with me. dude, you know, kind of thing. And he said, okay, the power of asking. You know, if you don't ask, you don't get. Like, like our Lord says, don't ask and you shall receive. But, you know, it was like, seriously? So I ended up doing a second book. It was called Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers. And it was amazing with him as a lead author. You know, I had sold tens of thousands of copies. He had sold 15 million copies or something like that. It was just ridiculous. But even with him as a lead author, we still struggled with the relationship. Jay owned the brand, so the title was pretty much locked in. And, you know, but we fought over the camouflage motif, you know, that he was so famous for that even today we still do in the Gorilla Books, you know, the camouflage stuff in the background. Love that. But we just struggled over a lot. And the book did really, really well. In fact, I sold 40,000 copies to the bank I worked for, which is kind of interesting when your boss is required to read your book. It does kind of change that dynamic between you and your boss, but that's okay. And more on that later.

But it was, it was amazing.

You know, but that relationship is lacking. Same thing, same challenges with no relationship with a publisher, fighting over everything, having to get permission to do this, that, and the other. But the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and you're gonna laugh at this being internet tech guys that you are. In 1999, we were working on our, my third book, the second edition of that Guerrilla Marketing book. And it was really odd in April and the book was coming out in 2000. So in April we get an email from our publisher that says, hey guys, you need to go back to your manuscript and scrub everything related to the internet. No World Wide Web, no internet, no email, no internet marketing, no chat rooms, no forums. You can't talk about anything that has any roots in the internet. I'm like, seriously? You know, the internet's here, it's big, it's booming. And, you know, it's like, seriously?

They—

background, Y2K bug, you guys may remember hearing that, but there was a real issue where we really had to do stuff to ensure that our computers would still work on January 1st, 2000, but nobody really thought the internet was going to crash and burn and go away except my publisher. So that book came out in 2000, and I, for all intents and purposes, I think it was a failure because it didn't address it. It still did okay, but it was frustrating. But I'm out of my 3-book deal now. Like, I'm done with you. And somebody who wrote 3 books when never thought that I could write one, I ended up writing 3 more and I self-published them over the next 2 and a half years. And oh my gosh, I loved it. I was in complete control of everything. Not that I was a control freak, but when you lose so much control, man, you kind of go crazy. But I love the covers. I love the content. They were mine. You know, it's like, yo, these are really books that I can be proud of. But it's another but. These buts are getting in my way. But I could not get them into bookstores. I mean, I was already used to having my book on the shelf. So that was something that was really important to me. But I didn't realize that, you know, the bookstores wouldn't carry a self-published book. Now, fortunately, it's not as bad today, but 99% of self-published books will never show up in a brick-and-mortar store. In fact, if you, if you go look at HarperCollins, who we love, but if you look at HarperCollins, they'll even tell you that less than 2% of their books, and they do 17,000 books a year, less than 2% of their books will ever make it into a bookstore. So being a self-published author back then, I'm like, I had no chance. It was very frustrating. And I couldn't get those media guys to interview me. I mean, they've talked to me the day before on my other books but would not talk to me about the content of my new books. And I had a relationship with them because I am like you guys, you, where you seek out to have relationships with people.

And I'm like, why not? You know, why can't I? Didn't whine all the time.

