Would you like to be able to sell (or distribute) over 90,000 copies of one book? John Horvat has done this with his book, “Return to Order” and shares the top strategies he has used successfully.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- The #1 way John Horvat used to sell his book.
- Why a personal connection is important in book marketing.
- How following up can lead to incredible success.
- And more!
Find out more about John Horvat here: www.returntoorder.org
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Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below:
Today I’m rolling out the red carpet and inviting you into my community for a behind the scenes look at what’s working for authors just like you. My name is Shelley Hitz and I’m the owner and creator of Author Audience Academy. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping others get results and reach their goals. In this episode I’m going to position the spotlight on one of my members, John Horvat. Hi John, how are you?
JOHN. Great. Great to be on.
SHELLEY. I’m so excited for you to share, because you’ve had incredible success. I’m going to share just a little bit about your bio here, but just as we dive in, so that people know that you’re speaking from experience, how many books have you been able to sell and distribute?
JOHN. We’re at 91,000 books.
SHELLEY. Yeah, and this is for one book, right?
JOHN. One title, yeah. We’ve gone through four printings as well, two hard backs and two paper backs.
SHELLEY. So this is really going to be a great interview, but I want to tell you just a little bit about John. John is a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and he’s author of the book “Return to Order”. This is the book that he was just talking about that they’ve sold over 90,000 copies. He’s appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Christian Post, American Thinker, The Blaze, Fox News, Washington Times, and so much more. He has a great variety of things that you can read on his bio. He also enjoys jogging and fencing, so that is kind of cool. He lives in Spring Grove Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania. I’m so excited to have you on this episode today because I think you have a lot of insight and wisdom that you can share with other authors. So, in this week’s Center Stage Spotlight Training, I’m going to have John share some of the strategies he’s used in order to sell and distribute his book in the thousands. So John, welcome.
JOHN. Thank you very much.
SHELLEY. Tell us a little bit, what kind of techniques have worked the best for you to sell your book?
JOHN. I’m in a sort of privileged position because I have a lot of help, a team that works together with me to sell books and to distribute books. I have people that do my statistics, do my everything, so I actually have a spreadsheet.
SHELLEY. I know! I was impressed! You told me you had this spreadsheet.
JOHN. You can see, it’s a big spreadsheet. I’ve categorized some 20 different ways in which we’ve actually sold or distributed books, and probably 20 subcategories that are definitely part of that. So, the categories I’m sure you know, the best ones are email for example. Email is a very good avenue to sell and to distribute your books. I have access to several large email lists, and also a “Return to Order” website that is for the book that has its own email list. So, we are constantly adding to that list. It’s a very, very important thing, you can’t stress that enough, the importance of email and the importance of getting a list of emails, and sharing lists with other people as well.
SHELLEY. Yeah, and I love that you say that, because I teach this all the time. So many authors are hesitant to really invest time and/or money in an email subscription service, but it is so powerful when you have that list of people that you can then continue to grow a relationship with and promote too. You’re really good with knowing you numbers and stuff, have you been able to know the sales that you’ve gotten from your email list? I know it’s hard to always say exactly.
JOHN. Right, it’s trackable and on the spreadsheet. I would say of that 91,000 let’s say 12,000 came from email, which is really great.
SHELLEY. Yeah, that is very significant. What would you say would be some of your other top methods that have worked well for you?
JOHN. I have, again, a very privileged position and I have contacts with people who actually do sales in homes and things, and make presentations. Again, it’s personal, so of course you sell a lot of books that way. They are actually members of my organization, as part of their outreach they reach out to people in their homes and talk to gatherings; if they emphasize the book they sell a lot of books.
SHELLEY. It’s kind of like a speaking engagement in a way.
JOHN. It is, yes, exactly. There are still my friends, members of my organization, which is Tradition, Family, and Property, there is one that has sold 2,000 books.
SHELLEY. Wow.
