074: David Hancock | The Entrepreneur’s Book Publisher

We can all agree on one thing, right? Traditional book publishing is dead.

Or maybe not.

If you think the Amazon Kindle and digital books are going to kill off all traditional book publishers, you need to listen to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution podcast.

But first: what does publishing a book have to do with building relationships?

I focus on interviewing successful entrepreneurs about how they got to their level of success through the lens of relationships.

I’ve covered a lot of topics from face to face networking to creating your own conference, to body language, to using social media tools like Facebook, or LinkedIn ? all in the name of growing your relationships, your network and growing your income.

I cover all of these topics to help show you how you can grow better relationships, with more people who matter, faster, in today’s digital world.

Now one topic I’ve touched on a couple of times is publishing a book.

Publishing your own book is an amazing tool for building relationships in today’s digital world. (Click to tweet)

How? When you publish a book, you are building relationships with everyone who reads your book.

When people read your book, they get to know you better. They hear your voice. They get to know your personality.

Just ask anyone who has read a book by Jon Krakuer or Bill Bryson or Tim Ferriss. When you read books by those authors, you feel like you get to know the author.

Writing a book is a way to build relationships at scale.

Now obviously publishing has changed dramatically in recent years thanks to the explosion in self-publishing.

That’s why I invited my guest, David Hancock, onto this podcast.

Hancock is the founder and head of a very unusual book publisher, Morgan James Publishing.

The boutique publisher is very innovative in the way they operate. They actually call themselves ‘The Entrepreneurial Publisher.’

They’ve published a number of NY Times bestsellers by authors like Brendon Burchard and Jeff Walker – two guys who come from the world of internet marketing.

In this interview, we cover:

• How the self-publishing revolution has changed the traditional publishing world forever
• What value traditional publishers provide to authors in today’s day when so many authors are flocking to the Amazon Kindle Platform
• Why he says he’s a HUGE fan of Amazon even though the Kindle platform has made it easier to self-publish
• interesting insight into the TWO audiences that you as an author need to sell a book concept to book buyers and the book consuming public, which are different in subtle ways.
• Why you need to leverage a book to build a business by creating other products.
• Why authors shouldn’t focus just on selling a book, but should focus on the message, the purpose and the passion behind the book.
• What you should do with 95% of your communications to the world as an author or a communicator.

Hancock also corrects me on why authors should not be giving away a free chapter of their books on their websites something I’ve always thought was a good idea.

If you’re thinking about writing a book in the future, if you’ve written a book, or if you enjoy reading books like I do, then you do not want to miss this episode.

Resources from this Episode:

• Morgan James Publishing
• Launch by Jeff Walker (referral link)
• The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard (referral link)

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Transcript of Interview:

Intro...
John Corcoran: 	All right.  I'm speaking with David Hancock and David, I want to press you on one thing.  Okay?  So self-publishing is all the rage today.  There are tens of thousands of books that are being published on Amazon Kindle each year.  And I've interviewed a number of authors who have published through these non-traditional channels, like Amazon Kindle.  And they love it.  

So what I want to know is you've got a traditional quote, unquote traditional publishing house, if you'd call it that.  I don't know if you use that word for it, but why are publishing houses even relevant today?  And how do you keep them relevant?

David Hancock:	That's a really good question.  And I can clarify a little bit about what place that we kinda fit into this traditional world because we're very traditional, but we're very unconventional as well.  So I love that.

But publishers, in order to stay relevant, have to continue to change.  And they're not necessarily changing as quickly as they should.  But what makes them still relevant now is a little bit of a couple of thing, a distribution network of getting the authors voice out to a larger audience.  

To give you an example, I'm a huge fan of self-publishing.  I'm a huge fan of Amazon, obviously.  But you know, Amazon represents only on average about 24 percent of the overall business to just about publisher.  That means 76 percent of the sales goes someplace else.  And that's been typical for us as well.

So the extra distribution into not only brick and mortar stores throughout the world or North America, specifically, but also the airports, just the various independent mom and pop shops that really do still make a big difference in an author's career being discovered.  But also what makes them relevant still today and all this is subject to change and there are some few things that they really do need to change, and I'll share those with you as well ? is their professional product, their editorial support, they're guiding the text and the author in hopefully the direction that the consumer will mostly benefit from.

