Entrepreneur Who Helps Investors On How He Wrote Best Selling, Five-Star book
Warren Tuttle’s life changed forever when an inventor called Tom Rishe, developer of the Misto olive oil sprayer, came into his gourmet store in late 1998.
Warren owned a group of stores called The Complete Kitchen in and around Connecticut and was already successful. But Tom was about to open a new chapter for Warren. He sold the stores and moved into inventing.
Warren isn’t an inventor though. He calls himself an innovator, and helps inventors—and also dreamers, makers, and product developers—take their products to market. And in the US, there are plenty of people who want Warren’s assistance.
PROFITABLE INVENTING
Warren’s been so successful in the world of inventing, he’s just published Inventor Confidential: The Honest Guide to Profitable Inventing, a book that clearly and safely lays out the path to monetizing your invention.
He tells Published Author show host Josh Steimle that many of the inventors he works with have day jobs and are inventing on the site. “But I also help professionals who have businesses and design firms and so forth. I help a number of larger companies
LONG-TERM CONTACTS, NETWORKING GROW NEW VENTURE
Warren embraced the open innovation approach to inventing and this proved to be key in growing his business. Years ago, he’d worked as a buyer for a large department store in New York City. He kept those relationships close and they paid off well when he began working with inventors. He also went to trade shows and was able to win big clients such as Lifetime Brands—the largest housewares company in the US.
Other clients include TTI Techtronic, the power tools manufacturer, and a direct response television company. In his book, Warren describes at length how he merged inventors with these large companies.
Networking was an important part of Warren’s strategy, too. He says: “I joined a local inventor club, and got very involved with meeting these people that I didn't know a lot about.”
REACHING THE NATIONAL STAGE OF THE WORLD OF INVENTING
Eventually, Warren reached the national stage. He became the president of the United Inventors Association, which is the largest nonprofit inventor group in the US. Both Warren and the association try to educate inventors for free, and advocate for them in Washington, DC.
Warren believes it was the combined knowledge of what he learned from helping companies and inventors, along with the nonprofit work, that brought him into touch with thousands of inventors and companies.
His success was significant, and helped many others, too. “I brought many products to market,” he says, adding that he helped license more than a hundred products that have generated over a billion dollars in sales.
“This whole cumulative effort brought me to a pretty prominent place in the industry. I'm pretty well known within this little world, this little tiny little world.”
‘YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK’
Warren’s knowledge was so invaluable that people keep saying “You should write a book.” But Warren said no, citing his busy schedule.
Eventually, an inventor who also happened to help people write books persuaded him to start that book. Jeff Mangus, Warren’s co-author, helped Warren get his words on paper. And like many writers in the past year, the pandemic provided a silver lining.
Says Warren: “We spent countless hours a lot of it during COVID. We did a lot of it virtually, which was really interesting.”
INSPIRING CONFIDENCE
More important than anything else was Jeff's confidence in Warren.
“Jeff was continually reminding me that I had something to say, being really patient with me. Once you make the decision that you're going to do it, then you have to go all in. And Jeff was invaluable in being an earpiece, questioning me on things, researching certain things.
But I will tell you that we all have our own writing style within us. So at the end of the day, I had to also make sure that the book reflected everything that I wanted it to do.
Warren says that writing his book was a fascinating journey, and one that he would recommend. But it’s a lot of work!
In this episode, Warren discusses:
His writing process
The publishing deal with Harper Collins, and why he chose it over other publishers
Why you can’t write a book in a few months
The Amazon review process
What book promotion tactics work really well
Learn more: If you appreciated this episode, listen to:
Don't Bother With PR. Do This Instead
And:
First-Time Author Gets Deal With McGraw Hill, Writes Bestseller
LINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle:
Today, my guest is Warren Tuttle. Warren helps innovators take their products to market, and he's the author of the newly released Inventor Confidential: The Honest Guide to Profitable Inventing. Warren, welcome to the show.
