Mortgage Banker In Awe Of Power Of Books Sets Up Publishing Company
David Hancock walked away from mortgage banking and a massive salary after directly experiencing the power of a book on business growth.
David’s passion shifted when he realized he wanted to help other people with the same secret weapon that Jay Conrad Levinson gave him in the late ‘90s. Jay, author of Guerilla Marketing, explained to David during coaching sessions that to win big clients and be in demand, he needed to write a book.
With said book written to help other mortgage bankers, David achieved massive success in mortgage banking. He was finally in demand with affluent clients.
TOP TAKEAWAY: A BOOK WILL GIVE YOU AUTHORITY AND MAKE YOU IN-DEMAND
David recalls that after writing his first book, amazing things began to happen. Less than a year later he doubled his fees and his income “all because of the power of the book.
“I was a recognized authority in the space. I didn't necessarily feel like the authority in this space. But the book gave me that authority. And sure enough, people who would never give me the time of day were begging to get on my calendar just as he predicted.”
The media began to call David on a regular basis, and at the height of the book’s success he was interviewed weekly. He then co-authored a book with Jay Conrad Levinson himself, Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers: How to Steal Customers from Your Competition.
Meanwhile, David had experienced a taste of the power of a book, and the allure of mortgage banking began to fade. He was falling in love with the way books could transform a business, and with helping others on the same book writing journey. “It was very fulfilling and I ended up going all in.”
Going all in meant that David actually set up his own publishing company, Morgan James Publishing, in the early 2000s. He and his wife began working with entrepreneurs and business execs, getting them published without the pain points that accompanied traditional publishers.
CHOOSE YOUR PUBLISHING MODEL CAREFULLY
The phenomenal success of David’s first book was wonderful and awful at the same time. David didn’t enjoy the lack of control with a traditional publisher, and so with Morgan James he decided to create a hybrid publishing company that involves authors closely.
Even though Morgan James is a hybrid publisher, it’s unlike other hybrids and has some unique aspects to its approach. For example, entrepreneur-authors are paid a small advance, but have to buy some of their books at wholesale prices. Authors need to be open to being cowshed and best practices around promotion and selling, as well.
In this episode, David goes over the pros and cons of various publishing models. He notes that while self-publishing may at first glance appear to be the most lucrative option for most entrepreneur-authors, this isn’t necessarily the case. It’s important to explore all the services a traditional or hybrid publisher can offer that bring in additional revenue. These include book store distribution, multiple e-book platforms, and foreign publishing options.
After 17 years in business, Morgan James is a respected publisher, having published more than 3000 books. It regularly releases around 200 books a year. Most are by entrepreneurs. The business has a small faith book division, and publishes a small number of fiction books each year.
Their very first bestseller was by Brendon Burchard, author of The Millionaire Messenger. Since then, Morgan James has been on the New York Times bestseller list about 29 times, and on USA Today’s bestseller list more than 65 times. Last year alone they hit the Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list 14 times!
“It's really exciting to see even in tough times how well the authors are doing with their books, and what a privilege it is to play in that space with him,” enthuses David.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle. Today, our guest is David Hancock. David is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, and the founder of Morgan James Publishing. David, welcome to the show.
David Hancock
Good morning, Josh. What a privilege it is to be here. So great to see you, sir.
Josh Steimle
Thank you so much for coming on. So David, give us your story. Today you're running a publishing house. But where did you grow up? How did you get started? How did you become a writer? And how did you transition from being a writer to a publisher? Give us the journey?
David Hancock
Oh, my gosh, is one of my favorite stories to tell. Because I think God had a sense of humor with me. But I managed to find a great niche and we're having so much fun and hopefully changing a lot of lives. But I would have never in a million years ever imagined me ending up being a book publisher. And I promise I won't go back to birth. But I had a hard time finding my my space. You know, I was a soccer player in high school. I barely passed high school because I was too busy chasing soccer balls and my now wife. And then college, yeah, it just wasn't for me as much as my parents wanted it, I ended up dropping out of college. So I found myself through a couple jobs, you know, growing up as a as a early 20s, late teenager, and really had a hard time finding, you know, my sweet spot, but I ended up landing in mortgage banking, which is kind of strange. But again, there's a story how I got there, but I'm lenders and mortgage banking and ended up loving it, and thriving. And in fact, I was doing really, really well, even though I was competing with 1000 people just like me offering basically the same product and service, loosely regulated mortgage products, as we all discovered in 2008. And, you know, I was successful, anyhow, and it was a lot of fun, high-stress, but a lot of fun. But as I continued down the years working in that business, I continued to have to work harder and harder and harder, not because it's a bad thing. You know, working hard is good. But I kept trying to stay on top. And as I grew in that business, the competition was tougher. And we were spending a fortune in marketing advertising. And it's just like, I thought to myself, there's got to be an easier way, not that I'm looking for an easy out. But there has to be a different way to generate business and keep the business coming in instead of just spending so much money in marketing and, and you know, and then all the hard work and hours that I was doing. Now, even though I had an unlimited ad budget, and the bank was paying for it, it really became out of my pocket that everybody else did as well. So I was like figuring what what could I do you know, to to earn some more money. And so I went down this quest to try to enlighten myself. And I was got into book reading, really for the first time for me. So I also, you know, went to the conferences and went to sales and marketing conferences, whether they're industry specific or not. I mean, I went to Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Todd Duncan, Bill Back, right. You name them from back in the day. This is the mid 90s.
Josh Steimle
So you started reading a little bit later in life. You weren't a bookworm, when you were growing up?