I'm sorry, no make yourself sound like that. But I was like, why not? And he's like, well, our producers require that somebody vet the authors and their content and we don't have time to do it. So we rely on publishers to do that. So if you've been picked up by a publisher, you've been vetted by somebody, then we feel safe introducing you to our audience about that particular topic. And it certainly made sense, but it was still frustrating. And then lastly, I couldn't sell them as fast as I could the other books without bookstore distribution. In fact, The termites in my garage were eating them faster than I could sell them. Kid you not, I threw away like 1,700 books that termites got into because I live in southeastern Virginia and, you know, we're a moist climate, we're right on the water. So termites love wood-related things like paper and books. It was very frustrating. Um, so I go to Jay, who at this point, you know, I stopped paying him his, his, uh, coaching fee and we're just really best friends. In fact, my kids Morgan and James are calling him Granddad at this point, but he's He's just still my mentor. And I go to him like, man, somebody's got to fix publishing. And I had met many, many entrepreneurially minded authors who were both traditionally published, who were having the same issues I had, and self-published authors that had some amazing works and great successes but still had that wish that they could be in bookstores. And I started to play in this space and really started to enjoy it. In fact, my day job was so smooth, I was probably working 2 hours a day taking my best friends to lunch and the other 20 hours a day I'm playing in this publishing space, helping people get connected to publishers or ghostwriters or editors or whatever. I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's help you guys out. It's just so much fun. And I went to Jay when all the people were still having the same challenges that I was having. I'm like, man, somebody's gotta fix publishing. What do we do? And he kind of said, you know, you should probably write out an outline for what you think an entrepreneurially minded publisher could look like. You know, what would be a perfect imprint if you had the opportunity to ask. And he kind of alluded to me that he would take it to Houghton Mifflin. And I'm like, challenge accepted. So I spent, I mean, who knows how much time and energy on this, you know, perfect publishing model, you know, where the authors retain intellectual property control and we made this, or not we, the decisions were made together and then hopefully the publisher would remember who they were and then gave them affordable access to their books because we guerrillas give books away, you know, a lot. And then just had that relationship and, you know, it just I just poured a heavy— I mean, lots of guerrilla marketing sprinkled in there, a lot of Zig Ziglar, a lot of values-based selling and serving others and, you know, solutions-driven things. It's really good. I'm like, I present it to Jay like, this is it. And he loved it. In fact, he gave me an A. I was actually taking his master guerrilla marketing course or something like that to be a master guerrilla marketer. And that was my homework. He let me use it as my final exam or something like that. And he gave me an A on it and loved it. And I'm like, Go do your thing, Jay. Make this happen so we entrepreneurs will have a place to publish. And he smiled. He looked at me, said, you know, you go do it now. I'm like, seriously? But I think it was the right idea at the right time, and I had just enough gumption to do it. Had no business opening up a publishing house. I mean, this is— if I had known how complicated it was, I would have never done it. But that's what we entrepreneurs call entrepreneurial bliss, right? So I launched Morgan James, named after my kids, sounded like a real company but meant something to me. And I just had a really good idea. I had to earn the rest. And so we just started doing what I had hoped. I didn't quit my day job right away. So that was, that was wise. But I just started to pour into that relationship and helping others do what I did. And a lot of it were my clients that I had in the banking side and a lot of it was just people I met. It was just so much fun. But I'd made enough friends. And this is why I love to talk about, you know, writing a book is an— it feels like an entrepreneurial solo event, but it doesn't have to be. In fact, I became very successful as an author because I engaged with readers, I engaged with other writers. I got a lot of my help from a little bit of my friends or a little bit of help from a lot of my friends and just carried us. So, you know, Jay gave us a 4-book guerrilla deal in the beginning. I had met some amazing speakers who gave me a chance with an ebook they were playing with that, you know, wasn't committed to a publisher and we just boomed. And again, had no idea what we were doing, but I think we were heading in the right direction and it has been so much fun. Now, obviously, fast forward 20 years later, our overnight success has been 20 years in the making and we had to earn the rest. But that's the kind of the root of the question, I think.

I think you definitely answered, you know, all of our questions. We can call it a day.

And no, I'm kidding.

That was a great, great story. I'm just listening here. I actually just wrote down like 300 questions. So the first one I want to ask you is if you could maybe, I know you kind of answered it, but maybe you could clarify and succinctly say what the difference is between your company and self-publishing versus traditional publishing and all that.

