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# 📚 Anatomy of a Book Launch (Without Social Media) — with Jessica Lackey
- URL: https://offthegrid.ghost.io/anatomy-of-a-book-launch-without/
- Published: 2025-10-07T10:01:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-15T22:22:04.000Z
- Description: Two small business owners tell you about the first week of their book launches
- Author: Amelia Hruby, PhD
- Tags: Podcast, #Migrated-1784129708849, #Import 2026-07-15 10:39, Free Posts

Last week I launched my new book! And it’s been a whirlwind of emotions, sales, excitement, and stress since then. 🌪️

In this episode, I walk you through everything I planned for my launch, including — what strategies worked, what realities didn’t, and exactly how many books I’ve sold in one week.

To share all that, I’m joined by my fave biz coach [Jessica Lackey](https://open.substack.com/users/3967318), who is also launching a book right now!

Together we’re giving you two behind-the-scenes views into self-publishing, including super transparent numbers on our audience sizes and book sales. 👀

We also get into pricing strategies, long-term marketing, and the messy feelings that come up when you can see who exactly has bought your book (and who has not). 😵‍💫

Anatomy of a Book Launch — with Jessica Lackey

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![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/44/9a/449ad1a5-0f88-4b95-8768-72c8a12a4ca1/content/images/2026/07/0c92828e-6b38-4313-955c-88a3e6970a43_1092x974.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/44/9a/449ad1a5-0f88-4b95-8768-72c8a12a4ca1/content/images/2026/07/1f2b3ec5-3eaf-427c-9337-90cfcaa24688_2000x1333-jpeg.jpg)

## LINKS

- 📖 BUY JESSICA’S BOOK: [**deeperfoundations.com/casino**](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/casino?ref=offthegrid.ghost.io)
- 📖 BUY AMELIA’S BOOK: [**offthegrid.fun/attention**](https://offthegrid.fun/attention?ref=offthegrid.ghost.io)
- 📈 Check out Amelia’s sales tracker: [**offthegrid.my.canva.site/book-sales-tracker**](https://offthegrid.my.canva.site/book-sales-tracker?ref=offthegrid.ghost.io)[](https://offthegrid.my.canva.site/book-sales-tracker?ref=offthegrid.ghost.io)
- 📢 Check out Amelia’s promo kit: [**softersounds.notion.site/attention-book-promo-kit**](https://softersounds.notion.site/attention-book-promo-kit?ref=offthegrid.ghost.io)
- **And if you’ve already bought the book (THANK YOU!)**

#### Transcript

Amelia Hruby (00:00:27.481):  
Hello, and welcome to the Off The Grid Clubhouse.

Amelia Hruby (00:00:32.204):  
I am your host,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:32.903):  
Amelia Hruby,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:33.944):  
and this is our super secret slash live on Substack space for friends,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:40.146):  
fans,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:40.587):  
and super fans of Off The Grid podcast.

Amelia Hruby (00:00:44.008):  
That public show is all about how to leave social media without losing all of your

Amelia Hruby (00:00:49.531):  
clients,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:49.991):  
your income,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:50.931):  
or,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:51.153):  
I don't know,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:52.152):  
your social life.

Amelia Hruby (00:00:53.912):  
And this private space is where we go really open,

Amelia Hruby (00:00:59.297):  
honest,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:00.358):  
sometimes even a little scandalous on the behind the scenes of what it actually

Amelia Hruby (00:01:05.502):  
really takes for a small business to succeed without social media or without

Amelia Hruby (00:01:10.166):  
relying on social media.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:12.348):  
And if you've been listening to any of this fall's episodes,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:16.171):  
you know that I have just launched a new book.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:20.234):  
I have just published my newest book, Your Attention is Sacred, Except on Social Media.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:25.559):  
And today,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:26.460):  
I am coming to the clubhouse to share with all of you the quote-unquote anatomy of

Amelia Hruby (00:01:32.063):  
my book launch.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:33.004):  
where I'm going to tell you exactly what I planned,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:35.527):  
how it went,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:36.168):  
what's working,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:36.749):  
what's not working so far,

Amelia Hruby (00:01:38.211):  
and give you a sort of one week update on sales because my sales opened to my wait

Amelia Hruby (00:01:43.297):  
list one week ago as I'm recording this.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:46.401):  
So you're hearing it super live and fresh, my friends.

Amelia Hruby (00:01:50.964):  
Thank you so much.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:09.705):  
We are in the book launch process together and we've launched pretty differently.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:13.967):  
We've had different strategies, different goals.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:15.868):  
And so I thought that it would be fun for Jessica and I to talk through all of this

Amelia Hruby (00:02:20.370):  
together so that those of you tuning in can begin to sort of parse out like,

Amelia Hruby (00:02:24.232):  
oh,

Amelia Hruby (00:02:24.852):  
this would really make sense for me.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:26.413):  
I don't think I'd do it that way.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:27.753):  
I like how Jessica did it.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:28.854):  
I like how Amelia did it.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:30.414):  
And sort of imagine your own strategies for launching books without relying on

Amelia Hruby (00:02:34.856):  
social media to spread the word.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:36.397):  
So that's what we're going to get into in this episode.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:40.319):  
If you're a paying subscriber, you can hear the whole thing.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:42.879):  
If you're not,

Amelia Hruby (00:02:43.700):  
you will have to upgrade at this point to hear my amazing conversation with

Amelia Hruby (00:02:46.901):  
Jessica.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:47.987):  
Thank you for the support.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:49.362):  
As always, please buy a book.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:52.303):  
And for now, let's dive in.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:56.830):  
Hi, Jessica.

Amelia Hruby (00:02:57.324):  
Welcome to the clubhouse.

Jessica Lackey (00:02:58.906):  
Yay.

Jessica Lackey (00:02:59.365):  
Excited to be here.

Amelia Hruby (00:03:00.166):  
I'm thrilled you're here.

Amelia Hruby (00:03:03.667):  
I would love for you to open this up by telling folks who you are and what is your book.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:09.552):  
So my name is Jessica Lackey.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:11.153):  
I'm a business and operations strategist.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:13.695):  
I help solos and small businesses implement the sustainable foundations for growth.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:19.260):  
So some people talk about marketing and I talk about business as a whole.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:23.924):  
My book is called Leaving the Casino,

Jessica Lackey (00:03:26.687):  
Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:30.470):  
Because when you walk into the entrepreneurial space,

Jessica Lackey (00:03:34.333):  
it feels like you're walking into a casino,

Jessica Lackey (00:03:35.935):  
the entrepreneurial casino,

Jessica Lackey (00:03:37.236):  
where you are seduced and dazzled by shiny promises and told that all you have to

Jessica Lackey (00:03:43.742):  
do is spin the wheel and pull the lever and your viral dreams will come true.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:49.167):  
And that advice is designed to win the house money and make you a little poorer.

Jessica Lackey (00:03:54.855):  
So my book is a foundational business text about how to leave the casino and start

Jessica Lackey (00:04:01.004):  
making decisions from a place of agency in your business.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:04.594):  
I love it.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:05.875):  
And for folks tuning in, Jessica has been my business coach.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:09.757):  
We work together on developing and growing softer sounds.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:13.639):  
And I've been super excited for your book because I have the utmost respect for how

Amelia Hruby (00:04:18.782):  
you teach people to build businesses.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:21.723):  
I think that so many of us, myself included, have been

Amelia Hruby (00:04:26.446):  
drawn in by the Stripe screenshots and the promises of like five-step plans that

Amelia Hruby (00:04:31.609):  
will make you 10-figure months.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:34.232):  
And it's so alluring.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:35.932):  
It's so tempting.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:37.353):  
And I think that I really appreciate how you have called it out.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:42.095):  
And it also aligns with everything we do at Off The Grid.

Amelia Hruby (00:04:44.077):  
Obviously,

Amelia Hruby (00:04:44.637):  
like I'm always trying to help people step back from taping tactics together and

Amelia Hruby (00:04:50.740):  
hoping that works for their business and actually deepening into their like

Amelia Hruby (00:04:55.303):  
energetic sovereignty what feels right for them how do we align with like the

Amelia Hruby (00:05:00.709):  
sharing methods that you like amplify that into your marketing build a business

Amelia Hruby (00:05:04.394):  
that suits your energy all of these sorts of things yeah so all of those types of

Amelia Hruby (00:05:07.998):  
agency and autonomy and business

Jessica Lackey (00:05:10.359):  
That Dua of Words shows up a few times in the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:13.480):  
Yes, mine too.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:16.061):  
And my book is not a business book.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:18.082):  
It's actually a philosophical and spiritual manifesto about how to reclaim our

Amelia Hruby (00:05:24.904):  
attention in this era of reality.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:27.745):  
fracture and distraction,

Amelia Hruby (00:05:29.968):  
as well as how to understand what algorithms really are and why the algorithms on

Amelia Hruby (00:05:35.034):  
social media are so problematic for our attention.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:38.558):  
And then the book ends with a sort of process or method for cultivating your

Amelia Hruby (00:05:43.243):  
attention like a garden.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:45.068):  
So from the outset,

Amelia Hruby (00:05:47.614):  
Jessica and I are both small business owners.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:49.835):  
We both have books that are building authority or sort of establishing ourselves as

Amelia Hruby (00:05:55.538):  
thought leaders in our area.

