Last weekend, internet marketer Alex Hermozi broke the Guiness World Record for most nonfiction books sold in a single day, selling 2.9 million copies of his new business book: $100M Money Models and generated a whopping $81 million in sales. The previous nonfiction sales record was for Prince Harry’s book Spare, which sold 1.43 million copies in 24 hours.
This is Hermozi’s third book in a series, and his previous books ($100M Offers and $100M Leads) have sold millions of copies and amassed tens of thousands of Amazon reviews. Hermozi is an information marketer who hosts a podcast, delivers free content across his social media channels, and is a frequent guest expert on many podcasts. He is a master at content marketing—strategies we cover at great length here at the Nonfiction Authors Association.
While the scale of this book launch is beyond anything most authors can comprehend, there are many lessons you can take away from this historic event.
The Legendary Livestream Book Launch Event
It was fascinating to watch Hermozi’s book launch unfold. I saw countless ads in my social media feeds for about two weeks leading up to the launch. The ads invited viewers to sign up to watch a free livestream book launch event and pre-order a copy of the book.
The livestream kicked off on Saturday morning at 9am PT on YouTube with Hermozi delivering a presentation with slides (over 1,700 of them!) outlining his money models philosophy. An interesting note was that he read his slides verbatim. I can only speculate on why he chose to do it this way, but my guess is that it helped him stay on track and deliver his key points flawlessly. The slides also moved swiftly, with each was only on screen for about ten seconds or less.
What nobody expected was that Hermozi would stream live for OVER TEN HOURS. He took live calls from business owners and helped them solve their challenges and had guests join him, including his wife Leila, who is also a popular online marketer.
While Hermozi sold nearly 3 million books, the secret to his massive book sales success wasn’t selling one copy at a time. It was in the bundle offers he made to the livestream attendees.
The Big, Bold, Brilliant Book Offers
Bundling books and selling them in bulk has always been a powerful strategy to boost book sales, but Hermozi took it to a new stratosphere. He asked livestream attendees to buy 200 copies of his book and donate 199 of them—all for the price of $5,998.
Yes, you read that right. When buyers invested in the bundle offer, they were encouraged to give 199 copies away to their social media followers. The purchase included 200 redemption codes for physical copies of the book, meaning buyers could share redemption codes with their own social media followers who in turn could input them in an online form and have a book shipped to them. Buyers were encouraged to use the redemption codes as a lead magnet to grow their own email lists, offering their followers a free book for signing up.
Consider the genius in this offer. Encouraging buyers to share with their social media audiences garnered even more attention for Hermozi’s book across the entire social media marketplace.
In addition to 200 copies of the book, the $5,998 bundle included:
- Twelve physical binders with Hermozi’s business “playbooks” covering topics like how to close sales and increase prices.
- Access to a companion course he created for the book.
- Access to the audiobook version of the book.
- A custom AI tool trained to deliver answers based on Alex’s business practices.
- Low-cost entry into his learning platform.
While it may be difficult to fathom that people would spend $6k on a bunch of books to giveaway, this strategy worked because Hermozi has amassed a loyal following, he sweetened the bundle offer with special bonuses, and it was a limited offer for that day only, thus creating urgency. With tens of thousands of live viewers tuned into the spectacle that this book launch was, the excitement led hundreds of his loyal followers to get out their credit cards and buy.
Selling books in bundles and in bulk orders isn’t new. In the past, marketing guru Seth Godin has sold his books as bundles with offers like “Buy 5 and give 4 away.” More than a decade ago, I invested in one of his bundles, purchasing a dozen books and giving them to friends as Christmas gifts. Hermozi took this strategy and multiplied it at a scale most of us wouldn’t even consider possible.
And the 200-book bundle wasn’t the only offer. Hermozi aimed even higher with an offer for livestream viewers to invest $18,000, or $3k per month for six months, in a bundle that included the following:
- 800 copies of the book with redemption codes for book fulfillment.
- Access to a private learning community with Alex and his advisory team for six months.
- Six live virtual events exclusively for those who accepted this offer.
While you may not be able to even fathom hosting an event like this, even if you did something like it on a much smaller scale, you could dramatically increase your book sales.
Key Lessons from Alex Hermozi’s Book Launch
Books Sold Don’t Equal Books Shipped
Livestream viewers clamored to accept both bundle offers, 200 books for $6k and 800 books for $18k, thus boosting total book sales numbers dramatically. These bundles included redemption codes for books, but what percentage of those codes do you think will be redeemed?
Those redemption codes are like gift cards and coupons that get stuffed in a drawer and forgotten. My guess is less than 30% of books will actually be claimed. So, while the total book sales numbers are massive, the book delivery numbers will be a fraction of that, thus increasing total profits. He essentially sold a bunch of air that counted as book sales.
Webinars and Livestream Events are Alive and Well
Lots of people want to tell you that webinars are dead, blogs are dead, and social media is dead. But none of these content marketing strategies have bitten the dust. They are still fully viable solutions to attract and engage an audience, provided you deliver value. Hermozi created 1,700 slides and spoke for ten hours. He delivered value, live, to a captive audience.
You Have to Spend it to Make it
Hermozi admits he spent over $4 million on ads prior to the livestream and netted $80 million in sales–a phenomenal return on investment (ROI). If you have a budget to spend, social media advertising is one of the most powerful ways to quickly build your network and reach more readers. And if you don’t have a budget, then you can lean on grassroots marketing tactics.
Cultivate Your Community
Hermozi has been building an online audience for many years through content marketing. Sharing valuable information is still one of the best ways to establish expertise and be an AUTHORity in your field.
Enlist Your Community of Influence
In addition to all the social media advertising, Hermozi enlisted his followers to participate as affiliates, promoting the book launch event to their networks and encouraging their followers to sign up. This is what happens when you create raving fans and lean on your community of influence.
Limited Time Offers and Urgency Creates Sales
A long-time marketing strategy to generate sales is to items on a limited deal. Consider how retailers like grocery stores, department stores and car dealerships offer limited-time sales that last a day, a weekend or a week. The discounted prices aren’t perpetual. It’s the limited availability that makes them appealing.
Many nonfiction authors deliver bonus offers with their book launches, and you can do the same. For example, create an offer to buy the book today and get a downloadable workbook, series of recordings, worksheets, private call with the author, etc.
Your Book Must Meet the Interests, Needs and Challenges of Your Target Audience
Hermozi knows his audience well and has spent years consistently delivering content that addresses their interests, needs, and challenges. This is the foundation that all nonfiction authors should consider long before you write your book. See this article: How to Identify and Connect with Your Target Audience of Readers.
AI Isn’t the Answer
There is endless buzz happening around AI right now and how it’s going to change our lives in dramatic ways. In the publishing industry, there is great concern around how AI is being used to write articles, blog posts and books. Yet, AI is known to plagiarize the work of others and create hallucinations by making up stories, case studies and dates.
While we don’t’ know how all this AI buzz will shake out in the coming years, this I know for sure: AI isn’t known for writing great books and you certainly couldn’t accomplish what Hermozi did during his book launch using AI. The launch event required Hermozi to personally connect with his audience and deliver value on a livestream event. He’s cultivated online relationships for years, leading viewers to like and trust him. AI can’t accomplish any of this. So where AI is concerned, proceed with caution. It is currently best used for idea generating, not writing books or delivering value during a livestream event.
You can watch a replay of Alex Hermozi’s book launch livestream here.
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