Have you ever considered the impact that becoming a bestselling author could have on your business or career?
My guest this week is Tyler Wagner, a master book marketer and founder of Authors Unite in Miami, Florida.
Tyler has helped hundreds of authors become bestsellers on Amazon, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal.
In today’s conversation I’m going to ask him how he performs his magic, what kinds of authors he helps, how much it costs, and how long it takes!
To learn more about Tyler and Authors Unite: https://AuthorsUnite.com
Frank Felker 00:22
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes, indeed I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise.
My guest today is Tyler Wagner. Tyler is a master book marketer, and the creator of Authors Unite, calling in from Miami, Florida. Tyler Wagner, welcome to Radio Free Enterprise.
Tyler Wagner
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Frank Felker
Tyler, it’s pretty amazing what you’ve been able to accomplish. You’ve helped hundreds of authors become Amazon best sellers, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best sellers. And we’re going to talk today about how you do that and how you could do it for somebody watching or listening today. But I want to start out with, you know, this sounds great. But what does it really mean to me as an individual? What would becoming a USA Today or Wall Street Journal, bestselling author mean, for my business or my career?
Tyler Wagner 01:19
So I think there’s, there’s a lot of things with that. But I’ll try to unpack some of the top ones that we’ve seen with our, with our clients. So first thing I believe, to get there, right, you have to sell, typically, in a given week, at least 5000 copies of your book. So I think that that’s kind of one of the biggest things right? So 5000 new people are going to read your book, and then the chance of word of mouth taking over. And that book spreading outward from there is way higher.
My firm belief is the reason that most authors fail and fail is different for everybody. But meaning that their book doesn’t reach their expectations of sales is because the book never gets in enough hands to begin with for that to actually have a chance of happening. So. So I think that’s the first thing. Second, from a branding perspective. What I always point people toward is, you know, look at some of the biggest authors in the world, their social medias. And like Tony Robbins, another one’s like Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels I think he’s a really good example. He became a New York Times bestseller, and he’s the founder of like $100 million company Click Funnels. And if you go to his LinkedIn, he lists actually New York Times bestseller first, and then co-founder of ClickFunnels.
Second, so it just shows you like the importance and Tony Robbins, I believe, I don’t know if it still is, but his first listing was New York Times bestseller. There’s a book never split the difference. I’m blanking on the author’s name on his Instagram, it’s Wall Street Journal, bestselling author, when you become USA Today, Wall Street or New York Times, I believe it’s typically your first and highest accolade that you list on all of your socials. And then speaking fees. Also, getting clients, like a lot of our clients have courses or consulting that they offer on the back end of their book. So when you generate, you know, five to 20,000 sales to get on these lists, you know, obviously, you’re getting some opt ins, and most likely people are purchasing other things from you too, sometimes. So there’s a few to start.
Frank Felker 03:42
Okay. So it can translate into dollars and cents in the door in terms of charging higher fees as a consultant earning higher fees as a speaker, the actual generation of royalties from book sales and that kind of thing. Are we talking about primarily here? nonfiction business? How to books?
Tyler Wagner 04:07
Yeah, so we actually do fiction books as well, but primarily our target audience or author is a nonfiction, business, or self-help how-to, okay.
Frank Felker 04:21
Now, you know, we’ve all heard stories about authors who have spent a lot of money out of their own pocket to have copies of their books purchased at retail outlets, in order to game the system and get their book jacked up onto whatever list you’d like. But that’s not what you’re talking about here. What you’re talking about is promoting books in such a way that hundreds or even 1000s of people are spending their own money individually to buy the book, which also has it run up the run up the scale, does that sort of sum up what you do?
Tyler Wagner 05:00
Yeah, I mean, pretty much. And I can tell the backstory a little bit if you think it’s possible. So, you know, basically, I’ve been doing this now for about 10 years. And what happened is, is if you go online, on Google and just type in, like eBooks, sites, eBook promotion sites, there’s like 1000s of them. And 910 years ago, when I first started doing this, I would test those out, because I could only do Amazon bestseller for my clients for like the first five years.
So I would actually purchase part of the marketing plan that we would do for our clients, just one piece was these email lists. And so I would actually purchase some of them and isolate them to see what results they would get for my clients when going for Amazon bestseller. And from doing that, what I came to realize very quickly is like 99%, let’s say like, didn’t really produce any results. Thankfully, we did other marketing efforts that did so the client, you know, still got the result they were after. But it wasn’t coming from these email lists. But from all that trial and error, I did find like 10 to 15, depending on genre that would consistently produce results.