David Hancock
Heavens, no. I definitely was not, I read what I had to read and only enough to pass the class. But you know, when it finally became relevant to me is when I decided to, you know, to make that change, and I, I studied everything, and I bought all their courses, and I and I'm a good implementer so I came back and I fine tune some processes or hired some assistance, I made a little bit tweaks in the marketing and I went home a little bit earlier and maybe made a little bit more money, but nothing really had an impact on me. But I was enjoying you know the process, you know, later and learned that the journey is part of the goal. And I was I was really enjoying it. And I'm teaching my staff how to do the things that I've been doing to be a success, and it was all working. But nothing really gave me that bolster in my career that I thought that I was looking for or needed or wanted. I don't know what, but it wasn't until I discovered a specific book that ended up changing my life twice. And that book was called Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers. Now Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers by Jay Conrad Levinson, phenomenal book, great series of books, and I had never heard of them. It was already like I said in its third edition, so 15 million copies and I just I didn't stumble across it, and never heard of the term, never heard of Jay Levison. In fact, I get teased today I don't remember where the book comes from came from one day I came into work and was on my desk. I don't know if it was divine, the left their friend left it there or I ordered it and didn't remember it. Who knows. Pretty sure I didn't steal it because I remembered that but it was on my desk one day. So I read it and it was it blew me away. I read it and realized that I was a guerrilla and didn't know it. Now guerrilla marketing is all about doing unconventional things to gain conventional goals really leveraging your time, your energy, your imagination and relationships versus the bank account. But like I said, I had a limited bank account, but we were spending $100,000 a month and doing the craziest fun things but you all my competitors had the same budget. They all could do the same thing. But even guerrilla marketing, you know, it was Very affirming to realize that our success and there's a name for it, and there was a for a reason. And it was very affirming. So I really started to do a deep dive into guerrilla marketing. If it had a G in it in an M in it, I bought it, I read it, I really tried to implement all those things, but still kept bumping against this, like, I'm not quite there yet. So in guerrilla marketing jail, Levinson actually had like a one simple little sentence. And I've got the book right here. So you have one simple sentence to say, hey, if you need help, just email me. And I'm like, you know, I've only seen like two authors at this point who offered that, and I reached out to Jay, and sure enough, he responded. And I ended up hiring him as a coach, and he was amazing. Now, $10,000 A month later, you know, I still hadn't necessarily learned anything more. No disrespect to Jay or guerrilla marketing. We, he was telling me the same things that I've been doing. But his stories were amazing. We ended up becoming fast friends, but he did coach me through, you know, a lot of perfecting, you know, buyer guerrilla marketing trade and making business and my income was rising, and things were great. But still, I didn't feel like I had a magic weapon yet. But he then finally shared something with me that, like I said, changed my life twice. And of course, it's I'm paying him $10,000 a month. He's a smart entrepreneur. And he dragged it out over a couple months. And he likes to say that he was spoon feeding it to me, because I wasn't ready for it yet, so I can appreciate that. So he said, he went on to tell me he said, David, if you want to charge more and negotiate less. Now, pause there, who doesn't want to charge more and negotiate less? Right no matter what, that's what we all want? Right? Right. No matter what widget you're selling. We all want that. And I'm like, yeah, wasted. If you wouldn't charge more, negotiate less, you got to keep doing what you're doing, because it's working. He said that, then you need to add one more thing. And I'm like, there's one more thing's coming. But you know, he didn't give it to me right away. So you know, I'm continuing to coach with them, talk to them and kind of protecting him in the next month. He says, you know, David, if you wanted to have those clients that you wished you could do business with. And again, I'm sure we all have those clients that just won't turn a phone calls don't even acknowledge us in the elevators. No. And like, yeah, there's a celebrity real estate agent that I wanted to do business with, through these high profile attorneys who have these big clients with lots of money and CPAs, things like that. I'm like, Yeah, they don't return my phone call. He said what those guys and gals to start begging to get on your calendar, you need to keep doing what you're doing, because you're having an impact in the community. But you need to add one more thing. And I'm like, Jay, what is this one thing? You know twice you've mentioned this and you still didn't tell me. And then he went on to one last thing that really didn't make any sense to me, it does now. But he said, David, if you wanted the media to call you when something was going on in the banking business, of course, and especially in the 90s, there was always something going on, you know, I'm like, Yeah, I can see that. He said, If you one of those guys and gals to call you to the interview, or the newspaper or television or radio, you know, you got to keep doing what you're doing, because you're creating a great name for yourself. But. I'm like, seriously, he said, but you need to add one more thing. And he finally told me what the one thing was. He said, David, you need to write your own book. And I literally laughed out loud simultaneously while sinking into my seat thinking, Who the heck am I let's write a book. I thought he was kidding. I thought that's hilarious. No, seriously, what does it mean? But he stuck to it. And he was very gracious, very loving. And he helped me realize that that I was a success for a reason. Granted, I was a guerrilla marketing and didn't know it. But I was doing things differently than everybody else, in a good way. And he helped me realize that I probably had enough in me to write a book, he was very good coach. So rather than writing an outline, and ended up writing the book, and didn't realize that was a hard thing to do, in fact, ended up being a stress reliever for me because banking was, especially mortgage bankers. Very high, stressful job, don't realize it till you get home when you can finally breathe. Everything worked today. So I ended up writing the book, and realize that's a hard thing to do, and ended up getting it published, I didn't realize it was a hard thing to do, either. I don't remember how many rejections I may have gotten or how many submissions but I did follow his guidance. And he probably opened some doors for me. I didn't get picked up by Houghton Mifflin, who publishes you know, the original Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers, but I got picked up by New York House. And it was both amazing in horrible at the same time, and this was the beginning of my of my change. So it was amazing, because within eight months, everything Jay said came true. I literally doubled all my fees, and nobody questioned me anymore. And I doubled my income in eight months, all because of the power of the book. Because you know, yesterday, in essence, I was a successful hustler, doing good. But then after that I was a recognized authority in the space. I didn't necessarily feel like the authority in this space. But the book gave me that authority. And sure enough people that would never give me the time of day were begging to get on my calendar just as he predicted and I'm like I'm swallowing my pride that you know, you don't talk to me yesterday, but he will talk to me today. What's your I'll take your money.
