SPS 258 $105k From My Book Launch Within 3 Months with Brian Luebben (From Passive To Passionate)

One person , it's all it takes and it's worth it . I think everyone in their life should write one book , because then you have a further heightened appreciation for books and music and the arts , because you realize how difficult it was to create .

He's got a business Action Academy helping people with real estate investing . He comes from the corporate world and quit the corporate world so that he could travel , create financial freedom through real estate investing . Now helps other people do the same . This is a fun fact .

I saw in the research for this interview Number eight out of 5,079 reps in a Fortune 500 sales organization , so he's got some sales chops too . He's the author of the new book absolutely killing it . It's called Passive to Passionate how to Quit your Job , grow your Wealth and Turn Passions into Profits . Video version for the YouTube crew .

I know you got that covered nearby . Let's hold it up . Let's go , baby Look at that beautiful book , From Passive to Passionate . He's already got , I want to say , like 250 reviews or something , 200 plus reviews .

If they haven't signed up with you already , they're going to , because we're going to shamelessly promote all of this and everything can quit their job , travel around the world , do whatever they want to do and promote their book . If that sounds fun , guys , buckle up . We're about to have a hell of a podcast episode .

themselves telling me wow , you should write a book on that . Wow , you should write a book on that . And while my normal podcasting flow is talking about financial independence , buying real estate , buying businesses this is my first one talking about books .

But I would start with that as as , especially if you're writing a nonfiction book , as a wonderful tip for people listening , pay attention to who tells you what , and especially if they are in the author arena already , if they see an idea of yours and they say , hey , you should write a book on that , you should listen .

Because I had multiple bestselling authors , including Amy Porterfield , where I was on a podcast with her and she said I talked about going from passive income to passionate income . She goes . I got goosebumps . She's like that is a book and I said , well , if I write it , amy will cover , and she goes , absolutely and everything . So it was wonderful .

So I had a year and a half of people saying that it's hard to find an original idea . You know more than anyone and you guys have done a really wonderful job of it . It's hard , especially in the nonfiction world , to find an idea that hasn't been .

You know , tried , twisted 900 different ways and so this was my spin on it to where it was the my one unique thing that I could talk about Passionate income , which is what we coined , and we wrote the book on it . So that's the micro .

The macro was I wanted a living , breathing , walking , running , freaking business card for my business , for the back end , and we have so many people we only serve 10% of even my audience . It's the top of the top .

Six-figure employees wanted to become seven-figure entrepreneurs and we have thousands of people that don't have access to the money to afford that , or they don't have the time or they don't qualify for membership . So I'm like our goal is to help a million people .

Just like you guys have a goal to publish a certain amount of books , we have a goal of helping a million people go from employee to entrepreneur and in order to do that and reach that end macro destination I was like we need scale , we need eyeballs , how do we get this ? And a book was the best way that we could figure it out .

It might even have been a multimillion dollar launch for her business on the heels of her book , which is pretty crazy . You talked about using the book to make a bigger impact and to scale for your business and we call it a silent salesman . The book's out bringing back lead sales and referrals for your business .

You don't have to say a thing because you said it once and then the book keeps saying it for a really long time . You talked about the concept of passionate income . What is that and what's the path to that that you guys teach ?

world . I said not only do I not know how to write a book , how to format a book , what does traditional publishing look like versus self-publishing ? What are the economics on the backend ? Where do I actually make my money ? Because I'll tell you how much time I put into this . It was 1,137 hours is how much it took me .

We went through 19 rounds of editing . I had 274 contestants for cover design that we finally narrowed down to the winning cover , which you can judge a book by its cover 100% and it is very important and by the end of it .

If you put a dollar amount to all of that , along with the investment in your company , I probably spent well over $10,000 doing this book , and so we'll talk about the back end . But passionate income is when you are finally out of that job that you hate and you have passive income .

People have heard of that Buy real estate , get rent Okay , you don't have to do anything . Therefore it's passive . But once you get to a point where you're out of your job , then you're like now what ? And that's where life begins . So people are on this mad dash to be financially free . But you can do that in two years with some concentrated effort .