And so essentially, I brought them together. And I was like, hey, if we can isolate one to two books per week, and just focus on those primarily, and mail them out to these less, do Facebook ads, or some other types of paid advertising will do too, I think we can start hitting these major lists. Because as you know, and look, I think being an Amazon bestseller is better than not being one. But it’s categorical. And if you put the book in an easy category, you don’t really need that many sales.
When it comes to Wall Street, USA Today, there is no, you can’t game it, let’s say like you, you definitely need at least 5000 sales to have a shot. So either way, based off of all the testing I done, I knew if we could just isolate one to two books, we could probably get that we did our first one like five years ago, it’s sold 4800. And the guy hit number eight on Wall Street Journal. And then ever since then we’ve continued to do it. And now typically, our clients are getting anywhere from seven to 20,000 sales in a week. And then they’re hitting these, these lists.
Frank Felker 07:32
And I just want to reiterate that and when it comes to promotion that’s been used for years, probably over a century, to promote films and books and concert tickets and record albums. And you name it, I mean, it’s just a part of the entertainment business is promoting your property. So it’s, you know, in some movies, for example, they spend more on promotion than they do on producing the movie. So that just highlights you know how important it is. Now, I would be willing to bet to bet that in terms of you who you will accept to work with, because you’re going back to the same lists and offering books on a fairly frequent basis for sale, that these books need to have some value to them, they need to be relatively well written at least and that they solve a particular problem for a given audience. Is that a fair statement?
Tyler Wagner 08:26
Yeah, what so what’s cool about it is, so the answer is yes. But also that the way we’ve built the business, because we do focus primarily on the marketing side, is by partnering with publishers. So what happens is, like, I I’ve partnered with a lot of publishers that I trust, you know, our only and they’re really the ones doing the vetting process. So I know from certain publishers, like if the book is coming to us to do one of these campaigns, in all honesty, I don’t really need to vet it that much, just as long as I know that the actual topic will align with our audience. But as long as that’s the case, I know that you know, these publishers I’m speaking of like, I trust them enough that the book is going to be in good standing by the
Frank Felker 09:20
time it gets to us. That’s great. And that’s a that’s a great benefit of you having done this for this long and put together these partnerships that you know, you know that they’re doing the vetting and the sort of the bird dogging for you to find the good books. Now, can you tell us like a success story of a particular client? And the way I’d like for you to do it is here’s where they were before they came to you. This is what you were able to do for them. Here’s where they are now.
Tyler Wagner 09:52
Yeah, for sure. So there are a lot that come to mind. I actually literally like an hour and a half ago. I just did a testimonial Interview with a client that we just did a campaign for him. So he’s really fresh. So I’ll speak to him. So we did his campaign like two or three weeks ago. And he hit number one wall street journal. And then number two was Oprah Winfrey’s book. So that was, yeah, that’s been really cool in a lot of ways. Because as soon as that hit, you know, basically, now we’re using it as a testimonial, right? And it’s working really well.
But essentially, I actually exactly how you just asked me that is how I asked him. And basically, he said, prior to working with us on Amazon, the highest rank that his eBook had hit was ranked 2000 in the whole store. When we ran his campaign, I think he definitely hit top 10 in the entire Amazon Kindle Store throughout the week, and then obviously, number one in all of nonfiction, because that translates pretty closely to Wall Street Journal’s list. And then, you know, number one, Wall Street Journal. And then what he said so far, it’s very recent, right?
So he said one thing is, because he’s ahead of Oprah, a lot of people in his circle are talking about and even his daughter, like, told his teacher about it, like my dad’s book be open. So either way, that we’ll see what all His benefits are down the road. He is a public speaker, and he does on he does plan on doing a series of these books, the books called 22 Talk Shifts, and the author’s names Krister Ungerböck, just for anybody listening if they want to check out the book.
And so I think in a few months is when you’ll really see like that ROI, right from the public speaking. He’s doing a book series, he’s, he asked me actually to introduce him to a literary agent. So one of the one of his ideas potentially, is to get a traditional publishing deal by leveraging the results that he got this book, right. So that’s just that’s one of our most recent examples that I could share.
Frank Felker 12:10
Great. And what what’s the topic about it sounds like communication oriented? Yeah, communication oriented? Yep. Okay. Now, you’ve touched on Sunday, a couple of times that I think I want to make clear, which is, being a best seller does not require you to be number one on the list. That How do you define what a best seller is?