JOHN. And another one who has sold 1,000, actually two or three that have sold 1,000. You can’t beat that, it’s personal and engaging. So, I’m privileged in that respect. Anyway you can make personal engagement you are going to sell books.
SHELLEY. I love that. There may be authors in your position, but a lot of them may just be on their own doing this. So, think of it like a speaking engagement. Anytime you are able to be in front of people sharing on your topic, educating them on your topic, it’s more than likely that they’re going to be interested in buying your book. Let’s say somebody has a cause, like you have a cause, you have an organization that people really want to get behind, let’s say somebody’s book is similar to that. They have a cause, they could maybe recruit some people to help them, do you have any tips on how you’ve been able to do that with the people you have on your team?
JOHN. The people on my team are very, very enthusiastic, and that helps.
SHELLEY. Yes.
JOHN. They’ve gone through the whole process with me, and they really cooperated. You cannot replace enthusiasm. When you have that enthusiasm it’s contagious. There’s someone out there that’s addressing these people and I would buy the book. He’s so engaging and so convincing, so if you can get that enthusiasm going you’ve got it, it really helps.
SHELLEY. Do they just set up these meetings on their own, or does your organization help them?
JOHN. It’s a type of outreach that is already in place. We just added this book to it, so it happens.
SHELLEY. I love it. What are some other things that you’ve done that have proved to be successful?
JOHN. Of course book signings and book presentations. Those are always very, very good. You’re not going to get huge amounts, as you know, but you’ll never go wrong in going and selling books at a signing because the minute you make a personal connection with the audience you make a personal connection while reading. You also make contacts and get exposure, you can often get another contact and a third engagement from that. Every time I can do something like that I do. Sometimes you sell one, other times you sell 20 or 30, you never can tell. It should not discourage you from going ahead.
SHELLEY. What I hear you saying is that it’s like the momentum builds. The more events you do, it might be 30 here, it might be 2 here, it might be 4 here, but it builds. Then, if you can get referrals; do you have any tips on how you’ve been able to get referrals for other events when you’re at something?
JOHN. I’ve never really formally asked for referrals as such. I do talk to the people when they’re in the signing, if I see an opportunity I say, “well, would you be interested?” Don’t be afraid. If they are interested in buying the book obviously their interested in sharing with others. I follow up a lot on these people.
SHELLEY. I think it’s key, you’ve mentioned a couple things so far, the personal connection whether it’s email, it’s personal speaking engagements in people’s homes, books signings, it’s that personal connection. I think that is so key in our marketing efforts. Sometimes we just want to be this billboard, we just want to be advertising in a “build it and they will come.” But what I am hearing you say is that a lot of your success has come from a lot of your personal contacts, and I found the same thing to be true as well. Then, the other thing is follow up. A common phrase in marketing is “the fortune is in the follow up.”
JOHN. Absolutely, I’ll follow up until they say no. Sometimes it’s a year or even longer you just keep going after it and you finally do get your event, or you do get success.
SHELLEY. I think a lot of authors get discouraged quickly and easily, and instead of continuing on booking that next book signing, following up with that lead, following up with that person that showed interest. It’s easy to get into this mindset of, “oh I feel like a failure,” instead of saying, “OK, that didn’t work this time, let’s try something else,” or, “let’s follow up with them. Maybe they didn’t call me back right away, but I’ll follow up again and see where that leads.” I think there is some persistence that you have to have.
JOHN. Oh yeah, has to be. You have to get used to the idea that you can have the best team in the world, the most enthusiastic team in the world, but when push comes to shove you are the person that has to really get involved. If you don’t get involved, you say “I’ll leave it to the team”, it’s not going to go ahead. I learned that in the beginning of this campaign when I was doing this book. Some people were in charge of doing certain things, and all the sudden I realized, I have to get involved, if I don’t get involved this isn’t going to go ahead. So you just get involved.