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So I had no idea in the beginning. I just knew that there were aspects of the traditional side that I really loved and aspects of the traditional side that I didn't enjoy. And I knew there were aspects of the self-publishing side that I really loved and aspects that I didn't really like. So when I laid down the idea for Morgan James, it was, how do I look and feel and smell like a traditional publisher, but yet let the author be more involved, retain ownership so that they don't have to get permission to do their next talk or create their next product, and then try to help them figure out what they don't don't know and then just be their champion for them to be who they need to be, who they know they are going to be and just started from scratch. But as we grew, we realized that the biggest difference is maybe today, you know, 20 years later is that, you know, we look and feel and smell like a traditional publisher. You know, we've got exclusivity. We only publish 150 nonfiction books each year. We've got amazing bookstore distribution, which you would expect from a traditional house. In fact, right now, 100% of our books are showing up in brick and mortar. Now the depth and breadth can vary wildly, as you can imagine. A lot of it has to do with authors starting early. A lot of it has to do with some presales, not massive numbers. Authors don't have to break records or hit bestseller lists to have great coverage in brick-and-mortar stores and even continually to have those things and grow into it. But they also realize that, you know, having that relationship with the author to help them realize they're not in it by themselves and there are best practices they should follow and then definitely breaking out the Guerrilla Book on the Bible, if you will, of what to do and what not to do, best practices, because we don't want you to waste time or money. So I wanted to make sure that, you know, that we could, or in this case, a hybrid publisher fill in the gaps, you know, with the author. Whereas a traditional house, and again, there's nothing wrong with it, it may work great for many authors, but for entrepreneurial-minded authors, sometimes they get in the way. But traditional house would have exclusivity, distribution, hopefully some credibility and opportunity. That's wonderful. Limitations might there be, of course. And the self-publishing side is where you do it all yourself. You're saying you're wonderful. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. Limited distribution, limited credibility, but you still could have success. So the hybrid mix in the beginning, and I credit Kevin Breyerman from Publishers Weekly, he's the publisher and president of Publishers Weekly. He's the one who called this that. Basically, he said you're kind of bringing the best of both models to one house. So that's kind of a loose definition of it. But, you know, as I alluded today, you know, we've got that and hopefully a good hybrid publisher will have this type of mindset as well, you know, exclusivity where we only do a handful of books, you know, actual opportunities to get in bookstores and then have some successes. I mean, I'll tell you what, we have been so blessed. We've been on the New York Times list 29 times and in the USA Today and Wall Street Journal list over 100 times. Unbelievable. Not many publishers our size have even hit the Times at all. It's just been amazing. So credibility, man, you know, we've really leaned into it. It's really, really good. And then the other side, the reason why we're so successful, I really think, is that relationship we have with the authors, the making decisions together, helping them realize their goals. Because what happens in the world of our Zig Ziglar teaching over the years, the more we help others realize their goals, the more our goals are gonna be met. So again, I had a full-time day job as a banker. My money was set. I mean, I just going in and breathing for my company when I was a banker, my, my regular monthly bonus for just breathing was like $23,000, $28,000 a month, something like that. So I was set. So I was just having fun. But an amazing thing happened. The more authors I helped them realize their goals, the more money I started making, the more people I would start to help out. So it was easy for me to say sayonara when the time came. And I think a good hybrid publisher should invest in the book with the authors. You know, we do pay for all the design. We do pay for all the interior layout. We do the final you know, make sure that the editorial piece is good because now that we're getting publishers' weekly reviews, we wanna make sure we get positive reviews even though the authors, we know the authors are the experts and the authority, we don't get in their way. But I forgot where I was going with that, but it was really kind of brilliant. But anyhow, we're having a lot of fun. Oh yeah. And we also pay for all the books that go into bookstores. I don't think an author should have to pay for that. I think there should be some risk on our side. And then we manage that relationship. We handle the returns which are inevitable, but we just reinventory and resell them and hopefully nurturing that author so they can be a success.

And then we have patience.

I call it guerrilla patience because never pray for patience because God will give you reasons to be patient. But we have patience. You know, most books don't hit it in 3 weeks. You know, there's some good publishers out there that will give an author 3 weeks, and if it doesn't happen in 3 weeks, they're moving on to the next, you know, next title. And I, you know, I was blessed to have pretty early success, but the reality is sometimes it doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes it does take a little bit of a rise, and somebody gave me a chance. So I always want to give more than enough an opportunity for our authors. So we'll keep a book in print print for as long as it makes sense to the author. We'll continue to nurture that relationship. Some of our best-selling authors who are in the hundreds of thousands of copies now had just a slow rise and, you know, maybe that 7th year is when they broke 100,000 or something like that. So it just, I think that might be the answer to your question. That's kind of the, for us, it's the heart, you know, heart of the reason. But when you really look at a scale and I've got one on our website, if you ever head over to morganjamespublish.com, you can click on compare and I to really kind of spell it out. But basically, the best of the traditional world, the best of the self-publishing world together with a relationship to serve others is the middle which has been our success.

So 20 years, 20 years in business, how many books have you guys worked on?

Oh my gosh, over 3,800 and we add about 200 a year, but over 3,800 in 20 years. Yeah. So we do 200 total, 150 nonfiction. We do 25 faith-based books and we do 15 clean fictions, meaning no profanity, no graphic sex, and even 10 kids' books. And you're like, wow, it's like a wide range of books. But we grew into it. But the common theme you'll see if you look at and talk to our authors is our authors are all entrepreneurial minded and all of our books are part of something else. And I really think that's why our books sell so well. And we've sold 12 million books in the last 15 years. It's really hard to sell. You guys know, you talk to authors all day. It's really hard to sell a book. Nobody wants to buy your book. Heads up, nobody wants to buy it because we all have books we bought we haven't started. We've all got books we started we haven't finished. But why would we want to buy another one? It's really hard to sell a book. But the reality is, if it's part of a bigger picture and you're really focusing on the authority the book gives you or the opportunity the book gives you and lean into the reason why you wrote it, the purpose for the book, the challenge you've got for the reader or the relationship, or how is it connected to something other than earning a royalty, Books can sell by the thousands. It may take a little patience, but books can sell by the thousands. And that's where it's real worth it, really worth it.

