RV (00:02): Well, something very unexpected happened in my journey a couple years ago. I was reading a book to my son Jasper, and as we do often, almost every night, we read books to him. And I had this epiphany that all these kids’ books are crap. And a few weeks later, God hit me with a download where I went and wrote a kid’s book that is called Be the Buffalo. And I wrote that entire book in about 45 minutes. And I never, ever expected to be an author in the first place. Definitely never expected to be a children’s book author. And lo and behold, here I am now a children’s author. And so I am suddenly curious about children’s books and how do you write them? How do you sell them? And then recently I was every year we host this I co-host this, this bestselling author meetup with Donald Miller and Mike Malowitz and our, our late friend John Ruland and John Gordon and several other people. RV (01:04): And the, it’s not a ticket you can buy there’s lots of people who want to come to this, but it is an invite only event, and the only way you get invited is based on your actual book sales. And so we researched these you know, potential people to come so that we have real colleagues and no one’s making money from it. We’re all sharing collaboratively. And that is where I met Mike Thomas, who you are about to meet. And I have become enamored and fascinated with Mike J. Thomas specifically. My, my son has become enamored and fascinated with Mike Thomas. So Mike is the author of a children books, a children’s book series that if you’re watching this on YouTube, you can see me holding it up. It’s called The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls. And it is a time travel adventure series that helps kids explore the Bible and grow in their faith. RV (02:02): And Mike, this, this series has sold over 650,000 copies. It grows every single year. Mike recently signed a deal with Harper Collins and Zander Kids to expand the series. He’s got experience both traditional publishing and self-publishing. And Jasper bugs me on a nightly basis. I’m not kidding. Jasper has read this whole series three times, like through every book cover to cover three times. And he always asks me, he’s like, when is your friend gonna write another book? When is your friend gonna write another book? And so I I was like, Mike, is there any chance that we could have you come on the podcast, hear your story? Mike also is a, has got a lot of experience in marketing and helping other authors to sell more books without having lots of, you know, social media followers and not having a huge email list or a huge ad budget. And he was a president and chief marketing officer of an educational fundraising company. So, anyways, it was all of those things that made me say, we gotta get Mike on the show. Mike’s been so gracious to Jasper and me and now to you coming to share his wisdom. So Mike, welcome to the show, my friend. MT (03:13): Well, Rory, thank you for having me. It is a joy to talk to you to share this information. And that’s amazing that Jasper’s read it three times. I have to say, that’s probably more than I’ve read the whole series . I, I did have to go, since I’m redoing the, or extending the series, I did go back and reread it and I was like, ah, there was so many things I just didn’t even remember writing. But it is a joy to be here and I can’t wait to, to share whatever information that would be helpful to you in your children’s author adventure journey. Yeah. Or or to your listeners. RV (03:52): Yeah. So tell me, like, where did the idea come from? I mostly want to hear about like how you marketed and sold it and made it, but Mm-Hmm. . But where did the, I where did the idea originally come from? MT (04:03): The idea came when my son, my youngest son, Peter, was in third grade and he had a book report due, and he went to a Christian school, and I looked through the book report list and I knew he was a reluctant reader, and if he was gonna take the time to read to something, I wanted it to be something interesting to him, something that could help him grow in faith, something that would be fun. And I looked through the book report list and I just couldn’t find it. It was not there. And, and so then I went to Barnes and Noble, I said, well, surely they’ll have it. And I went back and there’s this tons of books for his age group, you know, everything you can imagine. And I couldn’t find it there. And so I went home and told him, and he said, well, why don’t you write it? And I like, RV (04:50): Nice MT (04:51): . I was like, okay. You know, I, I hadn’t thought of that, you know, I hadn’t, you know, at the time, you know, I wasn’t an author. I did a lot of copywriting and things in marketing, but I was like, okay, let me give it a shot. And so I wrote it and I read it to him and he liked it. And I was like, well, of course you liked it. You’re the hero of the story. He, and then he goes, read it to my class. I’m like, oh, next stage. I didn’t imagine this getting beyond just him. And so I went and read it to his class, printed it off on eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper, and