Josh Steimle
And now you're thinking that $10,000 a month was worth it for that one bit of advice?
David Hancock
Absolutely. Especially since I didn't have to pay for it because the bank allowed me to expense it. But that's okay. That's okay. He was definitely worth it. And sure enough, the media was starting to call me on a regular basis, I literally was interviewed weekly, and it's either whenever the newspaper or print or I get on video and talking about what's going on in banking, because I was the only local knucklehead who wrote a book on it. Yeah. And it was, it was all laughable. But the publishing process was not fun. And I didn't know what to expect. But I ended up writing the book ended up selling them the rights to my book, and they did with it as they pleased, and involved me very little. And that's common, especially for first time authors. But really common for every author, they end up taking over. And may or may not include the author's in the in the space. And Jay said, This is what it is, you get to work within these parameters. And it was not fun. In fact, my first book, I had such little input, I had no input in the cover, no input in the final title. I didn't even like the book. And when I got my copies in the mail, it had three chapters added to it that I didn't write. And I called him up thinking, Oh, my gosh, there's a mistake is it now we just thought it needed a little extra meat. And I was like, devastated. It was good. But it wasn't me. And I had to learn that because of course, I could ask questions on those chapters. Right. So that was frustrating. And I never could sell enough books to make them happy. But that really wasn't why I did it. I wanted to sell books, because I had pride but also wanted to reach out to new clients or whatnot. But it was it was frustrating. But all the while my my regular day job business was just thriving because of the book. And so I caught the fever for the power of the book, you know, from a from a really a real marketing perspective, even though I was a W two employee, it significantly impacted my income.
Josh Steimle
So about what year was this?
David Hancock
That was mid 90s, probably 96, 97 ish, something like that. And then I ended up being required, they had first rights refusal on two more books. And I'm like, I don't want to do another book cuz it was a horrible experience. I didn't like them at all. But I had done well enough that they went ahead and wanted me to go ahead and fulfill my obligations, write a second book. So I was able to convince Jay to co-author with me because he had become fast friends. And fortunately, when we co-authored is when he stopped billing me. So that helped a little bit. And oh, by the way, I ended up reducing our ad budget to near zero after, you know, after the book came out and realizing that I didn't need to spend that money. We were just doing it because everybody else did it before. So that was really awesome, because Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers was originally designed for people who didn't have any money, but didn't have any ad budget. So it was really cool to see that fruition comes because I was able to pay my people more, of course, I made more money, which was wonderful. But the second book was really what I had one of the first books, it was called Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers. And it was phenomenal. Same publisher. And even with Jay on, we had a little bit more input. And he went on his lead author, because he's got a bigger platform than I did. But even with Jay, we still struggled with a lot of things with the publisher. Now Jay owned the brand, you know, so we own the trademark. So guerrilla marketing for this was a no brainer. But we fought to have the camouflage motif that he had already started to become famous for. And we fought with a little bit of the content and design and layout, but it was it was a better relationship, but still cantankerous, if you will. And I ended up selling 40,000 copies of that book to the bank I worked for. So it was good. And then by 99, when by 1999, when they wanted me to do you know that my last book was in my new a second edition of Guerrilla Marketing for Mortgage Brokers. Same thing. And even even though I had already sold a bunch of books, and we were bestselling authors on my book, I still felt like I was never making the publisher happy. They're always trying to get me to figure out ways to sell more books, which you know, their business I can understand, but it was it was almost angry, you know, if you will. But by the second editions, like man, this is probably gonna be really good. And as the internet's coming out really strong, hard, you know, there's lots of new ways to market the book down. And we fought with the publisher over something called the Internet. You know, they wouldn't let us use the word internet in the book, because they truly felt like the Internet wasn't going to last past Y2K, which is, you know, with 99 to 2000. Now, we were all concerned, but none of none of us really felt like it was going to go away. We just thought we'd have a headache for a few weeks while we fix things and ended up being you know, in essence, nothing for us, maybe the tech guys, but nothing for us. But we did not win that battle. So the book felt like a failure the moment it came out, it felt irrelevant, because now all the things that are working had something involved to do with the Internet. And we lost that battle. It was very, very frustrating. So then I decided I'm going to self-publish a few books, thinking now that I'm a best selling author, I want to be in control of everything. Not that I'm a control freak. But as I continue to teach my clients to do the same thing as my business kept growing, I ended up becoming a wholesale banker in that process. So my clients were the old me they were all across the country. So I was helping them with guerrilla marketing their business and in saving money on marketing and advertising and helping them figure out ways to create value. And it was having a blast. But one of the things I pulled out of mine, you know, weapons arsenal was that they needed to do a book, like Jay told me. And I was thinking, the more that I can help them succeed, the more that I'll succeed, of course, and I had clients that were getting picked up by publishers and their businesses were booming, like, mine was my clients that were self-publishing, which is absolutely better than doing nothing at all, by the way, and their businesses were growing, but they were having issues on that side. But everybody was having problems in one area, the other, they're either fighting with their publisher or struggling to get picked up, or having difficulty getting attention as a self-published author or distribution, but it all worked for them. But as I'm getting really involved in this space with my clients, because it was really fun. And when I ended up self publishing a couple of my books, thinking that was gonna solve all my problems. I did like everything, you know, I love the covers and titles, reminder, content was mine. But nobody