Amelia Hruby (00:05:57.820):  
But our books are also very different, right?

Amelia Hruby (00:06:00.861):  
So Jessica has written a business book that leads directly into memberships and

Amelia Hruby (00:06:06.304):  
courses and coaching and all of these things.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:08.806):  
And I have gone out on a limb, right?

Amelia Hruby (00:06:13.504):  
a manifesto that my dream for that,

Amelia Hruby (00:06:16.268):  
though,

Amelia Hruby (00:06:16.507):  
will be that I'll get invited into different types of like speaking opportunities.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:20.530):  
You know, I can imagine taking this book to universities.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:23.192):  
I can imagine like leading workshops and retreats around these ideas.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:27.156):  
Like my book is very ideas focused.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:30.139):  
I want people to read it and have a sort of like aha,

Amelia Hruby (00:06:33.361):  
like light bulb breakthrough moment about their relationship to social media.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:37.185):  
That's my dream.

Amelia Hruby (00:06:38.866):  
Jessica, what do you hope your readers take away from your book?

Amelia Hruby (00:06:41.267):  
What's your goal for it or your dream for it?

Jessica Lackey (00:06:44.049):  
My dream for it is that every business owner that picks it up is like,

Jessica Lackey (00:06:48.951):  
oh,

Jessica Lackey (00:06:49.811):  
this is the book that I didn't know I needed when I started.

Jessica Lackey (00:06:52.853):  
Let me give it to Five Friends.

Jessica Lackey (00:06:55.014):  
That's the real dream.

Jessica Lackey (00:06:56.795):  
Most business books are...

Jessica Lackey (00:06:59.156):  
A blog post that is stretched out with anecdotes for 10 chapters so it can be sold in airports.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:05.601):  
My book is 10 courses distilled into 300 pages, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:07:12.525):  
It's like a very dense book.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:14.387):  
Like, you know, if we put our book side by side, yours is what, like 150 pages, 100 pages?

Jessica Lackey (00:07:19.010):  
112 pages.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:20.194):  
112 pages, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:07:21.571):  
Mine is like a brick of a book.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:23.713):  
It's like 300 pages.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:24.674):  
That's pretty, it's pretty dense.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:26.035):  
And a workbook.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:26.995):  
And a toolkit and the amount of we'll talk more about it,

Jessica Lackey (00:07:30.157):  
but like the amount of things that had to get put together on the back end of each

Jessica Lackey (00:07:33.319):  
of our launches is insane.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:35.561):  
But it's meant to be sort of a touchstone book that people can come back to year after year.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:39.303):  
It's meant to be that that handbook,

Jessica Lackey (00:07:40.964):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:07:41.184):  
most also most business books and courses are like,

Jessica Lackey (00:07:43.686):  
let me tell you what you're supposed to do,

Jessica Lackey (00:07:45.107):  
but not actually you have to sign up for the high end mastermind for that.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:47.909):  
And I'm going to be like, I'm going to tell you what to do.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:49.190):  
I'm going to give you the formulas.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:51.231):  
And then you're going to be like, this is cool.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:53.352):  
I want to learn from Jessica.

Jessica Lackey (00:07:54.073):  
And you're going to sign up to work with me.

Amelia Hruby (00:07:56.232):  
Okay, so with all of this in mind, let's talk about our different book launches.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:01.216):  
So for folks who've been watching what I'm doing in the off-the-grid space,

Amelia Hruby (00:08:06.700):  
let me just try to break down how I planned my launch succinctly.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:11.024):  
My launch was really focused on a pre-launch strategy.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:16.790):  
So I have been talking about my book all year.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:20.632):  
and doing that in different places.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:22.432):  
So a lot of episodes actually here in the clubhouse,

Amelia Hruby (00:08:24.513):  
this is where most of the sharing happened earlier in the year,

Amelia Hruby (00:08:27.334):  
where I shared why I turned down a book deal.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:29.578):  
I talked more about what was coming up in different forecast episodes.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:33.878):  
So I've kind of been trying to build some lingering excitement about the book

Amelia Hruby (00:08:37.279):  
throughout the year.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:39.080):  
But when I finished season six at the end of July,

Amelia Hruby (00:08:44.343):  
my final episode of the last season of the podcast was like,

Amelia Hruby (00:08:47.564):  
here's a preview of my upcoming book.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:49.665):  
join the waitlist for the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:51.206):  
And so that was like sitting at the top of the podcast feed for a while.

Amelia Hruby (00:08:54.667):  
And I spent most of July and all of August just trying to get people on my book waitlist.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:00.770):  
Then six weeks before my launch date,

Amelia Hruby (00:09:03.651):  
I started emailing the waitlist and I shared some essays about my relationship to

Amelia Hruby (00:09:07.652):  
social media,

Amelia Hruby (00:09:08.413):  
just some things that were more evocative and trying to pull people into like

Amelia Hruby (00:09:11.694):  
wanting to read my writing about this.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:14.055):  
And then in like the two weeks leading up to my book launch date, I

Amelia Hruby (00:09:19.497):  
started sharing more of just like the logistics, like here's what's inside the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:22.078):  
Here's what you're going to get.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:23.058):  
Here are the bonuses if you buy early.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:24.898):  
Here's the retreat that I'm doing with it.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:26.719):  
So there was this whole pre-launch strategy.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:29.219):  
My goal was to really build a lot of excitement around the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:33.900):  
And then the purpose of the wait list was to be like this sort of really

Amelia Hruby (00:09:37.141):  
concentrated space of people who have opted in because they really want to buy the

Amelia Hruby (00:09:41.582):  
book.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:42.202):  
They know they want to buy the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:43.282):  
They want to hear more about the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:44.823):  
It's not just my general email list.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:46.363):  
It's like specifically book people.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:49.132):  
And overall,

Amelia Hruby (00:09:50.473):  
you know,

Amelia Hruby (00:09:50.973):  
I have a mailing list of about 2000 people on my off the grid list and I'm like a

Amelia Hruby (00:09:55.578):  
thousand more in Substack.

Amelia Hruby (00:09:57):  
There's some overlap there, but I'm not entirely sure how much.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:00.804):  
And my book waitlist leading up to the launch right before it was, I think, around 350 people.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:06.129):  
So like a small fraction of my overall waitlist.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:08.948):  
email audience, like wanted to be on the book waitlist.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:12.251):  
And then people on the waitlist got to buy the book a few days early.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:14.974):  
So the book launch date I picked for myself was October 1st.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:18.237):  
Sales open to the waitlist September 29th.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:21.360):  
So that was sort of my like lead into the launch strategy.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:26.184):  
I guess that's like the marketing side,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:27.985):  
but there's also like the product side of it,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:30.046):  
like how I chose to package and sell the books.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:32.608):  
So for me,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:33.529):  
and I'm so curious how you think about this too,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:36.110):  
Jessica,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:36.550):  
like I was looking at my audience size and I'm like,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:39.235):  
okay,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:39.411):  
well,

Amelia Hruby (00:10:39.571):  
only a fraction of this number of people is probably going to buy my book.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:43.334):  
And if I sell $10 paperbacks...

Amelia Hruby (00:10:46.515):  
I look at mass market short manifesto books, and I'm like, $15, $19.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:50.658):  
If I go that route, I'm not going to make very much money on my book.

Amelia Hruby (00:10:53.340):  
I really wanted to find a way to raise the value of the book itself and of these

Amelia Hruby (00:10:59.865):  
bundles I was selling so I could make more money per purchase.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:03.567):  
So that I could, frankly, like just recoup the costs of doing the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:07.091):  
Also, I really want to go on a book tour with you and others next year.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:10.094):  
And I need funds to do that because 2025, frankly, has like drained some of my business savings.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:15.020):  
So like I can't just rely on money on hand to do fun things like that.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:19.364):  
I actually need the book to earn its own tour in a certain way.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:21.970):  
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:22.888):  
That led me to decide to do these book bundles.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:25.910):  
And I worked with a strategist named Lexi Merritt,

Amelia Hruby (00:11:27.892):  
who really recommended I host a retreat alongside the book launch.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:32.035):  
And I thought that was really, really smart.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:34.136):  
And so for the first month of my book sales,

Amelia Hruby (00:11:36.598):  
you basically I'm really pushing these book bundles where you get multiple versions

Amelia Hruby (00:11:40.741):  
of the book and a free ticket to the retreat.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:43.402):  
And then I'll host the retreat and then the bundles will go away and just books will be on sale.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:48.129):  
So yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:11:48.806):  
I think that that is a sort of succinct overview of like how I've packaged the book

Amelia Hruby (00:11:54.851):  
in these bundles or just book only,

Amelia Hruby (00:11:57.633):  
and then how I built in a pre-launch to try to sell it.

Jessica Lackey (00:12:01.156):  
I'm curious, when did you have with the, because you were with Ingram too, right?

Amelia Hruby (00:12:07.181):  
Yes, we've both self-published through IngramSpark.

Jessica Lackey (00:12:09.665):  
When did you have the final proof approved on IngramSpark where you're like,

Jessica Lackey (00:12:15.751):  
yes,

Jessica Lackey (00:12:16.010):  
I've ordered it?

