Jay Clouse [00:00:14]:

Hello, my friend. Welcome back another episode of creator science. I am so excited to share today's episode. It's with a friend of mine Tori Dunlap who has been on the show before. Tori was originally on episode number 88 of this show back in January of 2022, and a lot has changed for Tori. Now Tori is the founder of her first 100 k. This is something that she built after saving a $100,000 herself by age twenty five. She quit her corporate job in marketing and founded this company to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. Now Tori started on TikTok or at least that's where she first had her breakthrough. She has 2a half 1000000 followers on TikTok she has almost a million followers on Instagram, but here's why Tory is back here today. Not only has Tory launched a podcast called Financial Feminines since being on the show and has one of the top business shows out there, but she has also launched a book by the same name, Financial Feminist, and that is a New York Times bestseller.

Tori Dunlap [00:01:13]:

We ended up being number 4 on the New York Times bestseller list. I think on a normal week, we could have been at number 2.

Jay Clouse [00:01:21]:

Maybe number 1. So I reconnected with Tory because I saw her writing on LinkedIn about the process of writing this New York Times bestseller. Not only will we talk about why she thinks she could have been number 1 on a normal week, but she's very, very honest about the timeline, the process, the things that met her expectations, the things that were side of our expectations. Here's a preview.

Tori Dunlap [00:01:42]:

I personally thought I could get this book done in 9 months, and that was the most naive bullshit ever.

Tori Dunlap [00:01:49]:

The hardest thing I've ever done professionally is trying to write and market this book, period, second sentence, while also trying to run a business. Like, awful.

Jay Clouse [00:02:00]:

We get really, really specific in this episode. We talk about her entire process from writing the proposal, finding a literary agent, selling the book, writing the book, marketing the book, including the timeline for all the things I just mentioned.

Tori Dunlap [00:02:13]:

Not including the book proposal. I started writing When I landed the book deal officially in, like, April, May of 2021, we got a final final draft probably late summer of 2022.

Jay Clouse [00:02:26]:

This is one of the longer episodes that I've aired here on the show, but I had a really hard time cutting it down because literally up into the last minutes of the show, Tori is saying things like this. If you are, for whatever reason, like, tuning me out and, like, kind of half listening to this episode and you wanna write a book and need you to, like, pull your car over and I need and I need you to listen to this because this is single handedly. I think one of the smartest things we did. Really, really excited for you to listen to this. Tory was super generous. and transparent in everything she shares here. So if you are writing a book or considering writing a book, I think this is a must listen to episode It really goes in-depth into the entire process from proposal to publish and even marketing post publish. So let's get into it. Let's talk with Tori Dunn from her first 100 k. New York Times

Tori Dunlap [00:03:17]:

best selling author, Tory Dunlap, back on the show. How does it feel for me to introduce you that way? I was just gonna say it. I never will get sick and tired of hearing It's it's lovely. It's the thing I wanted professionally, probably more than anything, especially in the last year or 2. So the fact that it happened, I love hearing it. I'm like, yeah, bring it on. Let's it again. Let's run it again. Amazing. Well, I wanna talk all about the process today. I wanna talk about the timeline and everything. So let's talk. Let's start with When did writing a book even come on your radar? Is this something that you always wanted to do? Yeah. So if you follow me, you probably know this. because it became kind of the part of the marketing, but I I mean, I'm recording this in front of my bookshelf. Like, I was a voracious reader growing up. That was my what I love to do. I wouldn't go anywhere without a book. Like, there's so many times that my parents remember, like, driving like, my mom would drive to the grocery store with me in the back seat, and it was a 10 minute drive, and I would still have a book in the back. And so I actually wrote down because I was this kind of kid when I was seven or eight years old, like, one of my bucket list items. Like, I will write a book. Now did I think it was gonna be a personal finance book? Fuck, no. That was not part of the plan. But I had known for a really long time that I wanted to do this. Then as her first 100 k started growing and, of course, you know, we have part 1 of the podcast talking about that growth, it became clear that this would be another avenue and a natural way to to reach more people to grow the brand. and I actually got reached out to by my first publisher in 2019. I had this big splashy piece in MarketWatch that was, like, our first press hits that we ever got. It went viral. It got, like, a million views in, like, a couple days. They, you know, this this publisher at this huge publishing house reached out and was like, you know, do you have you ever thought about writing a book? And I was still working a 9 to 5 job. Her first McKay was a side hustle. It was gaining momentum, but I was like, I remember this is, of course, my native k at that time too. I was 24. And I was like, I will never get this opportunity again. I have to say yes, but I knew I also I I couldn't. I did not have the bandwidth. I did not have the experience. and it, like, overwhelmed me. And I, you know, I had a conversation with her, and she was really great. And we went back and forth. And then finally, I emailed, and I was like, I know I don't have the bandwidth to do this. Right? But, like, I would love to keep in touch with you. And she's like, yeah, of course. And I was like, okay. Thank god. And so then when late 2019, early 2020, when I was a full time entrepreneur, I was like, okay. It's time to start actually thinking seriously about this. And we can talk about that whole process if you want to. But then it was like, okay. We're actually gonna start pursuing this, start thinking about, like, what does it actually look like to have this book out into the world?