Because not only do you have to have a good author that's got something good to day.  It needs to make sure that it?s in a product that the author ? or excuse me, that the consumer will buy.  Actually, it's two-fold really.  First, we as publishers have to design and create products that the buyers from the bookstores will buy first.  Because if they don't buy it the consumer's not gonna buy it.  So it?s a little two-fold, but we do get good feedback from those bookstore buyers, so distribution, credibility with good product, some guidance on the content and just years of experience of knowing what works, what doesn?t work and how to listen to the consumer.

John Corcoran:	That?s interesting that from a publishing perspective you?ve got a couple of different audiences.  You?ve got the bookstore buying public that you need to sell to.  You?ve got the consumer public that you want to buy the book.  You?ve got the author that you want to buy your services, so you?ve got to be selling to all these different potential buyers.

David Hancock:	I know.  Right?

John Corcoran:	Yeah.  So your website describes you as having an entrepreneurial publishing model that ? and you say that it enriches the author as well as the company.  You?ve even got a breakdown on your website of traditional publishers, how they compensate authors, versus how you compensate authors.  So tell me what this entrepreneurial publishing model looks like?

David Hancock:	Yeah, absolutely.  The common core with us is our authors tend to be entrepreneurial in nature.  Even though we do have various lines of publishing that we do, we?ve got our traditional business, non-fiction line, we?ve got a faith line, we?ve got a fiction line.  We?ve even got a kids? line and the kids? line was just so I could give books away to our Habitat partners.  But the common theme is they?re entrepreneurial.  And we are entrepreneurs ourselves, so we love to fan that entrepreneurial flame in all of our authors.  But we help them figure out the bigger picture.

And we love working with authors that are doing things, not just for the sake of selling a book but leveraging the books to grow business, grow a passion or some sort of message.  We encourage them.  We help them figure out ways to create other products.  We help them get on their speaking tour.  So it?s all about things that are beyond the book.

In fact, we often will spend just as much time with the authors teaching them how not to sell a $17.00 book because it?s really hard to sell a $17.00 book.  It?s really sell to hundreds, if not thousands, of books by just focusing on the message, the purpose and the passion behind why it?s there in the first place and taking advantage of the authority aspect that the book gives you.  Now, that?s primarily for the non-fiction side.  But it still rings true for some of the other genres as well.

John Corcoran:	I want to dive into that, the differences between fiction today and non-fiction.  But you also mention how not to sell a book.  So what are some of the mistakes that author make when they come to you in terms of selling their books?

David Hancock:	It?s actually pretty simple, just the fact of an author giving away a free chapter of their book on the website you think would be a really smart thing to do.  You think it?s actually a good idea because they?re trying to capture some names and give away some ethical bribe, but the reality is the consumer doesn?t want to buy a book.  They don?t want to buy anything.  They want to get you and your information for free.

So an author could take that exact same content, instead of calling it a chapter in a book ? it still is ? call it what it is.  Call it the name of the chapter or give it a different name, The Top Ten Reasons Why Your Widget Needs to be Sharper, whatever.  Give that content to them still in exchange for their name and email address.  You can develop that relationship but don?t call it a chapter in a book.  

You?ll see your conversions go up faster because they don?t want to be sold.  The idea is if you?re giving away a free chapter, even if they like the concept, they think, huh, there?s other chapters that they?re gonna want to sell me.  I don?t want to buy anything, so they?ll pass.

John Corcoran:	That?s really interesting because just a couple of days ago ? I have egg on my face ? I advised an author friend of mine, who?s got a book out, who doesn?t do the best with collecting emails on her site.  So I said, ?Why not instead of just saying sign up for my newsletter, why don?t you give away a free chapter for your book??  So I guess I got to get back in touch with her and let her know that that?s not the most effective model because people view it as they?re being sold to.

David Hancock:	Exactly.  They could still give away a chapter of the book.  Just don?t call it a chapter of the book.  

John Corcoran:	Interesting.  Just call it something else.  Okay.  Well, that?s an interesting point.  And you?ve seen that that?s been tested, I assume, with some of your authors?

David Hancock:	It has.  And then once you get their name and email address, you then nurture them and love them with constant ? trickled with your, whether it?s a newsletter or some sort of communication with them via email.  But you have to remember 95 percent of your communication to the world, whether it?s through email or through social media is to give them what they want. 