just read it through to them. And I could see the reactions, I could see, you know, what worked, what didn’t work. MT (05:31): And I would run into him in the hallway, some of his classmates, and go, when’s the next book coming out? I’m like, I didn’t think of a next book. So I said, well, maybe there’s something to this. And so I wrote another book and another book. I wrote three books. And I self-published those. And what I wanted to make sure was that it worked locally. I wanted to make sure, like I could see that was having the effect that I wanted to have, I wanted to make sure that it was helping kids learn about the Bible grow in faith. And when I saw that, when I saw it actually happen, I was like, okay, this is something I can get behind. This is something, you know, because as an author, sometimes we’re, we’re kind of afraid to be honest, to put our words out there. We’re afraid that it’s not gonna work. We’re afraid that it’s gonna be laughed at or rejected. And so I just kind of had to wait and see if it had the effect that on the reader that I wanted. And once I saw that, I was like, okay, I can get behind this. I can promote it, I can get it out into the world. So that’s kind of the journey. I RV (06:46): Love that. MT (06:47): And then from that point, it got put picked up from a publisher and I went kind of that, that route and ended up writing nine books in a three year period. RV (06:57): Wow. So when you first wrote the books, were they actually, did you have them printed and like bound or was it just like a Word document that you printed out and took into his class to read it? MT (07:12): Well, the, the first was just that, I mean, and that was kind of before I edited it and all that. And then I knew a guy I was like, okay, these are chapter books, children’s books. You’re gonna have to have artwork. And so I worked with a guy named Cody, and I said, Hey, you know, here’s the concept. Can you do some art for me? And he did like the original covers and some line drawings for inside the book. And I published them on Amazon, KDP. And I was like, and I knew like kids needed, you know, a physical thing, you know, they needed a real book to hold onto. You know, you can do some digital books for kids, but they just, it, I don’t, I don’t think it has the impact. You know, they’re very tactical, you know, they need something in their hands. So I did on those original three published on Amazon, and that was it, . Wow. You know, I didn’t, RV (08:07): Did they, did they take off right away? Like what did, did you just kind of throw ’em up there and then it was like you had them indexed on Amazon for like Christian early reading or something and it takes off, or MT (08:17): Yeah, yeah, it was like Children’s Action and Adventure or Christian Children’s Action Adventure. You know, I wasn’t really good at that point of, you know, how do you talk about it or index it and, you know, categories and things like that. My main thing was I wanted a place that there was a printable book available, and I also bought some of them for myself off of there and put ’em in a local bookstore actually three three local bookstores and two churches had kind of bookstores in their churches. And so I approached them and had them kind of put it in there because I wanted to see, you know, if they didn’t know me, you know, if it was just kind of on a shelf or out there, would someone just buy it? And so RV (09:02): You just bought ’em and gave the inventory to the stores to try and sell? MT (09:06): Yes. RV (09:07): Interesting. So you, and you just gave ’em like, whatever, like five or 10 copies or something to just MT (09:13): Yeah, yeah. And I said, here, you can have ’em. I don’t want the money. I just wanna make sure that it sells. Because I just knew that if it gets in their hands and they like it, they’re gonna share it, you know, because, you know, what I’ve found is, you know, word of mouth has always been the best way to sell books. RV (09:37): Hmm. MT (09:38): And if you get your books out into the hands of enough readers that like it, you know, they’re gonna tell others. And so that’s kind of my kind of book marketing philosophy is, you know, word of mouth is the best, has always been the best way to sell books. So whatever tools or strategies you use at the present time is, you know, how do you keep that word of mouth happening? How do you initiate it? How do you kind of stoke it? How do you keep it moving forward? RV (10:09): Yeah. So let’s talk about that. So if you look at the, if you look at the techniques or the tactics or the, the, the actions, the actionable things that you took to initially get your book in front of readers, you’ve already talked about a couple. One is, you went and read, you went read the book at schools mm-Hmm. , you sent, you sent free copies to bookstores. What else did you do to get it in the hands of readers before, you know, it really took off? MT (10:40): Yeah, those were kind of my, I don’t know. At, at that point I wasn’t really thinking, you know, this is marketing my book or selling my book. At that point, it was more kinda research, you