SHELLEY. That is a really good tip. You have a team, you have a lot of volunteers and team members in your organization, but you’re still very involved.
JOHN. Absolutely, yeah.
SHELLEY. Like, you’re very involved in everything.
JOHN. I even have a spreadsheet of my involvement. I have time that I spend studying, I have a certain amount of hours I spend every day studying, but also a certain amount of hours I’m involved. You have to be constant, you have to be constantly working on it, you can’t just let it go for a week, a month. You have to be there, and just little by little you’ll get results.
SHELLEY. I often encourage authors that it’s the consistent actions over time, it’s not necessarily those big things, but the little things. One thing I’ve heard you saying recently is that you’ve gotten into a habit of writing content and writing a little bit every day, or consistently every week. That’s really helping you in your marketing because it’s blog posts, it’s content for social media, or for your email list, or for other products, like I know you’re creating a workbook. You’ve seen success with that, right? Just the small steps.
JOHN. I did one of your workshops where you stressed that, and that really helped me because my metric was hours of study then write a book. So I would read books and read and do the types of stud, but I didn’t necessarily think in terms of writing. When I said, “wait a minute, I have to establish a metric for writing too,” a light bulb came on. It was like, this is the way I’m going to have to go. Writing is very important in promotion, in blogs, in all the things you need to do, in writing speeches, in writing articles. So, it is very important.
SHELLEY. For those of you interested you can sign up at writingweek.com for the first seven days for free and get more information on that from me. John, is there any other things? Our time is going so fast, but is there any other strategies that you want to share before our time is up? Or advice, or something like that?
JOHN. I do have a very aggressive campaign of radio shows. I think I had almost close to 300 interviews on the book itself, or where I’ve mentioned the book, and that has been very helpful to get the word out. It’s two or three interviews a week, and it’s hard to measure that, because there is not really a way to track that.
SHELLEY. Right.
JOHN. You can’t see why they bought it, but as you go along you hear people say, “I heard that on the radio, I saw this interview, that interview.” It definitely has an effect, and so you shouldn’t get discouraged if you give an interview and you don’t see a spike. You’re getting out there, you’re getting supporters.
SHELLEY. That is really impressive to me. I’ve said this before to you, but you have so much content from just the interviews you’ve done. I know you have someone that helps you get those interviews, right? Do you have any tips for authors that may not have access to that? As far as booking things for maybe radio or podcast interviews, things like that.
JOHN. I definitely have. There is a company that does schedule them, but in the course of promoting the book I also meet people who are on radio, and I’ve solicited them on my own and gotten a number of interviews. Don’t only think of talking in terms of your book, but how your book relates to current events and make it interesting to them, don’t make it look like a promotion of your book. If you are able to give an angle to your book that will frame your book in those terms you’ll get interviews. I’ve had several, a lot of interviews that way.
SHELLEY. I love that, because that is so true with basic publicity. If you’re trying to get on TV, radio, whatever. What is the hook, how can you connect that with current events? Do you have an example of a recent interview that you’ve done and how you connected it with something that was of interest, versus just promoting your book?
JOHN. Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews in the election cycle. The title of the book is “Return to Order”, so order and election cycle—especially this disordered election cycle—has been a winner. I’ve been getting a lot of interviews about different angles. I call it the cookie jar elections where everybody is getting their hands in the cookie jar. Just different aspects of disorder of our society and how it plays into that, and how “Return to Order” definitely has something to say about it.
SHELLEY. What you’re doing is you’re taking the fact that it’s an election year and you’re capitalizing on that with the media, tying it into your book. For those that maybe listening, that might be interested in what you have to offer, just give a little bit of an overview of what it is that you shared in your book and how they can connect with you.