You have a whole lot of life to live afterwards . So , chandler , what you do today , like you probably work harder than you've ever worked before , but you love it , right ? Yes , sir , and that's passionate income . So passionate income is how do you get paid to do what you would already happily do for free ? So the Japanese call your IKA guy .

It's the intersection between what you're great at , what the world needs , what the market wants , and what you love . So that's passionate income . So I think we've talked enough about buying sticks and bricks and buying all these freaking houses and businesses .

Man , I'm like if you want to open up a freaking coffee shop , like , let's get you financially free so you can go do that and not have to worry about profit . So that is why we did the book .

And another side point that I want to steer the conversation towards is a lot of people , when I was writing it , said well , you're not going to put your best stuff in the book , right ? And this is a huge topic that we can hit on here especially with the book and when it comes to content , and I said no , you are wrong .

If you want a book that is going to promote your business , you better put everything in the book , your best stuff in the book , and you better lead with it , brother and sister , because if you don't make your free stuff or your low ticket stuff better than everyone else's paid stuff , there's no chance that you're going to get a client or an intro call .

So I'll pause there because we can go down that rabbit hole really quickly .

They read it and then they realize , okay , I read all this stuff from Brian . A he's credible and legit , so I want to work with him . B I don't want to actually do this myself . I want to get his help , so I want to work with him , or work with him Right , and so I love that . We're values aligned on that . Let's maybe backtrack a little bit .

At what point in the process of consideration did you hear about us ? How did you hear about selfpublishingcom and why do you ? Why was it something that you're like , hey , I want to do , let's work together ?

So the instance is if you're buying a new car and you pull out of the car lot and you've got that car , all of a sudden you start seeing that same car everywhere on the highway , right ? So same thing applies here . So I decided I want to write a book , right , and I know nobody in the publishing space .

So I was in Austin , texas , and I was just telling the entire world I want to write a book and you had been on his stage speaking . He goes oh , I've got a buddy that does that . He just came and spoke . He's like let me introduce you .

And so he linked me and you up , and then you and I also met , you know , I think a week later I think it was literally this time a year ago like South by Southwest .

If you get really clear about who you want to be , where you want to go and who you're looking for , you'll be really shocked at how they start popping up .

At what point was it where you're like all right , cool , it's time to start working with it , with these guys , and and you were full steam ahead , like what was ?

I read your book and that was enough for me , because my business is Action Academy , that's what I do , so I just chunked everything down . We had an online course that we charged $2,000 for previously , which is the core of the business , and I just took that . I already had the modules . Basically , I was like okay , these are chapters .

So I broke it down into 24 chapters 2,500 to 3,000 words a chapter , 2,000 words a day . I'm sitting down . This is my time block to do it . Let me get this sucker out and let me get the first draft finalized before I begin this journey with Chandler and the team . That was my personal preference .

I know that you guys also take people that are in the beginning of the journey , but for me , I didn't want to waste my time . I didn't want to waste anyone else's time . I was like let me get this first draft out . So I'm not another one of these statistics . The people that say could have , should have would have . Yeah , and I don't do anything .

And that first draft , getting that thing ready , which was hard , and then editing plot twist is harder . But getting that first draft good enough to where I paid a lot of attention and did a lot of research and they said keep going with your first draft until there's nothing else that you can physically change about it . And then that's when it's time .

And then that day I called your team and I said okay , let's go , I'm ready to get this thing edited . Walk me through the process . What does this look like ? Rest is history .

First one if you don't have the self-discipline of Brian , you should work with us before you get your book draft done because we can really help with that , and especially if you're not clear , because I think you had a clear concept and idea and you began with the end in mind . A lot of people don't think to do that , so they fumble around .

They A don't get their rough draft done , but then they B write it , but they don't follow the four Ps right , person , pain , promise , price . So it's like they're not writing to a specific person with a specific pain , making a specific promise , and so if you don't do that , well then we just we end up working together .

You got to the first thing when you hop on a call with one of our coaches , we're probably going to rock your world and you're going to be excited but then also pissed because now you got to go back and rewrite the whole book .