know, it was kind of in the beta thing, feedback, it, it, yeah. It was more about, I wanted to make sure it was a good book and it was gonna do what I wanted to do. And so once I kind of got it there, and then once the publisher kind of picked it up and it was going out into the world, you know, it was going to like Barnes and Noble and different places like that, I was like, okay, now I gotta figure out how to actually market and sell this book. And so at that point, you know, I had a full-time job, and I was basically write, you know, having to write books, edit books, and sell books, and do the full-time job all at the same time. Mm-Hmm. . And so living RV (11:31): The dream baby, living the, the dream. Oh yeah. It’s so glamorous. It was . It’s so glamorous. MT (11:36): Absolutely. So RV (11:37): You get to wake up at, at 5:00 AM and edit your own books and stay on the on weekends and go speak for free to like, promote your book for, for 10 bucks at the back of the room. It’s so MT (11:45): Glamorous. Oh, it’s a beautiful lie. Beautiful lie . And actually 5:00 AM is when I would get up to write, I would, 5:00 AM I would write and then write for hour and a half, two hours, then get ready to go to work. And so when the RV (11:59): Books, I did that this morning, by the way. I’m, we’re, we’re writing our first book in 10 years. And I have been doing that every morning for like, weeks. So it’s just, yeah, it, and it’s, there’s something about that 5:00 AM because it’s like, you can just get enough time in before the kids wake up and things get going. Oh yeah. For the day. Oh yeah. MT (12:16): No one else is expecting your time at that point. So yeah. So that’s, so when it came to that point, I was like, I kind of dove in to like, what is the best, easiest, quickest way to market a book. And if you, you go to Google, you’re gonna, you know, look at book marketing. I mean, there is an insane amount of advice out there. You know, some of it is decent, you know, some, a lot of it is really kind of gamy to be honest. . Mm-Hmm. . I mean, it’s, I mean, you look it up and you, you can, yeah, after you’ve seen enough marketing stuff, you can look through it and you say, Ooh, this is someone’s trying to take advantage of someone here. And so I kind of went off through that. I had a also a friend Tim Grl, who was a book marketer. And so I kind of talked to him and said, you know, what would be a good strategy here? But oddly, I kind of got this, basically, lemme say I did one thing and one thing only for those three years, and I’ll tell you that in a second. And so I was watching RV (13:24): Cliffhanger, cliffhanger, cliffhanger, let’s roll to our sponsors, be back in just a, just a break. We’ll take a be back right after this short commercial break. MT (13:34): Cliffhangers are fun in books. The and so it kind of came as epiphany. I was, I saw Gary V had a thing with some rappers, and they were starting off and they’re like, how do I get my music out there? You know, how do I, he is like, look, just get people to hear your music and share it with people. And they’re like, well, how do we do that? And he goes, just get on Instagram. Go to the influencers, DM ’em, reach out to ’em. I was like, okay. And so I saw that and I was like, well, maybe that’s something. So I kind of dove into that a little more. And I saw, well, a lot of people were kind of doing that. It wasn’t, you know, brands were doing that. Those were doing that. So I said, well, I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m gonna go all in on influencer marketing. And another thing at the exact same mo moment popped up Brian Norman is my agent, and he Oh yeah, RV (14:32): I know Brian Norman. MT (14:34): And so he had I think it was another author or something that he knew, and they had kids, you know, she had kids in the, in the age range. And so he gave her the books, and I think her site was like, thrive Moms or something like that. And she did a post and it just was talking about the books. And it had like a giveaway, and it was like, it just got all these likes and all these comments. And oddly, I went and looked at Amazon ranking and I was like, the Amazon ranking just shot up. And I was like, okay, this is weird. okay, this, there’s something to this. So I just kinda went in on that approach. I was gonna go, I did influencer marketing. The other one was, I had just gone to like a Russell Brunson event and he talked about, you know, the Dream 100. And I was like, you know, find, you know, pick out a hundred influencers and just try to get your book to them. And so that’s what I did. I made a list, you know, I went through, I focused on Instagram just as I was most comfortable in that platform. It seemed to be a way, an easy way to connect my audience, my ideal reader was also there. And so that’s, I just went on that. And so for those first three years, the only thing I did was influencer outreach, influencer market. Wow. MT (16:00): Wow. And so I just looked at some of the stats on it when we were kind of pitching the extension of the series. And I think I worked with over maybe 225 different