Tyler Wagner 12:34
Great question. So the best way for me to describe it is there’s five major lists, right, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, USA Today, Wall Street in New York time. So they all little differently for wall street journal. In this case, there’s a top 10 list. So as long as they hit one of the 10 spots on the Wall Street Journal, and it’s printed in the physical paper, then I would say they’re a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
If they hit number one, then obviously, they’re number one, Wall Street bestseller. USA Today is a top 150 New York Times depending on which one it is, is a top 10. And then Amazon’s categorical. So there’s, it depends on how many categories there’s, I guess there’s maybe 1000s of lists on there. And then Barnes and Noble is more of like a top 100.
Frank Felker 13:27
List. Okay. Now, in addition to helping people become bestsellers, you also if we go to author’s unite.com, we see quite a number of other services. And, again, you touched on something that I wanted to come back to and ask whether or not this is something you help authors with, which is if you get your book in the hands of 5000, or 10,000, or however many thousands of people during this bestseller campaign, potentially these are new members of your tribe, and that there are various techniques you can use within the content of the book to get somebody to let’s say, registered receive a bonus, or the audio version or something like that. And as a result, then they give you their contact information, usually at least first name and email address. Is that something you help people with? Or what sort of add on services do you guys offer?
Tyler Wagner 14:25
So we do we help people like build their sales funnels and like the back end of their websites and stuff. But what I always tell people if there is a business tied to it, and honestly, even if you’re a fiction author, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do if you plan on doing like a series or multiple books. One of the things we tell people is in the beginning of the E book have some sort of link that is an opt in, right. So what we’ve seen work really well I’ll actually I’ll give an example. Have one, his name is Dan Henry digital millionaire secrets is the book. And he had his book like teaches you how to grow a business online. And then he had links throughout the book and one within the first like 20 pages so that you can see it. Even if you don’t buy the book, it’s in the look inside feature on Amazon. And from our campaign, I don’t know exactly how many opt ins you got. But he said he got a lot and that he actually made a lot of sales from it as well.
So people would buy the book, opt in, and then he had a course that he sold, and then it goes up into a mastermind, there’s a whole value ladder. But um, I think I always tell my clients like, there’s no reason not to have that, right. So even if it’s something like an action guide, we’ve seen that work well. So in the first few pages, like before you continue reading or before you start reading go here to download your action guide that will maximize your reading experience. You know, because you get a few 1000 opt ins or a few 100 opt ins that can lead like you said that they’re your tribe now. And the unfortunate thing of Amazon is even though people buy your stuff, you don’t get that customer data, right, you have to actually place things in your book. Mm hmm. Yeah,
Frank Felker 16:19
they get between you and the readers. No question. It’s funny, she mentioned that. I’m sure you’ve heard of Pat Flynn. He’s famous internet marketer and author. And he wrote a book called will it fly. And it has to do with testing your idea before you sink a bunch of money into creating a business to sell a product or service nobody wants. So first, you need to find out will it fly. And he did just what you described, I was looking at the look inside feature on amazon kindle of his book and right there on the first page was click this link to get my free online course. And you know, and I knew I’d have to register and whatever.
The interesting thing was, once I saw that I bought the eBook and the hardcover or not hardcover, paperback and audio book, just so to see how he had tied that in to everywhere. And the interesting thing to me was I really enjoyed the course and got a lot out of it did not like the book at all. didn’t enjoy reading, it didn’t enjoy listening to the audio book, but I’m on his email list now. Until I as I like to say I either by die or opt out. I see that you’ve got you will even help people like create a website for themselves or their book. What were what areas do you not go into might be easier way to carve this out? What sort of things do you feel like you really can help people with? And what sort of things are you not trying to help people with?
Tyler Wagner 17:46
Um, you know, it’s a good question. So the way Arielle mentioned this, and I’m, I’m not even trying to like plug this course. But it’s just it’s kind of fitting with what you asked. So I have this course coming out soon, called infinite partnership system. And it teaches how we grew our business, really, primarily through partnerships. So what happened is, once I started to focus on book marketing, the way we built it is I would my team, and I now have a team of like, now I think, right, like 15 salespeople, and we don’t ever really do like direct sales, we reach out to ghost writers, edit publishers and PR agencies to build strategic partnerships with them. And then they refer to us for the book marketing, and then we’ll refer to them for other things like editing. Oh, that’s great. And but what’s happened is when you build a business that way, now we’re at a point where my team and I have had over 5000 partnership conversations over the years so far.
