📈 What's the "Magic Number" of book sales to aim for?
Bard Press Publisher Todd Sattersten shares his illuminating research
Hi Friends,
What mysterious ingredients make a book launch successful? What number of first-week and first-year sales truly make a difference to a book’s longevity? What can you do to turn lagging numbers around?
These vexing questions set this week’s Free Time guest on a quest to examine a dataset of five years of book sales data across 6,775 titles in business and self-help to find answers—and he did.
In an illuminating post for the industry, Todd Sattersten, publisher and owner of Bard Press, shared his findings in The Magic Number.
And in this behind-the-business conversation from October 2023 now live on the pod, you’ll hear him generously talk me through how I could help Free Time get there—with a much-needed morale boost at the end.
🎁 With the Free Time book approaching its two-year bookiversary on March 22, 2024, I encourage you to grab your copy if you haven’t already! For a limited time, I’m re-opening the launch BOGOGO campaign (Buy One, Get One, Give One) if you want to 🎁 give the gift of free time in 2024 :D
📆 Bonus for paying subscribers! Upgrade your Free Time newsletter subscription here to attend our live taping of part two of this conversation on Thursday, March 7 at 12pm ET! You’ll get the link to register in the footer of the newsletter below the paywall, and can ask Todd your specific questions during the second half of the session.
Now onto this week’s round-up + Plus extra goodies over the paywall rainbow at the end . . .
⚙️ Tips & Tools
📚 Authors: Check out the “Do (or Delegate) This Next” section of the show notes from my conversation with Todd on how to set-up the reader survey he suggests »
🧺 + Two of my favorite key takeaways from Free Time episode 267: Insights from Google's Productivity Expert—On Saying No, Cozy Corners, The Laundry Method, and More with Laura Mae Martin:
Five Ways to Say No to Incoming Requests: ask more questions to better understand the time commitment and see if it aligns with your top three priorities; say you’ll think about it or don’t respond right away to buy yourself time and prevent a knee-jerk response; imagine two scenarios playing out for yes and for no (to help you decide); say no, but _______ (send helpful resources); say no, because _______ (give a little context).
The Laundry Method: Think about your inbox the way you think about your dryer. You would never process clothes one item at a time—whether drying, folding or putting away—and yet that’s how many people tackle email. Process in batches instead. Treat sorting, reading, and answering as separate activities. If you have only twenty minutes, pick one of those activities.
📆 Upcoming Events for Paid Subscribers
🔗 The link to register and attend is below the paywall in the footer of this email.👇
💻 February 21 — Office Hours hang: ask me anything about a question or challenge in your business, and get extra input from fellow Heart-Based Business owners!
🎙 March 7 — live podcast taping with Todd Sattersten is the publisher and owner of Bard Press, on strategies for hitting The Magic Number of book sales. This will be a follow-up conversation to our Free Time podcast episode 268.
🎟️ Want to join us for any or all of the above?
We’d love to have you! Upgrade to a paid subscription here »
💬 Quote
“That’s the problem, Alex. You’re accepting too many different projects, so you need all kinds of different talent on your team. You’re a small shop, so you have to hire generalists who are inevitably not as good as the specialists the big agencies can hire. So you’re asking generalists to perform specialists’ work and the results are weak.”
—John Warrillow, Built to Sell
💭 Questions
Are you accepting too many different types of projects and clients? If you’re stuck navigating complicated bespoke proposals, pricing, and services, Built to Sell will convince you (as it did me many years ago) to streamline and do less to earn more.
📝 Permission
Do less! Instead of adding services and customization this year, what can you remove and/or streamline?
🍩 Recent at Rolling in D🤦🏻♀️h with Jenny Blake
🎙 Recent Episodes
Free Time:
268: Strategies for Surpassing “The Magic Number” of Book Sales with Todd Sattersten
264: 🦧 What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client: Part One, Part Two
Subscribe wherever you listen here »
Pivot:
361: On Decision Engineering and Evaluating Quality instead of Outcomes with Michelle Florendo
360: 📦 Unpacking a Big Business Decision and Dissolving Related Doubts with Adrian Klaphaak
Subscribe wherever you listen here »
Thank you for being here reading and listening!
❤️ With Gratitude,
P.S. Extra Goodies Over the Paywall Rainbow 🌈💰
🔐 Thank you to our generous paying subscribers who help sustain Time Well Spent! Upgrade to unlock this week’s make-you-smile memes as a token of my gratitude ☺️