Jessica Lackey (00:12:18.995):  
How far in advance of October 1st were you like, yeah, I can order some copies now?

Amelia Hruby (00:12:25.143):  
Yeah, not that far, because I went through different rounds of revisions on my book proofs.

Amelia Hruby (00:12:34.846):  
So I think that the first time I held the book in my hands was in June.

Amelia Hruby (00:12:43.208):  
And then over the summer, I was making adjustments, mostly to the text.

Amelia Hruby (00:12:47.929):  
When I got the first proof, I reread the whole book and I made quite a few changes.

Amelia Hruby (00:12:52.270):  
And then I ordered another proof.

Amelia Hruby (00:12:54.592):  
And then I recorded the audio book because I knew when I read it aloud,

Amelia Hruby (00:12:59.072):  
there'd be things I'd want to change.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:00.892):  
And then I did another round of proofs.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:02.472):  
And then I think there was like one more typo.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:04.793):  
And I was like, I really just want to fix this before it goes live.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:08.353):  
Then when I went to order my final proof,

Amelia Hruby (00:13:11.154):  
The IngramSpark book builder like broke on me.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:14.135):  
And so I spent over a week like working with support and just like sending daily

Amelia Hruby (00:13:19.858):  
request emails to be like,

Amelia Hruby (00:13:21.018):  
have you fixed it?

Amelia Hruby (00:13:21.578):  
Have you fixed it?

Amelia Hruby (00:13:22.159):  
Do you know why it's not working?

Amelia Hruby (00:13:22.919):  
Can you tell me what's happened?

Amelia Hruby (00:13:24.740):  
So that took a week.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:25.560):  
So I think I ordered my final proof.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:31.548):  
September 8th.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:35.891):  
So I would say I had like final proof in hand September 15th, book going live October 1st.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:42.116):  
Once I got the final proof, I ordered 500 books and then they arrived.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:46.280):  
I rush shipped them and they arrived shortly after.

Amelia Hruby (00:13:49.841):  
What about you?

Amelia Hruby (00:13:50.382):  
Tell us about your process.

Jessica Lackey (00:13:52.425):  
Well,

Jessica Lackey (00:13:52.663):  
so I was working with a custom publisher,

Jessica Lackey (00:13:55.964):  
so it's not quite self-publishing because you have a publisher doing all the

Jessica Lackey (00:14:00.285):  
things,

Jessica Lackey (00:14:00.505):  
but you have to,

Jessica Lackey (00:14:01.745):  
you pay them to do all the editing and things like that.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:04.245):  
Mine, again, a 300 full color, lots of illustrations, lots of charts and things like that.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:08.426):  
No way could I have done it myself, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:14:10.326):  
So I got the final manuscript, like fully edited, fully proofread, all the graphics, like

Jessica Lackey (00:14:19.441):  
September, like August 31st or something like that.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:23.827):  
Wow.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:24.243):  
Okay.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:25.025):  
Quite late.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:25.804):  
Quite late.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:26.544):  
So I ordered the first round, September 8th.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:29.466):  
The second round, September 18th.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:32.167):  
But I didn't know truly how long it was going to take Ingram to do anything.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:36.269):  
So I didn't have like a pre-order.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:37.970):  
Like I didn't have a pre-launch.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:39.030):  
Plus also, I had been launching a bunch of other things in the business.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:43.072):  
So I'd had...

Jessica Lackey (00:14:44.773):  
I launched my cohort in the early September.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:47.356):  
I'd launched a big course in June.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:49.738):  
So I'd been launching lots of other things.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:51.940):  
And I had zero idea when I was actually going to have the books in hand.

Jessica Lackey (00:14:55.843):  
Like the reason I like launched October 1st is because I'm like, well, the books are here now.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:03.762):  
50 of them are here.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:04.763):  
Let's go.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:05.503):  
Let's go.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:06.643):  
Okay.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:07.423):  
And these books are not small.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:08.743):  
So like your 500 books fit into what, like 10 boxes?

Amelia Hruby (00:15:13.664):  
Nine boxes that were just sitting on my dining room table.

Amelia Hruby (00:15:16.304):  
They kind of, the boxes covered the whole table for scale.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:18.945):  
For my book, 18 fit into a box.

Amelia Hruby (00:15:21.745):  
So if you ordered 500, you would get 28 boxes.

Amelia Hruby (00:15:27.466):  
Yeah, that's a lot.

Jessica Lackey (00:15:28.487):  
It's a lot, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:15:29.408):  
So I've been ordering like

Jessica Lackey (00:15:31.437):  
batches of 50 and things I ordered one with standard shipping like like two weeks

Jessica Lackey (00:15:35.579):  
ago and that still hasn't even printed so I just keep ordering like things with

Jessica Lackey (00:15:38.621):  
rush printing so I didn't have like a launch pre-launch campaign because I didn't

Jessica Lackey (00:15:44.224):  
know when the hell I would launch it and I had already been like I kind of like

Jessica Lackey (00:15:48.326):  
launched a cohort in August September so we're kind of like all right it's live now

Jessica Lackey (00:15:55.011):  
You know,

Jessica Lackey (00:15:55.371):  
I've been kind of seeding interest over the summer with my I had a book club where

Jessica Lackey (00:15:59.293):  
every month I do these dialogues.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:00.874):  
They're just free classes.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:01.815):  
And I'm like, well, I'm tired of making new stuff.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:03.315):  
You know, I'm going to just send a copy of the chapter to people.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:07.239):  
Because I was also going to do as for a part of products.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:10.939):  
I was thinking about doing a video bundle.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:14.721):  
And then I just gave up on that idea.

Amelia Hruby (00:16:17.054):  
Yeah, it's too much.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:18.659):  
Well, no, I have the video classes.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:20.840):  
And so I have three of them now loaded in the membership,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:24.982):  
which is my,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:25.622):  
like,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:26.485):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:27.184):  
community membership,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:28.223):  
kind of like your interweb.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:29.444):  
So I have, like, the first three chapters have, like, a class associated with it.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:33.045):  
But I thought it would be confusing at the sale to be like,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:35.126):  
you get three classes now,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:36.207):  
but,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:36.367):  
like,

Jessica Lackey (00:16:36.867):  
seven more classes over the next year.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:38.248):  
It was, like, really confusing.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:39.068):  
So I just, like, stripped it down.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:40.269):  
Plus, as we have both figured out, selling a digital copy, a physical copy...

Jessica Lackey (00:16:45.971):  
And then like course material all have different tax requirements.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:51.118):  
And I was just like, you know what?

Jessica Lackey (00:16:52.759):  
No, no, no.

(00:16:54.542):  
I can't figure it.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:55.223):  
I literally can't figure out how to do this.

Jessica Lackey (00:16:56.804):  
So we're just going to launch...

Jessica Lackey (00:17:00.222):  
the books, the video.

Jessica Lackey (00:17:01.944):  
Like I'd done a little bit of drumming up of interest over the summer,

Jessica Lackey (00:17:04.726):  
but really I just kind of rolled in.

Jessica Lackey (00:17:06.468):  
I'm like, books are here.

Jessica Lackey (00:17:07.829):  
It's go time.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:09.412):  
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:10.314):  
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:10.752):  
I mean, okay.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:11.293):  
So many things on what you just said.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:12.794):  
One,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:13.375):  
I think we both experienced that making the transition from being an online

Amelia Hruby (00:17:17.939):  
business person who's selling services and digital products and

Amelia Hruby (00:17:22.626):  
is very different than selling physical products.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:26.788):  
I know that every single product-based business center out there,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:30.610):  
all my artists,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:31.451):  
all my people who are going to market selling their goods are like,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:34.426):  
yeah,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:34.912):  
obviously,

Amelia Hruby (00:17:35.513):  
you too.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:36.653):  
You should have known this.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:38.214):  
But we're living that transition in real time.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:41.416):  
And I think that even for me, I had

Amelia Hruby (00:17:43.857):  
sold books before.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:45.317):  
When I was very on social media, I was selling books and I was shipping them out.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:49.418):  
But I was doing that.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:50.801):  
I looked at my past orders.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:51.859):  
I think I sold fewer than 100 total copies of my first self-published book.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:56.580):  
So for this, I was gearing up to sell hundreds of copies.

Amelia Hruby (00:17:59.561):  
It's a whole different scale.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:01.461):  
Also back then, I didn't even have a business entity registered.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:04.462):  
So I really was floating very under the radar.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:09.143):  
I was not

Amelia Hruby (00:18:10.223):  
Paying sales tax, which I should have been.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:11.945):  
I was not doing all these things that like should have been happening because I was

Amelia Hruby (00:18:14.728):  
running such a small operation and I wasn't really thinking about that.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:18.753):  
Also, I literally like did a lot of stuff in person.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:20.916):  
I walked people's books to their houses and they had money like it was very

Amelia Hruby (00:18:25.581):  
informal when I previously had done a book.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:27.984):  
So this was something quite different.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:31.212):  
I think that while we could both go like very deep into the logistics of it,

Amelia Hruby (00:18:36.237):  
I'll just tell folks that where we landed is both of us are selling books from our

Amelia Hruby (00:18:40.001):  
Squarespace websites because there's a shop function there.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:43.064):  
We've integrated with Pirate Ship to do all of the U.S.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:45.546):  
shipping for our books.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:47.788):  
We're doing digital products a little differently.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:49.609):  
I've set up automations through Squarespace's email campaigns to deliver some of my

Amelia Hruby (00:18:53.872):  
digital products.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:54.593):  
You have BookFunnel doing some of your delivery.