And oftentimes, that?s not always what we want.  We want them to buy stuff now and come to the event or whatever.  But 95 percent of the communication to the world needs to be educate, encourage, inspire and entertain them because that?s what they want and that?s what they expect.  The other 1 to 5 percent of the time will be to get them to do something very specific.

Fortunately, in today?s environment, even though you have less of an opportunity to ask, you can ask.  And you just need to be very clear.  In fact, you almost want to tell them what to do, as long as you?ve got that ratio of 95/5, you can say, ?No go buy my book.  Go review my book.  Hire me as a speaker.  Come see me at this event.  Come buy my friend?s product.?  You can be very specific about what you want them to do as long as you?re nurturing and caring and loving and giving to them the other 95 percent of the time.

John Corcoran:	So you?ve touched on a couple of things that I want to dive into a little bit deeper, and you have worked with some authors that have a background as internet marketers, like Jeff Walker and Brendon Burchard.  And you mentioned collecting email addresses.  And some of these ideas are gonna be kinda foreign to people listening to this.  So I?d like to dive into it a little bit deeper.

But before we do that, I?d like to get back to the point about fiction versus non-fiction.  How has publishing fiction books versus non-fiction changed?  How is it different today from the way it was, let?s say, five to ten years ago?

David Hancock:	On the fiction side it?s all about the story.  It really is.  It?s about how well your fiction book compares to other successful fiction books.  In the non-fiction world, the bookstore buyers, the Barnes and Nobles, the Chapters, the Powells guys out there, they buy based on their perception of an author?s ability to generate bucks, almost 100 percent. 

The fiction world they?re buying based on how well they think the story might be ? they?re not gonna read it.  But they also compare it or what to know how it compares to John Grisham?s books or other really successful fiction stories, why yours is similar or better or in the similar vein.  That?s what they buy mostly.  And then, of course, the author?s ability to generate buzz plays a small part but not as much as the non-fiction side.

But in recent years, the eBook explosion, which we all know about, has definitely affected the fiction side but not necessarily in a bad way.  Right now 50 percent of the fiction books that are sold are sold in eBook platform, which is more profitable for publishers and sometimes for the authors.  But also it?s easier to create that conversation with the eBook side because people can share and link and tweet from their devices to kinda grow that message.

The paperback, the physical book, of the fiction side will still be relevant but the eBook is catching up.  One area, you?ve probably seen those mass market paperbacks in the bookstore or used to see them, the romance novels that were two inches thick and small, that?s all been replaced by eBooks, just that particular genre.  But for the rest of the fiction world, it?s about 50 percent.

John Corcoran:	How does your company handle eBooks?  Do you ? so you publish the paper version and then you publish it on Amazon as well?  How does that work compared to someone who goes a traditional ? or someone who goes a non-traditional route just going directly through Amazon Kindle?

David Hancock:	Yeah.  I?m a big fan of ? I?m a guerilla marketer at heart.  I mean, I?m a true guerilla at heart.  In fact, we publish most of the guerilla books, but we try to practice what we?re preaching.  So I?m a big fan of giving the end user the product that they want in any format that they could possibly conceive it in.  

So we deliver the eBook in over 1,800 different devices and platforms as well as typically we?ll do the paperback, which is for the bookstores.  We?ll do the hardcover, which is usually for libraries or the speakers out there, the authors who are speakers as well.  But the eBook we want to try to give it to them in every conceivable platform, whether it?s on a device like a Kindle or through a service like Oyster or Scribd or even downloading it to their iPhone as a pdf or something like that.  So we?re a big fan of just kinda giving it to them in any platform that they want.

John Corcoran:	And you mentioned your guerilla marketing line of books, which you?ve been a coauthor on, I believe, about a dozen or so books.  So that?s kind of interesting to me because you?re kind of a study in contrast.  On the one hand, you have a publishing house.  On the other hand it?s like you?re giving away the recipe to go around a publishing house.  So how do you reconcile those two tendencies?

David Hancock:	Yeah.  I tell you we?re just blessed.  My passion has always been, even when we started this 11 years ago, was all about how I could help somebody leverage the power of a book to grow their message.  In fact, when I first became very passionate about the book, I tried to find people the best path for them.  I just wanted to make sure they got the message out.