I love that. We probably have a lot of people listening or watching today, David, that say, hmm, I've always wanted to write a book. So should everybody write a book? Who's a good fit for being an author? Well, what kind of characteristics do you look for for Morgan James authors?

I don't think everybody should write a book, but if you do have something to say or you've got an experience that others could learn from, then absolutely you should. You know, the reality is you've probably heard these numbers before, Luke and Nick, you know, what is it, 86% of the population want to write a book, but few start and then even fewer finish and then even fewer get picked up by a publisher. And then as we just alluded, there's less than 2% chance that you'll ever show up in a bookstore if you're, even if you're traditionally published. So it's like, why would you go down this path in the first place? But if you've got something good and you can benefit somebody, you can save a life or you can encourage somebody or help them down a challenge that you've solved so they don't have to have the same challenges, then you must write that book. Now, I eventually learned that I may not be the best one to actually write it. My last book was ghostwritten, and oh my gosh, it was amazing. But still, I think you should, you should write a book if you've got something powerful to say that can benefit from somebody else. Now, again, there's a lot of books that are just written for somebody to be entertained. That's great. I really love leaning into this. How is the book going to serve you by serving others? And it's just a great It's a great circle.

Are books still relevant in 2023? Because I mean, obviously we work in books and we believe in books, but we can't deny that, you know, books are seemingly on, you know, becoming on the outs, which Nick is in the process of getting his first book out, which we're super excited about. And it's, can I say the name on here? Am I allowed to say the name, Nick?

Yeah.

The Reading Revolution. So we're excited to get more people—

Rise of the Reader.

Rise of the Reader. All right. That was a name that was workshopped. I'll get it right eventually. So yeah, are books still relevant today in 2023 and can they be helpful for someone to get more business in the door?

So I am a little biased being an author and a publisher, but the reality is yes. Now there have been some times over the last 100 years that that question has come up. Are books relevant? You know, I've got a quote in my Guerrilla Marketing for Writers book that says, you know, something to the terms of this is everybody wants to write a the kids aren't obeying parents anymore. The world's going to hell in a handbasket. What on earth do we do? And that was written in like 300 BC or something ridiculous like that. But we did see more recently, you know, in 2003, I think when the Kindle was first starting to become popularized, people wondered, will it take over the physical book? And again, when the iPad came out in 2010, I think, you know, it was like, oh my gosh, will that take over the book? And they sure had some spikes, you know, and there have been a couple of genres, you know, that really have been taken over by the ebook. But books in general will still always be relevant and needed. But the physical book has been really interesting to watch. So at one point after 2010, fiction reading was probably 50% on ebook and 50% in print. Nonfiction was like 25% ebook and 75% print. Today it's gone back down. So right now you're looking at 11 to 13% in ebook on nonfiction and maybe 20% to 25% in fiction. Obviously, there's anomalies. There's some that do better. It just depends. Like the romance novels have pretty much all gone to Kindle or to ebook. But I still think the book is relevant. I mean, even today, if you look at the recent Fast Company magazine article on ebook for kids, 68% of youth prefer print You know, where we all would have thought that the younger would have really embraced the digital. But there's, there's an elegance of having a book. Now, I'm one of those crazy readers who will buy the ebook immediately because I'm impatient. It's like, come on, Nick, tell me where can I go get the ebook? And then I'll buy the print book because that's what I prefer. And then dagnabbit, I'll get the audio to finish the book. I'm a perfect client for publishing.

I'm like that too.

So yeah, so I do think books are still relevant. And there's nothing on the planet that gives you the subconscious level in the mind's to the public the authority of having written your own book, even self-publishing. But, you know, even having a— being backed by a third party, even more so. But there's just this subconscious that's just deep ingrained with us that you're the author of. But if you're the author of only an ebook, yes, you've got credibility, but it's not quite the same. Yes, you can get great sales. Of course, word of mouth is very, very hard to do on ebooks, but physical books will still dominate in that range.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of physical books. We, uh, Nick and I were just having a conversation about this on the way up to a client in the car, and we were just talking about the various different ways because that we read in today's climate, which is the audiobook, the Kindle, and everything else. But I always just go back to the physical book. Like, there's just something about it, even for my, my retention.

Yeah.

The physical book is just so much easier. And I get there's, there's benefits to the Kindle. Some people are very big into the Kindle, but I just, that physical book, man, it's hard to replace.

