Ditching Hourly

Jonathan Stark:

Hello and welcome to ditching hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark today I am joined by the man the myth the legend Louie Grenier Louie. Welcome to the show

Louis Grenier:

Yeah, I could say the same about you in terms of the myth, the legend, the man, whatever. Um, thanks for having me and thanks for fighting the good fight for years and years and years. So yeah, it's a pleasure, man.

Jonathan Stark:

Today, folks. We're going to talk about Louie's new book, the business strategy behind the book and the launch. But before we do that, Louie, could you tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do in case someone listening, hasn't already been listening to your podcast for years.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah, I'm uh, I'm a guy who helps marketers stand the fuck out. That's the simplest tagline I could come up with. Um, in a few more words, I always been into marketing in terms of, you know, understanding psychology and why people buy stuff from a young age. Uh, didn't connect the dots until I was 20, 21, uh, that it could be a career.

I've been playing with. Projects and working in companies for years. So tech companies did my own agency, uh, burnt out in a year and a half doing that, started a podcast called everyone hates marketers, uh, that I started to do as an aside and, and it's been what, eight years, but I've actually stopped doing it now we can talk about that and why.

And yeah, the book is the last project I've been. Uh, focusing on,

Jonathan Stark:

Excellent. Well, let's dive right in. So tell folks a little bit about the book. Uh, but I really do want to talk about the strategy and the launch. Cause it was, it seemed like a huge amount of work. It seemed like it went really well. And I know, uh, publishing a book is something that a lot of listeners are interested in doing to build their authority, get more and better clients and so forth.

So first, uh, maybe just tell folks a little bit about the book.

Louis Grenier:

sure. Um, so marketers nowadays, when I, when I say marketers, I talk about marketing, business owners, so folks selling marketing services or digital PR, whatever else that is close enough, uh, to marketing, but also in house marketers and then reluctant marketers. So I would say y'all don't stand to fall more into the reluctant marketers where they are not marketers per se, but they have to use marketing, uh, reluctantly.

Um, for lack of, uh, to, to say it mildly. So anyway, when I say marketers, that's what I mean. Um, they are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the choices, overwhelmed by the new tech, overwhelmed by the fact that things are changing all the time, or at least that's what they're made to believe, overwhelmed by, you know, like just AI, and there's just so many things, right?

So they are drowning in possibilities on what to do,

Jonathan Stark:

hmm.

Louis Grenier:

and they don't know what to do, they don't know who to trust. They read marketing books and listen to marketing podcasts, and it tends to be focused on flavor of the month, and Tactics on new things. And at their worst form, those books and podcasts and guides and gurus or whatever you want to call them, tend to gaslight marketers into believing that marketing is changing all the time, that there are secrets.

You don't know that you're all just one funnel away from success and richness. And that's a big deal to me because. This is not true. All of this, right? It's, it's pure gas lighting. Um, I know you had, uh, Alex Smith who wrote, um, the no BS strategy book, talking about that, about first principles. And it's, I, I completely believe in the same thing, which is like going back to first principles when it comes to marketing, which is understanding people selling, uh, what they want or what they think they want.

Uh, we can talk about the difference between the two. And so all of that, yeah. leads to, um, a much clearer path to, uh, to stand out. It took me three years to write that thing, to research and whatever. I've done a lot of work before publishing to make sure it was good, uh, that people liked it. You were part of a group of people reviewed it before.

Thank you again for that. We can talk about that in more detail. And yeah, the result is a, uh, the marketing booth I've always wanted to read, but I couldn't find. It's a mix of. A textbook written, uh, for like college students in terms of its structure, which is quite rigid in a sense, and the children's book with like vocabulary of a five year old almost, um, you know, with a voice that captures what I hope is me,

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah, it does sound like you for sure.

Louis Grenier:

Thanks, so I'll stop here the last thing I would say because I've been we are teasing the book or whatever I've put together an offer just for the for your listeners um instead of So they can get the e book The pdf the epub file delivered directly to their email plus a couple of extra stuff like action kits or whatever for just nine dollars The kindle is 9 9.

99 on amazon. So that's cheaper and the link i'll send it to you, but the link is stfo So stfo. link slash teaching hourly and yeah, for 9. So it's, it's. It's the cheaper option. You can't find that publicly. Uh, so that's for, for your people. And I'll stop here.

Jonathan Stark:

Cool. Yeah. I'll link that in the show notes. So folks who are familiar with your podcast probably know what to expect from the book, but for, for folks who haven't listened to everyone hates marketers, what would you say is different about this book than something like, I don't know, some other typical marketing book?