It could have been through Simon and Schuster.  It could have been through Amazon.  It could have been through their local printer.  I just wanted to get that message out.  So absolutely, any author could be entrepreneurial in nature no matter how they publish their book.  What attracts the authors to submit their proposals to us, even though now over the last 11 years we?ve gotten pretty picky?  We only do about 150 titles a year and we?re really looking for good people that?s got something really good to say that can be part of the family.  

We want to just encourage them to get it out there, and we have to be this little dichotomy of both traditional mindset but also entrepreneurial and flexible, like the guerilla minds.  I forgot what the question was now.  

John Corcoran:	It was just reconciling the two tendencies between publishing house and also being a guerilla marketer at heart and giving away the recipe to authors about how to be a guerilla marketer.  I mean, you?d think if they take your books to heart, then they?d be like, ?Ah, what do I need Morgan James for??

David Hancock:	Yeah, exactly.  And that?s okay.  And some people may want to go ahead and do that.  But we ? just like the other publishers, we try to bring some additional value to the table to ? we like to earn our keep.  We want to make sure that we?re adding value but staying out of the way, assisting them with their goals. 

Because the way I look at it, we have nothing unless we have authors that are meeting their goals.  We?re only successful because our authors are successful.  So in that case, everybody wins.  Whereas, a lot of old school traditional publishers are all about the bottom line, all about them, all about authors being just a commodity, which that has to change.  Whereas, the self-publishing is just you and your own world trying to be successful and you?re making all the decisions whether you?re qualified or not.  So it is a nice little blend, but my passion is helping authors find the right home.

John Corcoran:	So let?s talk a little bit about the traditional publishers.  I want you to, to the extent you?re comfortable ? throw a little mud here.  Throw a little dirt.  So I have negotiated ? as a lawyer, I have negotiated and reviewed contracts for author clients and looked at them.  And they?re unbelievably one-sided.

David Hancock:	Oh, my gosh.

John Corcoran:	Yeah.  And so, I?d love for you to talk a little bit about what the traditional publishers? future is and the ways in which they need to change.

David Hancock:	Yeah.  So you?re right.  Even our contracts are even one-sided.  Now, obviously, they need to be still a win-win for the most part.  They still need to be a benefit for the author.  And the reason why they?re one-sided is even though the author has the content, the author really kinda holds the key to what the consumer might want, the publishers will end up investing a significant amount in them.  So that?s kind of why they?re one-sided.

I?ll give you an example.  Even with us, even though we may not print 100,000 copies on every book we publish to get them out to the stores, we don?t print and pray they sell.  We print and distribute based on actual perception of them buying it, pre-orders that we get, and a perception of what the book might do.  So we try to be a little smarter, with all due respect.

But still, for instance, even with some of our 23 New York Times bestseller listings we?ve had, we may have as much as a quarter million dollars invested in it before we get a dime from the bookstores.  Sometimes maybe even as little as 30,000 or 15,000, depending on the book.  So we?ve got this huge risk out there, even though it?s the author?s content, their passion, their baby that?s gonna make us successful.  We?ll have a lot invested into it.  So those contracts will always be one-sided.  As long as you understand that the publisher can bring a lot of value to the table and you don?t give away too much it can be good.

John Corcoran:	But the traditional publisher, so what are they still doing ? because they obviously aren?t as entrepreneurial.  There?s a lot of authors who complain about the way that they traditional publishers have not innovated.  So talk about that a little bit.

David Hancock:	Part of it is the contracts that we?re still seeing today still have not very good clear language on what the publisher is actually gonna be doing.  In fact, a lot of contracts may not even spell out exactly what is an eBook or spell out the various ways that they might produce the book.  Some contracts still have old school technology that?s not even being used anymore as far as how they might publish a book.  

Some contracts from companies that you?re probably familiar with and you?ve probably seen this are too broad, where they take everything away from the author.  We had one author ? and I?ll give you an example ? we had one author who was a bestselling author with another publisher, a traditional house, been around for 200 years.  But they also were published with us on a story or on a book.  

And he had reached out to that other publisher saying, ?Hey, I?m having an event.  It?s based on the book that I?m the bestselling author with you.  I need some copies of my book.?  Well, the editor first said, ?Who are you??  Now, this is the guy who happens to be a No. 1 bestselling author, but this publisher and his primary point of contact with the publisher was like, ?Who are you again?  Oh, okay.  Let me look you up.?  I kid you not. 