Warren Tuttle:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Josh Steimle:
Thanks for being here. Now give us a little bit of background. What do you do and who do you do it for? What's your business?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, the single line answer is I help inventors, innovators, makers, dreamers, product developers, get their products to market. And you might be surprised at how many folks are out there in America that are trying to do this. Most of them have day jobs that are doing on the side, but I also help professionals who have businesses and design firms and so forth. And basically I help a number of larger companies. I run what we call open innovation programs. So, that's kind of the end of the movie. That's where I am today. Helping inventors get their products to market through established companies.
Josh Steimle:
Well, give us a little bit of the earlier story there. The beginning of the movie, how did you get started in this? How did you get into this?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, I always like to say, I start with Lawrence of Arabia with the motorcycle crash at the end, and then we go back to the beginning. But I actually, many years ago after I got out of college and in the book, I describe a lot of, so I had a lot of my own businesses in high school and college. I was an entrepreneur, you know, with lawn mowing and snow plowing and, you know, window washing and every business you can imagine. When I came out of college, I went to work for a department store in New York City called Abraham & Straus, which doesn't exist anymore, but it was a big store back in the end of the day with a great training program. And their lure was, you know, come work for us, run your own business. And A&S like many stores like Macy's today had about 150 departments and ended up becoming a buyer for one of the departments, which happened to be in housewares. I came up through the cookware ranks and then became an electric supplier. So, after six or seven years of that in the city, and I wasn't, I didn't love the city. I moved back to Connecticut where I was from, and I started a collection stores, which ended up being called the complete kitchen in the good food store. And I go through that in a bit in the book I had about 65 employees at my peak. I had eight different stores and locations. Some of them were combined locations, but we were really sort of a Williams-Sonoma upscale, you know, a cookware store, very chic in the day. And then I had a cooking school, which was nationally renowned. We had Julia Child and many famous people came to teach for us. This was before food network. And then we did prepare foods and catering. And Food & Wine Magazine once described as this is the number one top gourmet store in America. So, I use sort of my background in retailing to develop this retail operation. I did that for 19 years. And one day an inventor walked in my store with a product called Misto. You can see it through Alvin and olive oil.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, we’ve got one of those.
Warren Tuttle:
Yeah, my life changed forever. And I ended up selling the stores and helping vendors after that.
Josh Steimle:
Oh, that's great. So then how did this lead to open innovation, in this open innovation in organization? Is it how does that work?
Warren Tuttle:
Good question. Open innovation is really a term coined by a Berkeley business school professor to describe for businesses, the looking outside of their four walls for new products. So, back in my day, when I was a youth, you know, when Procter & Gamble for instance is sort of the target, you know, the poster company, they had products like tide and Charmin and all these, you know, sort of, and the big thing back when I was a kid, was everything had a secret sauce, a secret recipe, everything was developed in house. It was all proprietary, it was all their brand. And then a guy came along in the late 1970s named AG Lafley. And he said, why the heck are we doing this? Why don't we reach outside the company for new ideas? And they started getting ideas and products submitted to them by their customers by inventors and so forth. And they started really what became sort of the adjunct to this whole professor's book about open innovation of reaching outside and using others to develop products. And today it's my understanding that half the new products that come from Procter & Gamble come from outside the company. So, that was the beginning of it not every company practices it, but what led to me is, as I had, you know, a couple of hit products besides Misto, and I had a huge failure, which I talk about a lot in the book, lost a lot of money as well. And but I kept close relationships from my days as a buyer in New York City and from my going to trade shows and everything relationships with many of the big housewares companies. And I knew the management at a company called Lifetime Brands, which is the largest housewares company in the US, they're a publicly traded company under LCUT on the NASDAQ. They have about 40,000 products and 45 brand names like they own Farberware and brand names, so forth. And so when I was talking with them one day and they were asking me how things were going with inventors, they asked me if I might, they'd read about this open innovation platform and wondered if I could come in and help them build one. And that's where I got started first with Lifetime. And then eventually after many years, I helped a company called TTI Techtronic industries do with the power tools, there will be rigid power tools. And then I also help a direct response television company. So, that's about as many companies as I can handle right now. But I basically in the book describe at length how I basically merge in vendors with these large companies.