Louis Grenier:

So it's, it's, it's split in four key stages, insight for aging, unique positioning, distinctive brand, and continuous reach. And it goes back to the very, very basic of what it actually take to stand a fuck out. So there's core things That are being shared in marketing business books that are not true. That are debunked, not through just my knowledge, because I have very little, but I'm learning a lot from others.

One of the biggest one is saying like differentiate or die. So that's a classic book, um, like positioning by, uh, trout and, and, uh, forgot the other name. They've, they've, they've defined a term and made the public, whatever, but they, they talk about differentiating or dying and that's not true. So you don't have to be different, to, to be successful and differentiation, for example, is not a gimmick. Uh, differentiation is, is the ability to serve people that have ignored struggles, struggles, problems, pain points, whatever you want to call them, that alternatives Direct competitors and direct competitors are not solving well.

And I know your previous guest, uh, Alex Smith was talking about value and that's where value is. It's, it's the ability to solve stuff that people care about, um, better than the alternatives or differently than alternatives. So there's basically a bunch of debunking going on throughout the book. Another one is customer loyalty.

is not going to grow your business. Yes, it's important to do good service that customers will like and will hopefully come back. But there's so many factors that you cannot control that will make people leave you. They can. change job, they can die, they can, uh, divorce, they can move to a new location.

None of that is something that you can control. And a better way is to not obsess solely over customer loyalty, although it's important, but it also to reach continuously reach more people who fit, uh, who can be category buyers. So it's really obsessing over that instead of obsessing over keeping a reclined.

Jonathan Stark:

Okay. Cool. Let me ask you about what's the distinction between standing the fuck out and differentiating.

Louis Grenier:

So standing the fuck out started as a little. It's a, it was a product that I started to sell on my newsletter a couple of years ago. I mean, four years ago at this stage or five years ago at this stage, I came up with a term on a whim. I didn't think of a grandiose plan of anything. And I sold that cohort based course.

And what I started to see happening was people using the term back to me. So I'm using it as a philosophy, almost as like, almost like, Oh, I need to stand a fuck out. Meaning I need to like, Muster the courage and I need to do it in a way that is unapologetic, you know, all of that stuff. And that wasn't at all my plan, but it happened.

So it happened. And I was like, uh huh, that's interesting, made me to do something about this. So I started to talk about that, to talk about it more and whatever. And then the methodology that I built around it was a methodology that I used before, but I really refine it and refine it. So the difference is that I make a, I make a distinction between differentiation, Meaningful differentiation, differentiation, which is what I said earlier, solving ignore struggles better or differently than alternatives.

So that's where value is. It's it's when you solve that and distinctiveness. Which is sometimes used, uh, in the same way, but it's not the same thing. So distinctiveness is about, uh, sticking to people's minds without having to dance naked, uh, with a pineapple on your head to be noticed, right? So you can stand the fuck out without being differentiated, meaning you can offer lawn services just like the others, same products, same type of pricing, whatever.

But you can be highly distinctive, maybe with a mascot, maybe the van with a, I don't know, like a huge fucking. part on top of it and whatever. I don't know. You're right. So you can also do the other way. You can be highly differentiated, differentiated. So you can have a strong differentiation, unique positioning, um, with a distinctiveness, right?

So that means you can offer something that is highly, valuable for people, but you don't do anything in terms of distinctive brands, uh, because you don't necessarily need to, right? So,

Jonathan Stark:

Interesting.

Louis Grenier:

standing the fuck out is, um, is a philosophy nowadays, it seems like, where it's about having the courage to do what you really want to do, having the courage to, to try new things, to take some risk, and understanding that the least risky path is, to stand out, right?

And you know, Seth Godin talks about that a lot, right?

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah. So is it, so it feels like the way you're just, cause I know people are going to be confused by this listening. So I want to drill

Louis Grenier:

Well, let's clear that up then.

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah. So, so it sounds a little bit like, okay. The standing the fuck out is a little bit more like branding or personal branding. And the differentiation is more about the actual product or service and how it solves the problem.

Louis Grenier:

right, exactly. So the first stage is insight foraging. So one of the first principle is to go back to, how people behave, right? So we gather insight, I can go into detail about what type, we gather insight from different sources or just one source or your own brain, whatever. And then we use that to, First, develop a unique positioning.

So with a unique positioning, we give the right people a compelling reason to choose us over the others. It's about finding specific problems that the competition has overlooked. This is where you may find new market space and how you can win as an underdog. So that's the unique positioning part. It's, it's the very, it's the rational, almost scientific. Part of standing out. So with that, you achieve meaningful differentiation because it has a meaning. It has a value people care about. Then you have a distinctive brand. So the, what I wanted for this methodology to be is that you can apply to anything, meaning your own personal brand. a big brand, a specific launch, a specific product or whatever.