Jay Clouse [00:05:55]:

Now in the beginning, when you first got that outreach in 2019, 1, I wanna know, like, how direct that was. Did it seem like this is the beginning of a very long conversation, or it was a was it like, hey. If you say yes, I'll you a contract, you can sign it. We'll start writing a book tomorrow. Oh, it's never like that. No. And it's it's like, we're now starting to pitch TV shows, and it feels very similar where it's like, oh, yeah. We really like you, and we like what we do, and we'd love to have an intro conversation with you. And then

Tori Dunlap [00:06:20]:

this is like a multi year process, TV, even more intense, I think. it was a, like, I think part of the publisher or, like, like, part of an editor's job, right, is to, like, get the new book to edit, like, what is going to be the book that hopefully sells well, but at the very least is, like, a good thing to add to their repertoire, their resume. Right? So I think this editor saw me some place was like, oh, she would probably write a pretty cool book. Have you ever thought about writing a book? then it's kind of like, you have a contact. Right? You have someone that you can you can, like, I met with her in New York in, yeah, early 2020. I had coffee with her. it was actually really funny when I actually sent my book proposal to her. She turned it down. And she said very kindly, she was just like, hey. I think you're great. I think this is great, but Publishing in 2020 was having a meltdown, right, because of COVID. And this was before, like, book talk really took off. Like, she was like, I like, we just don't have the bandwidth to publish it. And then I got an email after the book came out where she was like, hey, great book. Really sorry. We weren't able to work together. So it was, like, this really interesting, you know, like, arc of a relationship as I hit my microphone. I'm sorry. But, it was definitely not a, like, I'll send the contract over to you. I'd I I'm sure that happens with, like, celebrities, maybe, but, like, it depends on who you are. Right? And again, we can talk about this. Like, if you are already some sort of public person, you are typically, like, putting your book proposal out there and people are, like, it's a it goes into an auction. I was less of a public person when I was writing this book proposal. in, like, mid-twenty 20. And so it was, okay, get a book proposal together, get a lit agent taught, you know, make contact with some people that would be interested in talking with us and see what goes from there. It was less less sexy, I think, than some some other things. Now, of course, if I write a second book, that's probably how it's gonna go, but that first book was more like, hello, I'm writing a book. Look at me, then, like, editor scrambling to publish it. So in the beginning, it sounds like they reached out to you and or your team directly, and you kinda handled that conversation initially.

Jay Clouse [00:08:34]:

said in 2020, when you did the proposal, you did get a let agent. How do you feel about the the timeline and process of that? Do you wish you would have gotten a let agent sooner or wait a little bit longer. I think having a good lit agent is absolutely critical to this whole process

Tori Dunlap [00:08:49]:

because they're they have the connections and also, you know, especially one that is is very well versed and has worked with authors before. They have standing relationships with publishers already, and they have a reputation. And so I think when you're thinking about, you know, if you were out there listening and you're like, I wanna write a book, the thing that you wanna do first is figure out what that book looks like and you can do this with a potential lit agent. It's kind of like chicken or the egg. Sometimes you need to find the lit agent first and then write the book proposal. Other times, like, the book proposal is what helps you get a lit agent, especially if you're, like, lesser known. But the book proposal is, like, It's pretty intense. It's basically a marketing document, and this is what people don't realize. It's it's about your writing. Yes. You submit a sample chapter But the rest of the book proposal is like, what is the book about? Who does it appeal to? Why should you write this book? How are you gonna market the book? It's much more about, like, the marketing strength that you're going to bring. It's like a business plan for the book. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's a great way of saying that. Yeah. It's it's it's how you're gonna sell the book with a little bit of what the book's actually gonna look like and the writing of it. And so a lot easier to pitch a book with, you know, the outline of it. So That was what my lit agent had recommended to me. We worked on it together. And, you know, she would send kind of her thoughts or her revisions. And then when we felt like we had a good solid solid outline of it, then we started sending it to either the re the relationships we had already cultivated with, publishers that were interested or, you know, trying to get it out to to other people. And then you start having conversations that you realize. Sometimes they aren't right. Like, we had one of one publisher who was interested who, like, really wanted to publish our book, but didn't didn't wanna publish the kind of book I wanted to write. And then you have a really interesting choice where you're like, okay. Do I write the kind of book that they want me to write, or do I write the kind of book I wanna write? And I would always say pick the one that you wanna write. So, yeah, we ended up turning that down. It never got to the offer stage. We just had a conversation. It's kinda like dating. Right? You, like, get to a certain point where you're like, oh, I want kids and you don't. Okay. so it it you have to decide, like, what does that look like? And it is, like, going to be a relationship that you have for years. So I, again, I think when you are less or no, and it's like, oh my gosh. Somebody's talking to me. That's great. But, like, really make sure that is a person that you want to work with or a or a organization you wanna with. I would assume that finding a literary agent is a little bit like dating too, depending on how well you already know somebody. So did you talk to several potential literary agents, or did you have a strong referral that you just went with? I probably should have. I ended up working with one of my friends who is a She is a financial blogger on the side, and then she works in publishing. So she had this really unique understanding of what I was trying to do because she was in this space. And I think that that was where her strength lied for me, but my book was the first book she had ever sold. And so I think and even she would tell you that, like, the negotiation was probably less intense than it should have been. So I ended up walking away with a smaller deal than I think I would have if we were more strategic about that. And so we ended up parting ways about 6 months ago very amicably, but it was it was one of those things where I, it was a perfect collaboration for where I was at the time of, okay, I don't understand this industry very well. I need somebody who I know I can trust And I'm trying to flush out what this book looks, so, like, in my head, and she has a very unique understanding of this industry in a way that's another lit agent won't. so that she can not only help the book get sold, but also literally, like, help birth whatever the book actually looks like. So I think we had a relationship that is pretty unique and that isn't normal. My current lit agent, it, like, works at United Talent. She works at UTI. sold, you know, probably at this point, a 100 plus books, like, knows the industry in and out is literally calling me I love her, but calling me being like, okay. When's book number 2 coming? and so, like, it's much more like a traditional, you know, kind of like legit agent relationship. But, yeah, I think I really needed the kind of the kind of support that wasn't just, like, negotiating the deal and navigating publishing, but specifically, like, how do I write a book that