influencers. Wow. And they had, and I kind of, kind of counted up and they had maybe a combined following of over 8 million. RV (16:23): Wow. MT (16:24): And so, and so that’s, that’s what I did. And, you know, during that time, that’s all I did. And I think within that time period had sold close to 500,000 books. You know, after that I’ve done a couple other things. You know, I’ve done some direct sales Facebook ads and things like that. But the thing that really got me going, ’cause I had no platform, I had no following. I had no email list. I didn’t even have a website for the books that whole time. Wow. The only thing I did was influencer marketing. RV (17:00): So , this is so cool, Mike. This is, I love this so much. You know, one of our flagship mantras, if you is, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And we just tell people like, any marketing strategy can work, but doing all of them at the same time is the mm-Hmm. Is the recipe for failure. And just like hearing your story of, of like, I did this one thing, I went all in, and it’s so simple, right? It’s like, Mm-Hmm. , I talk to people like, yes, it’s influencer marketing, quote unquote influencer marketing. Yes, it’s Instagram. Yes, it’s social media, but it’s really, I talked to people, I told them about my book. So, so can you describe what that process was? So, so basically Mm-Hmm. , you’re just, are you just like researching people and then did you just DM them and then do you have to send them a book? Do they have, do you have to do, do you have to pay them? Like how does that, what are the mechanics of that specifically? Yeah. MT (18:00): You know, I, I did come up with a system ’cause I was like, I, you know, I had such limited time. I was like, well, let me have a very specific system I do and just do it over and over again. Especially after I saw it work a few times. I was like, okay, this is what I’m gonna just keep doing. So there was the research side, you know, so, you know, once I knew who my, you know, first you kind of have to know your ideal reader, you know, who is your dream reader. And it’s gonna be different for the, you know, mine, since it was a children’s book, I had to say, okay, I’m not really selling directly to children. So it’s mo parents and in particular moms. And it’s like I say, I was like, okay, I have to figure out who are the ideal moms that would like this book. MT (18:44): Their children would like this book, and if they like it, they’re going to share about it. And so the first part was just kind of identifying, you know, who your reader is, and then looking at, okay, where do they congregate? And it’s like, okay, who, who are they listening to? And so that’s where I kind of said, okay, let me look through the influencers. Let me look through the, and when you say influencer, like you said, it’s not some, there’s not like a tag on there that, you know, okay, gimme the list of influencers. It’s basically you just looking Instagram and seeing who has a decent amount of followers and are getting engagement and are talking about the things that my readers like hearing about. And so I would just go through and find the ones I thought fit that criteria once I kind of knew who they were. MT (19:40): You know, once I could picture that person, then I just went through and found that person on Instagram. I mean, there’s techniques to do that. You know, you can look at hashtags, you can look at fall, you know, Instagram will tell you who is liked this person, you know, once you find another person. And I would simply, you know, there was some steps, you know, I would kind of follow them. But it really did come down to messaging them, you know, making that outreach. And I kind of did a, a kind of a framework that on what does that message look like? You know, how do you, and you actually shared the exact message that I shared with those people over and over again at the beginning when you when you were introducing me. I would basically say, hi, my name is Mike Thomas. I’m the author of The Secret Hidden Scrolls. It’s a time travel adventure series that helps kids explore the Bible and grown faith, I think be a perfect fit for your family. Would you like a copy? And that was it. So that message would be different for different people, but you just have to kind of have the thing that connects that they know, okay, this is something I’d be interested in. Let me look at it. And but you RV (20:56): Led with giving them a copy. MT (20:59): Yes. RV (20:59): You did not lead with, would you post about it? Would you interview me? No, what you just said, can I give you a copy? MT (21:07): Yep. RV (21:08): That’s a big, that’s a really big deal. You just did that intuitively, I guess. But like, I don’t think that’s what people do. I think they go, Hey, I have this thing. Would you, would you promote it for me? And it’s like, I don’t even know. I don’t even know you. I have no idea who you are, what this thing is. MT (21:24): Yeah. So that was, you know, crafting that message, you know, is gonna be different for, you know, different, whatever your ideal reader is, who the influencer