So whatever area of focus you pick at the start of the method of the, of the, of the book, you follow through all the way. So if we talk about you, let's say, and we pick you as the brand, the person behind a brand that says multiple services, the unique positioning would be for you and the distinctive brand would be about you.

But if we pick. this podcast, the unique positioning will be about the podcast and it's distinctive brand will be about the podcast as well, right? So it's, it's throughout the book, there is always some sort of a attention, a dance. It's a bit like tango. There's, it's never, never fully 100%, never fully 0%.

It's always in between. So it's always like a mix of unique positioning and distinctive brand that will bring you to where you want to go. Also reaching more people, but it's never that clear cut, right? You need mixtures of stuff and it's a bit of taste as well, creative taste and just the experience of knowing whether that sounds right, that feels right.

Yeah,

Jonathan Stark:

Okay. Okay. No, I think that clears it up quite a bit. So let's talk about the strategy. So you mentioned that you worked on this for three years. Why would someone go to all that trouble, , to, You know, there, there must be some business strategy behind it.

So why don't you, if you could get into that and sort of some of the, the pitfalls and so forth that you had to wrestle with over the course of those three years.

Louis Grenier:

So I've always wanted to be an author. I never believed I could be one one day until recently. I always thought My writing wasn't good. I heard from other people when I was younger that I, you know, you shouldn't really be writing. It's not really for you, especially because being French, English, not being my first language and me living in Dublin for 15 years, always wanted to do stuff in English, like the marketing field and whatever.

So yeah, I had this kind of belief, um, that I couldn't do it, but in back of my head, that was always something I wanted to do, like primarily because people like said, got in, I think said, got in is the first Author that I picked a book from and you know, whenever I want to learn something new whenever I'm interested in a topic like I don't know mushrooms.

I've bought this book about The, the, the life of mushrooms and whatever, apparently it's really good. And it's really, I love picking books. And I realized then when I interview people on my podcast, I pick people based on mainly the book I've been reading to talk about, you know, so I knew that it was, it would be a foundational.

shift to have a business where the book is really the foundation of it, or at least the methodology underneath the book. And then the book would be the first offer, the first layer, the, the, the base of it, um, with, without having to reinvent the wheel, I'm not going to try to create a business model that I'm the only one who who's using.

I'm literally stealing from others in our space. you know, like entrepreneurial experts or whatever you want to call it, who have like a very clear business model with the book and then some stuff on top of it. And that's, that's been the idea. And to answer your question about three years, why would someone go through all of that trouble?

Very selfishly, It's like, you know, you have an itch in the middle of your back and you can't reach it. And it's me trying to build a tool that helped me to actually scratch that, that itch. Cause I genuinely couldn't find an answer to my questions with like, how do you actually differentiate in detail, like actionable ways to do it repeatedly, whatever you're picking at first.

Yeah. It's not easy. None of the book is easy. I don't promise anything that I can't. Uh promise I I say it makes things a bit easier. I never say it's gonna 10x your business Uh, none of that, right, but like it's actionable And I just couldn't find anything remotely like that And so I had to do it and I never thought it would take me three years.

The biggest hardship was losing Yeah, 36, excuse me, thousand dollars, um, investing in, uh, scribe media, uh, which is, which was a, um, a sort of a hybrid publishing, uh, Company slash editing in it, essentially you, you pay them. And in exchange, they help you all the way from the idea of the book to promoting it.

So the cover, the editing, the proofreading, the setting up Amazon properly, the writing of it, not, not that they write for you, but like, they really help you with the structure or whatever. So I invested that money. Because I needed the accountability because I didn't feel comfortable writing a full thing and it went well until it didn't until, until I got an email from them saying, Hey, contrary to rumors, Scrymedia is still operating.

And I was like, Oh my God, what is

Jonathan Stark:

hmm. Mm

Louis Grenier:

And what is going on? I knew it was, it was anyway, it turns out the CEO, the, the, the, the, the CEO then used funneled all of the money in the profits for his own gain and his own personal brand and stuff like that. And investor, uh, investors and customer realized there was no money left. They had to let go every single people in there and hired like a skeleton crew to run through. And then they got bought out. They got bought by someone else. And so they still operate, but under new leadership. And anyway, they reached out to me saying, Hey, based on what is left of the project, we can continue working with you, but you'll have to wait until I think Q4 of 2025 to get the money.

To work again because they had the backlog and you have to pay an extra 20 grand or 30 grand to continue something like that. Anyway, so yeah, that was a big hardship that set me back quite a while, uh, for a long time, easily a year. But I was still working on it in the methodology. I was testing it with clients.

But that was the biggest one.