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. So, what was the inspiration for the book? Why did you write it?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, let me just add one more little thing, because I think little it'll dovetail nicely. The flip side of my whole experience was getting to know more inventors. I joined a local inventor club here in Connecticut where I live, and got very involved with meeting these people that I didn't know a lot about and then eventually I got on the national stage and I became the President of the United Inventors Association, which is the largest nonprofit inventor group in the country. We both, we try to educate inventors for free. And we also advocate for them in Washington, DC. So, I started spending a lot of my time on these issues. So, I think it was that combined knowledge of what I learned from help big companies, helping inventors doing the nonprofit work that brought me into touch with tens of thousands of inventors, companies, I brought many products to market, I helped license over 100 products that have generated over a billion dollars in sales. And so this whole cumulative effort brought me to a pretty prominent place in the industry. I'm pretty well known within this little world, this little tiny little world. And I had many people ask me over the years, why don't you write a book? And I gave the usual answer. I'm too busy living life and doing what I'm doing to write a book, I really don't have time. But I had one particular friend, Jeff Mangus, who is an inventor who came to me with many products. And he actually helps people write books and stuff. And he kept saying, you got to write a book. So, for years, I told him, no. And then finally, he wore me down. So, this whole thing is entirely Jeff’s fault.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. Now, how did you finally make that break? Because you were mentioning before the show that you had some help writing the book? Is that what actually made it possible for you to get it done?
Warren Tuttle:
No question about it. It was, Jeff and I have a wonderful relationship. And, you know, I don't think it's a typical relationship. But who knows, I don't know what a typical relationship is, I suppose in life, no one with any of their partners has a typical relationship. But mine is unique. And that I was responsible, really, for every word in the book. Jeff helped me put it down on paper, I wrote, rewrote, we spent countless hours a lot of it during COVID. So, we did a lot of it, like you and I are doing right now, virtually, which is really interesting. I mean, we spend hours at a time. But basically more important than that way more important than that to me was Jeff's confidence in me, is continually reminding me that I had something to say, being really patient with me, I'm a person that responds very well to that I'm self-motivated. And once we want, you know, I think the big thing for people making this decision is, you know, once you make the decision that you're going to do it, then you have to go all in. And Jeff was invaluable in being an earpiece, questioning me on things, researching certain things. But I will tell you that we all have our own writing style within us. So, at the end of the day, I had to also make sure that the book reflected everything that I wanted to do, but it was a fascinating journey. And one that I would recommend, but it's a lot of work.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. Now, you the book just came out in March, right?
Warren Tuttle:
Yes, in March.
Josh Steimle:
We are recording this in June of 2021. So, it's just been out for a few months. When did you start working on the book? How long did the whole process take?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, I would say two years in full, although because of COVID, the book was moved back about six months. So, I think it could have happened in 18 months. But to give people a rough timeline, I don't think you're going to pull this off in a couple of months. You know, I think it takes now maybe some people are more dedicated. I was also doing, you know, other work at the time. But you know, it was, it took, it took, well, someone asked me once question, you know, can you describe, you know, that what it took and I said, it's like remodeling your kitchen, it always takes twice as long or twice as expensive as it ever possibly could be. So, I didn't make light of it going into it. I took it very seriously, but it still was more work than I thought.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. Now you got a publishing deal with HarperCollins. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about?