Right , and so that would be like my kind of disclaimers for folks who maybe aren't in that camp , like you were , Brian , and then I would say the two call outs that you had is a . Everything gets easier and you start to see light into the tunnel when you finish your draft .

So that is the milestone where we see I mean obviously we've published thousands of books and we see that milestone be the one when someone finishes their draft they're going to do the rest of this stuff because they now believe that it's possible .

But when they don't and that's where most people fall into the camp when they don't finish is pre-draft phase then they don't get it done . And that's why I always say it's so funny .

It's kind of like exactly what you said the hardest part is getting your draft done , because that's really it's just the hardest part , because nobody or because a lot of people don't do it , but the real hardest part is the editing , and it's only not I only say like it's not the hardest part because most people don't get there .

But when you get there , there you realize this is way harder than actually writing the book , because you just kind of feel like you know , was I drunk when I wrote this ? Like what is this ? It's like I can't believe . I thought this was good , and so can you .

What are one or two lessons that you learned in the editing process that you might share with folks , that that can help them navigate that better and and create a better

book ?

If I were to go back and I had not done any content , I was not already a business owner , I had not gotten product market fit or I hadn't my idea validated , I would 1000% recommend using you guys from the get go , because you need that guiding hand , you need that accountability , you need that structure .

The reason that it worked for us , and me specifically , was I'd already done 2000 videos of content . I knew how to package content . We'd already spent 100 , 200 hours on making an online course .

We already had a business we were running and we knew exactly who we were speaking to and I had them paying me money already in my group , and so I had that captive audience to really go and just be like what do you need ? What do you need , what do you need ?

Over and over again and if any of you , it doesn't necessarily need to be your business , If it's an email list , if it's your Instagram following , ask them , ask them for help , be like what do you want , what do you need , and then that's how you be able to validate the idea . Don't guess .

If you guess , you're going to do what Chandler just said go back and rewrite the entire book . I promise you same applies for business .

So for editing , first things we did is took out like the process of removal is harder than the process of addition , emotionally , because when you're writing you're just trying to get to that 60,000 , 70,000 word count and so there's a lot of filler there . But then as you're removing your yeah a , saying what the hell is I talking about here ?

I'm rambling , and then B , you also have parts that you love , but then the editor , you see a fresh eyes on it and they're like this is garbage . You're like , oh , okay , I was excited about that part , you know and you don't need to take .

You don't like the editor's word is not law , but for the most part they're pretty correct where you can ramble and go off a different tangent . So the removal is crazy , because the game of writing is . What I learned afterwards is not what you write , is how , not what you say , is how do you say what you want in the fewest amount of words .

That is the art of writing , like how do you get your point across as clearly and as quickly as possible . And so that was a huge , huge lesson for me , because in the beginning I was just blindly doing it . So we did the professional edit . Then we did what was it ? The copy edit .

So we did two rounds of that through you guys , and then what we did was actually pretty interesting . I mean , I got this one from Tim Ferriss , so I chopped up the book into individual chapters 24 of them and what I would do is I would send each chapter to two different people . One of them would be the rookie , one of them would be the rock star .

So for our business chapter on business acquisition , if you want to buy a business , I sent it to Walker Dible , who wrote the book like buy , then build . And then I also sent it to a person that was in the process of buying their first business . And so I would talk to Walker and be like is this factually correct ?

Is there anything that you would add or remove to this from a professional standpoint ? Then I'd go to the rookie and I would say is there anything that's confusing here or anything that needs to be elaborated ? Now , this is from a nonfiction perspective , but that was the most important phase of editing .

That we did was doing that because then we had both sets of eyes on the things , and we had made sure that it wasn't too complex . We did that with each chapter and then , by the time we finished , we had the polished product .

All right , let's implement what you're learning in this episode and let's see how we can help with your book . Go to selfpublishingcom . Forward slash schedule . I like that a lot . You said how did you ? How did you phrase that ? You said the rookie and the who .

I'm sorry , you write for the skimmer and you write for the reader , and so some people are just going to skim that blog post and you need to have headlines and catchy images and graphs and stuff so that it appeals to them . But then some people are going to read every single word . So you need that full detail so that it appeals to them .

