Behind the Book Cover

Anna David

A book can do more than sell copies. It can build your authority, strengthen your personal brand and create entirely new opportunities for your business. Hosted by New York Times bestselling author Anna David, Behind the Book Cover explores how successful entrepreneurs, authors and thought leaders use books, media and marketing to become better known, reach more people and grow their businesses. Through candid conversations with traditionally published authors and independently published entrepreneurs—including business owners whose books have added seven figures to their bottom lines—Anna reveals what really happens behind the cover. The show goes beyond book publishing to explore marketing for entrepreneurs, CEO personal branding, thought leadership strategy and how turning your expertise into a book can help make you an authority in your industry. Anna’s books have been published by HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, and she is the founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, a leading hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs. In other words, she knows both sides of the publishing industry—and isn’t afraid to share what traditional publishers don’t want you to know. Behind the Book Cover is brought to you by Authority Network. Find out whether a book could help grow your business: https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/book-score-card

  1. 1d ago

    Why One Client is Worth More Than 1,000 Book Sales with Erin Haag

    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.  Erin Haag will tell you the hardest part of writing her book had nothing to do with writing. It was realizing she had a process at all. She'd spent 20 years living inside spreadsheets, working with pricing and profitability for companies large and small, running the same nine-step method with client after client without ever once noticing she was running a method. It took a ghostwriter combing through her brain dump to point out what she'd been doing on instinct the whole time. That book, Give Yourself a Raise: The Mindset and Math You Need to Get to Your First Million, is now the entry point to her entire business. Clients have to read it before they can work with her, which means they show up to the first call already speaking her language instead of needing to be taught from scratch. It's also turned into a lead magnet, a speaking circuit credential and, memorably, a photo op next to Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl release in Times Square. We get into the mindset blocks that keep smart, successful women underpricing themselves, why she's not worried about giving away her "trade secrets" and why she thinks nobody should write a book if their business isn't still evolving. In this episode: Why Erin handed her own IP to a ghostwriter because she couldn't see the process buried inside her own expertiseThe nine-step process she didn't know she had until someone else pointed it out to herThe study on how men overestimate their performance and women underestimate theirs, and what it means for pricingWhy she's built a certification program that lets coaches license her method instead of working for her directlyWhy she isn't worried about giving away her "trade secrets" in the book, and what actually happens when readers try to implement it aloneThe real reason most authors are disappointed by book sales, and why she'd rather have one $50,000 client than 1,000 casual readersAlso, Erin is gifting Behind the Book Cover listeners the first chapter of her book for free. Only read it if you want to make a lot more money than you already are. You can download that chapter here. Want to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to know if a book could help your business? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/book-score-card Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    Why One Client is Worth More Than 1,000 Book Sales with Erin Haag
  2. Sep 22

    The 10-Minute Talk I Gave at Genius Network: How to Turn Your Book Into a Million-Dollar Asset

    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.  I did something special for this episode: I'm releasing the 10-minute talk I gave recently at Genius Network, with their permission. It's everything I've been saying on this podcast, just distilled into 10 minutes flat. The talk centers on what I call the LEG method—Leverage, Elevate and Grow—and it starts with a hard truth: hitting the bestseller list or landing a big media moment doesn't actually change anything on its own. I had a book hit the New York Times bestseller list and could barely afford cab fare to the party. I had another book sell 100 copies and bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in business, because of what I did with the moment (and not with the moment itself). I walk through three examples that show what leverage, elevation and growth actually look like in practice. Dan Nicholson used his book to showcase his lens as a CPA and raised his prices 30%. Bonnie Habyan turned her book about her mother into a TEDx talk with over 400,000 views. Matt George carried his book everywhere, turned a plane conversation into his first consulting client and eventually built a seven-figure business and a spot teaching at Harvard Business School. The point isn't the copies sold or the followers gained. It's whether you can take one relationship and turn it into five, then take five opportunities and turn them into 10. That's what leads to legacy. In this episode: Why the average reader's household income (over $105,000) outpaces the average Facebook or YouTube user, and what that means for who you're actually reaching with a bookThe Inc. magazine finding that if a founder isn't visible, the brand usually isn't eitherWhy published entrepreneurs can charge 37% more than non-author competitors for the same expertiseThe uncomfortable math behind traditional publishing—a New York Times bestselling author who sold 150,000 copies over six years and still only netted $87,000 after agent, editor and publicist feesWhy my friend Alex Strathy's Before the Bestseller seeded 1,000 copies into the marketplace with the explicit goal of not selling booksWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    The 10-Minute Talk I Gave at Genius Network: How to Turn Your Book Into a Million-Dollar Asset
  3. Sep 15