Warren Tuttle:
Yeah. Which is wonderful. And they're terrific people. I'm so honored to be part of that. But basically, Jeff said in the beginning, let's write a book and let's not worry about how we get it out, we can self-publish. And mainly, I think maybe to double back for a second. I think the reason maybe I was ready then was because I felt confident enough in my abilities and my knowledge, and I had a viewpoint on inventing and helping inventors that was much different than anyone else in the industry or any other book that was ever written. So, I had to sort of convince myself that if I'm going to put this time and effort in, is it just going to be an also ran book? Or is it going to be something unique? And I finally came to that conclusion. But then once Jeff started helping me with the book, it became, what do I want to cover? You know, he kept saying in the beginning, tell your story. So, I went down the path of telling my story, which the book certainly does, it tells my story. But I get away from that pretty quickly, I spent the beginning parts, explaining like I'm doing today, how I got involved in it, but I wanted to make it a bigger platform. So, once we started going down that path, I realized, Oh, my God, we better tell a bigger story. And this book could have a bigger impact. So, I started checking around with other friends that have written books and other, you know, reading, like you did have done in researching things. And this determine that, you know, this may be more than a self-publishing effort. And someone recommended an agent to me, who happened to live nearby in Connecticut, and I met with them. And they were very supportive. And so they became very helpful. Gary Krebs very helpful in guiding me while I'm writing the book with Jeff, through a lot of the business parts. And ironically, and you'll love this, it was very similar to the help that I give inventors. You know, inventors develop products, they want to get to market, I advise them on how to do that. And I have a lot of experience, same thing. Gary knows, he actually, you know, work for some big book companies and publishing houses. And he was advising me on how to go about doing, so he helped guide me through laying out a proposal, we ended up following his advice to the nth degree, which we had to lay out a lot of things. And then we presented to about 30 book companies. And we got about five serious inquiries and a couple of offers. And I was about ready to sign with one, and HarperCollins came out of the blue at the end, and they were by far the largest and were really terrific to work with. So, that's sort of what happened there.
Josh Steimle:
That's great that you had multiple offers.
Warren Tuttle:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say I have a ton of them. But I had a couple of people, you know, a couple of entrepreneurial oriented publishing companies, which would have been great.
Josh Steimle:
So, other than HarperCollins being one of the largest, what was, why did you choose them over the others?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, interestingly enough. Well, I think a number of reasons. First of all, you know, I was very familiar with a lot of their books and authors. For instance, you know, Malcolm Gladwell and others, you know, and I've read all his books. So, just as a human being, you know, I was, it fascinated me, they had a whole division dedicated to helping people, which I thought was cool. But probably most importantly, the guy responsible was terrific. He also lives in Connecticut of all places, ended up meeting with him, he ended up being terrific, their offer was substantial. And I don't know, it just seemed to fit like a glove from the beginning. So, I don't know that it's, you know, if you, it's necessary to have one particular publisher, there's many ways to go to market, but I just felt very comfortable. And then they had someone work with me on PR and how to do things and we're very open to suggestions and edits and things that we went through. And then eventually, when I actually did the reading for the book, which took four days, you know, they're very supportive on that end too, although I didn't get paid for it. But the whole thing seemed to fit well, but I think I would highly recommend them, but I don't I think they're pretty selective. I just for whatever came up on their radar, but I think there's many, many other great companies out there.
Josh Steimle:
Gotcha. Well, yeah, writing a book kind of is, I suspect, similar to the inventing process, isn't it? I mean, you're essentially inventing a new product that's never been created before.
Warren Tuttle:
That's exactly right. It's very creative. You know, inventors are actually very creative. I mean, we think of them as engineers and they are a lot of them, but they're also like songwriters or musicians or authors or artists, you know, they're creating something unique. One of the things that, you know, I explained the book is how to protect that uniqueness has a leverage that you need this, most of them don't have a clue, you know, how to the business side of getting to market and that's where I come in to help them. But exactly the same on the book is like, I've learned so much on the book front, and I've tried to help other people, you know, expectations how to, by the way, right down to selling on Amazon and the review process. I've been very fortunate now to get the bulk. I've had 67 reviews and like all but five or five stars, which are wonderful. I'm really making a difference on some people's lives who have written, but I have five one star reviews, which were planted by people with fictitious names that are offended by some things I wrote because I call out people in the book. And so I've made some upsets some people on the way too. And I noticed as I go through other book reviews, it seems like the same thing happened in the whole public review process. It's very painful. When you spend a couple of years on a book and you write from your heart, and then someone without a real name, you know, purposely comes, doesn't read it and just attacks. But you have to get through all these things. It's a big boy business, and you know, it's all part of it.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah, that's the way we're built though, right? We can get 100 positive reviews, but we're going to look at the one negative one and say, oh, man, that's the one that's going to eat at us.