But then some people are going to read every single word . So you need that full detail so that it appeals to them . So kind of similar concepts on how to appease different markets with a singular piece of work . The other thing that I wanted to mention or emphasize that you mentioned previously is starting from an online course .

So if you're listening to this right now , if you're watching this right now , you've already created an online course . You already Wr book , created the draft of the book . Yeah , yeah , you already wrote the book .

You just didn't know it yet because the way that you structured that course and modules is probably the sections , the lessons or the chapters probably , and so you've got an unfair advantage that you can go from course to book . So I feel like that's kind of We've talked about all the writing stuff . I'd love to talk marketing .

I know you used our six-week pre-launch and you executed it better than just about anybody I've seen , at least in the last while . You got a ton of reviews and just

built a bunch of buzz for the book . So how did you lay out that pre-launch and what worked the best in terms of maximizing your launch and selling more books ?

The launch is everything . So you need that last hundred yards of the of the race , like you better be sprinting that last 100 yards , and that's what I forced myself to do . I came down to the mark and it came down to the wire and this has been , like you know , nine months . It was like , basically , I did create like a child here .

You know , like over nine months , you're working , you're editing and and finally it's ready and you've got the cover figured out , you've got everything set up on Amazon , and so what I did is you know , there's another quote I forget who said it , but the quote is like do things that do not scale .

So we talk about scalability a lot , but then when it comes down to actually like doing the things that matter the most , they are unscalable . So I could have hired a virtual assistant , I could have had somebody in my team do it .

But I texted 5,049 people personally and I know that number because I put it on a spreadsheet and every single day I'm like , all right , I'm going to do 50 to 100 a day . I'm just like I'm going to knock these people out and , one by one , I was asking them . I was like , hey , would you be ?

I was thinking of you , this is actually me , would you be willing to help with the launch ? And I was strategic about who I asked for help with the launch versus who . I asked for a five-star review . So most people . I asked for a review prior and that was game changer because the review is gold when it comes to a book .

And then I had an entire CRM list that I made . I'm like , okay , who has podcasts , who has newsletters , who has social media following ? And then I was proactively doing the Russell Brunson framework the Dream 100 , basically and Amy was included on that to where I was going down this list and I was making sure .

Before it was time for me to ask when I was in the first beginning process of writing my book . I was like , who are the 100 people that could promote this book to make the major difference and I was engaging with them once or twice a week . I had it in my notes .

I had an alarm set like comment on Amy Porterfield's post , like comment on this person's story , like engage with them . And Russell Brunson does this with his book launches as well . So I did that for six to nine months leading up to it . I was like , how do I , how do I get in with these different people on social ?

Like this would be a perfect person to help me promote it later . Like you need to dig the well before you're thirsty . You know what I mean . You need to lead with value and authentic relationship before you have an ask . So Alex Ramosi has a wonderful quote the longer you can delay your ask , the larger your ask can be .

So I had a lot of wells that I've been digging for four plus years that I decided to finally make that ask and then this was the ask that I did . But tactical advice for people is dig before you're thirsty . Dig the well before you're thirsty .

Make that list of that top 100 dream people that would promote your book , or the top 100 newsletters , or the top 100 websites , the top 100 social media accounts . Pay attention to those Go on your phone . Every single person that you've talked to in the last two years should know that you're publishing this book and you need their help .

I'll ask people for business all day and I'll talk to people for business all day . I'll get told no 9 million times . I don't care , but the minute I'm asking my friend for a favor , I feel like I'm a burden .

Yeah , and so many people that are listening to this are in that boat where they're writing the book or they're about to write the book or they're at their last sprint of writing the book and they're like I want to ask all my friends . But I feel like a burden .

And if you take one piece of advice away from this podcast over anything , the piece of advice that I would give to you is the piece of advice that my aunt gave to me that kept me going . When it was eight o'clock , 830 at night , and I was still texting . I said I can't do this anymore . She goes , keep going .

And it was this she said by you not asking for help , by you not asking others for help , you are directly denying them the ability to feel the joy of giving help . You are directly denying them the ability to feel the joy of giving . Yeah , by you not asking for help , you are denying others the joy of helping other people .