    The $10,000 TikTok Campaign That Sold Only Three Books with Amy Chan

    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.  I've had guests who sold thousands of books with no marketing budget and guests who spent a fortune and watched it vanish. Amy Chan has lived both versions, with two different books, a few years apart. She's the author of Breakup Bootcamp: The Science of Rewiring Your Heart, a book that landed her in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and on Good Morning America. The Observer once called her "the scientific Carrie Bradshaw." Her follow-up, Unsingle: How to Date Smarter and Create Love That Lasts, should have been the easy part. She'd already done this once. She had the credibility, the press list and the audience. Instead, she hired a consulting agency for $10,000 that got her zero speaking gigs and a spreadsheet of "outreach" that turned out to be mass cold emails. She paid a TikTok agency another $10,000 to run an influencer campaign tied to TikTok Shop. It launched three weeks late and sold three books. She spent $24,000 on a publicist and calls it the only line item she doesn't regret. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, she wrote a Substack article about the whole thing. It resulted in more book sales than everything else she'd done that year in the first 48 hours, beating even her appearance on Tamron Hall. We get into all of it: what actually moved copies, what she'd never pay for again and why she still hasn't spoken to her publisher since the book came out. In this episode: The exact breakdown of where $44,000 in book marketing money went, and which parts she'd light on fire again without hesitationWhy a Substack post she almost didn't publish became one of her best sales days ever, beating a national television appearanceThe agency that quoted her $65,000 to get her on the USA Today bestseller list, and why she now doubts the list matters at allWhy she hasn't spoken to her publisher since her book launched, and what that says about the relationship between authors and the houses that sign themWhat it's like to have a book option sold three times, with a pilot script written and then scrapped, and why she pulled her own Substack post about itWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to know if a book could help your business? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/book-score-card Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    The $10,000 TikTok Campaign That Sold Only Three Books with Amy Chan
  4. Sep 8

    Why a Criminal Defense Attorney Chose Fiction Over a Legal Book with Ron Chapman

    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.  Criminal defense attorneys aren't typically known for writing philosophical Holocaust novels. Then again, Ron Chapman isn’t your typical criminal defense attorney. Published under the pen name R. William Chapman, Empyrean is a true departure from Ron’s two nonfiction books. Fight the Feds and Truth and Persuasion may have Ron build his authority but Empyrean, which will be arriving this fall, helped build his soul. Ron spent two years on Empyrean, writing roughly 300,000 words to land on a final 78,000. He calls himself a "pantser," Stephen King's term for a writer who lets characters decide what happens rather than working from an outline. One of the main characters, he told me, has become part of how he thinks through his own days. As a criminal defense attorney, Ron has found that fiction gives him an outlet nonfiction and legal work never did, a way to work through the frustrations of his job and his time as a marine on paper instead of carrying them silently. We get into why he turned away from traditional publishing in order to keep creative control, why agents kept asking him to make the book "the next Hunger Games" and why he thinks authority today comes from letting people see your actual flaws rather than polishing a bio. He also explains that he’s using a different author name for Empyrean so that it can stand on its own, disconnected from his identity as a lawyer. In this episode: Why Ron chose the Holocaust as a subject, and how a childhood visit to a concentration camp shaped the projectThe reason he's publishing Empyrean under a pen name instead of his ownWhy he turned away from traditional publishing to retain full creative control over the bookHis case for why raw honesty, not polished marketing, is what actually builds trust with an audienceWhy he believes the short feedback loop of platforms like Substack is bad for serious writing, and why the slow grind of writing still mattersWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    Why a Criminal Defense Attorney Chose Fiction Over a Legal Book with Ron Chapman
  5. Sep 1