Jay Clouse [00:13:20]:

does, like, checks the boxes that I wanna check for what this book actually looks like. For folks who haven't gone through this process at all, but have maybe heard of, like, a creator manager. Can you help us understand the the model behind,

Tori Dunlap [00:13:33]:

a lit agent and a publisher? Like, what are we talking about in terms of, of numbers to whatever degree you're comfortable sharing. Always willing to be transparent, especially with you. This is like a larger conversation about just, like, creators or authors in general and, like, agencies. So there's a couple different kind of agencies. There is the big players CAA UTA that will basically take on a client. Like, let's say it's Beyonce. Right? They take on Beyonce. and they are Beyonce's agent for everything. They're her agent for if she wants to write a book. They're her agent if Oprah calls and wants to do a TV deal with her. They're her agent if, you know, she is touring and is trying figure out, like, what it, like, booking venues and that sort of thing. So those agencies are, like, the all encompassing agencies that cover everything that you do. Then there's agencies that do just pieces of that. There's just like, brand development agencies, right, that are just doing, like, influencer or brand partnerships. There's speaking agencies that are just you know, getting you to conferences or colleges. There's, yeah, just touring agencies. Right? And just like with, you know, Book Publishing, there's just like a lit agent. Right? That's their specialties. They're just getting you a book deal. So you kind of can go in 1 of 2 ways, or really it's, I guess, it's 3. you can get one agency that covers you for everything, and typically you have to be some sort of name. Like, I'm repped by UTA for our podcast for TV. Oh, in book, obviously. And then we handle the rest of that in house. So that's option 1 is, like, you get somebody who covers everything. Option 2, is you just get agencies for every single thing. So you might have 6 agencies, right, that handle different parts of your business. And then you can kinda do what we've now done, which is kind of like a hybrid where you have, you know, the big agency for some things and then you have either a smaller agency or you do in house for for others. It's kind of like a Venn diagram hybrid. In terms of what percentage you're going to pay them, it's anywhere from about 10 to 20%. Typically with lit agents, you are just paying them, let's say, 15% of your advance. Your advance is the amount of money that a publisher is giving you is basically your, like, salary to go write a book. And this is gonna sound maybe obvious to people, but I did not know it at the time. this is an advance on your royalties. Right? So if you get a $100,000 advance, that means that you won't see money additional money until you sell a $100,001 of your book. Right? So they're typically taking the, you know, 10 to 20% of that advanced number. And that's what you want. You don't want them taking

Jay Clouse [00:16:22]:

money beyond that. Oh, I I was under the impression that literary agents also took, part of the royalty ongoing. Now I'm sure it's negotiable depending on the agent. Mine didn't?

Tori Dunlap [00:16:32]:

and I I might be misspeaking from my understanding. I think it's just the percentage of the advance, but I could be wrong. That was how we structured my deal. Was 15, I think, was 15%

Jay Clouse [00:16:44]:

of my advance. Yeah. It's it's probably different, agent to agent

Tori Dunlap [00:16:48]:

relationship to relationship. I'm sure it's one of those things that's more negotiable than people realize. So it's good to hear that. And I haven't had a conversation with my new late agent because I haven't sold another book. with her. Right? So that might be a conversation where, actually, she's taking her UTA really is taking a percentage of royalties. But the first deal that I had, I think it was 15%

Jay Clouse [00:17:09]:

of my advance went to my agent. After a quick break, Tory and I, dive deep into the proposal process, everything that's involved in a proposal, and later, we talk about everything Tory did right and what she would change if she was launching a book today. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back to my conversation with Tory Dunlap of her first 100 k. Now that we've gotten a high level view of how the entire process went from a numbers perspective. I wanna dive in deeper into the book proposal process itself. So I asked Tory if she went into the typical auction process that we had just spoken about. Mine actually didn't go into auction because I was not as as big as a name as I am now.

Tori Dunlap [00:17:49]:

It was kind of the relationships we had already built. So We, I spent a couple months putting the proposal together. I think we had a final draft by July of 2020. And the irony, again, from our first episode, if you know a bit about my work, we started on TikTok in July of 2020. So you can, like, we have 30,000 followers on Instagram. Like, we didn't have a podcast yet. Like, we were pretty tiny. You know? So it's really funny to think about that actually that the book proposal was getting sent when we were the just, you know, her first letter k was little itty bitty. So we started sending the proposal to the contacts we had already made, and that was typically from these kind of cold reach outs by publishers, the have you ever thought about writing a book? Right? So we started sending those emails too. I think we had 2 or 3 people that were on our, like, contact list of people who had been interested before. Like I said, the first person I ever talked to turned us down very politely, but was like, we just, like, we're not doing a lot of new books right now and, you know, It's hard to remember what that felt like in 2020, but literally, like, supply chain concerns. Like, some books were not getting published because they literally didn't have the paper to print them on. Like, it was it was a kind of a rough time. So throughout the end summer, we were starting to have those conversations with people. So, yeah, one turned us down. We turned another one down. I think there was another person that was in the mic and I I I don't remember what happened either. It just didn't work out. The funny ironic thing. I'm on LinkedIn in December of 2020. I see randomly a post from someone at Day Street, which is an imprint of HarperCollins, and My mind is flagged because I am the most massive fan of the Try Guys, and Day Street did their book. And I'm like, oh, okay. I know that imprint. I know what they're about. I literally, like, go to my shelf and I start looking and, oh, they've done Amy Poeler's book and they've done a couple others. Let me just let me just, like, slide into her LinkedIn DMs. I message her. I'm like, hey. I am, you know, currently pitching my first book. I have this amount of followers. Here's my book proposal. I get the outline of a deal 10 days later -- Wow. -- from Day Street. Like, when it happened, it happened incredibly fast. But, like, it took probably, you know, a year and then, of course, years of building the business to be able to support this. And, you know, I'm blowing up on TikTok. Like, we're growing actively during that time. And so we had a deal cemented. I could actually, I think, tell you the date. I think it was, like, January 20th or something like that. And so that was when the deal, like, we were, you know, meeting with Rosie who was the person who was going to be my editor at Harper Collins. Like, we were starting to, like, actually that was taking shape at that time. So when it when the dominoes did fall, they fell remarkably quickly, but it was literally just pitching somebody already having the book proposal together, already seeing the kind of traction that we were with everything. And then we actually signed the deal in April. So it was interesting. We had, like, kind of settled on the terms of the deal in January. and then signed it in April

Jay Clouse [00:21:10]:

2021.

Tori Dunlap [00:21:11]:

You mentioned how big this proposal was. Can you tell us, do you know, like, how many pages this proposal was to give people a picture of how big of a document it is. Yeah. I mean, it depends on what kind of book you wanna write because you have to include a sample chapter, right, And a sample chapter is gonna look different. Right? Some people who are writing, like, you know, short stories or something like that, it's not gonna be a very big chapter. people, you know, who are writing, I don't know, the history of World War 2, that's gonna be a huge sample chapter. I would say I could probably look Yeah. That Google doc was around maybe 40 pages. Okay. I would say probably 10 pages to twelve pages of the, like, other stuff that, like, how am I gonna market the book? My bio, the customer persona of who's buying this book, the compay the competing titles, like, other books that are similar to mine, and then the vast majority of it is a sample chapter. I wrote the chapter about debt that is in my book was the sample chapter. a lot of things changed, a lot of things were different, and they expect that they're looking for tone. They're looking for, like, how does this book feel when you read it. Right? Is it very, like, academic, or is it, like, tongue and cheek very fun? Right? How is it formatted? Like, us, we are very intentional, and we wanted to bring in other people's stories and almost do, like, sidebars. And if you have my book financial feminist, you know that that's how it looks. Is it's like, You have, you know, me talking about something, and then you have, like, an either another expert or somebody who's coming in to talk about, you know, a different part of that. So My chapter about debt had someone from our community who worked at Victoria's Secret and talked about, like, having to dish out those credit cards to people. of, like, would you would you like to use your angel card today? And we have a whole, you know, segment with her. my section has or my chapters have homework, and so we give them homework at the end. So They're really looking for, like, how good of a writer are you? What is the tone, you know, the experience of reading the book? Well, how how does it feel? And then, like, what is the format? Is it just, like, straight text? If you also want graphics in there, like, you know, I had a place where I was like, I'm gonna put a chart here, and I didn't even need to, like, make that chart sexy. It was just like, there's gonna be a chart. So they wanna they want more to get a feel for it and an under standing that, like, you are qualified and that you are actually going to, like, not renege on the contracts that we give you. So as far as going from

Jay Clouse [00:23:31]:

sign contract to published because I believe you published the very beginning of 2023. Correct?

Tori Dunlap [00:23:38]:

It was December 27 2022 was our release date. Okay. So just tail end, like, last couple days of 2022.

Jay Clouse [00:23:46]:

Is that the timeline that you expected and believed would happen from the point of signing the contract, or did that change at all? I personally thought I could get this book done in 9 months and that was the most naive bullshit ever.

Tori Dunlap [00:24:00]:

here's the thing is most people most people get a ghost writer. Most people have a ghost writer. I am very proud of the fact I wrote this book. It was me. While I was speaking, while I was creating a 3 TikTok videos a day while I was on podcasts, while I was doing our own podcast, like, I wrote this book. Would I recommend it? No. Definitely not. It was so much work. Now I will write my book. most likely, I will be the person writing my book in the future because just my ego honestly can't take it. I'm like, if I'm gonna have my name on it, I need to write it, but I will not also run the business at the same time. That was the hardest thing I've ever done professionally is trying to write and market this book, period, second sentence while also trying to run a business. Like, awful. In terms of, like, the actual timeline, typically, it's about a year. Like, the contract gives you a year to write the book. It takes it like, it really took about a year and a half until we got a final final final draft. I can't tell you the amount of times. Like, you could probably go on my computer and see final. No. This is the real final. Nope. I just get, like, final final draft. Like, literally you can see, like, financial feminist final. Financial feminist final 1. Financial feminist, the real final fucking thing. Like, that that happen multiple times where you think you're done, and then it's like, oh, no. We got we got more edits. Oh, we think we're done. Oh, actually, we need to move this. Like, I think we finally got a final draft July of 2022. So I started not including the book proposal. I started writing When I landed the book deal officially in, like, April, May of 2021, we got a final final draft probably late summer of 2022. So it was actually about a year, but it was like it it it didn't feel like it. It felt somehow much longer and also somehow much shorter. If you are writing the book, I don't mean to say that my experience will be your experience, but I I did so much reading about writing during that time, you will get the vast majority of it done in the last 3 months. because other shit will happen. You won't be motivated by a deadline. I think my editor I like to think, like, my conspiracy theory is she did this on purpose. She gave me a final deadline of February 1st. And then she's like, actually, the final deadline's, like, in middle of March. I got so much done the last 2 weeks of January. I literally I was like, I didn't leave my house. I got so much done. And then a couple days before February 1st, and I'm panicking. And she's like, oh, yeah. We have more time. And I'm like, damn it, Rosie, but also thank you. Yeah. So good. Like, It there was a lot of, like, it got done. It got written in these, like, weeks before what I thought was the final deadline. Had another final deadline mid April that wasn't really the final deadline, but thought it was. And so I was, like, in a house in LA, just, like, finishing it Yeah. It's it's typically a year is how long they give you. Depends. You can negotiate that. You can say, nope. I want more time or, oh, nope. I think I can do it time, but I would not advise you to say less time, give yourself more time, because I thought I could get it done in 9 months. And, really, I think if I had cracked down maybe, but, like, just wasn't worth it in terms of my my own bandwidth.

Jay Clouse [00:27:19]:

If you don't hit the deadline, what are they gonna do? Publish an unfinished book take away the advance and and say it's all dead, like, no. Yes. Really? Yes. You believe that to be true. Yeah. But

Tori Dunlap [00:27:32]:

I I I don't know if they would have done that to they need to see that you've done something. Yeah. If you if it's a year later and you've done nothing, yeah, you might get that contract revoked. but it's like they have to see that you're doing something. It was actually really funny. The first, like, three pages, I literally have my contract in my closet. I could pull it for you if you wanted. The first three pages are, like, the actual information of, like, percentage of royalties and, like, the stuff that's actually useful. I'm not kidding. It's probably a twenty page contract. The last seventeen pages are just, like, variations of if you don't turn this in, if you've done nothing, here's what happens. And I'm like, I felt like, you know, high achieving a plus student. I'm like, Do people just, like, not turn this in? And, like, apparently, the answer is yes. So, yeah, if you have nothing done, they're probably gonna revoke your contract. I would say if it's, like, basically there, yeah. No. You're right. Like, nothing's gonna happen. And I I am weirdly kind of bummed that I now know that the final deadline is not the final deadline because I'm gonna have that in the back of my head as I'm writing the second book being like, yeah, but I have more time.

Jay Clouse [00:28:34]:

So you you get the final manuscript done in July, and then this goes live at the tail end of December 2022. So you had about 5 months after the manuscript is done to prepare for the launch of this. Did that feel like the right amount of time? Do you wish there was less? Do you wish there was more?

Tori Dunlap [00:28:51]:

I think we announced the pre order campaign before the the the final manuscript was even turned in. We announced the pre order campaign, and I know this because it was right after my birthday. I think it was 13th July. And then I think, yeah, like, late July early August was when we had a final final craft. That gave us about 6 months to promote. Here's the thing. If you are an author, you're like, cool. I just ran a fucking marathon writing this book. Your marathon is not done. It is just starting. It is just starting. It's a second marathon. It's a marathon. It's a pre marathon and then -- -- second. -- a marathon. Yeah. It's literally like, I ran twenty six miles. I'm exhausted. Cool. I'm done. No. Actually, this is the this is the fun part. This is literally so most publishers work with authors who just wanna write. They don't wanna market. They don't wanna do press. I'm the exact opposite. I am like, writing was painful. I enjoy writing. Normally, writing my own book was fucking painful, and now I get to razzle dazzle it, and that's what I'm good at. So I was actually looking forward to this time. However, this whole process, especially this last 6 months, is the time that burned me out. It wasn't even the bandwidth issue. It wasn't even like the amount of interviews I was doing. It was the pressure I was putting on myself. I wanted New York times. I wanted that. I wanted this book to make a huge splash. I wanna just make a big impact. And I'm going to be honest. This isn't healthy. I'll work through it in therapy at some point, but I literally thought to myself, if I don't meet the New York Times list, I I I will be like, profoundly disappointed, which of course is not why you should do this. And it ultimately isn't why I did it, but I was like, I wanted this thing so badly. Don't do that. Like, a book is valuable to people and value and a valuable process, regardless of you had a best seller list or not. And I think that that's the thing that exhausted me more than anything else is I was just chasing this one thing. truly this book was about, like, making an impact and, like, meeting people where they were and being able to have this legacy of this thing It was also, especially for, like, the motivation to get me through this 6 months of really intense promotion where I'm not getting to, like, meet people who have read it, I'm just having to, like, run the race. It was just like, I want the New York Times sticker. In terms of, like, that timeline, I think 3 to 6 months is what you want for a pre order campaign. the reason we reconnected was I did, I'm doing a series on LinkedIn about, like, how to promote a book, how to get the best seller lists, and pre orders are the biggest thing because many reasons, but one, any preorders that happen count as sales at 12:01 on release day. So if you sell 10,000 copies before the actually comes out by 1201 on release day before, you know, the book has actually hit shelves. You've already sold 10,000 cop which is huge. Right? It takes the weight off a little bit from having to do so much heavy lifting in that 1st week or 2. You're using a specific number 10,000 copies there. that's the number I hear oftentimes in book circles. Is that a specific number for, a benchmark of some kind? Yeah. Great question. So the thing about best seller lists mean, we kinda weave in and out between, like, selling campaigns versus best seller list, but for some people, they're kind of the same thing. There is it's like almost SEO and Google, like, we have a general best practice of, like, what Google likes, but there's no Google does not give us a form of, like, if you do this, you will rank at this. The New York Times bestseller list is a hackable thing, but they have never pro published a, like, if you do this, we will guarantee this. There's a general idea that if you sell 10 to 15, and I've heard sometimes as high as 20,000 bucks in that 1st week, you will most likely be on the best seller list. Now here's the thing about my launch date. December 27th. Weird time to launch a book. 1, I went on Good Morning America, which was great. Everybody else in New York was home asleep in their beds because it was right after Christmas and right before New Year's. I booked a week in New York to do press the couple months before. I can get press like nobody's business. It's usually not a big deal. It was because there was nobody in the office. So I literally did GMA. I went and signed a couple books, not at any official signing, but just, like, went into Barnes And Noble to get some content for us. And then I went home. Like, normally, when you release a book, especially if you're high profile, like, you're doing, like, in New York or in LA, you're doing a day or 2 at least of press. I could not do that. The second thing is The pro is you're getting, like, new year, new year energy with December 27th, right, and you're you're getting this, like, time where people are kind of just sitting and doing nothing, which is great. Like that in between time of, like, Christmas and New Year's were like, no time exists at all. The con is that you hopefully do a pre order campaign that's like, buy this for Christmas. buy this for a Christmas gift, but it's not going to be under the tree at Christmas, right, or Hanukkah. Right? So it's almost like, hey. Like, we did a gift certificate. We were like, hey, you can print this out and give this to your loved one. It's like, this book is coming. I bought it for you. The other huge con Normally, we would be competing against some of the, like, main stays on the New York Times bestseller list, but really a bunch of new books. most books that hit the list leave after a week. They have a big splashy, like, week release, and then they leave. When it's December 27th, you're competing against any book that has New Year, New You Energy. that has been out forever. Now it would be hard for me to compete against atomic habits on a good day. impossible to compete against a book with the word habits in it and, of course, written as well as it is. December 27th. So did you choose the state? Impossible. Or was this dictated to you? my publisher chose the state because Again, like, part of me is like, that was really smart, new year, new year, new energy, but the other part of me is like, I had to compete against a bunch of people. So We ended up being number 4 on the New York Times bestseller list. I think on a normal week, we could have been at number 2. maybe number 1, but I can't think that way. I can't do, like, alternate universe stuff. Well, I know at month 4, you had 70,000

Jay Clouse [00:35:39]:

copies sold. how many copies did you have at launch? That 1st week was 19,700.

Tori Dunlap [00:35:46]:

So that included all of the pre order books

Jay Clouse [00:35:50]:

and then all of the books that were sold during that 1st week. After one more short break, Tory and I talk about the role that independent bookstores play in the New York Times best selling list things that she did well and the things that she would change if she was writing another book. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back to my conversation with Tory Dunlap of her first 100 k. We had just started talking about the process for which New York Times chooses their best sellers. And Tory told me that there's an interesting insight when it comes to independent bookstores. And so I wanted to dive deep into that.

Tori Dunlap [00:36:22]:

Okay. We we can talk for, like, 3 hours about this. The other thing that New York times and other book sellers or, excuse me, other book best seller lists look into is it's not just how many books you have sold. I wish it was that easy, but it's also like the diversity of sales. So if you sell 10,000 books on Amazon and in Washington State, you probably won't get on the list. they're looking for, are you not just in one state? Are you not just selling on the coasts? Are you, like, a universally applicable book? And are you selling in bookstores that aren't just Amazon, but especially independent bookstores? So a lot of the marketing that we did or a lot of the collaborations we did were with independent bookstores. 1, because it's the right fucking moral thing to do. Like, we wanted to be able to support these independent stores, but 2, we were working specifically with bookstores that we know reported on time. Some bookstores do not report their sales to best seller lists at all, or they report them weeks late. And if you wanna be on that list for the 1st week, which is the best chance you have, you need to make sure

Jay Clouse [00:37:29]:

that all of the sales you possibly can are being reported. So that was part of the strategy as well. Man, this seems this introduces a new wrinkle because I had heard that before, but I hadn't thought about in this way, which is from a from a marketing perspective, creators like you and I seem like we would have a real leg up on writing and publishing a book because we have a built in audience. We say go buy it. But from a user experience perspective, we're probably pointing them towards Amazon or whatever, like, the easy purchasing destination is. So how does you how does you direct your your fans, your your community

Tori Dunlap [00:38:04]:

to go and support the book on presale in a diversified way? I'm literally Jay gonna pull for you the last time we got numbers because this is gonna shock you. Okay. So these were my numbers as of the end of April. So this was like when I knew I hit 70,000. That was in 4 months, right, but came out late December. Let's even call it, like, almost January. Right? So basically January to end of April, I sold 70,000 copies, and that's every kind of copy. That's hardcover. That's ebook. That's audiobook. Of the hard covers, I sold about 50,000 hard covers. So roughly 20,000 are coming from other mediums. Of those 50,000