Amen.

I'm kind of taking a left turn here, but you've published, you said a bunch of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, which is amazing. It seems like it's a very difficult thing to do to get on either of those lists. So do you have anything that's like any keys to creating a New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal bestseller, like anything that's, there's commonalities that these authors have? What's the key to it?

Starting early. The best time to start marketing your book is the moment you decide to write it, or today, whichever comes sooner. Um, because as I alluded, it's really hard to sell a book. Nobody really wants to buy a book, and you need to create an environment where people recognize you as the authority so that when you say, hey, go do something for me, they'll do it. Because the list that I mentioned, you know, the New York Times, you know, our first one was in 2006. And it was funny, uh, Wiley called us and said, hey, congratulations, I'm I'm like, what? It was kind of embarrassing. But it's a weekly list. Gotta sell, you know, 9,000 copies or so for the Wall Street Journal, maybe 9,000 to 15,000 copies for the New York Times and other parameters, multiple locations across the country, both online and off, you know, all these things. It really is tough, but it's easier and you can do it if you start early. You've gotta build up an email list. You've gotta build up an engaged following. The engagement is important. You can't go by 100,000 followers on Instagram and have them buy your book. And finally, the bookstore buyers and the sales reps are realizing what the 3 of us know and have always known. It's not the number of fans and followers you have, it's the percentage of engagement. How many people are actually paying attention to you? How many likes? How many times do you go comment on their comments? How many times are you liking their comments and then liking it? Just that engagement, just like if you were in a real room, you know, talking to somebody. But that takes time to build up. No matter who tries to sell you something, it takes time to build So start now. Big, big tip for you. There are 2 bridges that you have to cross between now and the time that you can ask your audience to go down a path with you to the New York Times or even just a successful release. The first bridge I call the authority bridge and it doesn't matter what genre you're writing in, you are becoming an authority in this particular space when you step out and write a book. The authority bridge is where you've got to start planting seeds about you being the right person saying the right thing at the right time and you're writing a book and you're carrying your audience with you whether it's in person or online, you plant seeds about your idea. And hopefully, Nick, you're doing this. I think you are. I've seen you. You'll plant seeds about the book, you'll plant seeds about the content, you'll step into that role of being an authority and you'll say the book is coming. You don't ask anything else and you demonstrate authority by educating, encouraging, inspiring, maybe even entertaining them a little bit. And then you slowly increase the number of times you're talking about the book. You slowly increase the number of times you're talking to the world in general and you're creating value and hopefully you're capturing names and email addresses in the process. We may not have time to into all those things. But your email list will be the second most powerful thing you have ever to market your book. Number one would be your readers. Um, so you gotta start early. And if you do that first bridge correctly, the authority bridge correctly, the second bridge, which I lovingly call the permissions bridge— the permissions bridge happens automatically with no extra effort. It's where you earned the right to ask. You earn permission to say, hey, go serve me down this path because I've demonstrated that I add value to you. I demonstrate that I care about you and I've demonstrated that I've got the right content that you need right now. Here's how you get it and go tell your friends. That's how you do it. So those authors that use these wonderful tools like the free plus shipping funnels, which still work, works for ebook and print, works better in print, still works because you're driving traffic, you're compelling them that you're the right person, you've earned right to ask them to do it and then you monetize it in the process and then when the time's right, you've got an email list to promote, go help me now, and it can work. Then it takes a little extra effort as far as marketing because most people need to see you 6 times before they realize that they've seen your ask before, to as many as 27 times before they realize, oh yeah, I wanted to go buy Nick's book. So you need to remind them, you need to constantly be out there promoting in all the different places that you are. Again, earning the right to do it, spreading out the content, but don't hesitate to repurpose. But you need to be on at least 2 or 3 of the social networks. Don't have to be everywhere, be where you can be fun and comfortable. But you may need to do some podcasts, you may need to do some traditional media to kind of get all these things. And New York Times requires to— it's an editorial. The New York Times is an editorial list, meaning somebody decides, but they like to see traditional media, they like to see broad sales across the country. So all these things build in. So you just need to be aware of it and learn how to to try to start those conversations and make it happen. But if you don't try, nothing happens. So why not? You know, I made a run for the New York Times and I hit the Wall Street Journal. I'll take it.

Not bad. Now I'm curious because I don't know that much about the lists actually. Do you need to submit yourself for an editorial review like that or will they just, do they have access to, okay, 9,000 books have been sold, old combination bookstore, Amazon all over the place randomly. Like, are they just aware of that or do you need to say, hey, here guys, here's my data? How's that work?