JOHN. I do have a book here, I can show the book. That’s one thing you should do, is show your book. This is my book, it’s “Return to Order”, it’s a book that helps people understand better where we went wrong in our society, in our culture, and where we need to go. It really describes a society, a healthy society, especially from a Christian point of view and a Catholic point of view. It really addresses a lot of the problems, it’s a very broad study, it’s written in layman’s terms. You don’t have to be an economist to understand it, I’m not an economist.
SHELLEY. Yeah.
JOHN. It is a book that I can talk about elections, I can talk about technology, I can talk about morality, I can talk all about an enormous amount of subjects that this book addresses. This has been very helpful in getting interviews and places to speak as well.
SHELLEY. If you’re interested in checking out his book, his website is returntoorder.org, and you can get all of the information there. Now, you do offer an interesting twist where you offer a free paperback version. Tell us just a little bit about that.
JOHN. Obviously we’re not only interested in the book, it’s more of a movement so, we’re developing a relationship with our audience. I know authors have a problem, I had a problem, saying, “read this, read that.”
SHELLEY. Yes.
JOHN. It does actually build up momentum, it does help sales when you give away free books and free things. The free paperback is something that we arranged so that when a person signs up and signs up for the newsletter, if they receive a free paperback we ask them for Amazon reviews. It’s been very, very successful. I’m beginning to develop a relationship with our audience, and I think it’s been very helpful with cementing that.
SHELLEY. I think it’s good for authors to think outside the box, to see different methods, different ways and strategies. Different strategies work better for different people. You know, depending on the topic of your book. For you, getting the message out, gathering your tribe, those people that are passionate about your mission, that is so important to you. So, it’s really worked well for you. How many paperbacks have you given away, would you say?
JOHN. About 10,000.
SHELLEY. OK, awesome.
JOHN. Maybe a little less than that. We’ve sold 10,000. We’ve given out and sold 10,000 at this point.
SHELLEY. OK, awesome. As we’re coming to a close I always like to have a take action tip. I think you have a few to share, but share some take action tips that those that are listening, that are authors, could take as a result of listening to this training.
JOHN. I have three, and it’s all follow up. Follow every avenue, don’t be afraid to try something new.
SHELLEY. I like it.
JOHN. Somebody told me that my book was on the Staples catalog, so I went into a Staples and said, “can I do a book signing?” They said yes. Some said no, but I got a book signing in a Staples of all places. I don’t know why my book was in their catalog.
SHELLEY. Why not?
JOHN. Follow up every avenue that you can, don’t be afraid to follow up, to try. The worst that can happen is they say no. Follow up every contact, right away. Don’t give up. Every interview, every radio interview, send an email thank you, because they remember. Every single interview I try to send a thank you, and I do thank them. I’m honestly very thankful for the opportunity, but they do remember that. This weekend I was at an event in Charlotte and I met somebody, I sent him an email, he automatically said, “I’m coming to your book signing in Milwaukee and I’m going to try to arrange a signing in Madison.”
SHELLEY. Awesome.
JOHN. Do it right away, don’t tarry. Finally, follow the advice of experts. That’s where you come in, because I’ve done so many stupid things, but you’ve already made the mistakes for me. So, if I can talk to the experts and see what has been done before, it’s just an enormous amount of help, and it has helped me a lot. To have people like yourself has helped very much. You’ve already trail blazed, and so it’s just following in the path, so I definitely think that is very helpful. Follow every avenue, follow up every contact, and follow advice, that would be my take away.
SHELLEY. Awesome advice. Take that advice, and go to John’s website returntoorder.org, you can get a free paperback or order other versions of the book, sign up for his email list, and just connect. I think it’s good to really connect with other authors, see what they’re doing, and it may be a topic that you’re interested in as well. Thank you John, so much, for being here and for sharing your insight and your wisdom, I appreciate you.
JOHN. It’s been great, and thank you for all you’ve done.
SHELLEY. You’re welcome. Thank you again for joining us on this episode of Author Audience, and I appreciate you, I appreciate you taking the time to spend with me each week. I’ll see you next time.
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