Jonathan Stark:

That's brutal. So, okay, but you picked yourself up and dusted yourself off, kept going, and What did you do? What did you do after that? You just by yourself, or is that when you started getting beta readers?

Louis Grenier:

No. So I got a, uh, I then got into a conversation with, uh, Joe Pulizzi, who wrote a couple of marketing books. He, he's a well known figure in, in our world, like content marketing and what, and whatever. And we had conversation back and forth on LinkedIn. And I saw in passing that he was teaming up with Lulu, L U L U, that's a, um, a print on demand company, a B Corp print on demand company to create a service very much like Scribe Media for creators who want to write books.

And he reached out and he said that they're looking for authors. And I was like, you know what? You know, pick me up, let's do it. Uh, because I trusted the guy. So I got to work really closely with them to help them build the program, to build the services and whatnot. And in the exchange, uh, I would get like beneficial rates, uh, to keep going.

So the cover, even though the branding was done by a friend, a designer, uh, but the cover, everything, everything that you see. The book, whatever, that's, that's all them. They helped me to edit it, proofread it, making sure it's all okay. And the, the deal was as well to use their services for the printing of the books, not Amazon.

Jonathan Stark:

hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Louis Grenier:

I was okay with that. I didn't mind, uh, as long as I could publish the Kindle on Amazon, at least. And they said I could basically use that to sell directly on my website. So with Lulu, you can. Uh, there's a plugin for Shopify and you can essentially sell books directly to people without going through Amazon people buy it gets fulfilled automatically.

I don't see the books, you know, I don't receive them here They get delivered You know done so, I kept a hundred percent of the creative control on in term of how much I make per book. It's like, it's just night and day. Like, you know, it's just, it's just, so anyway, the idea was, let's use that to my advantage, right?

I cannot use Amazon for printed books. Let's, let's, let's play on that on let's take it to Bezos, right? In a sense, and let's just use. At least for a first phase of launch that to our advantage, where we can maximize average order value when I can really maximize profits for the business and cashflow.

while getting people to like know the book and whatever. And then once I feel like that first stage has been not dying out, but like, it's not as important anymore. Then moving on to a traditional book launch where I push Amazon, push reviews, push the normal stuff to, to, uh, to play with the algorithm.

Jonathan Stark:

that's very attractive as, as to me specifically. I'm sure also to listeners, the, then the lulu, presumably you get the contact information from the buyers using the Shopify plugin approach.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah, that's one of the great, like, so we've sold directly on the, on the site, just directly on the site, outside of bulk orders and other stuff. We sold more than 600 copies.

Jonathan Stark:

Mm-hmm

Louis Grenier:

Not all of the customers would have opted in to receive marketing emails and whatever, but the majority did. So yes, I now have in my kit account a list of people I know have bought the book.

And it's a little, it's a small thing, but it actually makes such a big difference because I

Jonathan Stark:

Oh yeah. It's

Louis Grenier:

just to them and say, Can you leave a review on Amazon now? Because you know, right. Stuff like that. Um, so yes, contact information, all of that is mine. Creates like everything is mine. So I'm so glad actually, you know, that this happened this way.

I'm so glad the scribe media went bankrupt. I was so glad that Joe Pulizzi pulled me back because it actually allowed me to be more creative and use the opportunity to do a launch that's Others wouldn't do so that's one part of it. The other part was selling. So selling directly through Shopify. So I built an entire Shopify website, um, connected to Lulu and then played with packages.

So the idea was, okay. We are going to launch the book. I've been teasing it for like a year. I would say this even more, uh, you know that cause you're, you're reading my emails, always appreciate you, uh, replying and all of that. So it wasn't a marketing ploy. It was just to keep me accountable and genuinely to talk about it and how hard it was because it was.

And so. I talked about it. Those people were warm and my idea was let's not bring them to an Amazon site where they pay like 9. 99 on, for a Kindle and I get two fucking dollars back. Let's maximize the value, right? So let's solve in no, in no struggles that others don't solve. So I designed three different packages.

Um, I designed a basic plus a pro. So the basic was printed copy plus the ebook. The plus package was printed copy. ebook, um, a couple of video, like very short video on extra, um, use cases, um, and swags. So we'll talk about that because it's probably the third thing I've done differently than most, and then the pro one, especially for marketing business owners with all of that, plus a mini roast.

So you would. You would submit your landing page or whatever. And then I would come back to you with, with my analysis of it, really. So that was the idea. And I didn't calculate it after launch because we did some sort of a promo for launch for like two weeks, but, uh, the average order value is 65. So for the launch, just to repeat it in different way, every single person who bought the book, but it for 65, essentially not just the book, but the package.