    Turning Millions of Followers Into Lasting Authority with Jake Claver

    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.  When you have millions of people out there who already consider you an expert, it’s hard to imagine that you’d also want to do an authority-building book. Yet Jake Claver, who’s already co-written two books, just released his first solo one, Everyone Gets to Win—and it's a fable, not a business manual. He's spent the past five or six years building multiple companies and living by a philosophy of aligning incentives rather than playing zero-sum games, and instead of writing another how-to book, he wrote a parable his own son could eventually read. Jake and his business partner Max met on Twitter and built a mastermind group with about 17,000 members focused on financial education and pooled investments through special purpose vehicles. They co-authored two books together—Wealth in Numbers was the first—before Jake decided to write a fable. The genre wasn't incidental. Jake wanted something simple enough that a third-grader could understand it, and vague enough on names that the real people whose situations inspired it could keep their privacy. We get into why he thinks you don't need ten years of expertise to start building authority (20 to 50 hours of hands-on experience beats four years of school, in his view), why niche podcasts tend to sell more books than massive ones and how he thinks about his sprawling list of companies not as separate businesses but as pieces of one long-term goal—the same way he'd frame Elon Musk's companies as everything required to colonize Mars. In this episode: Why Jake chose a fable over a straightforward business book for Everyone Gets to WinHis case for why 20 to 50 hours of hands-on experience can outweigh years of formal studyHis case for why you don't need a decade of expertise to write an authority-building book—20 to 50 hours of hands-on experience beats four years of school, in his viewThe co-authoring process behind Wealth in Numbers, including how he and Max split the work—Max spent about a year on research and writing while Jake proofread for alignmentWhy he thinks a book still matters even with millions of followers already built, and the "billboard" perception he says only authorship can buyHis book launch playbook—getting listed in Barnes & Noble and Amazon, front-loading reviews and why building a social media following first makes a launch land harderThe Grant Cardone and Alex Hormozi examples he points to as proof that a short book can convert readers just as well as a record-setting launch weekend canWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    Turning Millions of Followers Into Lasting Authority with Jake Claver
  6. Aug 25

    The Person You Become by Writing a Book with Sierra Melcher

    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.  What do most people get wrong when it comes to publishing a book? That’s what I asked Sierra Melcher of Red Thread Books, a nonfiction publishing house where 59 of 77 titles have won awards—including two Nautilus Book Prizes. Sierra believes that the finished, printed book is a side quest. What she's actually in it for is the person who emerges on the other side of writing one—someone who spent years convinced they couldn't do this thing, who goes through the "dark night of the soul" of the writing and publishing process and who comes out the other end asking a completely different question: not "What can't I do" but "What else can I do?" Sierra came to this the hard way. She's dyslexic, tried to write for a decade and was certain she couldn't. Now she's watched dozens of authors—from a nurse paralyzed in a hospital parking lot to a supply chain expert with a wildly niche book that landed her a job saving a company millions—go through the same transformation. We talked about the moments clients try to quit right before publication, why she still cries with clients over manuscripts and her surprisingly relaxed, curiosity-first take on AI in the publishing world. In this episode: Why Sierra believes the physical book is a "side quest"—the real product is the transformed person who wrote it, not the object itselfThe recurring pattern of authors trying to quit right before publication, and why she treats holding their feet to the fire as part of the jobHer framework for evaluating every nonfiction book she publishes: "How could we do this differently?"—applied to grief, love, business, or personal changeWhy she believes AI is a revolution, not an apocalypse, and where she personally draws the line on what she'll let it do for her versus never let it touchThe exercise she runs with every author to fight impostor syndrome: visualize the exact person who needs your message, because the book was never about you in the first placeWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    The Person You Become by Writing a Book with Sierra Melcher
  7. Aug 18