But he also said, ?Well, you know, you?ve bought the most that you can buy of author discounted copies that we can sell you, so you?ll have to buy them from the bookstore or pay a retailer or get them from somebody else other than us.  You can?t buy them at your author price anymore.?  And then they said, ?Well, what are you doing??  ?Well, I?m putting on this seminar.?  He hasn?t hung up the phone yet.  ?I?m putting on this seminar.  It?s about this.  I?m promoting our book and we?re hopefully gonna sell a bunch of books and create this way to continue as a bestseller.?

And they go, ?Well, you know, you don?t really have permission to do that.  We own that content anymore.  You should have gotten permission from us to do that event.  We?ll need to get back with you to see if we?re even gonna allow you to do it.?  It was amazing.

Whereas, from my perspective, that kind of stuff sells books.  Our authors can buy as many books as they want from us at their author price as they want.  They can do as many seminars as they want.  Heck, they can give the books away.  I don?t care as long as that message is getting out, they?re creating that conversation.  We?re gonna sell a boatload of books.

John Corcoran:	Mm.  Really interesting.  Okay.  Let?s dive into talking about some of the authors that you?ve worked with.  So recently, for example, Jeff Walker ? so those who don?t know who Jeff Walker is, he?s an internet marketing guy who?s built his business around helping other internet marketers, other online entrepreneurs to launch digital products online.  And he?s made a lot of money doing this.  He?s been very successful.  Why does he come to someone like you?

David Hancock:	Of course, only they could answer that question, but I?ll tell you why I think and what I?ve heard.

John Corcoran:	I can ask it another way.  How do you sell someone who?s made millions selling digital products, how do you entice them to sell a physical book?

David Hancock:	It?s all about that credibility that?s associated with a physical book and especially when it comes to a point where it hits something like that New York Times when they really can leverage that aspect.

John Corcoran:	Which is what happened with his particular book launch.  

David Hancock:	Exactly what ? and it was very strategic and he had to launch that well because that what his whole story is.

John Corcoran:	Yeah.

David Hancock:	And I love Jeff.  I?ve known him for years.  I?ve been planting seeds with him on the book since about 2006.

John Corcoran:	Wow.

David Hancock:	But for us, it?s all about adding value and staying out of the way.  So them maintaining complete control of the content, it?s their baby, especially a lot of these marketers and their message.  Nobody ? you don?t come in there and start tinkering with their words, whereas, a lot of publishers do.  And sometimes that?s a good thing, but for most of the time I don?t think it?s a good thing.

So authors still maintain complete control of the content.  It?s still theirs.  We make decisions together.  So whereas, if you get published with a bigger house, Simon Schuster or Random House, whoever, they?re gonna make decisions for you, whether you like it or not.  And if you self-publish you?re gonna make decisions whether you?re qualified or not.  What we do is a little different.  We make decisions together.

In fact, one of the fun things that we end up doing ? and I?m not trying to sell us.  I?m selling one of the fun things that we do, and this is why some of those bigger guys will still publish with a medium sized house like us instead of sticking with or going straight to the big guys is that we try to make sure we?re bringing their message, their passion, their branding, what supports them best to the world.  

So for every book that we end up accepting, we create what we call is this entrepreneurial vision mastermind group.  And it?s really just the two teams coming together for the benefit of the author and the reader.  Now, the author?s team may be them, their editor, their agent, their publicist, their neighbor?s dog, their ghost writer, whoever?s important to them and our team.  

And on our team we?ve got a guerilla marketing expert, a branding expert, a PR expert, a design expert and whatever I can bring to the table and together we flesh out all the details.  Do we have the right title?  Do we have the right subtitle?  What should it look like, taste like, feel like, smell like?  When should it come out?  What price?  All these decisions we make together with the big picture in mind.  What?s the next step that the reader?s gonna do?   Are they gonna come to the seminar?  Are they gonna buy the other product?  Are they gonna do this, do that?  We make all those decisions together with the entrepreneur?s vision being the most important part.  It?s dynamic and it?s fun.

John Corcoran:	So let?s speak to someone who?s listening to this who doesn?t have the audience or following that someone like a Jeff Walker or a Brendon Burchard is another one who you?ve published ? it doesn?t have that kind of background.  How can they maybe use some of the strategies that those big guys did if they want to get published?