So. That was a huge win. Like that was a, that we were all, we were so happy. Right. Um, so it's not profit because delivery, because, you know, we still need to pay for the book to be printed and whatever, but it's much more than we would have gotten from just pushing, uh, to Amazon, um, directly. So that's the second, the second way we've done launch differently.

And the third one is really leaning, leaning on, on what I call irrational struggles, irrational stuff, having fun, like in the distinctiveness part as well. So behind me is a. Giant French rooster wearing a purple beret. And that's kind of my mascot, Roger, Roger, the rooster. And I'm just, it makes no sense apart from the fact that I'm French and it connects to that, but there's no real connection with what I do day to day.

Um, but people connect with it.

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah.

Louis Grenier:

And my challenge was, okay, let's come up with the weirdest, funniest, most irrational things we can give in a package featuring this guy. Okay. Um, and you will see that people would buy that the package is because of it. Right. And so talk about like B2B decisions are always rational.

They're not because the, the pro package contained

Jonathan Stark:

I wish this was video. You're holding up a

Louis Grenier:

you're recording it. It will be video if we make it a video, uh, you send it to me, I'll put it on my YouTube. So it's a, um, it's a Roger the rooster fanny pack that I've designed. Um, it's only, it was limited edition only. sent and made for those people who bought the pro package.

It's never going to be available again. And the pro package was sold at the roughly the same number of was sold for the pro package and the plus package plus package at stickers, weird stickers of Roger the rooster on my face. Uh, and yeah, it worked right. And so we went, we went, I mean, I, I'm sure I could have gone weirder, but we went as weird as I could with what I had.

With what we had available and whatnot. And just people love that because it's a bit different, right? It's, it stands the fuck out

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah. I laughed when I saw it.

Louis Grenier:

there, but that's, that's all that matters. And you know what? I got

---

Louis Grenier:

emails from customers saying my 13 year old daughter literally stole it from me saying it looks so cool.

And my own daughter, who's three.

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah.

Louis Grenier:

the stickers, loves the rooster, loves the bag, steal it from me when she goes to my office. And I knew then that was a good idea because if a three year old likes it, chances are older kids like us will at least laugh and find it funny like you did.

And that's all that mattered to me.

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah. That's great. Cool. So I've got a couple of stupid follow up questions, but like in it for Lulu? Are they getting a cut of the printing or like just an upfront payment?

Louis Grenier:

Yeah, so, so what's in it for them? So yes, obviously, whatever book are printed through me, they make, they make, uh, they make some money. Um, the services, so the, the, the, the publishing service that they've created is called Tilt Publishing. That's Joe Pulizzi's, uh, venture was the Tilt, and so the, the Tilt Publishing now.

So yes, they probably make some money through that, but I think the bigger play there is. Part four of my book, which is continuous reach, reaching more people. They seem to make a big push towards like creators in the wide sense of the world. Uh, they're sponsoring. Uh, more conferences now, uh, they are sponsoring the next KITS conference.

Uh, um, they've organized, they're organizing their own conference in Cleveland in August called the Content Entrepreneur Expo. So I think the bigger thing is exact, they are, they were dreaming about this and now it's happening. People are talking about it in podcasts, on podcasts, for content. You know, and now I've actually, it's free publicity for them.

I mentioned it. I'm not paid to do that. And I think that's the longer game for them. They are B Corp. They are here for the long term, the long run. I never had this discussion with them. Why are they doing it? But that's my guess.

Jonathan Stark:

Okay. Cause I've looked at Lulu in the past and I've self published a couple of times and it's, it's a pain, you know, getting editors individually and the cover and yeah, it's a pain. You can do it. You can hire freelancers and stuff and get it done, but it is a pain. And then the printing thing for the longest time, I didn't have anything available in print because I didn't want to sell on Amazon for a variety of

reasons. So I just didn't have print books until this year. I put a couple of things on Amazon, more as lead magnets than anything else because there's obviously Amazon has a mess load of traffic.

So I applaud your plan to at some point in the future when the initial bump kind of ramps down. Uh, yeah, we can talk about that some other time perhaps. So, okay. So. Tell me about the launch because it seemed from the outside following you on your mailing list and on LinkedIn, it seemed like a massive amount of work.

You're creating fanny packs that you're designing yourself. You've got this giant, it looks like six foot tall poster behind you of a rooster. The production of the book in the first place is a huge undertaking and then launching it. How did you have the time to do all of this?

Louis Grenier:

Look, uh, I don't know how others do it and how others think about those stuff, but I tend to think in terms of this is my one priority. So when writing the book was my priority, that was my, pretty much the only thing I was doing aside from writing a, an email daily and stuff. I didn't do podcast interviews.