Amelia Hruby (00:18:57.094):  
So there are so many logistics that go into how you sell a self-published book as

Amelia Hruby (00:19:03.866):  
an online business owner.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:05.100):  
But...

Amelia Hruby (00:19:07.967):  
What I want to go into next is actually like just sort of with our different launch strategies.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:12.752):  
You know,

Amelia Hruby (00:19:13.151):  
I did so much pre-launching organized around like this is the date the book will be

Amelia Hruby (00:19:18.174):  
out.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:19.355):  
And you did so much like logistics around like, how do I get the books to my house?

Amelia Hruby (00:19:23.962):  
And then once they were there, you're like, great, it's go time.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:27.161):  
Things are on sale now.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:29.082):  
And I want to talk a little bit about what result that had for our sort of like week one sales.

Amelia Hruby (00:19:33.727):  
So Jessica,

Amelia Hruby (00:19:34.348):  
will you tell the people like,

Amelia Hruby (00:19:36.551):  
how many books have you sold and how do you feel about that?

Jessica Lackey (00:19:40.356):  
Yes, I have sold roughly 90 copies, 41 book workbook bundles, 24 hardback.

Jessica Lackey (00:19:48.201):  
So like 60 and I sold that on 20 orders.

Jessica Lackey (00:19:51.303):  
So like 60-ish hardback plus book bundles and then 24 digital downloads.

Jessica Lackey (00:19:56.566):  
Part of that is I am actually going to be on Amazon because...

Jessica Lackey (00:20:01.329):  
That's the kind of book you have.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:02.270):  
That's the kind of book I have.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:03.732):  
And so I told everyone that if you want an international copy,

Jessica Lackey (00:20:08.895):  
fun fact,

Jessica Lackey (00:20:09.436):  
I couldn't sell the hardback on Amazon even if I wanted to because of the print

Jessica Lackey (00:20:13.339):  
cost of colored hardbacks on Amazon,

Jessica Lackey (00:20:16.542):  
but I can sell the paperback on Amazon.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:18.423):  
So...

Jessica Lackey (00:20:19.344):  
But there was a whole conversation about like not being able to pre-launch it on

Jessica Lackey (00:20:22.870):  
Amazon,

Jessica Lackey (00:20:23.126):  
which we can talk about.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:24.387):  
But a lot of people who are like,

Jessica Lackey (00:20:25.988):  
I want a copy and just going to wait for you to put it on Amazon so I can get a

Jessica Lackey (00:20:29.489):  
print copy.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:30.350):  
So we're sort of in like this limbo of like, some people can get it.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:34.992):  
Some people are like, I want it now.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:36.293):  
Some people are like, I just want to wait for the Amazon copy.

Jessica Lackey (00:20:39.955):  
So for the first week, I feel really...

Jessica Lackey (00:20:43.877):  
good about the fact that i'm like buy this thing now and people bought it without

Jessica Lackey (00:20:48.540):  
sort of a lot of like build up to it i'm like it's coming it's here and that was

Jessica Lackey (00:20:53.302):  
like it's coming went out on like a sunday and then like it's here is on a friday

Jessica Lackey (00:20:56.584):  
and i'm like all right well now you know we're just we're literally just tapping

Jessica Lackey (00:21:00.146):  
into goodwill that i've built up for like five years yeah and i think that you

Amelia Hruby (00:21:04.228):  
obviously you have such a like clear view of kind of what's happening here right

Amelia Hruby (00:21:08.170):  
like how it's functioning and i think it can be helpful to know like how many

Amelia Hruby (00:21:11.912):  
people are really like

Amelia Hruby (00:21:14.242):  
ready to buy, even if I'm not like on maybe my pre-launch, pre-marketing A game.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:19.865):  
And so now you know that.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:21.786):  
I also think it's important what you're saying and we've implicitly said,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:24.728):  
but haven't like you made more explicit.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:26.228):  
It's just like how distribution works.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:27.989):  
So when you self-publish a book,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:30.012):  
you know,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:30.210):  
the logistics I just mentioned of the Squarespace site and the pirate ship,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:32.752):  
like that's all when you're selling it from your own personal website.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:35.573):  
But then books are normally distributed through other places on the Internet and bookstores.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:40.415):  
And so part of why I decided to publish with IngramSpark,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:43.836):  
I'm assuming part of why you did as well,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:45.496):  
is that they do a lot of distribution.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:47.357):  
You can distribute your book through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all of the major platforms.

Amelia Hruby (00:21:51.938):  
Small bookstores can order through Ingram and get your self-published book instead

Amelia Hruby (00:21:56.628):  
of,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:56.783):  
you know,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:57.161):  
if I didn't do my book through IngramSpark,

Amelia Hruby (00:21:59.442):  
I could have carried copies around to small bookstores and asked if they would buy

Amelia Hruby (00:22:03.165):  
them.

Amelia Hruby (00:22:03.385):  
But with this model,

Amelia Hruby (00:22:04.765):  
they can just order them through the channels they already order books through or

Amelia Hruby (00:22:08.007):  
even find them through those channels.

Amelia Hruby (00:22:11.169):  
So when you want people to buy the book off of your site,

Amelia Hruby (00:22:15.412):  
that's different than them buying it through Amazon.

Amelia Hruby (00:22:19.055):  
And also you make different amounts of money when that happens, etc.

Amelia Hruby (00:22:22.278):  
So I'm hearing you on, you're feeling really good about 90 copies sold.

Amelia Hruby (00:22:27.202):  
Also hearing that a lot of people are waiting to purchase it on Amazon.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:31.761):  
And then, of course, working with a publisher.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:34.263):  
I love my publisher.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:35.843):  
However, there's things that they don't really tell you.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:38.524):  
Like, I was like, oh, when's a Kindle version going to go live?

Jessica Lackey (00:22:40.785):  
And they're like, January.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:41.625):  
I'm like, what do you mean January?

Jessica Lackey (00:22:43.206):  
Because they have to convert a PDF to EPUB file.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:46.227):  
And that because it's a comp, it's like lots of images and lots of tables and text.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:50.649):  
And so they they're slammed with like Q4 holiday campaigns for like because they

Jessica Lackey (00:22:55.210):  
run a catalog business,

Jessica Lackey (00:22:56.031):  
too.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:56.771):  
So like they're yeah, like they're a little come in January.

Jessica Lackey (00:22:58.412):  
I'm like,

Jessica Lackey (00:22:59.432):  
What?

Jessica Lackey (00:23:00.855):  
Yeah, that's rough.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:02.057):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:02.395):  
Well, it's not a bad thing.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:03.436):  
It's like, okay, like, you know, I now get like 15 launch windows, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:23:07.739):  
And if I want to launch an audiobook, I now know how to do that.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:11.202):  
I know how much that's going to cost.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:12.283):  
And so it's like,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:13.464):  
oh,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:13.604):  
it'll be,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:14.445):  
paperback will be live,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:15.948):  
Kindle will be live,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:16.627):  
and it'll be all live at different times over the next like four to six months.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:20.790):  
So it's kind of nice because I have a reason to talk about it a whole lot.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:25.014):  
But it's also like,

Jessica Lackey (00:23:26.295):  
if you want it this way, wait.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:27.716):  
If you want it this way, if you wait.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:29.596):  
It's kind of a nightmare to be like, eh.

Jessica Lackey (00:23:32.802):  
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:33.798):  
This is why I wanted to have you on,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:34.859):  
though,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:35.019):  
to talk about it,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:35.699):  
because I think that this is really important.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:38.180):  
And I think you're seeing both sides of it.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:39.661):  
It's like when I talked about launching the book back in the spring,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:43.662):  
the way you're doing it now is kind of how I thought I would do it,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:46.343):  
where it's like you have one version and then there's another version and another

Amelia Hruby (00:23:49.164):  
version,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:49.446):  
and it's spaced out over time.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:50.925):  
And you avoid that sort of like

Amelia Hruby (00:23:53.226):  
Launch and it's over.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:54.147):  
You're finished.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:55.047):  
One and done.

Amelia Hruby (00:23:56.969):  
That sort of like sequential over time,

Amelia Hruby (00:23:59.751):  
different versions,

Amelia Hruby (00:24:01.452):  
I think is a really aligned way to launch.

Amelia Hruby (00:24:04.234):  
It really sort of like avoids that one and done moment.

Amelia Hruby (00:24:08.357):  
And also I hear you on,

Amelia Hruby (00:24:10.558):  
it means there's never that moment of like everybody's in the room for the launch

Amelia Hruby (00:24:15.482):  
or like everybody's buying now.

Amelia Hruby (00:24:17.823):  
And I think that part of why I'm really happy we're launching this

Amelia Hruby (00:24:22.026):  
at the same time, but doing it quite differently.

Amelia Hruby (00:24:24.110):  
So we can look back like a year from now and be like,

Amelia Hruby (00:24:26.638):  
OK,

Amelia Hruby (00:24:27.613):  
how do these different launch strategies play out and how did they really feel?