cared the same way that they cared about my traditional books, I had limited distribution, Amazon was certainly in its infancy, but there, so I could sell them out of my garage or on Amazon. And so that wasn't quite the same. In the book, The biggest difference for me is, is the media wouldn't really entertain conversations with me on my self publishing books, even though I was just on there. So last night on the grill, a marketing book, but not today on my whatever book, you know, and it was, it was a little frustrating. But it was still, you know, I still think the books were very, very powerful. So, come to realize that that was common in publishing. And in my clients, even the time spent with Jay, we realized that publishing is kind of broken for the entrepreneurial mindsetted person. Again, even though most of my, you know, I was a W two employee, I wasn't necessarily an entrepreneur, I didn't have a small business myself, but in real life, and it was they were kind of getting in the way. And I thought to myself, and spoke out loud today. So Jay, what if somebody created a publishing house that kind of catered towards entrepreneurs where they could add value, you know, credibility, distribution, opportunity, like, you know, I had been used to, but stay the heck out of their way. Because every time I wanted to speak on the topic, I had to get permission. Every time I wanted to create materials to one help market to book or create opportunities for me, I have to get permission, it was just really frustrating. And Jay, which really surprised me, it was like, you know, it is what it is this, we just have to work within these parameters and make it our own. And I'm like, I felt a little defeated. Well, nobody ever did. So I ended up you know, working with Jay for about a year, probably 2002 to 2003, on what a probe or an outline of what an entrepreneurial publishing house could look like. And of course, sprinkled it really heavy with guerrilla marketing, a lot of Zig Ziglar. And some values stuff from Bill Bacharach and just really try to figure out, you know, if there is a way. So ended up launching that in 2003, while still thriving, you know, as a banker, just kind of did it on the side. And I don't know, man, what happened, it was just the right time, the right opportunity, and the right passion, that all sudden, we started to get, you know, offers to publish books from people that were like me who were significant in their space, they were frustrated with publishing, and they weren't getting the same level of attention in self-publishing that they had hoped, even though truth be told, kind of reveal back the curtain a little bit, Josh, I had nothing to offer back then. I mean, I didn't have credibility, I didn't have distribution, I didn't have barely any opportunity. But I had a really good idea. And I guess, people just trusted me. And sure enough, we ended up getting like a three-book deal with Jay, you know, with three brand new Guerrilla Marketing books with Jay. So that certainly was impactful. And then we, you know, had become friends with other peoples in the space. And Armand Morin was one of our first clients, he's big Internet marketing space. And, you know, I've been able to find some people that were, you know, already getting there. And I didn't quit my day job as a banker until about a year later, not that I replaced my income because I was making crazy stupid money as a banker, but my passion had flipped. I had realized that same thing that I could help other people like me with some secret weapon that I know that Jay taught me, and helping grow their business, and it was very fulfilling, and I ended up, you know, going all in and got really, really blessed. But over the years, we have to figure out, you know, who are we in the stage? You know, we ended up earning distribution, because we were selling a lot of books, and we earned credibility. That just is a huge journey from there to now of course, but that was a long way to answer your question. But that's how I got into writing my first book, which work and into publishing house, which is, again, never would have imagined to be here. But oh, my gosh, Josh, we're having so much fun. And I think our authors are chaning lives. It's so good.
Josh Steimle
Well, thank you so much for telling that story. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. That was fantastic.
David Hancock
Awesome.
Josh Steimle
So now, we're in 2020. Morgan. James has been around since 2003, 17 years, roughly, how many books have you published and how many authors have you worked with?
David Hancock
Yeah, so we are selective, not that we're looking for reasons to say no, we're always looking for reasons to say yes, but in the early days, my wife and I made a commitment that we were only going to only publish books that we really wanted to publish, and really wanted to keep them clean. Because in the 90s, not unlike today they are in the early 2000s like today, a lot of people were really pushing the boundaries with profanity and books and just just wasn't me. So we set out with doing just good clean books and, and it wasn't sure how it would, would work, but it ended up working. So early on, we started with one author, and then two, then three, then we got to about 90 authors per year by about 2005. And today, we publish just under 200 books a year total, about 150 nonfiction books. And then we got a couple other divisions that we spread out, we got a small faith line, where we do about 25 faith books, we do have a small, clean fiction line, but really, when you look at them, they're probably allegorical nonfiction, because they teach something. And that's a common theme with us is all of our books are part of something bigger, you know, the authors are entrepreneurial, the books would teach something, and they're part of a small business or an entrepreneurship or, you know, something beyond the book, that's kind of our sweet spot today. And today, about 3000 titles ish, I haven't counted exactly, but you know, we were doing the credit 200 a year now. And most of them are still in print, and most of them are still in our author group, and most of them are still active with us, which is really unusual, because a lot of times in publishing, if you don't really break out in three weeks to six months, man, you just, you're you're flush, and there's no relationship. I value and strive on a long term relationship with the authors, because as long as the book is important to them, it's important to me, if they're leveraging it, even if sales will do this, you know, I'm a happy camper to keep it, you know, in print and keep working. But we're blessed, you know, at almost 18 years into it now, you know, we're selling a lot of books, we've been blessed to be on the New York Times list like 29 times in our short history, over 65 times with USA today and Wall Street Journal, heck, 14 times this year, like six weeks ago, we had one on each list. So it's really exciting to see even in tough times, you know how well the authors are doing with their books, and what a privilege it is to play in that space with him.