And I was just like wow , and I'll tell you , man , out of every single person , 5,049 of them that I texted did every single one of them reply no . Did every single one of them help with the launch ? No , but I'll say the vast majority of them said dude , thank you so much for thinking of me .

I would love to do this and , man , that was the hardest thing for me to do and I'm glad I did it . It was a really valuable life lesson .

And so that's what I would encourage folks If you're in the launch phase , reach out one-on-one to get reviews , reach out one-on-one for support and I love that reframe of people , love to support and help it like . Think about it , if I had a friend who launched a book and they didn't tell me about it , I would be pissed . I'm like , what are you talking ?

Like ? Why don't you just text me ? I'll buy a copy , I'll leave a review , I'll post about it , like whatever you need me to do . And so I think , as a but I too kind of similar to what you're saying , brian feel like a burden . I'm like , oh yeah , I don't .

Maybe they're going to feel like I'm just too promotional or that I'm just asking them for favors and all this stuff . And people want to help . So if you're in your launch phase , even if you're beyond the launch phase , ask for help , ask people one-on-one to help with your book . Brian , what's next ? How do you go from ? What is the full year of ?

We talked about the one-year launch . So there's the one-week launch , which I think you nailed . Then there's the one-year launch , which is how do you make sure that you don't drop it like it's hot and just stop talking about this book ?

So what's the plan for you over the next few months , next , however long , to keep promoting the book and then how are you doing that in a way that's also going to drive customers for your core business .

, this is corny . But then everyone else said dude , if you only write one book in your life , you're only going to have one book launch party . And I was just like you know what ? You're completely right , and I'm so glad that I freaking did that . We had like 80 people show up in Austin , texas . It was super fun .

But , yeah , now we're coming up on four months here and we've sold . I think we're creeping up on like four or 5,000 copies , so I'm proud of that . My goal for the first year was 10,000 . So the first year that's my goal is like let's move 10,000 copies . Come hell or high water , I'll do whatever it takes to move 10,000 .

And then if the book is good enough , then that 10,000 will take off . If you put it in 10,000 hands and it's got the organic fire that it needs , then it will spread . If not , it's not good enough and that's okay , keep going . You changed .

If 27 people buy your book that's 27 people whose lives are hopefully better for having read your book , that's already worth it , and I'll tell you the economics here in a second . But I had one gentleman that called me and it was the first person that I didn't have that was in my circle .

So it wasn't somebody that was just like a yes man saying yeah , because you know , like they already know me and they were friends , right , it was a complete stranger .

He called me and he was just like dude , I've read Rich Dad , poor Dad and Four Hour Work Week and yours , your book , is up there with those for me and I was just like cancel everything , the race is over . That one phone call was enough for me . Like one person thought that , and I'm just like dude , that made everything so worth it .

So you know you , just if you change one person's life with your book one person , it's all it takes and it's worth it . But to make things a little sexier and to add like a headline to the podcast episode , right , so I just didn't matter . Our thing is $7,000 a year as our membership , so you don't really make that much money from book royalties .

It's basically just enough for us to cover the cost of advertising on Amazon . That's all we really use the royalties to do . We do about three books . Three or four books for a book is what we make on paperback and then audio book is a little bit more , etc . Etc . But we had 15 direct signups for our business . We've been tracking it .

I tracked a double for this podcast . That's $105,000 in recurring revenue within like three months post book launch . So I think that we invested maybe 10,000 overall with everything . So we 10x our investment by doing this already and that's not with that many . It was a good launch . I wouldn't say it's many . It was a good launch .

I wouldn't say it's like a otherworldly great launch . The launch that I did is very attainable by most people . It wasn't like 100,000 copies moved in the email sequence . You know what I mean . It was like a couple thousand copies . We made $105,000 of recurring revenue from that and that's just now , you know .

So again , this applies more specifically to like business books or for books that you're using for a promotional purpose for your actual service , or whatever you did , my thing just happened to be I left a quarter million dollars a year sales job to travel full time around the world to build my own business Pretty specific outcome , right .