Warren Tuttle:
Well, you know what, here's your, first of all you're right, 100%. But the reason I think I'm so sensitive to is if it was a real review and it reflected them reading the book. And they look, it's not a perfect book, and they had legitimate, you know, things that they call them. And but having them and then use their real name, you know, I have absolutely no problem with that. But these are specific hit jobs meant to be mean, you know, it's one thing if someone, you know, kids drive by your house and take a bat to your mailbox, have you had that happen before, you know, you kind of pick it up and rebuild the mailbox. But when someone breaks into your house and steal stuff, it's a different thing. So, it becomes very personal and the book becomes, you know, highly, as you well know, it becomes highly personal to you. So, we tend to a lot of things, I did not bother me in rubber. But these sort of, you know, you just it's not so much what they said, it's just why are they doing that? And why are they, you know, I would never do that to other people. And I'm pretty sure I know who did it too. So, but it's, but having said that, the review process has been wonderful. The support process has been wonderful. And I have to say that it's been, I think it's going to be something I'm going to be very happy later in life looking back and having done.
Josh Steimle:
Have you reached out to Amazon or flagged those reviews as, I mean, they are not really legitimate reviews?
Warren Tuttle:
They aren't and they give me an opportunity to Amazon to put either helpful or report it. So, I've gone through that process, but it doesn't seem to know about. Interestingly enough and the second thing was, I knew it was a coordinated effort, because then in a coordinated fashion, they all got on in and hit helpful on the bad reviews. And, you know, it's weird as I started to go through some of the review process, a lot of books, you know, have a lot of wonderful reviews, but only four or five people hit helpful. There's like 35 people hit out, you know, on the bad reviews, and then I had to go out and get all my friends who helpful, otherwise those ratings go to the top of the page. So, there is the whole I don't want to dwell on it too much. Because to your point, it's a small part of all this thing, but I only mentioned it because once you go public and put it out then, you know, you're no longer a private citizen anymore and you have to get used to the tunnel till I say, of the of the marketplace.
Josh Steimle:
You have to develop something of a thick skin.
Warren Tuttle:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Josh Steimle:
So, take us through the process of writing the book a little bit more. Were there parts that were easy for you to write? Were there parts that were more difficult? Did you ever get hung up at any point and have to struggle to figure out what was the sticking point and breakthrough that?
Warren Tuttle:
Yes. So, I think the best way to describe it is, you know, the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I don't know if you've ever read about him or studied him. But he wants his most famous house, which was like the Roaring Brook, you know, in Pennsylvania. The person who paid him in advance to build the house, showed up in his office like after two years. And he had done no work on it. And all his assistants were sitting around wondering what he was going to say when this guy showed up out of the blue. And basically, he laid out the whole house to him. And afterwards, everybody said, you know, Frank, how did, how did you do that? How did you think of it this way? Since I've had the house in my head the whole time, it just took me a little while to get it, you know, out on paper. And I was saying the same thing for me. Everything is in my head. So, it was a matter of getting myself to the confidence level that I felt I could tell it. But then the hard part is how do you get it out in a meaningful way, I started laying out chapters and the book has 18 chapters. And what I would do with Jeff is talk about what I wanted to go over, but it was hard to divide it into like storylines and separate chapters. And that's probably what I had the hardest time with because I tend to be very visual. When I was a kid, I had a lot of energy. I was easily distracted. I wasn't great at reading. I read a lot today. But when I was a child, I was always looking out the window not paying attention. And the same thing started happening with the book. My mind was racing all over the place and trying to get it all done at once. So, I had to finally settle down and say let's do this in pieces. Let's divide, I didn't have 18 chapter specifically in mind, but let's lay it out by chapter. And then here's probably one of the great things I did, I don't know if this helped other people, but I got these big three by three foot by five foot or three by four foot three and post-it notes, you know, the gigantic post-it notes, and I got myself a big Sharpie, you know, and I laid these post-it notes all around my living room and dining room in the house. And I sat in the center, and I started with one, I go chapter one, you know, developing your product, you know, chapter two, you know, how to get a patent chapter and what I did was over weeks, I wrote them all out, wrote the storyline, move them around the room change chapters, until one day I finally found in the center of the room three dimensionally I have this whole thing figured out. And then I was able to go back with Jeff, one chapter at a time. And then what we would do is we would spend a couple hours talking about the chapter, we lay out the notes, I'd outline it, you know, he filled in some of the blanks, and then I'd rewrite it. And we wouldn't move on to the second chapter, until I got the first chapter, you know, written to the degree that I was happy with it now don't, you know, at the end came back and read, you know, did another sweep and, but this way, I was able to get the book done sequentially made changes along the way, and sort of army it my way through it. It worked for me, I don't know if it worked for the others, but for people who have distracted, you know, see things three dimensionally. It was a big help for me to do it that way.