Josh Steimle
So how do you explain to authors and others how your publishing house differs from other publishing houses out there?
David Hancock
Oh, yes, it's great, great question. So I kind of alluded to, you know, some of the things I didn't like about publishing. So when I laid out the outline for Morgan James, I wanted to be very specific, how to get there was was the unknown part. But it's funny, I call it entrepreneurial bliss, because five knows how complicated it was. I don't know if I did that on purpose. But my mission was to establish a publishing house that had credibility, opportunity, distribution, you know, in help with the author. Really, I really intended to, in fact, I did this, I took a contract that I that I had done with a traditional publisher, and I took a really good self-publishing contract I gave him to our attorneys. And I said, Here, make make this one, I really set out to blend the best of both worlds. Now, 18 years into it, you know, the industry sees us today as a typical traditional New York house. And that is terrifying, Josh, because it is not what I wanted to be. But I think they see us that way for the right reasons, but are unconvinced by the stuff that differs from a typical publishing house is why we're so successful, why our authors love us so much, and why they're doing so well. So to answer your question, so one of the first things that we don't do, is we don't buy or take over their intellectual property. So their baby is their baby. In fact, we even go one step further in every decision that we make with the author is around the author's goals. So everything from title and subtitle to price size format, what should it feel like, when should it come out all these decisions we're making together, because remember, I said I had no input mine, and they added stuff to it. And so for us, the author's own intellectual property, and we make all decisions together. And this is the unconventional side. And then lastly, I'm striving for and seeking a long-term relationship with that author. And over the years, we've learned some really awesome best practices. We want to work with authors that are coachable and willing to do the things that successful authors do. But that also means that we are seeing in teaching and learning you know, so if we have an author that does some really cool things, and it works well, we want all the other artists to do that. But over the years, we were also seeing those things stop working or things don't work. We want to have a good relationship with the author so that we can help them to avoid wasting time or wasting money. And that just doesn't exist really in publishing today, that feedback. In fact, during our whole masterminding process with the author on their book, once, once the book is done, our little mastermind team focuses primarily on you know, the old crud now, like, you know, what do we do to gain the attention to get into bookstores? And what do we need to gain the attention of consumers and how do we leverage the book to grow our day job? Because it's really hard to sell a book just don't have you ever tried to sell a book but nobody wants to buy a book when you say hey, go buy my book, but they'll buy it by the thousands If you compel them to care. So we spend a lot of time with them. So that's kind of our unconventional side. But they do see us as a typical house, like I said, for the right reasons. And as I alluded to earlier, we do have some exclusivity. And not again, that we're looking for you to say, No, it's just that fine little niche of us having passionate, enthusiastic authors who have something really, really good to say, and say it well, but are caring about the reader and what the reader gets out of it. And then hopefully, there's a way to connect the two to grow both lives beyond the book piece. But we also have bookstore distribution, which is a very traditional thing, and a very good thing, even though the industry called us the first hybrid marketing hybrid publisher to the market. And when you look at the official today's definition of a hybrid publisher, it doesn't even mention distributions anywhere. So I think we've been well beyond that, although we have those similar hybrid features where it's a little little bit of best of both worlds, but distribution is very important. Most of our books are sold in brick and mortar stores. But today 100% of our books will show up in stores. Now the depth and the breadth, and how long they stay there depends on lots of factors, you know, sales, reps perception of the author's ability to generate buzz and how the book may compare or compete with others. We even pay small advances, which is kind of funny, because we don't use that advance to try to leverage the buying of their intellectual property, we pay small advances, because we learned, like in 2008, if we didn't at least pay a small advance against future royalties, you know that places like Publishers Weekly wouldn't review our books because we weren't traditional enough, or the airport bookstores wouldn't let us pitch them or sit at the table until we started paying advances. Because I guess we weren't traditional enough for that either. So this can be a funny journey on how we got there. And then, like I said, we've had some successes, but really, ultimately, my passion is, how can I help them do the things that I did? How can I help them leverage what they've got to be more of who they are, that have deeper relationships with their clients, all through the power of the book.
Josh Steimle
So if you're not buying the book, how is that agreement structured with the author?
David Hancock
So if you take a magnifying glass and look at our agreement, it really is a printing and distribution agreement. In essence, now we're considered the publisher because of what we do. But the authors retain ownership. That also means the authors can fire us at a time because they own the intellectual property, that means we have to earn the right to stay their publisher. But we also don't ask for first rights refusal on future books, because remember, I said I didn't want to do book two and three with that publisher, because I was set up with them. So we the way we look at it is we have to earn the right to get that next book, we certainly would want it if it's all going well. But you're right. So it's a little bit a little bit different with him owning everything is in us making decisions together. And there are some protections and of course, for both of us, we will want to be the only ones to sell it to bookstores, and but they can do anything they want with it on there. And as long as you don't sell to a bookstore, so it's a little bit unique. But you're right, it is different. And the onus is on us to keep them keep them happy, of course, but we've been blessed.