is, what your market is. But that’s what worked. You know, that’s what I found that worked. And so I would send it to ’em, wait for a response. You know, there are some follow ups that can be done. But if they did follow up, I would just send ’em the book. I would actually physically mail them the book. RV (21:55): Mm-Hmm. MT (21:57): If, you know, just ’cause it was a kid’s book, if you could send them a digital book and they’re good with that, you know, that would be a cheaper way to go. But I think getting a book in hand, a physical book in hand makes the possibility of them actually reading it. The possibility of them sharing it or promoting it. I think it exponentially shoots that possibility up. RV (22:20): Mm-Hmm. . Well now there’s money there, so there’s time there. But like, so how much are you paying? ’cause You’re, if you’re printing the books on Amazon, KDP or buying them yourself, that’s pretty expensive, right? For a book is like 10 or something bucks. Plus you have shipping. So you is like $20 a, is that right? Am I thinking about that? Right. MT (22:41): Well at that point is when I, I was actually working with a publisher. I was with a traditional publisher at that point. RV (22:47): Okay, so you were buying ’em at your author discount, like at the wholesale price basically. MT (22:52): Yes. And RV (22:54): But still four or five bucks. I mean, still had to be like MT (22:57): Three. It is RV (22:57): Like three to five bucks. Three MT (22:58): Or $4, yeah. Yeah. In that range. And then you, you send media RV (23:02): And that sort a small book. I mean, that’s a, I mean, these books are, you know, just, they’re, they’re, they’re, I mean they’re kids books, so MT (23:08): They’re very light . And so you send a media mail, which is gonna be, you know, about three bucks, you know, all, you can always send a media mail. Even on bigger books, even like sending a box set, like that whole box set media mail is gonna be five. I mean, so, you know, a big hardbound book is gonna be probably five. So there is some expense in that. And so, you know, what you have to see, does the expense, you know, work out you know, does it move books? You gotta RV (23:40): Return on that investment and get MT (23:41): Right. And for me and for others, I’ve seen you get a good return because again, word of mouth is what sells books. So if you get someone presenting to their audience of 2000 people, 50,000 people, and they’re saying, check this book out, my kids loved it, or I loved it, go get yourself a copy. I mean, that is going out. That’s better than a Facebook ad. It’s better than you telling about it when you have someone that they know, like, and trust telling them that they should get this book. It’s just a much better marketing avenue. RV (24:27): Mm-Hmm. . I love it. I love it. So then, so you send them the book. Mm-Hmm. media mail, and then you wait for response. If they don’t respond, then do you just kind of follow up? And this is all in dms, right? So you’re just like messaging? Yeah, you’re just messaging ’em like, Hey, did you get the book? What’d you think? And they’re like, oh, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. And then you like, wait a week and like, ping them back and what’d you think? And it, and then it’s just basically that. And then if they, if they say, I got it, I read it, I loved it. Then do you ask them to post about it? Or do they, you kind of hope they do. Like what? MT (25:02): Yeah. That’s interesting. I’ve played with that both ways. Oddly usually if you just said, I just wanted to make sure you got it, they would say, oh yeah, I was just mean to post about it. It was, it, it’s an interesting, it was a, I a couple times I would say, no, I’m trying to think. I was actually just too uncomfortable to ask them to post about it to be honest. Mm-Hmm. . Okay. And they would just kind of post about it. And I never, I, I’ve never worked, you know, some of it is, there’s an understanding in the exchange that that’s the possibility of hand, you know, of happening. You know? ’cause That’s what they do, you know, they’re posting content for their followers, you know, they want to give good valuable stuff and if they really love the book, they’re going to do that. MT (26:04): And it was like, I didn’t want to push them if they didn’t really love the book or believe in the book, you know? So if they do, then they’re natural. You know, in my in experience, they naturally posted. There was a kind of another step that I would take with some, you know, and that would be a book giveaway. And so a lot of times they would post it and if we had a good kind of communication back and forth, I would say, Hey, would you like to host a book giveaway? And, and those cases is where you’d really kind of see engagement up. But I never would out the gate say, Hey, do you want to do a book giveaway? It always kind of started as just saying, would you like a copy of the book? I think it would be a great fit. And from that point, you know, if they post it and got a lot of engagement and even, you know, we kind of kept the dialogue going. Then I think the next