If you're thinking about writing an authority building book, and I really hope you are, and you don't want to be counting pennies or checking your book sales all the time, you actually want a book that's going to change your life, I can tell you how. Just go to sevenfigurebooks.com. I'm not trying to capture your email or anything. You can just download this PDF that's going to tell you exactly how to turn an authority building book into revenue, speaking, authority, and no exaggeration, a whole new life.

Alex Mandossian sold 87 copies of his book and made $2.5 million from it, which is either the best argument for publishing a book or the best argument against caring about sales numbers (or both).

I've known Alex for years, and what makes him fun to talk to is that he'll just say the thing most authors won't admit: the book was never the product. It was the thing that got him in the room. He gave signed copies away on stages across six continents and every single one of his high-ticket consulting clients mentioned the book before they hired him. Not because it was a bestseller (600 copies sold, total, across two books) but because having it made him the guy who literally wrote the book on his thing.

Alex calls a book a "credentializer," which is not a word, but it should be. He also has a collection of one-liners he calls Alexisms that are annoyingly quotable. We get into all of it — how he turned one book into years of content, why he thinks most authors completely misunderstand what a book is actually for and what happens when you stop chasing sales and start using your book as the best business card that's ever existed.

In this episode:

• How 87 copies sold turned into $2.5 million in revenue (and why the math makes more sense than you think)
• Why every single high-ticket client referenced the book before saying yes
• What happens when you give signed copies away on stages instead of trying to sell them
• The Alexisms — and why deceptively simple one-liners are a branding strategy
• Why most authors are obsessed with the wrong metric

Want to find out more about my hybrid book publishing company, Legacy Launch Pad? Click here. Want to discover how entrepreneurs get seven-figure returns on their authority-building books? Click here. Want to apply to work with us? Here's where you go.

And if you just want to know more about me, visit my website or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Remember, if there's anyone in your life whose wisdom you deeply admire, or who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them.

If you're thinking about writing an authority building book, and I really hope you are, and you don't want to be counting pennies or checking your book sales all the time, you actually want a book that's going to change your life, I can tell you how. Just go to sevenfigurebooks.com. I'm not trying to capture your email or anything. You can just download this PDF that's going to tell you exactly how to turn an authority building book into revenue, speaking, authority, and no exaggeration, a whole new life.

Brian Kurtz spent decades helping build Boardroom into a billion-dollar business through direct response marketing, which means he knows more about what actually makes people buy things than almost anyone I've ever talked to.

So when he finally wrote his book Overdeliver, he didn't do what most authors do (cross his fingers, pray for a bestseller list, then move on). He treated the book like a business asset that would keep working for years, and that's exactly what it's done.

What I wanted to get into with Brian is his idea of the "perpetual launch"—that a book is never done launching, which sounds exhausting until you hear how he actually does it. He used bonuses, podcasts and decades of relationship capital to turn one book into a long-term client engine, and he'll tell you straight up that capturing a reader's email matters more than any Amazon ranking ever will.

He also wrote for nearly a decade before publishing, which gave him something most authors skip straight past: an actual voice.

And then there's the part of this conversation that puts everything else in perspective. The day before his book launch, Brian had a near-fatal stroke. We talk about what that did to how he thinks about legacy and why, after something like that, the long game stops being a strategy and starts being the only thing that makes sense.

In this episode:

• What the "perpetual launch" means in practice (and why most authors quit too early)
• Why Brian says capturing an email is worth more than an Amazon ranking
• How decades of relationship capital turned one book into a multi-million-dollar asset
• The near-fatal stroke that happened the day before his launch — and how it changed everything
• Why writing for years before publishing is the real shortcut

Want to find out more about my hybrid book publishing company, Legacy Launch Pad? Click here. Want to discover how entrepreneurs get seven-figure returns on their authority-building books? Click here. Want to apply to work with us? Here's where you go.

And if you just want to know more about me, visit my website or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Remember, if there's anyone in your life whose wisdom you deeply admire, or who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them.

If you're thinking about writing an authority building book, and I really hope you are, and you don't want to be counting pennies or checking your book sales all the time, you actually want a book that's going to change your life, I can tell you how. Just go to sevenfigurebooks.com. I'm not trying to capture your email or anything. You can just download this PDF that's going to tell you exactly how to turn an authority building book into revenue, speaking, authority, and no exaggeration, a whole new life.

After more than five decades in Hollywood—as an actor, teacher and mentor to stars like George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer—Richard Lawson had nothing left to prove. But when he wrote The Artist’s Roadmap: Navigating Your Career in SHOW Business, he discovered there was still something left to say. The book didn’t just summarize his life’s work—it reawakened it.

In this conversation Richard and I talk about how turning his philosophy into a book became an act of renewal. He shares how a revelation during a college musical set him on his path, how surviving a plane crash taught him to trust his intuition and why writing this book became his way of passing the torch to the next generation of artists.

Episode Highlights

• The revelation that changed his life in 1969 and why he still feels “led” by that same force today
• The dialogue between his two inner voices—his spiritual guide “Richard” and his creative alter ego “Tricky Dick”
• How surviving a plane crash reshaped his sense of purpose and intuition
• Why The Artist’s Roadmap is both a guidebook for actors and a manifesto for anyone pursuing a calling
• His three-part formula for success in show business: politics, personality and craft
• How decades of teaching Hollywood legends shaped the lessons that fill the book
• What it means to be a “dream whisperer” and how he helps others rediscover their purpose
• The new wave of creativity the book inspired: a Substack, a memoir and a series of children’s books
• How he’s using publishing as both a platform and protection in an age of algorithms and cancel culture
• His vision for building an ecosystem that unites storytelling, entrepreneurship and service