Josh Steimle
Now there are some, there are some hybrid publishers out there that actually charge the author, they say you're gonna pay us and we're gonna provide services to you, and then we'll publish your book. But yeah, you retain ownership. Obviously, if you're paying advances, you're not also charging them because that would kind of just even things out. But can you explain the landscape, a little bit of hybrid publishers? And because you've already hinted at a few of the differences, but can you explain a little bit more about that landscape and the different types perhaps of hybrid publishers? And where you fit into that?
David Hancock
Yeah, absolutely. So you're right is publishing is interesting. So it's, I can't wait to read the history on publishing as we continue to change it. In fact, one of the things that Fast Company called us, we got there Fast 50 list one year for Fast Company magazine, excuse me, for changing the space over the last 10 years, because there's been so much fun. Because before back in my day, there was only two options, traditional or shelf. And then we kind of came to the market with this really cool blend of the two hybrid, if you will. So then there were three. So now today's there's probably dozens of different ways, because everybody's a little bit different. But typically, a hybrid publisher will ask for some sort of involvement from the author, it could be a fee, it could be requiring them to fund everything. So they give them coaching. They help them produce a great product, but the author pays for it pays for the printing for the bookstore distribution, if there is any or pays for printing so that they can list it on Amazon themselves or something like that. So there's a there's a spread between the different types of hybrid relationships. And then of course, then there's the self published side where you're kind of doing it all on your own. Sometimes you may have some help if you use a company that does what the companies but they get there, they're trying to charge you fees to get the things done that you need. To win the way that we kind of differ in that hybrid space is, as you alluded to, we don't charge any fees for what we do. We really, in essence, are a royalty based publisher. We make money by selling books to bookstores. And that's a good thing because we make a lot of money by selling books to bookstores, but we don't have the services that we offer to packages that we sell and part of that is kind of leaning back to the integrity. Personally publishing a limited number of books, you know, each one on purpose. But I'm always open to talk to authors that are starting their path or, you know, growing their platform, because as long as you're coachable, there's so many things that you can do very strategically that other successful authors are doing to grow your platform. So by the time that book shows up in the bookstores, people care, and you'll cross several bridges, while you do that, you'll cross the bridge of becoming an authority in the space of your of your audience, and cross the golden bridge of earning the right to ask for earning the right to ask permission to buy your book too. But the way that we work is, we do ask three things of our authors. So we don't charge any fees when we services, any packages like that. But if their book is accepted, we do ask a couple things about them. One of them does have a little entrepreneurial skin in the game, and I think you'll probably appreciate it, it says 99.1 100% of our authors are entrepreneurs, they'll probably get it. But it's funny how we came up with it, because our authors, we're doing it anyhow. But what we have to make sure is that with an entrepreneur, because you and I both know that myself included, you know, entrepreneurs are run off to another shiny object real quick, there's an opportunity. So we try to hold their feet to the fire with our relationship, because by the time we bring a book to market, we may have 10 1520 3050 grand or more into the book and we're ready to release it, we can't find the author, we're in trouble. So the three things that we asked them for authors is one is since we're not buying or leveraging, you know, that advanced to take over their intellectual property. And oh, by the way, real quick, just so people wonder. Since we pay such a tiny advance, we do pay like a doubles, royalty and other houses, Entrepreneur Press, Wylie, even Thomas Nelson, we pay about double what they pay. But we do ask them, the first thing that we asked the authors is, since we're not buying or taking over their IP, we're going to ultimately ask them to bring to us a fully edited manuscript, when that's been proof read by a professional and they would be proud of it if the world read it with your name on it. Now, Josh, I'm not stupid, we're going to go through it ourselves, just to make sure we both look good. But our authors are in control of that content. Now, of course, we we prefer clean manuscripts, we don't like profanity, the books will look for things like that, but they're in charge. But we'll certainly helped to add value to the author in the process with making sure that there's key points in the book that make the book very skimmable. We also want to make sure there's ways for the reader to leave the book and go engage with the author, whether it's a free assessment or some upsells, or a course or your seminar or something, because that's where the real value is. But they're in charge of that content. And then the second thing that we asked them, the authors is we really just and I alluded to this before, we really just want them to be coachable. We want to be willing to do the things that successful authors do. And because you could always hire a better editor, right, you can always delete it and start over with a new ghostwriter. But you can't fix an author that's not willing to get out there hustle are not doing it for the right reasons. There's just a plain nucklehead, with all due respect. But we do love working with authors and teaching them when this is what you could do. And this is what you should do. And because even today, we still publish most of the Guerrilla Marketing books. In fact, Jay was like I said, Jay and I became dear friends, he was on our advisory board from the year before we started with the day he died. And I'm still on there, I'm still chairman of their advisory board. And so we're still publishing Guerrilla Marketing books as we love to practice what he preaches what I'm trying to say. So we work with the authors on the things they should do, the things that they could do, and hopefully offer them a guerrilla budget, and also the things that they shouldn't do, because it doesn't work anymore. And long term. So we're really seeking for that. That's the second thing that we asked. And then the last thing that we may ask him to do, we may ask them to commit to buying a small number of books for their own platform. Now, most of the entrepreneurs are doing it anyhow, because they're doing the free plus shipping funnels, like what you've seen before, where people are really leveraging it and sending it out to influencers or selling them at events just like off their website, they're gonna do it anyhow. And I learned that the average author, our average author was buying like 2500 copies book in the first two years. So I said, hey, let's ask them to keep them focus assess them to commit to buying up to 2500 bucks. So books over the life of the contract. I don't care how long it takes, I don't care if they bought 50 books a year over 50 years that satisfies that, that commitment to me. But we don't ask them to pay retail, you know, like Wiley or entrepreneur press did or does for some authors. Nor do we ask them to pay wholesale, which every other publisher does, I think I want them to have affordable access to the books in long term. So they pay us like two bucks over the print cost. So pretty affordable. And to give an example, like my book, performance driven thinking, it's about 200 pages, it's about $1.71 to print and high quality trade paperback, but it's not that expensive. So we want them to have affordable access. Now they can buy more if they want to. And that way our our model is the price drops significantly, and they can buy them as many as they want forever. And like 30% over print costs. So if it costs two bucks to print their prices $2.50 instead of you know $10 if it's a $20 book, and that's just my commitment to make sure they have affordable access to the books, there's a lot of things they can do with the book itself, not only profiting from it but leveraging it. Like I said we have authors that literally give away 100,000 copies a year. books, but there's so we're selling 108,000 bookstores. So they're creating conversation. And these are the things that we like to teach the authors. So those are the three asks that we ask of our authors, if that answer the question.