Jessica Lackey (00:24:32.164):  
I didn't intend for the book to launch this way.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:34.001):  
Like I didn't intend for its kind of driven drive out.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:35.743):  
Like I really wanted it to be more of a moment.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:37.785):  
But with, you know, like I'm like, I had my manuscript to them at like the end of like March.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:42.670):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:42.848):  
So I didn't realize the creative part was going to take quite as long as it did.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:45.950):  
But also what you did in your launch was really nice was because you sent out pre

Jessica Lackey (00:24:51.994):  
copies to people that were like,

Jessica Lackey (00:24:53.514):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:24:53.714):  
I got a copy early so I could read it and be prepared for.

Jessica Lackey (00:24:58.917):  
to not just like talk about how excited I am,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:02.500):  
but actually have read the book by the time you launched.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:05.482):  
And for me,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:05.942):  
I didn't have a chance to get out reader copies to people because the manuscript

Jessica Lackey (00:25:10.506):  
has done so late.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:11.387):  
So I'm kind of thinking about like,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:13.248):  
well,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:13.808):  
I'm sad that the Amazon paperback is delayed a little bit and I will never be able

Jessica Lackey (00:25:17.171):  
to pre-sale the Amazon one because it's technically already on sale.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:21.414):  
But now when the paperback version goes live,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:24.194):  
I will have readers who have read the book who can review it on Amazon the day it

Jessica Lackey (00:25:28.475):  
comes out.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:28.875):  
So it's like that wasn't intended to be like the Amazon presale,

Jessica Lackey (00:25:33.376):  
but it turned out to be the Amazon presale.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:35.616):  
But you had people that were like on day one ready to celebrate the book.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:40.537):  
They'd read it.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:41.697):  
You had like swipe copy.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:43.618):  
So it's like you actually like did the like the launch team properly.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:48.119):  
And I'm basically using the first 50 books.

Jessica Lackey (00:25:51.219):  
as my launch team which because my manuscript came out so like we were done so late

Jessica Lackey (00:25:57.125):  
until the time that I really want I wanted it to go on sale this fall and I knew if

Jessica Lackey (00:26:02.189):  
I didn't like just start shipping it I was gonna miss the window because this you

Jessica Lackey (00:26:06.233):  
know I we get like what to like early December to ship this bad boy and then we're

Jessica Lackey (00:26:09.996):  
you know the shipping costs are astronomical at that point I would imagine yeah

Amelia Hruby (00:26:13.829):  
Yeah, and they've already gone up.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:15.830):  
Like holiday shipping rates started today as we're recording this, I believe.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:20.192):  
So like I saw my books now cost about 50 cents more per book to ship.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:24.853):  
So yeah, it's just like a lot of things that I hadn't thought about.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:29.515):  
Hey,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:30.037):  
Clubhouse members,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:31.037):  
Amelia here,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:31.957):  
interrupting this episode that's exclusively for you,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:36.460):  
paid members of the Clubhouse,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:39.263):  
because I want to offer you a little something,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:42.225):  
something from my heart,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:44.246):  
from my business.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:46.788):  
as a thank you for not only being a paying member of the clubhouse,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:50.710):  
but also listening to these episodes.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:54.272):  
I know that there's a lot going on in the world and a lot going on in your life

Amelia Hruby (00:26:58.656):  
specifically,

Amelia Hruby (00:26:59.256):  
I'm sure.

Amelia Hruby (00:26:59.835):  
And I'm really grateful that you invited me to accompany you on whatever it is

Amelia Hruby (00:27:04.718):  
you're doing today as you listen to this.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:07.380):  
And as a thank you for that,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:09.341):  
I want to offer you a discount code for purchasing a copy of my book.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:15.448):  
So if you have not yet purchased a copy,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:17.891):  
you can go to offthegrid.fund slash attention and use the code clubhouselove

Amelia Hruby (00:27:25.198):  
one word, all caps, Clubhouse Love for $5 off any version of the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:30.923):  
So you can get just the ebook with $5 off would be only $15.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:34.946):  
Or you could get the print book bundle,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:38.289):  
which includes the paperback,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:40.613):  
the audio book,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:41.414):  
the ebook,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:42.032):  
and a retreat ticket.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:43.673):  
And with your $5 off, it would then only be $45 with free shipping.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:48.357):  
So you can use the code Clubhouse Love for $5 off any version of the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:27:54.802):  
And if you are a Clubhouse member who has already bought the book,

Amelia Hruby (00:27:58.125):  
you are truly like one of my favorite people.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:00.407):  
Thank you.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:01.728):  
You're about to hear in this episode how much that really means to me.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:05.263):  
And also,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:06.492):  
I'm happy to comp you one month of the Clubhouse for your $5 because normally a

Amelia Hruby (00:28:11.677):  
month of the Clubhouse is five bucks.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:12.939):  
So

Amelia Hruby (00:28:13.480):  
It's too late to get your discount on the book,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:14.900):  
but I'll give you a free month here in the clubhouse.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:17.140):  
To get that, all you need to do is send me an email.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:19.361):  
So you can reply to the email that you received with this episode,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:24.483):  
or you can email hi at offthegrid.fun,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:27.086):  
H-I at offthegrid.fun.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:29.388):  
And just let me know what email you use for Substack,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:32.246):  
and I will comp you a free month as thanks for having already purchased the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:36.508):  
So it's either or,

Amelia Hruby (00:28:37.348):  
either use the $5 discount code to buy a book or get a free month of the clubhouse

Amelia Hruby (00:28:43.170):  
if you've already bought a book.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:45.271):  
And I just wanted to drop that in here to say thank you.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:47.891):  
Again, I'm really so, so grateful and I'm so thrilled to share this book with you.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:52.393):  
And there's so much more I have to say about the launch.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:54.773):  
So let's go ahead and get back into my conversation with Jessica.

Amelia Hruby (00:28:58.594):  
Thank you so much again for being here.

Amelia Hruby (00:29:02.824):  
I mean,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:03.104):  
the pricing of this is a whole other conversation we could have around like,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:07.510):  
how do you price different bundles and editions of your book?

Amelia Hruby (00:29:11.034):  
I've had this thought so many times around like,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:13.337):  
if you just buy the paperback on my website right now,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:16.302):  
it's $30 and it's signed and it comes with a custom postcard.

Amelia Hruby (00:29:19.203):  
Like there's a little more to it, but like,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:22.441):  
When I think about like if I was in a shop and I picked up my 112 page manifesto,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:26.745):  
like I wouldn't pay $30 for it.

Amelia Hruby (00:29:29.188):  
So it's like,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:29.648):  
how do I like these different pricing logics of like,

Amelia Hruby (00:29:32.690):  
how do I price right now when there's this like added value and like closeness to

Amelia Hruby (00:29:37.155):  
me and all these things happening versus like I still haven't decided what price

Amelia Hruby (00:29:41.499):  
I'm going to set the book at when it goes live on retailers December 1st.

Amelia Hruby (00:29:45.422):  
I've been thinking about different options for months and I haven't decided.

Jessica Lackey (00:29:49.423):  
Yeah,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:50.186):  
my you find out pretty quickly that you there's a retail price and then there's,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:53.688):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:54.304):  
everyone takes a different cut.

Jessica Lackey (00:29:55.505):  
Like,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:55.727):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:56.005):  
like for retailers to actually stock it,

Jessica Lackey (00:29:57.625):  
they have to have like a 60 percent discount to stock it.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:00.166):  
And then you have to actually cover your print cost because mine is so expensive.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:04.227):  
It's, you know, full color.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:05.707):  
Like I couldn't give a 60 percent wholesale discount.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:09.768):  
Like literally I couldn't because then my book would be like 40 bucks.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:13.689):  
before shipping which is just it's no it's just insane so that's why the hardback

Jessica Lackey (00:30:18.373):  
can't be on amazon because the the color printing cost is too high for the hardback

Jessica Lackey (00:30:22.457):  
to go on amazon not that i would have put it on anyways that's what's why the

Jessica Lackey (00:30:25.920):  
amazon copy will not be available in australia sorry because they do not do

Jessica Lackey (00:30:28.903):  
interior color paperbacks fun fact oh interesting but yeah i think the and also

Jessica Lackey (00:30:35.729):  
thinking about pricing which is like super crazy like you

Jessica Lackey (00:30:39.526):  
This is the weird thing about pricing books is,

Jessica Lackey (00:30:42.531):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:30:43.450):  
people will sell like you just like a two hour workshop and they'll charge $97 and

Jessica Lackey (00:30:47.195):  
feel like it's fine.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:47.955):  
And I'm like, like my, your book is like an amazing manifesto.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:52.599):  
My book is, you know, 300 pages of like

Jessica Lackey (00:30:55.602):  
zillions of course material codified.

Jessica Lackey (00:30:57.703):  
And we were like freaking out about charging more than $40 for it when it's like

Jessica Lackey (00:31:03.685):  
because of how it's positioned and because it's a book versus like a course,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:06.746):  
it's just the economics of it are quite insane because you have basically distilled

Jessica Lackey (00:31:13.628):  
so much learning from how many off the grid interviews have you done?

Jessica Lackey (00:31:17.430):  
Over 100, right?

Jessica Lackey (00:31:18.069):  
This is not just like something you like just like came up with,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:21.292):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:21.510):  
in the shower one day and decided to write down.