So they get the data from the industry, primarily a service called BookScan, which old school is like the Nielsen ratings for books. So every time somebody buys your book, the point of sale system says, hey, somebody in Little Rock, Arkansas just bought your book. So they get fed data Regularly. Now they do have the New York Times does pay attention to up and comers. They pay attention to the, you know, the sales and they also kind of delay it, you know, a couple of weeks so they can see if somebody's still relevant or if it's just a flash in the pan. But you don't really need to do anything other than creating relevancy, you know, on a countrywide, US countrywide spectrum. The other list, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Denver Post, Washington Post, they're just, they're pulling data from BookScan. So if you're in those numbers and you've sold X number of books, and typically if you're traditionally published, they'll see it and they'll include you. Wall Street Journal is the top 10 every week, ebook and paperback. They have a hardcover print list But they, uh, excuse me, ebook and hardcover because they have— they only have a hardcover print list. The paperback is not tracked at this point. And then the USA Today hopefully will come back. At this moment when we're recording this podcast, the USA Today list is on hiatus. Funny story— not so funny. Um, print newspaper businesses is struggling. I still love them, but, uh, big giant conglomerate owns a bunch of papers including the USA Today, and they had to off. Well, they accidentally laid off the person running the bestseller list. So it took them till the end of December to realize that, hey, they haven't had a bestseller list since December 1st. So it's now officially on hiatus until they regroup and see what they're going to do with the list. But, uh, um, the list, you know, they're, they're the Holy Grail for a reason because they're, they're hard to hit. There's a few spots for it, uh, and, uh, it can be done and you should definitely make it, make a run for it. But you don't need to do anything special other than being relevant, creating relationships, spreading your voice across as many weapons, if you will, in guerrilla marketing. We call marketing tactics weapons, spread it out and then prayer or have the right friends.

Yeah, I'm sure that helps. One final question on these lists. So a mutual client and friend of ours, Laura Castleman, just hit Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Yes, she did.

But did I hear you say that it has to be hardcover? Because isn't her book just paperback?

So her book is paperback and ebook, and she has access to an author-use-only hardcover because right now Barnes& Noble is telling everybody that we're not putting hardcovers in our store no matter who publishes it if it's not from an author that hasn't already demonstrated they can sell hardcovers. We could talk for an hour on that. Disagree, agree, it's helping them turn themselves around. But you may have missed it, but the Wall Street Journal list has an ebook list. What we did with her secret is we dropped the price down to $0.99 and she engaged in an amazing broad ebook or digital marketing campaign to promote the sale of the ebook. And the ebooks, you know, whether they're not being leveraged as much as, you know, some of the print list, you know, I don't remember her exact sales, but generally 7,000 to 8,000 sales in a week will get you right smack in the middle of the Wall Street Journal list on the ebook list. But that's what I did. But you notice my book doesn't say Wall Street Journal bestseller on ebook. It just says Wall Street Journal bestseller because that is true.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

There we go.

Yeah. USA Today on there as well. Yeah.

It's funny though. USA Today, I love the list. I pray it comes back. It was all versions, paperback, hardcover, uh, ebook, uh, and it's a 150 list, which gives opportunity. Um, and I hit the But you notice I'm not telling you what number because it doesn't matter. You're either number 1 or you're on the list. Yeah, I wasn't number 1, but you're either number 1 or you're on the list. Now I'll tell you, I was number 5, which is wonderful, on the Wall Street Journal, but I was 75 on the USA Today. I'm not gonna go brag that I'm the 75th, but the reality is it's still true because it's a 150 list.

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Now you and I have a mutual friend, right? So you and I have a mutual friend that really has a good business model on helping people realize a hit on the Wall Street Journal. And hopefully when the USA Today list comes back out, you know, with digital marketing, it's just a matter of effort. And, you know, they do, there are safe places that you can go that you can make a really good run, legitimate, no black hat, no cheating, really good run for, you know, one of the major lists from the ebook side. So it's pretty wonderful. So obtainable, but you need to have an audience to help you get there and it's not cheap. So you need to make sure that you built in the 2 products ahead ahead, figure out how to monetize your book because once they fall in love with you, they're gonna want more. So give it to them. And I've got a dear friend mentor of mine, Dan Miller, who always said, if somebody asked me 3 times for the same thing, I'm gonna create a product for it. So you should do the same thing. Now, I may screw that up a little bit, but something like that, you know, that's what he would say. But yeah, let somebody else pay for it. Use— oh, you'll love this. I always tell authors you need to be addicted to opium when it comes to your book marketing. I can hear you gasp, right? OPM, other people's money. So create products and services that you can sell before pub date so you can generate the cash that you can afford to hire the PR firm or whatever people to help you get to where you want and use other people's money instead of your own. I love that. I thought that was funny.