Jay Clouse [00:38:50]:

25,000

Tori Dunlap [00:38:51]:

were Amazon. So half. The other half is Barnes And Noble I am lucky enough to be sold in Target stores, Target, Walmart, every independent bookstore that exists in the United States that stocks my book. Right? Books a 1,000,000, which is a thing in some places. I've never been to a book a 1,000,000. Yeah. So every every other source made up half Amazon was the other half. So, yeah, you're dealing with this kind of like, like, I live in Seattle. I'm not a fan of Amazon. Do I have a Prime subscription? I do. Like, that's the majority of sales are happening from an add to cart and a quick buy on Amazon. And Amazon typically has the cheapest price. Right? independent bookstores are either selling at a slight discount or they're selling at the, you know, the number on the back of the book. Amazon's cutting that by at least probably 25 to 30%. So the way you incentivize people to buy from independent bookstores One, we have an audience that is very, very committed to, you know, bettering the world and so to supporting local businesses, especially women in BIPOC owned businesses. And so That was an easier sell than I think for the average person to just be like, hi. Support your local independent bookstore that, especially right now, is struggling. The second thing we did, if you are, for whatever reason, like, tuning me out and, like, kind of half listening to this episode and you wanna write a book, I need you to, like, pull your car over. need you to stop, and I need you to listen to this, because this is single handedly, I think, one of the smartest things we did, our publisher sourced 4 independent bookstores, that new we knew we're reporting numbers on time, and we did signed copies for those 4 independent bookstore. They also were 4 independent bookstores who shipped nationwide. So we have one in Seattle. We had one in Colorado. We had one in Chicago. And I think one in Utah, but they shipped nationwide. And what we did is I literally Harper Collins sent me 3000 book plates. Book plates are like the, like, nice little, you know, they're like a square. And then for me, they have, like, financial feminists in the corner, and they're like, card stock. They're like fancier paper. I signed 3000 books before the book even went on sale. Wow.

Jay Clouse [00:41:04]:

And so what do you mean? Was it signing the book, or was it signing something that goes in the book? I don't understand.

Tori Dunlap [00:41:09]:

It goes in the book. It's considered a signed copy. Right? There's, like, the signed copies that are actually literally my signature on a page for many reasons, I think COVID just, like, shipping. It's a lot easier now to sign a book plate and have that inserted. It's also more flexible. The person can, like, do something else with that book plate if they want. It's not like in the book. So those signed copies, like, went to those those independent bookstores. And then on our book page on our website, We said, hey. Here are all the links you can get the book, including Amazon. Here's a separate section that says, if you wanna sign copy, buy from one of these four places that ship nationwide while supplies last. We we're told Especially by the 1 in Seattle, because I literally now have a personal relationship with them. I stop in every couple months just to check-in and say hi. They were like, we've never seen a more successful pre order campaign they have sold 100 of copies of financial feminist. And they literally have told me that this has made a huge impact on our business. which is so fucking cool. New York times aside. Like, that was, like, like, I get a little teary talking about it. Like, that was one of the coolest parts is going into paper boat books in Seattle, meaning the husband and wife team who opened their bookstore mid pandemic and literally, like, playing numbers games with them and being like, hey, how many have you sold? And they're like, you know, a 180 before the books even out. Like, it was just crazy. It was so cool. So one, it makes a huge impact. And 2, it helps you as an author sell more books, but also be more appealing to New York Times Wall Street Journal USA bestseller lists. That's awesome.

Jay Clouse [00:42:50]:

for some reason, I just assumed that local bookstores, real bookstores that weren't Amazon, did not do presales.

Tori Dunlap [00:42:57]:

No. They 100% do. Some of them do. Yeah. And, it's it's like it's it's a matter of also figuring out, like I said, like, Local bookstores are great, but specifically with pre order campaigns, especially if you have an audience, you wanna make sure they're shipping nationwide. Cause if you live in Seattle, And you want a copy that's signed, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. I'll order from this this signed, you know, this place in Seattle. if I live in, I don't know, Omaha, Nebraska, right, and we didn't work with a a bookstore in Omaha, Nebraska, right, you're probably going to whatever is closest. So I imagine, like, they're going to the Chicago 1 or the Utah 1. And that's the other thing is it's like you're getting this bookstore is getting sales from all over the country. not just normally where they're located, and that was that was really cool. You were just looking at something that was telling you your historic book sales over time.

Jay Clouse [00:43:45]:

Is that something that is available to you in real time, or do you have to get fed that information from, like, the publisher?