Amelia Hruby (00:31:23.391):  
And you have like a decades long career doing this work at the highest possible

Amelia Hruby (00:31:27.673):  
level that you've distilled into your book.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:29.755):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:30.035):  
And so like I'm like,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:31.116):  
I want to put this as a quote unquote,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:32.616):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:33.637):  
lead magnet tripwire thing is like pricing is so weird because it's so much more

Jessica Lackey (00:31:38.259):  
valuable than almost anything else that we do.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:41.161):  
But we have to price it in comparison to everything else on the shelf.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:46.784):  
And I'm really glad you're doing the bundles.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:49.045):  
Basically,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:49.648):  
I find these like,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:50.848):  
yes,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:51.227):  
the book is helpful and I loved your book and I listened to it.

Jessica Lackey (00:31:54.267):  
But some of this is just like,

Jessica Lackey (00:31:55.868):  
it's kind of like a Patreon subscription with an actual deliverable,

Jessica Lackey (00:32:00.770):  
like an actual physical copy.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:02.251):  
It's like,

Jessica Lackey (00:32:03.271):  
I don't care what the book was about.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:05.073):  
I know your book is good because I read it like, you know, three or four times.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:08.255):  
It wouldn't have mattered if it was good because I would have bought it just for

Jessica Lackey (00:32:11.939):  
you because I want to thank you for the emotional and mental and physical and

Jessica Lackey (00:32:16.983):  
financial labor of the past five years.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:19.425):  
And I'm like, yes, people bought my book because it's helpful.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:22.668):  
But I think people also bought my book just to say thank you for doing what we're doing.

Jessica Lackey (00:32:27.732):  
And like, this is like a really easy way to do it without like a recurring commitment.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:31.627):  
Yeah, I mean, I feel this so much too.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:33.369):  
And it's been a sort of challenge for me since the book has come out because I

Amelia Hruby (00:32:38.014):  
think something that you and I share that I've had to realize not everybody feels

Amelia Hruby (00:32:41.778):  
this way is that I feel that same way.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:43.740):  
It's like,

Amelia Hruby (00:32:44.561):  
if there's somebody whose podcast I listen to every week and they come out with a

Amelia Hruby (00:32:47.304):  
book,

Amelia Hruby (00:32:47.546):  
I'm going to buy their book.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:48.906):  
Or I'm going to have them on my podcast and maybe I'll get a press,

Amelia Hruby (00:32:51.688):  
an ARC or something like that.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:52.668):  
But I'm going to buy and support their book as a way of trying to support their work.

Amelia Hruby (00:32:56.911):  
I have two personal policies in my biz friend relationships that I hold to very

Amelia Hruby (00:33:02.816):  
strongly,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:03.295):  
which is one,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:04.636):  
if you publish a book,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:05.817):  
self-publish or otherwise,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:06.817):  
I will buy it.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:07.418):  
And two, if you have a podcast, I will give it a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:12.002):  
I will always do these two things for my biz friends because the podcast thing cost

Amelia Hruby (00:33:16.802):  
me nothing and the books,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:18.503):  
I know enough about the economics of books to know that it matters that you buy the

Amelia Hruby (00:33:21.744):  
book.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:22.725):  
Again,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:23.205):  
whether I read it or not,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:24.526):  
whether I think it's really for me or not,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:26.911):  
if we are legitimately friends,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:28.287):  
I will always buy the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:29.488):  
And I've had to learn that not everybody thinks that way and honestly get a little

Amelia Hruby (00:33:34.950):  
bit out of my ego about it.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:36.131):  
I think there was definitely a part of me that's like,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:39.492):  
I've made this podcast for free for three years.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:42.434):  
And when people don't join the interweb or when they don't join the clubhouse,

Amelia Hruby (00:33:45.457):  
I don't have any feelings about it.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:46.558):  
I'm like, yeah, maybe that's not for you.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:47.799):  
You didn't join, whatever.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:48.980):  
But there's something about like when they don't buy the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:33:51.041):  
I'm like, wait.

Jessica Lackey (00:33:53.311):  
And I also think part of it,

Jessica Lackey (00:33:54.572):  
and I don't know how you feel about this,

Jessica Lackey (00:33:55.973):  
I am like wildly hyper attuned to like right now,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:00.035):  
like this is my life,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:01.819):  
right?

Jessica Lackey (00:34:01.996):  
Like,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:02.176):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:02.396):  
my hobbies are writing the book and packing the book and setting up the Squarespace

Jessica Lackey (00:34:05.638):  
shop and setting up the kit integrations to send people thank yous and downloads

Jessica Lackey (00:34:09.780):  
and shit like that.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:11.101):  
But so like the minute I could buy your book, I bought it.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:14.286):  
Like I'm so attuned to what everyone is doing because it's also how I've grown my

Jessica Lackey (00:34:19.194):  
business is being like wildly,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:20.897):  
slightly unboundaried about what I pay attention to for people.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:23.661):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:25.345):  
And I love it about you.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:26.246):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:27.068):  
But I'm like,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:28.409):  
I know when your book's coming out,

Jessica Lackey (00:34:30.491):  
I'm waiting with bated breath to be able to support you because the feeling that we

Jessica Lackey (00:34:36.818):  
get...

Jessica Lackey (00:34:37.419):  
I just assume that everyone's sitting on their phone waiting to buy my book.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:40.722):  
That is not accurate.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:41.783):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:42.424):  
I know that like my best friend, she's in the acknowledgments.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:45.026):  
She's posted about it on LinkedIn and texted me about it.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:47.288):  
She hasn't bought it yet because she has three kids and they're in the midst of school things.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:51.472):  
And she'll eventually get to it.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:53.593):  
But I'm kind of like waiting for her to be like, come on, buy the book, buy the book.

Jessica Lackey (00:34:58.097):  
And I recognize that like buying the book is like 17th on the list of her priorities.

Jessica Lackey (00:35:02.803):  
She only gets like three a day.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:04.602):  
This is also one of the downsides of being a self-published author is that we are

Amelia Hruby (00:35:10.189):  
intaking all of the sales orders.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:11.911):  
So when somebody tells you,

Amelia Hruby (00:35:14.013):  
oh,

Amelia Hruby (00:35:14.235):  
I can't wait to read your book,

Amelia Hruby (00:35:15.615):  
you're also acutely aware that they have not bought the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:17.779):  
So you're like, well...

Amelia Hruby (00:35:19.620):  
I don't know when you're going to read it.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:20.600):  
I guess whenever you buy it, that's cool.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:22.220):  
And it's messy.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:23.581):  
It's hard.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:24.521):  
It's hard to have a whole conversation with someone about how excited they are

Amelia Hruby (00:35:27.281):  
about your book when you know they haven't bought the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:30.462):  
Holding those things together is challenging.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:32.962):  
And it's definitely made me reflect on, oh, this is perhaps a benefit of traditional publishing.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:37.783):  
I hated that I couldn't see my sales numbers on my traditionally published book.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:41.184):  
It was so hard not to know.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:43.304):  
But there is some grace and goodness in that not knowing that

Amelia Hruby (00:35:47.125):  
Now that I really acutely am aware of like every single purchase and that I'm like

Amelia Hruby (00:35:52.228):  
shipping them out with my hands.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:54.050):  
So there's like joy and stress in both experiences.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:56.511):  
Like I love shipping the books.

Amelia Hruby (00:35:57.612):  
I love writing little notes on the packages to like all my interweb members who

Amelia Hruby (00:36:01.114):  
bought a book or my friends,

Amelia Hruby (00:36:02.716):  
you know,

Amelia Hruby (00:36:03.036):  
like I love that.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:05.177):  
But it also comes with the fact that I'm aware then of people who have told me

Amelia Hruby (00:36:08.619):  
they're buying the book and haven't bought it or things like that.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:10.840):  
And I just feel like there's this expectation that I should be like super humanly

Amelia Hruby (00:36:15.922):  
regulated in my nervous system and emotions that I shouldn't care about these

Amelia Hruby (00:36:19.265):  
things.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:20.104):  
But I think it's much more freeing to just be honest and be like, well, I don't know.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:23.606):  
I'm only human and I'm maybe a little too aware of these sorts of things.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:28.209):  
But like, I'm just really trying to hold that space of it's OK to have feelings and

Amelia Hruby (00:36:33.411):  
I'm going to own them as my own feelings.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:35.015):  
I'm not going to project them onto other people or have them shift my relationships

Amelia Hruby (00:36:39.084):  
or anything like that.

Amelia Hruby (00:36:40.287):  
It's just honest.

Jessica Lackey (00:36:42.435):  
And I think we're also,

Jessica Lackey (00:36:43.924):  
you and I specifically,

Jessica Lackey (00:36:44.957):  
because we're launching at the same time together,

Jessica Lackey (00:36:48.219):  
the time moves very differently for us right now.

Jessica Lackey (00:36:52.161):  
It's concrete during a launch.