I didn't do any of the stuff I didn't speak at conferences, whatever. So that launch was kind of the fun part for me though, because I've been thinking about it for years. Like years and years and years and years. So I couldn't wait to finally do that. So in terms of pure efficiency and productivity, was it stupid for me to build the Shopify site myself?

Was it stupid for me to design the funny pack myself? Yeah, I'm sure I could, I found someone who could do it faster, whatever. But I don't want to forget my business. To have fun. And those things were fun to me. And I didn't give a shit about whether I could be more productive. I had fun building the packages.

I had fun doing my own thing. I had fun writing the copy because for the first time in a while, it really felt like a product I was so proud of and I could so easily write copy around and create stuff around. It just felt really. Much easier than anything I've done in the past. And that's why I've done it for fun, like for myself.

And I knew that if I had fun doing it, surely others would have fun looking at it and, and, and seeing, seeing it unfold. Right.

Jonathan Stark:

Oh yeah. It was very engaging. I would say it was like super fun to follow along. So what, what, what were the components of the launch? So, you know, I was following it I was following you on social media and your email, but for people who didn't do that? What maybe after what you just said, maybe you don't have any advice.

Maybe your advice is just have fun and tell people about this thing that you're proud of. But are there any things that you could kind of share that are kind that are, that are useful takeaways? Did you do something that was a mistake? Did you, something was a complete waste of time. Would you do anything differently?

Louis Grenier:

Yeah, you know, it's always weird because the mistakes you make along the way are the things that stick and where you learn the best way. Like it's just, you can read about it in books or whatever, but unless you make the mistake and feel the pain. So, you know, it's always difficult for me to answer, but I do it differently.

Yeah. There's details I would do differently. So I've sent around 200 packages to friends and people in the industry that I like. Um, And beta readers as well. You're the rare interception intersection of people who helped with the book as a beta reader and someone I admire in the industry. So you got one book package, but anyway, so I wrote up those boxes that are quite big and, and in my head, they would be easily filled up, but actually that wasn't the case.

I've so big mistake was to actually order those biggest boxes instead of getting like smaller. Padded just envelopes, that would have been fine, but I wanted the grandiose reveal. So you see, like you're waiting for it to unbox it. Don't expect too much. Um, I took the time to sign them individually as well.

I've I know that uh, actually yesterday I got a package from another author And it's very professional. It's like a printed box and whatever but it's not signed, you know And I don't know why I care about it so much But I was just wanting to sign the books because I know some people care about that and it just felt way more personal So i've signed every book myself.

I've packaged the packages the actual physical packages myself Uh, so I would do the the, the packages differently. Um, the, before that, I think if we go back to the start. In terms of the writing of it, I think it's important to separate two things, the building or rebuilding the methodology and writing the book itself.

What took me the longest was the rebuilding of the methodology from scratch based on the podcast episode conversation I've had, based on all the books I've read, based on the clients I've had and the questions they had and the stuff I couldn't answer. With the actual writing around the methodology, right?

So, you know, if I read, if I write another book or if I would advise someone right now about it, I would say definitely use voice transcription as a way to get to a first draft fast. Um, because then once I had that in front of me, it was much easier to cut it and, and reduce it down and ask for feedback and whatever.

That's when it became fun again. Right. So yeah, I would do that more probably as well. Um,

Jonathan Stark:

of feedback, what was your experience with the beta readers? And you used help this book

Louis Grenier:

Yeah. Help this book. Yeah. Help this book. com from Rob Fitzpatrick who wrote a good book called Write Useful Books. That's quite, uh, interesting. Look, this was by far the most valuable activity I've done over the last five years. Um, because It forced me, it kept me, it kept keeping me accountable and it forced me to ship a shitty first draft to people and get the ball rolling and really like have a sense of what's going on.

So, you know, I'm very lucky to have people who follow what I, what I have to say and when I do and who were interested in helping. Um, and in total I selected 70 people across three rounds. So I did three rounds of beta reading. Yeah. Um, I think you were in round three. You, I think you saw the most Polish version.

Jonathan Stark:

I'm not sure.

Louis Grenier:

so every version would get 20, 25 people. And I reading, uh, when I was reading about this process for books specifically, I read that, yeah, maybe 25, 20 percent would, would actually do it. But no, most of them did like, I was so surprised. 90 percent maybe of it, like actually went through the stuff, leave comments and stuff.

The, the risk with this process, if you're not careful is to. Not know how to digest and select the right type of feedback. So it's very easy to, to go into, Oh, let's please everyone. You know, this person says, Oh, you need to expand on that. This one says, I don't understand the joke. Like I made a joke about star Wars and say, uh, let the hate flow through you. I said, as a famous emperor said, let the hate flow through you. And there was a comment that said. Maybe you removed this, I didn't understand this. So it's super easy to actually dilute everything based on the feedback. So yes, you need to know what you're going to say.