Josh Steimle:
Well, that's great to get insight into that process. I know that it'll be helpful for some of the people that are listening to this. So, at this point, when you're doing the outlining, did you already have the book deal with HarperCollins? Or did that come later?
Warren Tuttle:
Came later, came during in parallel, basically, but yes, came during. So, we started with, let's get, you know, it's funny, the first two chapters we wrote, and they're all about me, you know, and you'll see in the book, I do go back. And I think it's important to lay out who I am. So, I build some credibility. But it became I realized it became too much about me. And so that's when we started to shift and say, you know, maybe there's a bigger arena out here, maybe we should find a publisher. And so as we were writing the book, I started these other talks and negotiations. So, the book had yet to be written. But I kind of had a like as I said before a clear view now of, you know, was just a matter of getting it done. And then enable me to have, I think much more, I think by having written a couple of chapters and having a clear direction, a better conversation with my agent and with book companies, so that they can see the vision, it was very easy for me to then write a synopsis of what it was going to be, and lay it out, because you got to write out these proposals. I think if I hadn't written anything, or done any work would have been very hard to describe where the book was going. But it ended up becoming pretty accurate. And it ended up solidifying what I knew I had to do to come back. So, these things happened in parallel, and probably took about six months to get the deal. And then I had to continue. Now I was sending them some chapters, they were looking at things, but I still have a lot to write. And then there was benchmarks put in place of when I had to have certain things to them at certain times in order to complete my obligation the book, obviously, we signed the contract, so we had to do this, but it worked, I would say in tandem, which was interesting.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. So, what other support to the publisher provide? I mean, they did editing, they did other things? What were some of the most helpful things that they provided for you?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, I'm going to tell a funny story first, because when we met with the, when we met with the representative, the publisher, you know, who is a big deal. My agent told me, right before he came in, we met for pizza at a restaurant. And he said, right before he came in, he goes, whatever you do, and I'm listening, I guess whatever you do, don't say anything about the company. They'll pick the company. So, we had this whole meeting of the lunch meeting at the end of the meeting, I go, I just have one more thing before we put it, we signed this deal. And the guy like looks and like what's that? I want to have full, full control of the company. And my agent almost got, shared I did it just as a group. So, the guy looks at me like, I don't I could care less. But it does lead to the answer to your question, which is there are certain things that they have control. And they have control over the cover. I did have input by the way they wanted to put a light bulb I said absolutely not. Absolutely not. We're not putting a light bulb. Everybody is a light bulb. They said, what should we use? I said, an AC DC type of lightning bulb would be what I would prefer. So, as you can see, I got a little bit in there. But having said that, they have a lot of control over the release date. Okay. And I found myself being pushed off, mostly because of COVID very legitimate, but also, you know, they had some constraints. And so the book probably came out six months later than I had hoped. But that's part of what you, you know, that's part of the part and parcel of the project. They were very helpful in editing.
Josh Steimle:
Okay. So, the last part that I heard was that you were talking about the cover and saying I think the word partial does something.