It's great. I was kind of unsure. I'm like, hold on, what? Are we gonna put this in the podcast?

Wait a minute. You just took a left turn, man.

I'm all So, people that are listening that are like, hey, I— they're, they're listening to you and obviously you are super knowledgeable about this whole process.

And good looking. Don't forget.

And humble. Very good looking. Very humble.

Fast, fast story. So, I go to church one day and the pastor gives me a pin, most humble person, and he takes it away from me the following week because I wore it. Oh, that's awesome. That's right.

Oh, that's too good. So my question was, if somebody wants to work with you, you only accept, you know, what'd you say, 200 books a year? How can somebody work with you? What's the process look like?

Well, I'd be honored to talk to anybody that's heading down this path. I have a passion for helping authors find their right path. You're right. We only do a limited number of books and we have been so blessed. We have never advertised. All of our books have come from word of mouth, whether they're from agents, traditional literary agents, or people like you guys or from within, you know, the best way to get connected is certainly go discover us, go Google us, go find us, go read our website, you know, morganjamespublishing.com. But the fastest route to a hopeful yes is to be connected to somebody that we're connected to. So a referral from you guys will go straight to my desk versus to our online application where they get reviewed by a team of 5 and may or may not, you know, have a chance to get a chance to talk to you. But if one of the two of you send me somebody, I'm gonna hop on the phone and I'm gonna love on them and I'm gonna find out what they're trying to do and how can I help them reach their goals. It may or may not end up in an offer from Morgan James, but they're gonna get lots of love and they're gonna find hopefully that right path. So feel free just to go study us. But best way, get deeply connected with somebody like you guys who knows us to just bring you right to the top. And I'm sidebar, I'm always looking for reasons to say yes. I'm not trying to intimidate anybody. We are always looking for reasons to say yes. But we do have a unique model, you know, entrepreneur who's really got something good to say.

They're the right person saying it.

They're coachable. and they've got a business behind the book or at least the mindset that they need to have the business of the book because they've got, it takes us 9 months to get on a bookstore shelf. So they got 9 months to build up a program. So if you're that author, man, we're gonna say yes to you.

Well, that's perfect. I thank you for answering that. You know, we're coming up on an hour here, which is hard to believe.

Oh my gosh.

So Nick, I don't know if you have any other questions. I wanted to talk too about your leadership role. I mean, because you were, Fast Company's Fast 50 for leadership, which is amazing and a hard list to get on, I've heard. So that's incredible. I don't know if we have the time to go into all the leadership tactics, but you're also a great leader along with being an incredible entrepreneur, author, and all the other things that you've done.

And a great speaker. You forgot that.

And a great speaker. Oh man, see, there's just too much.

And a great podcast guest. Yeah. Well, before we wrap up, I'll ask you this, We've got a lot of readers in the audience. Most of our episodes are with authors. You are also an author. So, why don't you give everybody a little elevator pitch for this book and tell everybody why you decided to write it? What's the mission behind it?