David Hancock:	It?s all duplicatable, just at different levels.  And we encourage and try to fan that entrepreneurial spirit, even if it?s not created yet.  Because by the time you have a book and get it on the bookstore shelves, there?s usually several months in between that you can develop those other products or develop that speaking platform, and just knowing that there needs to be a big picture.  Heck, even if it?s just capture the names and giving education and giving out information on your website.  

And if you don?t have anything to sell yet, the idea is planted and you can create that next product.  You can create other additional things.  You can recommend other products just by creating that relationship.  So it?s a process.

John Corcoran:	What does that look like for most of your authors who have a product through their website?  Just spell it out for someone who?s just getting started with this sort of thing.  How does a book help sell a product on a website?

David Hancock:	Let?s see.  I?ll give you an example.  Our first New York Times bestseller was by an author by the name of Joel Com.  It was based on a book ? it was based on an eBook that was being sold digitally because he was an online marketer, internet marketer.  It was a $97.00 eBook called something like What Google Never Told You about Making Money with AdSense, I mean, really phenomenal book, several hundred pages long, massive content, really good.  And he was making really good money with it.  

But it wasn?t until we took that book and cut it down into a $24.00 physical book with less than half the content that he was selling for $97.00 and gave him the credibility behind that book from a physical book standpoint that people ? the masses really started to pay attention.  Now, think of that.  Back in ? this was 2006.  In 2006, website owners who had the technology or the wherewithal to know about Google?s AdSense program, which is literally just dropping code on your site to display Google ads was limited.  It was a very small audience.  

But we hit the Times.  We sold a boatload of books, increased his platform and he ended up making more money, more opportunity because of the lesser expensive smaller version of what he was selling off of his book.  He became ? and he still is ? a speaker that?s well paid and well requested and had other products that were similar that he sold.  He sold packages that taught people how to go a little deeper.  He sold live events on how to teach people how to do the things that were taught in the book.  

So it was just a matter of finding what the logical next step is for the reader in some of those cases as far as those other products.  But it?s interesting how a book gives you the authority to ask for the dollars that you?re worth for the rest of the things.  It doesn?t mean you can?t be successful selling your wares online without having a physical book.  IT?s just an amazing difference if you do.

John Corcoran:	Right.  And also having hit those bestseller lists as well, not just having the physical book but hitting the bestseller lists, you can always say you?re a New York Times bestselling author ?

David Hancock:	Forever.

John Corcoran:	Blah, blah, blah.  Right.  So what are the strategies these days behind hitting those bestseller lists, behind hitting New York Times ? I know that some authors ? I see this with different authors out there.  They have these presale packages where they create different incentives if you buy a certain number of books.  Or they will swap a speaking fee.  They?ll agree ? waive their high speaking fee.  Instead, you buy a couple thousand of my books and then I?ll do a speech for you.  So tell us about what sorts of strategies are employed these days in order to hit those bestseller lists.

David Hancock:	All of the above.  Everything you said is relevant.  But the reality is that there?s reasons why you want as many books to be tracked and reported as possible.  So there?s a catch 22.  So authors can buy books ? same thing with the self-publishing world.  You could print your own books and sell them to your audience and nobody knows it happens except for you and your audience.  You may have made some money and that?s a good thing, but nobody else knows it happens.  

So the same thing with traditionally published authors or entrepreneurial published authors.  That tracking and that reporting is important because you want to be able to consider yourself to be this social proof of a bestselling author.  Now, obviously, the New York Times is the Holy Grail and if we?ve got time maybe you?re interested and I?ll kind of share with you what that actually looks like and what it takes.  But even just hitting the Business Week bestse ? [cuts off abruptly]

David Hancock: 	? heck, even just hitting the Amazon bestseller list is better than not.  It?s funny.  From a speaking perspective, an author who also speaks can get paid one thing.  An author who speaks who happens to be a bestselling author can get paid more.  And if you happen to be a bestselling author on a recognized list, you can ask for more and if you hit the New York Times you can write your own check.

John Corcoran:	Well, so tell me about that, about some of these guys who?ve hit the bestseller lists, Jeff Walker, Brendon Burchard, the process behind it.

David Hancock:	You really can?t buy your way onto the New York Times.  You used to be able to.  You?ve heard of authors that kind of bought their way onto it.  That?s really not the case from even some of the recent authors you may have heard about, but it certainly isn?t something that can be done easily.  And the reason why that it?s the Holy Grail, the New York Times is very, very specific.  So I?ll give you just a real quick rendition.