step was kind of a book giveaway, hosting a book giveaway. RV (27:06): Wow. MT (27:06): So that was kind of, that was kind of my system. And then as I would kind of keep in touch with them, because each time a new book would come about, you know, I’d reach back out to that group and say, Hey, I’ve got a new book coming out. I can send you a a, you know, an early copy. Would you like to have it? And so it just kind of grew over time. Also, you know, with each thing, you know, there’s a new crop, a new, you know, a new crop of influence just, just to kind of add in there. And it just kind of kept growing. The other kind of byproduct was it helped my I, I still don’t have a ton of followers, maybe 6,000 something, but I started with like 15 , you know, you know, my family and friends. But you know, when they were posting, you know, people would kind of check it out and follow you. So there was this natural kind of thing that helped that ra, you know, rise as well. RV (28:05): Mm-Hmm. when you did the book giveaways, would you just give ’em like five copies or something? Or 10 or 20? Like how many books are you talking ’em about? For a book giveaway, MT (28:14): I just did a single giveaway. Oh. And it was just like, yeah. And as it got to be the book set, I would, it, it, depending on how many they, you know, when I had five books, I’d do a, a, I would basically give away a set of the books and that was it. There was like one winner. And I, I kind of had a pretty simple system of like, here’s what they post, here’s kind of what it says. Once you choose the winner, you send me the address, I fulfill it for you. So they never had to kind of get in the middle, you know, they simply did a post. You know, they chose the winner from their comments and likes sent me the information. I fulfilled it and did several of those. And it did really well. RV (28:55): When did this all start? Like, when did you, when did you really start doing this? Like when did you start reaching out to these influencers and like, how much time passed between that? You said this was like your primary strategy for the first 500,000 copies. So how much time passes between when you kind of like hear the Gary V thing and start sending out to where you sold 500,000 units? MT (29:19): So the first book came out in 97. RV (29:24): Okay. MT (29:25): And so, but I didn’t really, this didn’t hit until like maybe six months after the first book came out. The sales weren’t right. I mean, they sold, it did okay. ’cause They did get him into like Barnes and Noble and some of the, and books of Million and some of those. So there was some movement just kind of naturally that way. But it wasn’t really picking up the way I would like, like it to have. And the other problem was, even though it was a nine book deal, it was like, if the first two or three don’t do well, we’re not gonna print the rest of ’em. , we’re not gonna do. So it’s like, I got it. It kind of hit it this moment between, it’s like after Book one was out I was writing book two and sent it to ’em and I was editing book two and thinking about book three. And I was like, okay, I’ve gotta figure out how to sell these books if this thing’s gonna move forward. And that’s kind of when that moment came when I went in RV (30:34): On. But INS, Instagram wasn’t around in 1997, so this had to be way later than that when you actually, MT (30:39): Right. Oh yeah. I got the years wrong. Yeah. It would’ve been a, I got that completely wrong. . Yeah, it was in 2007. RV (30:53): 2007. Okay. MT (30:55): Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. 2007. RV (30:58): So it all happened like right as Instagram was coming on the scene? MT (31:01): Yes, yes. Yeah. It is been a seven year window here, so yeah. So it would’ve been right when Instagram was kind of coming out and I was kind of new. It was kind of, I, I did tinker a little bit. I tried a little bit on Twitter. It just didn’t work. You know, I, I’ve tried some other things for me. Instagram, it just was a great avenue. So the best platform for this did RV (31:27): The book, actually the first book was published in 1997, but then basically 10 years past, MT (31:32): No, I’m sorry, two 2007, RV (31:35): The first book published in 2007. MT (31:38): Mm-Hmm. . RV (31:39): And then it was like, so then did you start doing this kind of like right then, like right in 2007? Or was it like more like 2010 or something like that? Like a few years after the book was kind of like, MT (31:50): It would’ve been about a year after the book came out. So it’d been probably 2008, you know, so Right in that timeframe. RV (31:58): And then how long did you, MT (31:59): I’d have to map it out a little clearer. . Yeah. I can give you some more specific dates as well. But it was in that timeframe. RV (32:06): And then how many, like, how, how long did you do that for? Was it like a five year period or a two year period? Or like, MT (32:14): Because like how long have I done the in influencer outreach? RV (32:17): Yeah, like how, how long did you stick with the influencer outreach before you just kinda let it take organic flight from there? MT (32:24): Probably until the last book came out, which would’ve been 2021. RV (32:32): Gotcha. Wow. Okay. So this is like, this is like a . MT (32:37): So you know, I gave you the wrong dates. Lemme give you the real dates here. Okay. Okay. So it was really 2017. I don’t know why I said 19 97, 20 17. I was thinking probably the birth of my child was when the first book came out. And so RV (33:03): I can look in the book because I got it right here MT (33:05): Next. Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s get the real dates. Let me, RV (33:07): Let me open the book here and see. ’cause It probably has the publication date. Yeah. 2017. MT (33:14): Yeah. RV (33:15): So this is 2017 is when, at least when the publishing deal happened. So you might have, you might have had the self-publishing before that and MT (33:25): Then Yeah. That was for a few years before that. RV (33:28): All that. So then it comes out. So, so, so then really you start hitting this in 2 20 17 through 2021. So it’s like four years. Yes. It’s all four years as you’re like releasing a couple books a year. MT (33:41): Yes. And RV (33:41): You’re, this is like what you’re, ’cause that was the other thing you said Russell Brunson, you know, like Russell Brunson, that, that’s all like 2015 plus. Yes, probably. Yeah. So yeah, so that makes sense. Okay. So then it’s really like, there’s really like a four year period that you’re hammering this. So that’s what I thought. ’cause I thought this was much, this is pretty recent stuff. Yes. and then and so you did, and, and so over that time you just, it, it started to consistently sell and it’s added up to hundreds of thousands of copies. It, so the book. So it’s really been, it’s only, it’s only, it’s only been like eight years. It hasn’t even been out. The series hasn’t even been out 10 years. MT (34:24): Right. RV (34:26): Got MT (34:26): It. Yeah. So the, like I said, like you said, for those four years while those across that timeframe, those books coming out just did the influencer marketing. Yeah. After that point, you know, I’ve done a few other things. Once the kinda the box set came out, I kind of went into doing also some direct sales and Facebook ads and book funnels. But up until that moment the only thing I did was influencer marketing. RV (34:52): Yeah. So ha have, have the, the Facebook ads and the funnels and that stuff. Has that panned out or kind of, or not really or? Yes, it’s amazing. MT (35:03): It’s doing well, you know, and I think depending on, you know, I think there’s some kind of milestones that have to be met for Facebook ads, to work for books. Like if, if you just had one single book, you know, that was selling for $10, it’d be really, really hard to make Facebook ads work. RV (35:26): Mm-Hmm. . RV (35:27): ‘Cause There’s not enough profit margin in the book to recover the ad spend to run the ads. MT (35:31): Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I’ve talked to several people that run Facebook ads for books, and once you really dial it in, you could maybe get between, you know, between 10 and $15 cost of sale on an ad. So RV (35:48): 10 to 10 to $15 in ad spend Per MT (35:53): Or per sale. RV (35:54): Per sale. So that’s a, that would be a CAC, a customer acquisition cost of like $15. And that now that’s to sell one of your box sets. MT (36:03): Yes. RV (36:04): Which is the, the whole nine series box set is like $150. MT (36:09): No, it’s $59. RV (36:11): Oh my goodness. Steal. Yeah, but then you go, okay, if you, if you collect $60, you take out 15 for ad spend, you take out, you know, whatever the wholesale cost is for the book, and then you gotta like pay the people to run the ads. And like, you’re not, you’re, you’re not, it’s not, you’re not making a lot of money there, but it’s, right. Yeah. But you’re breaking even. You might be breaking even or something. MT (36:35): I do a little better than break even. So what I, but the thing that I found was that although I was picking up, you know, the ads themselves point directly to my site where I sell them directly secret, the hidden scrolls.com and so they go there, you know, you can buy the box set. Right now I have like a 25% discount, you know, get a, you know, get some worksheets with it so you can have some things to help promote it there. So I sell enough books there to more than cover the ad spend. But what I found is I, Amazon sells and other sales shoot up, because what happens is, and you know this, and anyone who shops knows, if you look at a product you say, oh, this looks great. You go right over to Amazon and say, what’s Amazon got it for? MT (37:26): So if you got Prime, you’re gonna get free shipping. You know, so a lot of people are going from my ad to my website or seeing it over and over and then going to Amazon and buying the book there. Now I’ve tested this several times to say, I’m gonna shut off the ads and see what happens within a day. Exactly. Amazon sales rank drops. I mean, it just, to the moment you can see that it just, the sales start drying up there too. Turn ’em back on. You see the sales, your rankings start