So, the book you're talking about, for those who are just listening to us, is my most recent book called Performance-Driven Giving. It is in my Wall Street Journal bestselling series called Performance-Driven Thinking. Mindset. In Performance-Driven Thinking, we talk about we're going to perform every day. Luke, Nick, you perform every day and you make a decision: I'm going to perform poorly or I'm going to perform great. And you guys have always made the right decision. So it is a mindset. But one day I was in a mastermind group with some friends of mine who asked me about our giving, because we publicly give as an organization. Now, I'm a firm believer that personally I have an obligation to tithe. I'm not necessarily going to call it an obligation, but I feel compelled to tithe. I try to give above and I've always been a giving person, and when I launched Morgan James, I felt like I had a corporate responsibility to give back as well, similar to the way I did personally. So I chose Habitat for Humanity to be our corporate sponsor or our corporate charity because I had a real estate background. I was a home builder before I was a banker. I was a mortgage banker. I bought my first house when I was 20. I love the power of community that homeownership gives you. So I'm like, this made sense to me, so I'm doing it. Didn't have to make sense to anybody else, but it also was a charity that wasn't divisive. You know, it was a charity that served. to great cause. They give a hand up, not a handout. And it just really fit. But as we leaned into the— over the years, we, you know, we gave money, we give books to the homeowners. In fact, our staff in Virginia would typically build a house. Our female staff mostly, and me, will build under their Women's Build program. And we'll— Morgan James will build a house, you know, in our, in our southeastern Virginia region. And it's done really well for us. In 2008, we got invited to ring the opening bell at NASDAQ because of our public giving. Now, we're not like, hey, we give, we give, we give, we give. It's kind of subtle on the website. It is on the back of the books. We want people to understand it. And there's a little statement on the inside of the book about what we do with Habitat. But this book came out because I was asked just a point-blank question one day. Said, why do you give? And I think it just happened to be the right moment because I just word vomited, if you will. You know, I give because of this and I give and I enjoy it because of this. And this is what I reap from it. This is a group of business people. So I was like, I reap some amazing unexpected benefits because I I give. In fact, back in the day when nobody knew who Morgan James was, we had bookstores giving our authors, who many of which they didn't know either, they were giving them an opportunity to be on the shelves because they saw Morgan James building houses down the street from their bookstore. Now, it really wasn't us, but it was Habitat, and we have an official relationship with Habitat, so they combined it. So we, we just got really a lot of opportunity and press. And then ringing the opening bell at NASDAQ in 2000. I had so much fun with those email campaigns. Morgan James on NASDAQ. Everybody thought to go in public. It was so much fun. Um, but I just— I went home that night to the hotel and I just jotted down as many of those questions that I could answer. And I just wanted to share the power of generosity. And it doesn't have to be money. It could be attention to your family. And I still struggle. I mean, this is— it's an ongoing thing. It could be your talent. It could be your time. You know, I'm blessed. I serve on a number of boards. Some of them are amazingly fun. Like, I've been on the Habitat board for 15 years. I've been on the Land Rover board for now since 2019. I serve on the National Board for the Prevention of Community Violence. I'm a chairman of board of Guerrilla Marketing International. And these are all fun. I can serve and it doesn't cost me anything and people are benefiting from it and I just love it. So it doesn't have to be money, but money certainly can be a big thing. I do firmly believe that if you give, it will be returned to you if you do it in the right heart. But I do also know that you need to build your foundation properly. It's so much easier to give from a full So, fill up your cup, take care of your debts, take care of your family, and give from your abundance. And you will end up realizing that your cup continues to spill over and you get more than enough to give. So, I talk about that in the book, but I also interview billion-dollar companies that give and I interview companies that receive and everywhere in between. So, it's a great read. And if I may, Nick, can I give it away for free? Would that be a great demonstration of my generosity?

I think so.

If you go to performancedrivengift.com. That's performancedrivengift.com. My gift to you would be you can get a copy of the ebook for free and you can even get the audiobook for free. My only ask is if you love it, tell all your friends. And we may have said this earlier, but if you love it, tell all your friends. If you hate it, we never had this conversation.

I love it. Okay. So that link will be in the show notes. And before we wrap up, David, Luke always has one question that he asks to wrap up each So there you go, Luke. That's, that's the cue to ask that question.

The answer is yes.

The answer is 42.

Great answer. All right, so my question is this. Once you pass on, you've passed on. This is an imaginary world where you've passed on and everything that you've put out, everything that you've done just disappears, which will happen anyway, but it disappears. And but you could leave the world with one single piece of advice.

It's about the relationships here and today. A lot of entrepreneurs are out there hustling, they're doing well, but they're all by themselves. They've got no family, they've torn their relationships apart and they're trying to do it by themselves. You need relationships. You know, as I alluded, the most successful authors out there that are having the most joy and the most impact are doing it with a little bit of help from a lot of their friends. But you do need to lean into that relationship, nurture it, and don't make it all about the book or all about your product or yourself for that matter. Delegate some time to somebody else if you need to create some opportunities for that downtime. You know, for me, I work 10 to 5, typically 3 to 4 days a week. Nights and weekends are for the family. And that's what it's all about, man. But I lean into those relationships so that I have more of a legacy to share with.

That's huge. It's one of the keys to happiness for sure.

Relationships.

I love it.

That's right.

I love it. All right. Well, we thank you for coming on the show. I think you, you've already alluded to where people can find you because usually we wrap up with that. But if you want to say it one more time just for good measure, you can, where can they go to, the people that are listening, where can they go to find you and follow you and all that stuff?

Well, I appreciate that opportunity, but I'm easy to find, morganjamespublishing.com, and I'm on Instagram and social media, Twitter, just David Hancock. And of course, the books through my books.

All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us, David. We've had just such a great time. Love your energy. Keep up the great Great work. Thanks for, thanks for your time.

I appreciate you. Thanks for having me.