Yes, this is good. This is interesting feedback and no, you know, you don't get the joke. So

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah, yeah.

Louis Grenier:

um, that's the big risk with this type of activity, but the rewards were phenomenal for me because at the end of the three rounds, I knew with a hundred percent certainty that it was a good book.

Because, you know, I just knew, um, it was so much better than the first draft. I mean, this book is just, I'm so proud of it because of it, you know, it just made it so much better.

Jonathan Stark:

Yes. I've had a similar experience when, uh, I wrote a software book years ago for O'Reilly and, you know, you have different editors, developmental editors and content editors. Copy editors and so forth. And, and there's a, there's a little bit of that. That'd be like, well, you know, I don't get this joke or whatever.

I would phrase this differently. I'm like, no, that's the way I talk. And I understand what you're saying, but I'm, I'm going to die on this hill for this one. But yeah. There was one time when they, they created a, an early sort of hand rolled version of Help This Book where it was, they called it Rough Cuts, O'Reilly Rough Cuts, and you could get, it was, they basically published the book as a blog with comments and people could comment on section, on paragraph, at the paragraph level.

So it's very similar. Um, And it was, I mean, I had the same reaction you did. I'm like, Oh my God, this is solid gold feedback. Like these, they would be calling out things. And I'm like, Oh, they're right. I forgot to say this thing. Like, I forgot the previous thing that would make this make sense. Or, or I used a word that lots of people misinterpret and there's a much better synonym that I could use.

There's so many, so many solid gold. I mean, that in that book did great.

Louis Grenier:

But I tell you

what, the, the most valuable parts wasn't. In the detail like that, like the best feedback I got was a couple of emails of people saying, okay, I read through the book. This is what I'm thinking on the bigger stuff. And I found them like phenomenal. Like, um, I think let me actually, let me pull that up before I start

so a dear friend of mine in the industry, uh, Actually, uh, read through it and then, and then sent me this huge email. Um, reduce the number of name concept, they add clutter and find them tricky to remember.

Um, when you introduce a concept, describe it immediately, preferably in the following sentence. I kept looking back at prior sections that I thought I missed the descriptions.

So in the first draft, what I was doing was like saying, I was talking about an exercise called maybe the Trojan horse exercise, which is a way to like, to give people what they think they need first and then giving them what they want and having the, anyway, the best of both worlds, and I wouldn't define it straight away.

So I would say like the title, subtitle would be the, the, the fucking. The horsey, the horse thing, I forgot the name now because I'm brain dead, but, um, and then I would just go on about a story about it and then define it later on. And so now, like in the book now, every single concept that I named, that I haven't named before, the next sentence is the definition of it, right?

And for everything, right? And it flows so much better. Uh, let me give you another example. Uh, over, over, oversell at the start. I think you dramatically undersell the benefits of your framework. Most books of this type spend the first 10, 20 percent purely selling the promise, uh, before getting into detail. You do this in a few bullet points. I think it harms the book, reducing the reader's motivation and genuinely undersells the quality of your work.

Jonathan Stark:

Interesting. What was your reaction to that?

Louis Grenier:

I was delighted. Like genuinely, no, no, seriously. Like I have no. I've done that process so many times before, not just for the book, but like, uh, when I was working at Hotjar and before, like I've, I've, I've, I do that so many times that I don't care. I take it for goal. Like I, it's goal to me. And I was like, this is so true.

Right. But I just couldn't see it. So yeah, you just need to know who you're listening to. Again, I selected beta readers. I didn't get anyone to leave comments. It was like, specific group I wanted. I wanted a healthy balance of reluctant marketers, marketing, business owners, whatever, but I wanted, you know, a specific type.

So yeah, it's so valuable. I mean, I could talk about it for hours.

Jonathan Stark:

Well, cool. And that, uh, what's, what is it called? Help this book, right?

Louis Grenier:

Help this book.

Jonathan Stark:

Help this book. Yeah. And, and the book that it's, it's sort of spun out of, which is right. Useful books by Rob Fitzpatrick is it's definitely worth a read for

anybody who's thinking about, yeah, it is a useful book. Yeah. it's a

it's a fractal,

Louis Grenier:

It's, uh, you can do it other ways, right? You can do it through Google doc, whatever. The good thing about how this book is the fact that, um, the comments are pointed, meaning you can't just leave a comment. It's, it's either, this is confusing. This is whatever, like this, it's, it's quite, there's a direction to each thing and you can hide everyone else comments.

And then there's an aggregated view and all of that. So it's, it's better than Google doc for that. But you know, don't worry too much about the tooling. It's more the. The process behind it that is incredibly valuable.