Josh Steimle
So you mentioned that you have New York Times bestselling authors that you're publishing. So these authors theoretically could get picked up by a McGraw Hill, or HarperCollins, or Penguin or one of these major big publishers. Why would they work with you rather than going and working with the huge publishers? Why does anybody work with the huge publishers?
David Hancock
I know, right? So sometimes it's, it's, it's not in let me just pause. Some of the publishers out there can be really, really good. In fact, we're all imperfect, and we're all good in their own way. So the best path or particular author may be any one of these spaces, and only they would be able to tell you what, you know why they stick with us. But truth be told roughly, right. So in fact that our first number one New York Times bestseller, was an author's second book with us, guy named Brendon Burchard. It was the Millionaire Messenger, we hit number one great story to man, oh, my gosh, wait, number one New York Times, like in the second week, and for like, 60,000 books in that first month, it was like so much fun. But you're right, he ended up getting a huge offer from Free Press assignment history and print, multiple eight figure offer. And he contacted me and said, Oh, my gosh, and I was I was so proud of it was like, dude, take it. There's no reason not to, if they're gonna pay you, you just make sure you kind of maintain as much control as you can. But I'm not going to pay you $2 million to do your next book with us. No, that's just not, you know, we're not there yet. And he did, you know, and he ended up going on, but he's one of our best referral sources, as you can imagine that he had to pick it is always hiccups in, especially in traditional publishing, so I think he's doing more on his own now, but may look at his platform is wonderful. But we've had like two authors who will end up leaving us and the other one end up coming back, because the grass wasn't greener on the other side, but you just never know. But I'm not trying to downplay traditional because it does work for a lot of a lot of authors. But you're right, and that most of them end up coming back and doing a second or third book with us. And I think that's a testament of our early start goal, you know, to add value and stay out of the way.
Josh Steimle
So obviously, you're not paying out $2 million advances to your authors, are there any other reasons that people might want to work with a larger, more established publisher via distribution or any other reason?
David Hancock
So distribution used to be an issue. But today, we're actually distributed by the largest distributor in the nation. In fact, the same distributors, some of the bigger houses actually end up using ourselves. So we happen to be one of their, you know, 600 plus clients. Now we're ranked in the top 20 of their clients, that's good. But we literally have the same sales reps selling to the same, you know, bookstore, and we've got a relationship with the same category buyer at Barnes and Noble in the same category buyer at Amazon. So really, distribution is a level playing field for us now. One thing that we don't do, though, so give me an example, if you want to see your book, five copies deep at every Barnes noble in the country for three weeks, and well, that's a great Entrepreneur Press, or Wiley book. if you want to see that same book for six weeks, then you've got to sell like crazy, because if you don't sell at least 2500 copies, they're gonna move on to the next one. So what we do at our house is that we, you know, compel the bookstore buyers to care, and they'll buy the books based on more of a reality. And we don't pay for placements, we earned the placement, but the distribution is the same. So our copies could be one to three copies per store, or zero in some stores if that particular store doesn't sell well, with that particular type of book, you know, where it's like a Wiley or an Entrepreneur Press and others, you know, may have it in every store five copies deep, doesn't mean they're gonna sell, but pretty much just a level level playing field. And over time, it could be just the ego. I mean, sure, I mean, I, I've always been a huge fan of Houghton Miflin, because they're, you know, they're the publishers, original publishers of Guerrilla Marketing, but you know, they're struggling, like they just announced yesterday that they're selling their trade division. So interesting world. I don't know if I answered the question. But that's an interesting world. So either either the advances, it could be the thing, although the advances are really small nowadays, compared to longer before, the average advance in America is like less than 500 bucks. Strangely, even when you average that multi-millions do that some celebrities get politicians get to the, you know, hundreds of 1000s, it still might get to the zeros that some might get are close to zero as some might get. It's just not quite the same. But if you can, if you can leverage within the restrictions, why not take it?
Josh Steimle
Now what about international distribution, which I know applies to just a small fraction of books. But there might be somebody out there who says Well, I, I want my book to go international and be translated into other languages. Is that something that you can handle just as well as the big guys?