And what that’s really allowed us to do. And this was like an unknown benefit when I started building the businesses way is those partners, you can like collaborate on other things. Like it’s not just a referral relate relationship. It’s like, Okay, I have 20 literary agents that refer to me for book marketing, and I know what all of their specialties are. So now when somebody comes to Authors Unite, and they’re looking to go the traditional route, I have a team of 20 literary agents that I can, like, send them the info, and actually the deal can flow through Authors Unite, you know, so and then the same thing was sometimes with like publishers, or ghost writers or editors is a good example.
So I have like hundreds of ghost writers, I know hundreds of editors, that they’re not like in house, they’re not just working for Authors Unite, but I know all of their expertise is what they focus on as far as genres. And so when somebody needs editing, I can have it come through Authors Unite, and then use One of my partner editors are ghost writers. Right? The reason position like that is like, in house, we really focus on the marketing, and we do publishing as well. But as far as the editing, Ghost writing PR, like, that’s all my partners that are kind of behind the Authors Unite brand, is the best way to put in
Frank Felker 20:21
play. That’s great. That makes a lot of sense. And congratulations on putting that together over the years. Clearly, you must be treating people correctly, or they wouldn’t partner with you, or at least stay partners with you. Yes, yep. So Tyler, the elephant in the room that’s been going on acknowledged is how much does all of this wonderfulness cost? I become, let’s say, a wall street journal or USA Today. bestselling author? How much? Is it going to set me back?
Tyler Wagner 20:55
Yes, so for our best seller campaigns, it’s a pretty wide range. It’s anywhere from low five figures to mid five figures, for those sort of campaigns from Amazon to USA Today, Wall Street. And then if you were, you know, going for something like New York Times, that’s it’s a whole different story, but that the budget necessary to move that amount of books and have a chance that could be potentially in the six figure range?
Frank Felker 21:22
Okay. All right. And how long does it take? Let’s say, I reached out to you today. And my book is already published, and it’s already to be promoted. How long before I become a best seller on one of these lists?
Tyler Wagner 21:40
So it depends on the list. So like Amazon, Barnes and Noble those, we could do within about 30 days or so, from you engaging us when it comes to USA Today, Wall Street’s that just depends on our timeline. So right now, we’re capable of doing up to two per week that we like, feel comfortable with our marketing capabilities. So right now, we’re booking into August, September, for that. So if you were to engage us now and we’re in, this is bad, we’re in May right now. Yeah, it was like March. So we’re in May.
So if you were to engage us now, we could do it. August, September time. And then for New York Times, that you’d really want to, you’d want to start that way earlier, because that’s more of like a pre order type of situation. The other bestseller lists, our strategy is more discounting the E book, and that all the sales actually happen in the same like week, right? Whereas a New York Times, you really want to start like six to nine months, potentially even longer. And it’s a full like pre order campaign strategy.
Frank Felker 22:53
Great. That was very clear. So if somebody is watching or listening, and they do want to learn more about this, what’s the best way for them to connect with you.
Tyler Wagner 23:05
So if you’re interested in this, the best way is just Authors Unite dot com. And if you fill out the application at the bottom of the homepage, that will then prompt you to schedule a time with me or somebody from our team. And if you have any questions, we do have a little chat. It is a real person. But obviously, the initial message is like a bot. And you can ping us a message there. We’re happy to answer them. Great.
Frank Felker 23:33
Well, I’m looking forward to when is that course coming out your partnership course. So that will be June 7, so about two weeks. Okay, that’s coming right up? Well, I’m looking forward to learning more about that. But we’re just about out of time. But I always like to close by asking my guests if there’s some question I have not asked you or a thought that has come to mind that you’d like to share before we sign off?
Tyler Wagner 24:01
Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know. No, I would just say this. One of the things that I’ve seen by because we do a lot of the marketing side is a lot of times people, they get referred to us and we can still do the campaign, but they end up having to wait longer than they anticipated because they didn’t think about the marketing far enough in advance. So I would just say if you are an author or soon to be author, rather, just like instead of just focusing on one thing at a time, I suggest like think about have the end in mind and really plan that out in the beginning. Like get your marketing team ready before the book is even finished, right? Like get your PR team ready so that everything actually works out in a proper timeline for you.
Frank Felker 24:55
That’s great advice. And Tyler Wagner, thank you so much for joining me today on Radio Free Enterprise.
Tyler Wagner
Thanks for having me.
Frank Felker
Thanks again to Tyler and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker saying I’ll see you on the radio.
Dude Walker 25:12
Forgiving your entrepreneurial sins with a gentle wave of his microphone. Here’s Frank Felker.