Now, I?m not an expert but we have been blessed.  We?ve been on there 23 times.  We pay attention.  So it?s about selling more books than anybody else in a certain period of time.  And that?s pretty much the case for any list.  Some lists are monthly.  Some lists are weekly.  Amazon?s hourly.  So it?s different parameters.  But for the New York Times, primarily they?ve got a weekly list and a monthly list.  And the weekly list is the most coveted.  And it can take anywhere from ten, 11, 12,000 books to be sold in a week.  Now, that?s a lot of books.  But it?s really not that much books.

Not everybody realizes that you could be a New York Times bestseller with less than 15,000 books.  The average consumer from just what we?ve seen and polled and read thinks it?s hundreds of thousands of books.  Well, that?s not necessarily the case.  So that?s cool.  

But the hard part is those books need to be sold from both online stores and offline stores.  So with Amazon and Barnes and Noble and others, it just can?t be all of one or most of one.  And the internet marketers might think automatically that my book would just be sold on Amazon because that?s ? I?m online.  That?s not necessarily the case.  But for the New York Times it needs to be from both.

But that?s not the hard part.  The real hard part is is those brick and mortar stores need to be located across the country.  So you can?t have too many sales happening in Virginia when it needs to be some in Texas and Missouri and California and New York and Connecticut.  It needs to be spread around the entire country.

But that?s not the hard part.  I know, right? 

John Corcoran:	I had no idea that the algorithm was so complicated.

David Hancock:	And they keep tweaking it so that you can?t master it or manipulate it, but it?s also ?

John Corcoran:	Did they reveal it or how do you find out these details?

David Hancock:	You just have to pay attention.  No, they really don?t reveal it.  I mean, there?s some ? they tell you a little bit but they don?t really give you the real details.  And I hate to say it but there actually is probably some ? there probably is some politics involved as well.  And I?ll give you two examples.  So you just ? you never know.

But the real hard part with the New York Times is the consumer, whoever receives that book, whether it?s from Amazon or others or walks out of the brick and mortar mom and pop shop or a Barnes and Noble needs to be located in a spread across the country.  So you can?t really buy a bunch of books from bookstores all across the country and ship them to a warehouse in Indiana and hit the list.  They actually need to be delivered to the consumer.

And you?ve heard of the Nielson ratings, I?m sure.  Well, there?s something called Book Scan, which is the Nielson ratings for books.  They track by county where that consumer is.  And so, imagine this, a map of the continental United States with blue all over the map.  That?s how you get the New York Times.  The New York Times says it?s a true sampling of what America is buying this week.  And unless you have all those parameters, you?re not necessarily gonna hit the list.

John Corcoran:	So if I?m in an aspiring author who?s listening to your interview right now, I?m thinking, wow, it?s so difficult to hit the New York Times bestseller list.  Why do I even bother trying?  So let?s give them some hope.  If they aren?t a big name, they aren?t famous, let?s give them some hope.  What should they do?  What could they do?

David Hancock:	Well, the New York Times would certainly be all of our ? I?m speaking for all of us ? but should be your big, hairy audacious goal to have one day.  But think of the small wins.  So first as a first time author, getting the book finished is maybe your first goal.  Don?t worry about selling it yet.  

But the smaller lists, hitting the Amazon bestseller list, hitting a regional newspaper bestselling list.  Heck, there?s even some lists like Business Week or lists you may never have heard of like the 800CEOread.com list, which is a very significant list that you may never have heard of.  Those are some small wins that can kinda help you get there.

And as you?re growing your platform, as you?re growing your audience and growing your language, maybe your second book, your third, your fourth book might end up hitting the Times.  But you have to have the goals, of course.

John Corcoran:	Wow.  So much work to get to that point.  

David Hancock:	[Inaudible] [00:04:38]

John Corcoran:	Yeah.  Yeah.  Okay.  Well, I think that?s about all the questions I have for you.  So thank you so much.  This is fascinating, the discussion here and the background behind it.  So tell us, David, where can people learn more about you?

David Hancock:	I?ve enjoyed this so thanks for the opportunity.  I love talking, the passion behind what we do.  Easy to find us.  We?re at Morganjamespublishing.com.  We?re also on Facebook, love to chat, be happy to ? anybody in your audience I?d love to help them find their right path.  Anything I can do to help them out, I?d be honored to.