Jessica Lackey (00:36:53.642):  
You're like,

Jessica Lackey (00:36:54.562):  
I know people are sending me emails back to the shipping notifications telling me

Jessica Lackey (00:37:00.186):  
how excited they are.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:01.226):  
And I like, like, it's like you feel those like amazing things.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:05.709):  
And then you're like, but quote unquote, it's only 100 people.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:10.653):  
holy shit, 100 people are going to see it.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:12.313):  
But it's like we're in this like weird world of bigger is better.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:17.435):  
And,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:17.697):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:17.955):  
like in your case,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:18.616):  
though,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:18.956):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:19.396):  
you need a certain number to like,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:20.596):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:20.857):  
hit your financial goals.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:22.037):  
And I'm just like, I want audaciously to sell like a couple thousand copies of this thing.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:27.880):  
And I'm like, I really want to see if I can hit a thousand in the first year.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:30.601):  
And I literally don't have any idea how I'm going to do it because I'm like,

Jessica Lackey (00:37:34.543):  
I haven't started guesting on the podcast and things like that.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:38.044):  
And we are both in the timeframe between the books have shipped and yet they

Jessica Lackey (00:37:44.269):  
haven't been able to been consumed yet to be recommended and spread.

Jessica Lackey (00:37:48.912):  
So we're in that like weird Schrodinger's cat moment of like, did they like it?

Jessica Lackey (00:37:55.018):  
Do they tell a friend?

Jessica Lackey (00:37:55.998):  
Does that friend buy the book?

Jessica Lackey (00:37:57.259):  
Do I start seeing names that I don't recognize by the book?

Jessica Lackey (00:38:00.401):  
And we're before that period.

Jessica Lackey (00:38:02.423):  
So it's like a super tender time to be like,

Jessica Lackey (00:38:04.663):  
did anyone like my book?

Jessica Lackey (00:38:06.364):  
Did you find it helpful?

Amelia Hruby (00:38:08.545):  
Yeah, it is very tender.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:10.748):  
I really appreciate you naming that.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:12.329):  
And I've noticed this as well.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:13.930):  
It's like my calendar in September was full of all of my like pre-podcast

Amelia Hruby (00:38:19.735):  
interviews and all this pre-press I was doing for the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:22.197):  
And then October, it's like empty.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:24.219):  
And I realized that's because people haven't gotten the book and read the book and

Amelia Hruby (00:38:28.323):  
they're not recommending it yet.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:29.484):  
Like

Amelia Hruby (00:38:30.024):  
I actually think it'll be next year before I really start to see those things.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:33.186):  
I think that like my book is pretty well-timed for like New Year's digital wellness stuff.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:38.190):  
And so I think in January,

Amelia Hruby (00:38:39.491):  
people will really be like reading,

Amelia Hruby (00:38:40.793):  
recommending,

Amelia Hruby (00:38:41.432):  
sharing it,

Amelia Hruby (00:38:42.413):  
which is also partially why I felt so confident,

Amelia Hruby (00:38:44.875):  
like only distributing it myself for these first two months and then moving to

Amelia Hruby (00:38:50.098):  
general distribution through retailers in December.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:52.520):  
Cause I was like, I think that's like, this book will pick up a lot next year.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:55.962):  
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby (00:38:57.103):  
But yeah, it is a really tender time and it is challenging.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:01.226):  
And I think this is probably a good moment for me to share my sales numbers,

Amelia Hruby (00:39:05.529):  
which I haven't shared yet.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:07.750):  
So for context,

Amelia Hruby (00:39:09.332):  
like when I say that the book has sold fewer copies than I was perhaps expecting,

Amelia Hruby (00:39:13.755):  
what I was basing that off of is my waitlist.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:16.036):  
So I thought that about half of the waitlist would buy a copy of the book within the first week.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:23.141):  
That was my guess.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:24.742):  
Obviously, like traditional like e-commerce email rates would be like 3%.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:30.009):  
So I'm like X-ing that by a lot.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:33.774):  
But my take was this is a small segment of my much larger list who has opted in to

Amelia Hruby (00:39:40.302):  
learn about the book now.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:41.764):  
The only thing I'm giving them is book stuff on here.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:44.006):  
So I'm going to guess about half of them will buy it.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:45.848):  
So it was 350 people.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:47.269):  
So half of that would have been like 175.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:50.592):  
That's how many copies I expected to sell in the first week.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:53.958):  
And actually more than that.

Amelia Hruby (00:39:54.816):  
Because then I thought when it went live to the public, maybe I would also get like

Amelia Hruby (00:40:00.358):  
5% of my whole list to read or to buy a copy of the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:04.600):  
As of right now, I have sold about 150 print books and I have sold around 35 digital or eBooks.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:16.086):  
And that's across the bundles and the book only versions.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:19.748):  
So

Amelia Hruby (00:40:21.189):  
I'm thrilled with the sales.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:22.871):  
I'm very happy about it.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:24.472):  
And also I'm sitting with like,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:26.274):  
oh,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:26.394):  
that was somewhat less than I expected based on these numbers I was looking at.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:32.579):  
I also realized this weekend when my period started that I launched my book like

Amelia Hruby (00:40:37.844):  
deep in the luteal phase of my cycle,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:40.006):  
which if I had chosen,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:42.431):  
I would not have done it.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:44.995):  
Because it definitely made it a little harder to just be excited about the great things.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:49.741):  
As any menstruating person knows,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:51.584):  
when you're like in the last three days before your period,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:54.007):  
as I was when my book launched,

Amelia Hruby (00:40:55.829):  
all the bad things feel way worse.

Amelia Hruby (00:40:57.672):  
So I'm holding that space for myself as well, that that was happening during this time.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:03.779):  
But yeah, so, so far my book launch has made just over $6,000, I believe.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:09.887):  
And that roughly covers my expenses for my book.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:13.532):  
So I'm feeling really good that...

Amelia Hruby (00:41:16.809):  
In the first week of my launch, the expenses are almost covered.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:19.590):  
That feels like a huge win that from here,

Amelia Hruby (00:41:22.951):  
I can actually start profiting off of the book,

Amelia Hruby (00:41:26.893):  
making money on the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:29.014):  
And then my ultimate goal that I've shared,

Amelia Hruby (00:41:32.235):  
I've built a book sales tracker that I'll link in the show notes so that people can

Amelia Hruby (00:41:36.156):  
actually look at my sales.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:37.337):  
I update it most mornings or most weekday mornings.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:40.398):  
But my goal is to sell 500 books by the end of the year.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:43.059):  
I ordered 500 for myself.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:45.880):  
So I want to sell through all those books by the end of the year and then make

Amelia Hruby (00:41:50.363):  
hopefully like $18,000 total.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:53.386):  
And that means I can like afford to go on book tour.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:55.848):  
I've covered my expenses.

Amelia Hruby (00:41:56.989):  
I can pay myself a few thousand dollars for writing the book.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:00.291):  
And I think I'm on my way.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:01.972):  
The other thing I think that really fucked with my head,

Amelia Hruby (00:42:03.654):  
and I'm curious how you feel about this,

Amelia Hruby (00:42:05.716):  
is book launches are so different than online course launches or membership

Amelia Hruby (00:42:10.701):  
launches or any other type of launch I've practiced doing,

Amelia Hruby (00:42:13.904):  
where my whole job was to get everyone to buy in the first week.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:17.988):  
Books are not time-bound in this way.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:19.810):  
And I have built in incentives to...

Amelia Hruby (00:42:23.914):  
try to make that happen.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:24.815):  
Like a big part of me hosting this retreat the first week of November is to have a

Amelia Hruby (00:42:29.017):  
sort of deadline for people of like the bundles are going away.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:32.500):  
You will not be able to get a ticket to this,

Amelia Hruby (00:42:34.481):  
nor will you be able to buy the book with all the versions together after November

Amelia Hruby (00:42:38.664):  
3rd.

Amelia Hruby (00:42:38.924):  
So like I'm trying to build in that sort of date,

Amelia Hruby (00:42:42.346):  
but it feels so different to launch something that doesn't have like there's no

Amelia Hruby (00:42:46.329):  
like cart is closing email to send on my book.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:50.778):  
Yeah, that's both.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:51.680):  
For me,

Jessica Lackey (00:42:52.058):  
it's like kind of like there is no card closing,

Jessica Lackey (00:42:53.719):  
which means that like this book can be an asset for me forever.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:57.261):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:57.542):  
Yes.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:58.482):  
It has longevity, which is great.

Jessica Lackey (00:42:59.723):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:00.106):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:00.704):  
And so I will be interested to see whether or not you,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:03.566):  
after the first 500,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:04.766):  
continue to stock it in some meaningful capacity on your site.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:08.069):  
Because like this is,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:10.251):  
I think,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:10.710):  
true for both of us,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:11.431):  
even though your book has a it has a finite date to it.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:14.433):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:14.593):  
Like you're like, all right, I want to sell 500 copies this year.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:17.575):  
The Internet's only going to get shittier.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:21.346):  
Oh, I hate that.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:22.037):  
But yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:22.701):  
Well, yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:23.178):  
Social media is only going to get worse.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:24.838):  
Like even today,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:25.579):  
there's some like,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:26.681):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:26.899):  
shenanigans about Substack with like Barry Weiss actually,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:29.659):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:43:29.939):  
going out at CBS.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:31.400):  
And so it's like, well, what's going to happen there?

Jessica Lackey (00:43:33.180):  
Like it's only going to get more compelling and timely over time.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:37.541):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:37.681):  
So you have this like short term goal and kind of like activation moment.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:43.223):  
But again, you wrote a timely book about a timeless concept.