So I'm like , all right , I'll write a book on that . So what I did it was super cool is , throughout my book , every single thing , every single chapter is designed to lead you to the email list or to my podcast .

So what I did was I had these QR codes that I have situated throughout the book and if I was somebody that was writing a book , I would 1000% use QR codes . So we had different QR codes throughout and it would be like hey , here's free gift . Free gift is you know , we're talking about seller financing and real estate .

Here's a podcast episode I did with my buddy that has $30 million of real estate , talking about how he did this Like scan the QR code . Take you over here . Hey , this is my Excel tracker that I use to track my goals and that I use to track the writing process of my book Scan the QR code and we'll take you to get the Excel tracker .

So I think that was huge . And then we have an offer , a direct offer in the book , which is scan this QR code and you get this , this , this and this , and like this is how you apply for our backend business . Like you need to optimize that . Don't just put it in text . Like bring them into your ecosystem .

You need to collect the email address , because the backend marketing is where a lot of the dollars are made . I would share that , yeah , and it's also a great way to get on other podcasts and to get your word out there . It adds some credibility and validity to you , even if it's not like a New York Times bestseller .

We hit Amazon bestseller number one in real estate , self-employment , career and , I think , career guides , so that was super cool . But even though it's not like Wall Street Journal or New York Times bestseller , those authors still give you that nod of approval where they're just like you're in the trenches with me , like you did what it takes , and I respect that .

So there's a respect factor . And then the biggest way I see people make money from books is speaking , which I'm just now beginning to start my speaking circuit , but that is the largest ways for you to start doing keynote presentations different places . So that's the backend economics . But yeah , dude , it's huge .

Final couple of questions for you , brian . First one would be what was the most helpful part of working with us at selfpublishcom and what would you say to somebody who's thinking about it ?

The editing process was wonderful . If I were to be doing another , like self-publish , I would 1000% do this . There's not anything else I would use , because it makes more sense for you guys to just be with the people that have already done the thing , like that . But let them handle all the rest of the stuff , because writing a book is hard enough .

It's super hard and it's super worth it . I think everyone in their life should write one book , because then you have a further heightened appreciation for books and music and the arts , because you realize how difficult it was to create , and then you put it out into the universe and then you're like please don't tear this apart , right ?

So I would highly recommend and endorse what you guys do . Um , your team was wonderful , everything , everything about it was wonderful . And so now it's like up on amazon , like I didn't set anything up on amazon or anything like that , like they just set it up for me and it's been super easy .

It's been fun seeing the behind the scenes of the journey and I think it's just kind of crazy from us meeting about a year ago in person at randomly at that event , to then you working with us whenever it was August , september somewhere in there , and then already getting the book done and seeing the fruits of it .

It's just like very rewarding to me to just think about okay , cool this year . Who are those people that I'm meeting , that I'm going to get to talk to or bring on the podcast over the next year , that have already made so much progress with their books ? I mean it's a lot of credit to you because you took action on it right . Action Academy baby .

Pretty simple concept . So Action Academy podcast is available everywhere . And then on my Instagram , at Brian Lubin , I'm posting there every single day . They were up to a quarter million followers now , which is insane to think about . I guess I'm an influencer now I'm up there , people respond to my DMs now that are famous . So made it .

Mom call her and let her know her child made it . And then , lastly , from passive to passionate how to quit your job , grow your wealth , turn your passions into profits on Amazon by the selfpublishingcom team . It is the step-by-step roadmap how to quit your job , grow your wealth , turn your passions into profits .

We teach you the mindset , the methods , the steps how to attract mentors , how to buy real estate , all this stuff , all the way into growing your own business while traveling . So , from passive to passionate in the Action Academy , that is me .

Now I want you to do three things right now . If you found this episode helpful I don't know if you know this , but we've got a YouTube channel . It's a companion channel to this podcast . All the video versions of the episode are on the YouTube channel . So , number one subscribe to the YouTube channel .

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All right Reviews are super important and help this podcast get discovered to people . So , number three leave a review on the podcast . Thank you so much . I'll see you in the next episode .