David Hancock
Yeah, absolutely. So it's a great question. So I'm a guerrilla marketer at heart. And you probably can sense that by now. And I think I've mentioned that a couple times, maybe. But my Guerrilla Marketing Training teaches me that the book should be available in any platform, in any version, in anywhere that anybody might want to buy the book. And I feel the same way, whether it's a widget or book, I really think that our responsibility is we've got something good, let's make it available to anybody any way they can get it. So we do have global distribution again, through with it, we're distributed the nation's largest distributor in North America, and the second largest distributor globally. So we do produce the English language book in distributed abroad. So we actually do have sales reps and warehousing in printing in the UK, with that printing and sales reps in Eastern Europe, we do it in Australia, we also do it in India, also the English language version. So we've got great coverage. In fact, it's typically you know, us is our biggest market, you know, Canada in the UK, also will tie with your second or third is and everybody else, you know, buys a book. But one of our secret little divisions that, you know, we don't really talk about that lot. And you don't necessarily see it on our website, except for one little line down down at the bottom, we can show you our top grossing foreign translated books, but we do have a very aggressive foreign rights division, managed by the nation's largest foreign rights agency. So every book, we publish, we pitch to the foreign press, the foreign publishers, and we've got existing relationships with them. Now, you know, this is probably close to 15 years in the making, maybe 14, or something like that. But we'll pitch books, and we've got relationships for like . . . . in the UK, where they do the Anglican English versions, or, you know, Random House in Germany, or some really strange names that I can't pronounce in the Asian market. But it's a big, big, big part, we strive to try to get something for each one of our authors, if relevant, you know, abroad. And generally, if we get that first one, then the second, the third, and the fourth come pretty easy. And some of our authors have earned well over a quarter million dollars to further countries than we know, even in the States, and it's been fun to watch. But yeah, so yeah, that's something else that we do we do really well, just like some of the other houses.
Josh Steimle
Okay. Yeah. It's just, it's so interesting to I feel like we could go on for about three more hours asking questions there. But the last thing I want to focus on is flipping it around and talking about what you do versus self-publishing. So one of the other people we interviewed for the podcast, Jeff Butler, he told us a story about how he turned down a publishing deal from Wiley that they chased him for he didn't go to them, they came to him and said, hey, you're popular speaker, you're doing 60 events a year. Why don't you publish a book with us? And then you can sell it at the events, and we'll be your publisher? And he said, Well, if I'm going to do all the selling, why should I be working with you? He had already self-published two books. He said, I know how to write a book, I know how to publish it. I know how to get it edited. I can get it printed. And then you're already telling me that I'm going to going to be doing all the selling of the book. So why don't I just self-publish the book again? Why would I give you 80% of it? Now, if you were talking to Jeff, would you have a case to make to say, hey, you really should work with us? And here's what we can bring to the table? Or would you say, yeah, if you can already do all that. Just go ahead and self-publish it? What would be your pitch to Jeff?
David Hancock
So that is a great, great question. So it's really about the credibility, which may not be important to Jeff. But having that third-party validation can make a big difference, especially for some of the audience not all, because not everybody paid. to my chagrin, though not everybody cares about the publisher dynamic. But media does. So one aspect of a traditional house or a recognized name is media doesn't have time to vet all the self-publish authors, they really leverage using more traditionally published authors being interviewed in media and quoted in papers and things like that, because they've already known that there's a publisher that better the author and the content. And this is the authority in the space. And this is the right person saying it. And the other is really distribution really. So granted yeah, sure. He could sell a whole bunch of books and should. And you're right, no matter how you publish a book today, even from Morgan, James, even from Wiley, even from Random, some Random House or anybody, it will fall on our shoulders as authors to really motivate the masses to buy the book. And that's not hidden at all anymore. Like it used to be. It does fall in the author's shoulders to move the book. So yeah, why? Why do I need a publisher? So for us, it's about distribution. And again, we've earned it over the years, but I'll give you a great example. You know, when you self-publish your primary audience is your own audience, which will always be there no matter how you publish a book. And Amazon, Amazon tends to be the largest seller of self-published books, for many reasons, some obvious, but for publishing our self included, you know, Amazon certainly is our largest client, they're typically any publishers, large client, but they're not our only client. And they represent really a small percentage of our print sales. In fact, before COVID, they were about 26% of our print sales. So immediately that means 74% of our books were sold someplace else. That wasn't Amazon in the bulk of that was brick and mortar bookstores. So theoretically, everything being equal, you say, Jeff, or John was John, Jeff, it was Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. So the all things equal, everything doing the exact same thing. Just having 74% more availability of your book could increase your sales by 74%. So you're leaving a big piece of the pie on the table. But also give an example on ebook, you know, certainly Kindles the, you know, the godfather of ebooks, but only 51% of our ebook sales, we distribute to over 1800 different platforms, including the blockchain, which I don't really fully understand. But that's okay. I don't have to. But clearly Kindles only 51% there's a big disparity difference between, you know, the availability of a traditionally published book and the availability of a self-published book. So Jeff may have made the wrong answer. But truth be told, if he's happy, why bother. But it could be happier, maybe with a traditional house, if you can work within their restrictions or work with a hybrid, something like Morgan James authors, we can have the best of both worlds. And then of course, the other obvious answers is typically a self-published author can't get the attention of foreign publishers. So you'd leave all that money on the table, things like that. But hopefully, that makes sense.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, yep. No, this is great. I'm glad you've been able to come on and answer some of these burning questions that I've had. And I know a lot of our listeners have as well. David, thank you so much for being on the show with us here today. Where can listeners find out more about you and about Morgan James publishing?
David Hancock
Well, Josh has been such a privilege. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. And always a great wealth of information, some useless some great, but I'm easily discoverable. So you can always go to Morgan James Publishing.com. You can find us on Twitter at Morgan James pub, or me David Hancock. Really any anywhere where there but there's the primary spot, happy to talk to anybody.
Josh Steimle
Great. Thank you so much, David, for being with us here today.
David Hancock
Absolutely. Thank you.
Josh Steimle
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