    Skipping the New York Times List on Purpose with David Homan

    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.  David Homan has a background so sprawling that introducing him almost broke the show: composer with seven albums and now the person who quietly runs what may be the largest private network of "connectors" on the planet—2,800 of them and counting. His book, Orchestrating Connection, co-written with UC Irvine professor Noah Askin, landed at #2 on the USA Today bestseller list for business books the week it launched. But the real story isn't the list placement—it's the decade of networking philosophy that got him there. What I loved most about this conversation is how unflinching David is about the parts nobody tells you about publishing: the friends who promise to show up and don't, the launch-day silence from people you'd bet on, and the eight-year-old sending WhatsApp videos threatening a family friend into buying the book. We also got into his new startup, SOAR Connect, which is trying to solve relationship intelligence without doing what every other tech company does with your data. In this episode: David's five-principle system for "orchestrating connection"—curiosity, vulnerability and diversity as strategic tools, not soft skills, for building real relationship valueWhy he built a private, no-membership network of 2,800 connectors around one hard rule: you can only stay if you ask for what you needThe book as catalyst, not finish line—how it changed his credibility and fundraising even though everything he was doing was already true three years earlierThe hard truth about launches: for every 1,000 people who actually showed up, roughly 2,000 who promised to didn't—and why that's the real lesson for authorsWhat SOAR Connect is building—a relationship intelligence platform based on trust scores, designed so your data stays yours instead of being harvested like everywhere elseWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    Skipping the New York Times List on Purpose with David Homan
  8. Aug 11

    Why I'd Rather Spend $1,000 Giving Books Away Than Make $1,000 Selling Them (Solo Episode)

    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.  A listener asked me a two-part question: as she gets ready to publish her book and launch her speaking career, what's the simplest, most economical path to having a box of copies on hand, and what should she budget to get there? I love this question, because I'm currently doing the exact thing she's asking about with the relaunch of On Good Authority. I've been following what I call the Alex Strathdee method—seeding signed, gift-wrapped copies into communities run by people I know and treating the request as the favor it is rather than a favor I'm doing them. That approach has already turned into an October speaking opportunity, and it's why my answer to her question is simple: never sell books after you speak, because giving them away builds far more value than the $60 you might walk away with from selling a few copies. Printing runs about $3 a copy—with shipping as the real cost to budget for—and I'd rather spend $1,000 giving books away than make $1,000 selling them, because that investment tends to turn into far more down the road. In this episode: Why treating a book gift as a favor to someone's community, not a favor from you, changes how people respond.The specific packaging details—stickers, highlighters, custom cards, ribbon—that turn a free book into a memorable gift instead of a giveawayRobert Cialdini's concept of reciprocity and why gifting a book creates a different kind of obligation than selling oneHow collecting addresses at events, following Joe Polish's thank-you-card approach, led to an unsolicited podcast invitationP.S. — Want me to answer your book question on a future episode? DM me on Instagram (@annabdavid), message me on LinkedIn or email anna@annadavid.com. Want to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad Publishing is a boutique hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs and established founders. We help clients create books that build authority, attract opportunities and grow businesses. More info 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com Want to ask me how to build authority with your book to generate seven-figure returns, speaking opportunities and high-value clients? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/pocket-anna Interested in working with a selective hybrid publisher that focuses on strategy, authority and long-term business growth—not just publishing a book? 👉 https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/applyAnd if you just want to know more about me,  👉 www.annadavid.com Remember, if there's anyone in your life who you know could be considered an authority in their field if they were better known, share this show with them!

    Why I'd Rather Spend $1,000 Giving Books Away Than Make $1,000 Selling Them (Solo Episode)

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About

A book can do more than sell copies. It can build your authority, strengthen your personal brand and create entirely new opportunities for your business. Hosted by New York Times bestselling author Anna David, Behind the Book Cover explores how successful entrepreneurs, authors and thought leaders use books, media and marketing to become better known, reach more people and grow their businesses. Through candid conversations with traditionally published authors and independently published entrepreneurs—including business owners whose books have added seven figures to their bottom lines—Anna reveals what really happens behind the cover. The show goes beyond book publishing to explore marketing for entrepreneurs, CEO personal branding, thought leadership strategy and how turning your expertise into a book can help make you an authority in your industry. Anna’s books have been published by HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, and she is the founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, a leading hybrid publisher for entrepreneurs. In other words, she knows both sides of the publishing industry—and isn’t afraid to share what traditional publishers don’t want you to know. Behind the Book Cover is brought to you by Authority Network. Find out whether a book could help grow your business: https://www.legacylaunchpadpub.com/book-score-card