getting better and better take it off. I mean, there is a direct tie, even though the Facebook ads are running two direct sales, it’s also driving other sales. RV (38:17): Have you run ads on Amazon to the listing on Amazon? MT (38:21): I have not. Because it’s in, RV (38:24): It’s just tricky ’cause you’re just losing money. Like you just, you’re, you’re literally just losing money. You never you don’t ever get the money back. MT (38:29): Yeah, I know people that do pretty well there. The problem is, like in traditional publishing, the, the way mine is kind of set up, it would be really difficult. Like if they’re the one selling it directly to Amazon, you know, if the publisher is selling it through Amazon for you to try to come in and run ads, running it to that thing, you’re not gonna be able to collect on the money. I mean, you’re not gonna collect on the ad spend because at that point you’re only getting your royalty Mm-Hmm. . And so it just makes it where, you know, for traditional publisher, you know, publish Also, this doesn’t really make sense or makes it difficult on Amazon ad spend unless you’re just doing it to kind of, again, get the book out there, get it in the hands of readers, knowing that word of mouth is eventually gonna be the thing that really makes it expand and grow. RV (39:24): Mm-Hmm. , MT (39:26): But I don’t have any expertise on Amazon ads, so I can’t really be helpful in that area. RV (39:31): But when you run the ads, you just run, like you’re saying like a Facebook ad just directly to your book page to buy direct, like direct to consumer, check out, you know, here’s a shopping cart, put a credit card in. Mm-Hmm. . And, and then how do you, does the publisher mail those books out or do you have to buy your inventory from the publisher at wholesale and then like, put ’em at a warehouse or something and have them mail out? Like how do you deal with the mailing part of the direct sales? MT (39:57): Yeah, I buy them from the publisher. And so every couple of weeks I’ll just place an order just to kind of keep, you know, over time I know how many I’m pushing out or how many I’m selling. And so I’ll just have ’em send me the box sets. In our back bedroom, we’ve got a table set up, we’ve RV (40:18): Got Oh, so you send ’em from the house, MT (40:20): The boxes? Mm-Hmm. . RV (40:21): Got it. I’ve MT (40:23): Got the boxes. We, you know, I’ve run it on a Shopify site. Love it. I mean, it has just can’t say enough good about it. Just how it tracks things and how the shipping works and things like that. And so, yeah, so we get the orders, we print the orders, my wife boxes them up. Wow. Takes, you know, takes these daily runs down to the post office and it ships out. RV (40:51): Wow. Man, this has been so awesome, Mike. Thank you so much. I mean, just, it’s inspiring to hear the story, but actionable that it just to hear the, the strategies and it’s just, and I hope you feel how much of a difference it’s making. Like not just making money and like doing this cool art artistic expression, but just like, I mean, as a parent I go, I struggle so much. It’s, it’s really important to me to curate what my kids are reading, to just make sure they’re not being fed, you know, stuff that is gonna be crazy. And it’s a, it’s a really wonderful blend of what you put together here. And MT (41:30): No, I, I appreciate you telling me that because it’s tough as an author, a lot of times you’re, you’re kind of disconnected, you know, from the reader. And I remember early on, you know, just like getting up at five and doing these things and figuring out how to do the marketing, it’s just a task. I mean, it can turn into work and unless you have kind of that mission or that calling or, and believe that this book is actually going to make a difference, you know, that’s the thing that keeps you moving forward. And so at one point, you know, at some point along the way, you know, I started to receive the messages, you know, from parents and from kids. And when you see the transformation, it can help making people’s lives. You know, that’s what gives you the fuel to kind of, to keep for, you know, moving forward in those other tasks. RV (42:20): Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. Absolutely. Well so secret of the hidden scrolls.com, we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. Is that the best piece for people to go if they wanna stay connected with you? MT (42:32): Yes. Yes. And on the other side, on the book marketing side, I am in the midst of creating a course called Influencer Marketing for Authors. And so that course will probably be available in about two to three weeks. And so if you know someone watching this or some of your people, if they would like to do that course, if they go to roar book marketing.com there will be until it’s up, I’m gonna have, there’s like a little thing that could fill out for a presale and I’ll have a 50% discount offer. RV (43:09): Very cool. Very cool, Mike. Well keep it going brother. So nice to thank you. Spend time with you, appreciate all the wisdom and we wish you the best. MT (43:19): Thank you very much.