Warren Tuttle:
Well, so where they were, they had a lot of control over, you know, the cover, the launch, the type of book it is, and, you know, physically and so forth. Where they were a big help is they, in the editing process, they use several different editors to go through, went through that process multiple times in order to make sure the book was really sort of finished properly. They were very helpful on the PR front, they had a person dedicated to us, I'm sure she was helping many other people, but available, many, many zoom meetings, to things that we could do to help get the word out. I was a little surprised about how much effort I put in to helping get the book out there, which is by doing interviews like these, but many, many others. And, of course, it was all during COVID. So, I save a lot of airfare, not having to travel the places but did it, did a lot of interviews, and what we have inventor clubs around the country. A lot of, I've done a lot of social media marketing, but there was a lot of guidance from them on how to do various things. They were also very helpful in sending out, I had 110 people that I want to send books to they were influencers, they were great in getting those books out and telling people how to post and so forth. And just a really nice people to work with. So, overall a very positive experience. But as I said, I'm sure that no matter who your publisher is, or even if you're self-published, you'll develop your own strategy and will work.
Josh Steimle:
Is there one thing that worked the best in terms of getting the word out about your book?
Warren Tuttle:
That's a really good question. I would definitely say that sending out books to influencers was really helpful. That helped me get a lot of positive reviews, and a lot of positive social media press. I would say social media marketing is very important. Now, my youngest daughter helps me with that. She does it professionally. She works in New York City and she does marketing social media stuff for coming, so she was doing on the side. So, I had somebody who's quite adept at it. But you know, be at LinkedIn or Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, very, very important to get that out repeatedly. That drove a lot of conversation and views. And we're still doing it now. Now, I guess, keep switching from interviews. Now I'm doing videos. And pretty soon I'm going to do free coaching classes, and we're going to continue that process. In my world, we have about 50 or 60 good inventor clubs across the country. And I've probably spoken about 30 of them, which represented many thousands of inventors. I also got a lot of endorsements, top flight endorsements, I have W Chan Kim, who wrote the book Blue Ocean Strategy, which is one of the bestselling business books in history of the world. I've known Chan for a while, he was polite enough, I have the President of Home Depot Ted Decker, that's big. I have the former director of the patent office. So, I have a lot of influential people that I reached out to, to that I leveraged off of, and then eventually I also, you know, besides my own connections, I have about 7,500 emails on my list. And I ended up sending an email out to everyone on my list, which was great, I got hundreds of wonderful responses and people saying they would buy the book. I did get four nasty ones of people like eight, nine years ago that I guess like didn't have success getting their product to market and they were still bitter about those again, once again, you think of all the ones that, you know, when arrived, but before it's, I've helped a lot of people it's been good. So, all those things came together to help me and then I leveraged off other people, other friends, sharing the social media feeds, other good companies that help inventors get the word out through posts and articles and all that. So, it's sort of never ending, you know, getting the word out to the point where the book sort of takes for itself. But it's well, where the, especially for me was the how to book where you need to really, you know, sort of get out through influencers to people who support you and find you credible and support your credibility.
Josh Steimle:
When you started the book, did you have a firm definition of what success would look like? Dream for the book? Did that change over time? And then has that been achieved?
Warren Tuttle:
Very excellent question, because I just did a video last week, what does success look like for inventors? And you'd be surprised how there's a lot of people in entities that take advantage of inventors, they charge them a lot of money, I don't charge. That's one of the reasons I piss people off in the book because I call out a lot of these people, but they don't have a view of what success looks like and quite frankly I never put any pressure on myself to sell a certain number of books. My book was written holistically from how can I help people? How can I share what I've learned and the good feeling and vibes of doing that? For me, at my age, it's more of a platform and a give back and a legacy sort of thing, so I never put any pressure. For people who want to sell a certain quantity, they put a lot more pressure on themselves. I'm learning from all that I've learned and let you know, you never know, it's just like an invention. You never know. Look, my book is pretty niche, you know, so just like an invention, if it's too niche, it's not going to sell a lot of units. So, I wouldn't put my book up against a wonderful spy novel, you know, or something that's a real life story or something, you know, that really has human interest in a lot of levels, or a political book written by Barack Obama or something that people have incredible interest in. Mine is really neat. So, I have to be realistic. I don't know exactly how I’m going to sold, I know, I've known they'd shipped out, you know, over 5,000 books. You know, I know from the reviews, you know, I've sold a bunch, is it a couple thousand, I don't know. But I'm not putting too much pressure on myself, I have been sort of the new release number one in a couple of categories, which is great. But honestly, for me success, it was a little bit like running the marathon it was finishing, and doing the best I could, and telling myself I could do it. But more importantly for me probably in this arena, if I get 10 people that say that the book helped them save the money and give them a better path and understand of getting to mark, I'll be very happy with it.