Jessica Lackey (00:43:47.327):  
Right.

Amelia Hruby (00:43:47.924):  
I hope so.

Amelia Hruby (00:43:48.644):  
Yeah, I definitely am hearing you.

Amelia Hruby (00:43:51.025):  
I do think people say books have a long tail.

Amelia Hruby (00:43:53.945):  
I think there's longevity.

Amelia Hruby (00:43:55.065):  
I mean, but same for your book, right?

Amelia Hruby (00:43:57.866):  
These are timeless business concepts.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:00.026):  
You'll be returning to this book and selling it for a very long time.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:03.870):  
And I think this is where mostly I talk about the difference between a book launch

Amelia Hruby (00:44:08.528):  
and a sort of online product or course launch to kind of emphasize this.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:12.249):  
Like,

Amelia Hruby (00:44:13.389):  
I tried to use a lot of what I know about launching online things to inform my book launch.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:19.275):  
And in some ways, I think that worked really well.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:20.976):  
Like I sold 100 copies of the book on day one,

Amelia Hruby (00:44:24.421):  
I think because I would use such a strong pre-launch strategy.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:27.862):  
I really like built in these what I knew how to do.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:30.845):  
But now I have to shift my frame of reference because I'm no longer in that like

Amelia Hruby (00:44:36.027):  
cart's going to close and then I'm done launching sort of mentality.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:40.529):  
This is like long term.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:42.070):  
It's, I guess, a marathon, not a sprint, although I'd never use running metaphors.

Amelia Hruby (00:44:45.992):  
So who knows?

Jessica Lackey (00:44:47.199):  
I think if you'd asked me how I felt about my book launch and I'd launched it like

Jessica Lackey (00:44:51.562):  
a course,

Jessica Lackey (00:44:52.142):  
I would have been crushed.

Jessica Lackey (00:44:53.543):  
And I think that's where if I had assumed it was like cart open,

Jessica Lackey (00:44:56.965):  
cart close,

Jessica Lackey (00:44:57.765):  
or if I'd like been gunning for a new bestseller list or gunning to be on the New

Jessica Lackey (00:45:00.767):  
York Times,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:01.247):  
it really would have been a one and done.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:02.768):  
And I think I would have been very disappointed.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:04.709):  
Like I put in...

Jessica Lackey (00:45:06.750):  
three years of work and I only got a hundred sales, like I would have been devastated.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:13.760):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:14.535):  
And like,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:14.854):  
so by not thinking about it as like cart open cart close,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:18.437):  
I'm like,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:18.819):  
okay,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:18.996):  
this is a,

Jessica Lackey (00:45:19.776):  
this is something that I'm going to send to every client when they enroll.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:23.058):  
I'm going to be able to ship to influential people in my life, people who find it and find you.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:28.141):  
And they're going to be able to like buy this thing of yours that you've so carefully crafted.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:32.423):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:33.183):  
That does so much heavy lifting for what you want to do in your life.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:38.127):  
Like, that's the power of an asset like a book versus something ephemeral.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:43.251):  
Like, yes, podcasts are forever, but it's different.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:46.642):  
100 percent.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:47.216):  
It's very different.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:48.176):  
I think if like that's kind of where I'm like, well, we're going to use them there.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:50.738):  
It's like it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:52.279):  
I actually think it's like an ultra marathon because we have just completed mile 25.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:56.542):  
Right.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:56.743):  
Like, oh, no.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:57.743):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:58.725):  
I hate running.

Jessica Lackey (00:45:59.645):  
We have like, you're at mile, you know, like an ultra.

Jessica Lackey (00:46:02.469):  
It's like,

Jessica Lackey (00:46:03.091):  
you know,

Jessica Lackey (00:46:03.329):  
when you celebrate with your community at the retreat day,

Jessica Lackey (00:46:06.612):  
you're going to feel like you crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon.

Jessica Lackey (00:46:11.057):  
But then you're going to be like, oh, wait, no, I'm running a 50 miler here.

Jessica Lackey (00:46:15.101):  
There's 26.

Jessica Lackey (00:46:16.802):  
Now, but you can walk it and you can hydrate and you can take a break and...

Amelia Hruby (00:46:21.787):  
Yeah, it's very much a long game.

Amelia Hruby (00:46:25.031):  
And I think that our job is to be excited about that.

Amelia Hruby (00:46:29.312):  
Like, again, I think everything I knew about launching was helpful to get me to launch day.

Amelia Hruby (00:46:34.716):  
And now I have to let all of that go because having a book in the world is a

Amelia Hruby (00:46:38.339):  
totally different thing than having just finished selling a course or something

Amelia Hruby (00:46:41.520):  
like that.

Amelia Hruby (00:46:42.120):  
So that's definitely a lesson I'm taking away from this experience and our conversation.

Amelia Hruby (00:46:47.964):  
And

Amelia Hruby (00:46:50.727):  
Any final thoughts that you want to share with people,

Amelia Hruby (00:46:52.808):  
Jessica,

Amelia Hruby (00:46:53.309):  
before we sign off on this Clubhouse exclusive episode?

Jessica Lackey (00:46:57.353):  
Launching a book may be the most demanding,

Jessica Lackey (00:47:00.396):  
challenging thing you can do and arguably the most worthwhile activity that you

Jessica Lackey (00:47:07.703):  
might be able to spend your time on.

Jessica Lackey (00:47:08.804):  
So if you have an idea for a book, it is hard, it is challenging, it is so worth it.

Amelia Hruby (00:47:15.413):  
Yeah, I think that's beautiful.

Amelia Hruby (00:47:17.436):  
And I will also just add in that it can be really easy.

Amelia Hruby (00:47:21.640):  
It's just not how we did it.

Jessica Lackey (00:47:24.246):  
don't know I don't know if it can be really easy I haven't met anyone who's like oh

Amelia Hruby (00:47:27.587):  
it's a dream it's I think that if you like take your time if you sort of use your

Amelia Hruby (00:47:33.668):  
launch strategy of just like when it's ready it's ready uncoupled from sort of like

Amelia Hruby (00:47:39.230):  
big dreams for the impact the book will have I think it can be very simple I

Amelia Hruby (00:47:43.311):  
remember my first self-published book being so chill and I was just so happy to do

Amelia Hruby (00:47:47.532):  
the whole thing

Amelia Hruby (00:47:48.812):  
But that's because I had no expectation for what would come of it.

Amelia Hruby (00:47:51.555):  
And I truly just did it for the love of it.

Amelia Hruby (00:47:53.618):  
So I think that a book launch,

Amelia Hruby (00:47:56.842):  
it's such a spectrum of writing a book and publishing a book and putting it out in

Amelia Hruby (00:48:00.606):  
the world.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:01.487):  
I think you and I are doing it on a bit of a hard mode.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:05.092):  
And that's because of who we are as human beings.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:07.475):  
Yeah.

Jessica Lackey (00:48:08.760):  
Yeah,

Jessica Lackey (00:48:08.900):  
if you want to do it on easy mode,

Jessica Lackey (00:48:10.402):  
put it in KDP and let them handle all the shipping and let them handle it all.

Jessica Lackey (00:48:14.667):  
And it'll be brilliant.

Jessica Lackey (00:48:16.869):  
We chose not to do it that way.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:18.431):  
Exactly.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:19.432):  
But it's very rewarding all the same.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:21.855):  
So thank you so much, listeners, for tuning in to this Clubhouse episode.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:25.478):  
I hope that...

Amelia Hruby (00:48:27.020):  
You enjoyed my and Jessica's reflections literally one week into each of our book launches.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:33.524):  
If you would like to buy Jessica's book,

Amelia Hruby (00:48:35.426):  
you can do that at deeperfoundations.com slash casino,

Amelia Hruby (00:48:40.449):  
which is also linked in the show notes.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:41.910):  
If you'd like to buy my book, you can find it at offthegrid.fun slash attention.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:46.633):  
I'm also linking my sales tracker in the show notes if you want to keep up with

Amelia Hruby (00:48:50.258):  
sales,

Amelia Hruby (00:48:50.917):  
as well as my book promo kit.

Amelia Hruby (00:48:53.039):  
If you want to spread the word about the book or you're just curious what I put in

Amelia Hruby (00:48:56.302):  
a promo kit that I sent to all my advanced readers,

Amelia Hruby (00:48:58.484):  
that will be in the show notes for you as well.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:01.427):  
Please do buy copies of our books if you are so inclined.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:04.590):  
We would be forever grateful for your orders and

Amelia Hruby (00:49:08.173):  
And otherwise, there will be more book updates here on the Clubhouse feed.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:12.814):  
And the audio book will also be dropping here for all of you in November.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:18.716):  
So that's coming your way.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:19.837):  
It's going to be a little Clubhouse exclusive as thanks for coming along with the book journey.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:25.319):  
And I think that's it for today.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:26.879):  
So thank you so much, Jessica, for joining me.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:29.099):  
I'm so happy to be in this book launch season together.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:32.800):  
And thank you, listeners, for sticking around.

Amelia Hruby (00:49:34.581):  
Until next time, we will see you off the grid and in the clubhouse.

(00:49:40.263):  
Let's go off the grid.