Tori Dunlap [00:43:52]:

My biggest pet peeve some publishers, because I have talked with other friends, have a, like, portal where they can go in and they can see that. I do not have that portal. I would I would kill for that portal. Oh my gosh. Stop doing that. I probably annoyed I annoyed my publisher so much because every especially, like, the 1st couple weeks, every day, I was like, I want numbers. I want numbers. I want numbers because I I wanted to know. And I think in a way that, like, again, other authors are just like, I wrote the book and, like, I don't care how it sells. I was like, wrote the book, and that was the hard part. And now I get to sell it. Like, that's the thing I'm good at. So, yeah, I have been obsessively still now tracking numbers. Like, you know, we will get they've now they've literally told me they're like, Tory, we will send it to you once a month at the beginning of the And I'm like, okay. Okay. Fine. I'm okay. I just, like, stick my white popcorn. Right. Right. They're like, why do you care? And I'm like, I still care. But it's because weirdly, like, I I am motivated by that. I check the speed, like, ranking on Amazon for financial feminists daily still. Because that's the number I do have is like, where is it at in the charts? Sometimes I check it twice a day. When it was, like, book season, that was, like, a 10 time. That was probably, like, my most opened app was just like, that was the number that was publicly available to me. Yeah. Because and I I know you're the kinda the same cut from the same cloth in that way where it's just like, it becomes a game, and it's really fun. It's like, Oh, cool. How much? How how many can we sell? What can we do? Like, the the other hack for, like, preorders is, like, get compensated with book buys. So normally, you know, I might charge, like, $20,000 for a keynote speech somewhere. Wow. But I will trade it. I will say, oh, pay me half of that and then the other half in a book by, right, or for a limited amount of time, especially if you're, like, you know, an author who doesn't come in to $20,000 speaking fee, is just say, I'll speak for free if you pay for a 100 books, right, or 50 books. And that way, you can actually control where those books are ordered from too. So when we did, a speaking engagement at Morningstar in Chicago, who did I call the independent bookstore? We already had a relationship within Chicago. and your publisher should help set this up of of saying, like, they will get a book by discount. They will be able to order from this independent store. Again, supports the indie store, but also helps you in terms of your numbers. You can book these out in advance too. My friend Tiffany Elice, who wrote get good with money. Her her moniker is the budgenista. She has another episode on her podcast where she breaks all of this down. She was the most helpful, sat down with me like, had very transparent conversations kinda like this of, like, here's how to do this. Here's pre order campaign. So she was so great. And one of the things she said to me was, like, you don't have to book these speaking engagements for you know, 2 weeks after you you release the book, right, it can be a virtual speaking engagement 3 months in advance. Typically, these things get scheduled like that. because your bandwidth's gonna be so tight. Right? But book it now. Do it later. Right? Get the book by now and say, okay. I'll accept that as payment, period, or I'll accept that as payment, and then the other, like, half of it I'll get upon completion. but be able to do that so you can increase, you know, your your pre orders, but also, like, have a good understanding of your bandwidth and your schedule. So helpful.

Jay Clouse [00:47:10]:

well, with a little bit of time that we have left, I just wanna give any more space for anything where you feel like this is something we definitely did well, or this is something that I would not do a second time.

Tori Dunlap [00:47:21]:

I hired a publicist in a PR agency for the first time. I will not do that again. it was not worth the money. I would say if you're not great at getting PR, it's probably worth the money. I am my best hype woman I have gone on Good Morning America, the Today Show Forbes, CNN, CNBCs, BBC, New York Times, like, you name it, I have done it without a publicist. And we thought, okay. We need a publicist because this is sexy and fun, and they got us a couple, like, big things. think they were really instrumental in getting me on Forbes 30 under 30. I think they had some contacts there. I had submitted an application. It was obviously very strong, and I think they they nudged it a little bit. Other than that and a couple other, like, you know, kind of minor things, I don't think it was worth it for us. Yeah. It was, like, 7 k a month, which is pretty cheap, honestly, as far as, like, publicists or, like, PR agencies go. Yeah. We got on GMA that was, actually through Harper Collins. A lot of the other press we did was just our own hustle. So if, you know, with my business and with our capability to get PR, I would not do that again. The thing I would spend more time doing, which is something, again, I wanna acknowledge that Tiffany and I had many conversations with about, and she was so good at doing is some sort of, like, launch group of dedicated fans who are just excited about the book and are willing to promote it in exchange for exclusive access to you, merch, a exclusive, like, ebook copy of the book a month before anybody else. I'm trying to remember what we called it. And, of course, I can't remember off the top of my head, but, like, getting a couple hundred people from your audience together who are going to be excited, who are going to talk about it, Tiffany actually told me that she I think she had I'm trying to remember her number. A couple 100, she goes They didn't just buy one copy. On average, they bought 5. Wow. Like, the individuals bought 5 copies themselves. Right. Right. And so you can kinda you can do the math on that of just like that dedicated group of people. So We did that too late. We kind of started and launched that. I'd wanna say, was it, like, 2 months or 6 weeks before? wasn't enough time. The actual launch of that is probably the time was right, but we planned it for probably a week 4 and then launched it, you need a way more, like, logistical planning. I would start that process 3 to 4 months out, launch it about 6 weeks to 8 weeks out.

Jay Clouse [00:50:14]:

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Pory. I love having guests back on the show, and I love when guests are this transparent and open and honest about the process. I thought this was super eye opening, very, very insightful when it comes to writing a book. And if you are thinking about writing a book, I hope you enjoyed it as well. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. If you enjoyed it, please tweet at me at J. Clouse, let me know. Send me a note there on Twitter. I guess it's x now or Instagram. I love hearing from you. If you wanna follow Tori, go to her first 100 k.com, or find her on Instagram and TikTok, her first 100 k. a tour for being on the show. Thank you to Nathan Tom Hunter for mixing this episode. Thank you to Emily Claus for our artwork and Brian's skill for creating our music. If you enjoyed this episode, like I said, you can reach out to me Jake Clouse, then let me know. And if you really wanna say thank you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts for Spotify. Thanks for listening, and I'll back in next week.