Josh Steimle:
Got you. That's great. Well, as we wrap things up, are there any final words of advice that you could give to other entrepreneurs out there who are thinking about writing a book, but they haven't started yet? What tips or advice would you give them based on the experience you've been through?
Warren Tutttle:
Well, I would say, you know, when discussing a little bit, I would say is the path you're on or what you want to describe or your vision unique. And, you know, look, your book could be describing others, and you can bring them into your book. And in that case, you're a real writer, and you're writing about other people's experience. But if you're writing about your own experience, like I did, you really have to put it through the prism of do I have a unique vision? Do I have something to offer? Is this worth it? Because you're going to, as you all know, Josh, I'm sure, you're going to take yourself down to the metal, and you're going to be looking at yourself very introspectively. And you're going to learn a lot about yourself. So, before you set off in your path, and fully, you know, get involved, are you doing this for the right reasons? if you're just writing a book to sell books, or maybe you want to coach other people, or you want to somehow leverage the book into a business, that's a certain approach that, you know, I suppose that might work for you. And, but if you're really trying to tell your story entrepreneurially and have a vision for and I do have a vision of what innovation should look like in America, and a bigger view. And I get into this a lot in the book. I think, I think then you're a little bit more ready. And I think what happens is maybe because I spent a career more time, I have a little bit more of that vision. And so I would just put yourself through your own paces there and, and convince yourself that you're right. And otherwise, if you want to just make money and write how to books or how to market or how to do this, or how to do that. Well, that's a whole different story. So, I can't answer that for individuals. But for me, and if you really want to write a book about your experiences, just make sure it's novel and you are ready.
Josh Steimle:
Perfect. Well, thanks so much Warren for being with us here on the show today, if people want to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Warren Tuttle:
Well, I do have an email at wwtuttle@yahoo.com. I do have a website called Tuttle Innovation where I talk about my programs and my open innovation programs and my work with Blue Ocean Strategy, and some other nonprofit things. I'm on many nonprofit conditions and so forth. So, that's tuttleinnovation.com. And then if they want to look at more about the book, it's inventorconfidential.com. So, any of those ways would be great. And I always get back to people. It may take me a couple of days, but if you write me, I'll always get back to you.
Josh Steimle:
Great. Thanks so much, Warren for being a guest here on the Published Author Podcast today.
Warren Tuttle:
Hey, my pleasure. Thank you.
Josh Steimle:
All right, cut. That was great. Thank you so much.
Warren Tuttle:
Good Josh. Well, thank you. That was, that was fun and very therapeutic. So thank you.
Josh Steimle:
Glad you're able to get some relief there.
Warren Tuttle:
Well let me know when it comes out, you know, and I'll post it and I’ll get the word out.
Josh Steimle:
Yeah. So, it'll come out within the next two to three weeks. And I'll send you an email when it comes out, also includes some swipe copy, some social media graphics. If you're willing to share it with your audience, we super appreciate that. There's no obligation, but we appreciate it if you're willing to share it.
Warren Tuttle:
Yeah.
Josh Steimle:
And, yeah, we'll be in touch then.
Warren Tuttle:
We absolutely will. We'll get it out there. So, my daughter's really good at this stuff. Someone asked me once, how do you run a social media campaign? And they said, you have a daughter. She grows up, and then you hire her.
Josh Steimle:
Awesome.
Warren Tuttle:
All right.
Josh Steimle:
All right, great. Thanks so much Warren, have a great day. Bye-bye.