Jonathan Stark:

Yes, and I think Google, yeah, Google Docs in theory would work. It is nice to have this sort of purpose built thing, but the overarching feedback from both of our experiences is get beta readers. It will make the thing so much better. And then, you know, you've got 70 people who are invested in the success of the book.

So, you know, that's, that's not nothing.

Louis Grenier:

It's, it's, it's just been amazing. Like people were so supportive and, and yeah, be, I mean, I know you talk about it for other type of products and services, the fact that, you know, you need to. You know, just share or sell before you're ready or before you feel ready. But it's, yeah, it made, made things so much better.

And yeah, those people then send email saying, you know, congrats left a review without me asking for it. And just that was the best. So it was really good, really good experience

Jonathan Stark:

So at this point, what is it, January? We're recording on January 14th, 2025. How long has it been out? Couple of

Louis Grenier:

since, uh, two months.

Jonathan Stark:

two months. And what's the, what phase are you in now? Would you say?

Louis Grenier:

So now we're going to go to global. World domination. So, um, so we have like around 30 reviews on Goodreads. Uh, we have reviews on my site as well. They were collected directly through Shopify. Uh, I think one review or two review on Amazon because I never pushed Amazon, even though it's there. So now, yeah, the next phase is.

Amazon push. So we're going to set up a 99 cents offer on the Kindle for a couple of weeks. Encourage people who are ready to leave a review this way. Um, and then setting up the, the ads for Amazon where like people search for said got in there, they can find some of accounts because it's related or whatever.

And hopefully then. Um, keep doing what I'm doing now. So a bit more speaking, a bit more podcast interviews with people I like, and hoping that then word of mouth and the reach, you know, the continuous reach I'm trying to do picks up. Um, we've sold in total, if I count, um, Amazon, Kindle, my site plus others.

For events that I'm speaking at, we sold more than, I think, 1, 300 copies.

Jonathan Stark:

two months. Wow. That's great.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah. So the, the objective was 1, 000 in three months. So we've done that in two months or even less. So very happy with that, but I'm happier with the reviews and the feedback. It's been amazing. It's been really good to see. I'm just so proud of it, you know?

Jonathan Stark:

That's great. Yeah. It's a great book. People should check it out. What you mentioned a couple of times, the sort of bulk sales and event sort of thing is that, could you talk a little bit, but that's something I've never done. I'm curious about that.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah. So I'm, got invited to speak at a couple of marketing conferences this year. Um, I used to say no to them, uh, prior to the book, but now it, it makes sense. So instead of a speaking fee, I'm getting them to order. Um, so for example, there is one that I've ordered 400 copies. So every single attendee of that event will get a, get a copy. As a, as a bonus or whatever, and I charge for that instead of a speaking fee. So that enables me to have, um, it's not to game the algorithm. Uh, there's a way to do that, uh, or to become a, a New York Time bestseller and whatever,

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah.

Louis Grenier:

you get them to, you know, buy, you basically buy them in bulk and then you inflate the number.

That's not at all for that. It's, it's purely for, uh, to get my work in front of as many people as possible,

Jonathan Stark:

Mm hmm.

Louis Grenier:

like, I don't care if you don't buy them, uh, buy directly. I know that if you like the book, you might rebuy it. You might talk about it and that's more than enough. So yes, that's, that's how to do it.

And with Lulu, not to like plug their stuff. It's just the way I do it. It's super easy to do. It's literally, you, you go through your dashboard, 400 books delivered where boom. And then within two, three weeks, it's done. You receive 10 boxes of fucking books.

Jonathan Stark:

That's a dream.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah,

so it's that's how that's how I do it.

Jonathan Stark:

sponsored by Lulu.

Louis Grenier:

Yeah Yeah, I don't like you see I think you know, it answers your question from before.

All right, that's why they're doing it.

Jonathan Stark:

Yeah, that's great. It's very attractive. Cool. Uh well, geez, I mean, normally at the end, I say, Where can people go to find out more about, you know, give you a chance to promote what you're doing? So obviously folks should go to, well, you can, you can share the URLs, uh

Louis Grenier:

It's so, so the offer specifically for you listening, uh, that I've built this morning is stfo. link slash ditching hourly

in

one word. But if you just Google standoff account, you'll find the book, you'll find everything else.

Jonathan Stark:

Awesome. Well, congrats on the success so far. I'm sure it will continue into the future and thanks for joining us.

Louis Grenier:

Well, thank you for your time and for your, for your questions. And thank you for allowing me to talk about my new favorite thing.

Jonathan Stark:

All right, folks, that's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark and I hope you join me again next time on Ditching Hourly. Bye.