John Corcoran:	You know, I thought of one other question.  This is what I usually ask last, so I have to wrap up with this. 

David Hancock:	Okay.

John Corcoran:	And it?s a little bit of a departure from what we were talking about, but it relates to what I write about at Smart Business Revolution and talk about on the podcast.  So tell me a little bit about ? now, you founded Morgan James Publishing 11 years ago now, as we record this.  Tell us a little bit about your journey and the relationships that contributed for you to the point where you?re at now, so the mentors that you had, business associates, colleagues, authors that you worked with, the relationships that really have contributed to your success.  Tell us about what role they?ve played.  And you can feel free to name names if you like or not.

David Hancock:	Yeah, absolutely.  I would be nowhere near where we are today without those relationships.  And I recognize that even as an entrepreneur, who you often might think is a solo person working by themselves getting things done, I got here because I had a lot of help from a lot of friends and a lot of respected advisors.  

Who I would say are first, my first true mentor was Jay Levison, the gorilla marketing guy.  I became a publisher.  I wrote my first book because Jay told me to.  But he was one of the ones that encouraged and inspired me to take it to the next step.  So I?m a big fan of having a mentor in your life, a big fan of having a coach. And his coaching program was well over ten grand back in the ?90s when I first met him.  It was very, very powerful. 

Even to my first relationship with the internet marketing space, which is kinda where we launched our program, so a guy named Arman Moran.  I was actually Arman Moran?s banker back in the ?90s.  He and I became friends.  We actually met even before he was on the internet.  Actually, we met before I was a banker.  We got way back, but he brought me to his crowd and introduced me as this entrepreneur publisher.  And I was there just to try to help him promote his events.  And it just kinda ? it worked.  So I took a lot of coaching and advice from Arman.

And at those first conferences that he put on, I met basically our first 12 real authors that had space.  And it?s funny.  I laugh about this.  I had nothing to offer.  All I had was a really good idea, hopefully alt the right time, and my passion and enthusiasm and maybe my rugged good looks.  But my rugged good looks was questionable.  That?s where I had nothing to offer.  But it was fresh and it was time.  And then we had some good authors who knew how to sell books and knew how to take advantage of what we were trying to accomplish.  And then they would introduce me to their friends.

And I would learn more from them than they would ever learn from me.  And I would [inaudible] [00:07:36] and I would bring them on and I would ask questions.  And I would hire them and I would go their conferences.  And I would learn and I would implement.  So I?m in a constant learning mode.  

So those are some of the steps that I?ve taken to get here.  Even today, I was at a Chamber of Commerce presentation teaching about performance driven thinking and performance driven leadership as people in this space of being an authority in their space.  And I was learning more from the audience than I was teaching myself.  So it?s a process, but you have to be open to it and willing to change and take constructive criticism and be flexible.  One of the things ? 
[Crosstalk] 

John Corcoran:	So ? sorry, go ahead.

David Hancock:	I was just saying one of the things that Jay taught me years ago is that as an entrepreneur, we ? as a gorilla entrepreneur, specifically, we have to be ? we have to understand that inflexible things often become brittle and break.   And we haven?t had our success by being broken on the floor or too inflexible.

John Corcoran:	I love the lesson behind that.  You?ve got this publishing house that?s doing very well.  You?ve had some very successful authors who?ve published with you and yet today on a Thursday we?re recording this mid-afternoon my time.  You today are still out going to a local Chamber of Commerce and giving a presentation.

David Hancock:	Absolutely.

John Corcoran:	Yeah.  And what value does that provide for you?  I mean, you meet some people there?  You might get a potential author, new author?  Is that what you get from it?

David Hancock:	Well, maybe.  I do it because I love to serve the community.  I love to be able to just share some of the things that I?ve learned that could help others achieve their goals.  So I might be a little different than most people that are out there in the business world.  I get reward from helping others achieve their goals.  I?m blessed because I get financially rewarded by it in my day job, but I get a lot out of helping others find their right path and learn something that I might know that they could benefit from.

John Corcoran:	Excellent.  Okay.  Well, thank you so much, David.  I really appreciate it.

David Hancock:	Absolutely. 

Transcribed by GMR Transcription