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Zero Click Marketing is a marketing strategy podcast about content marketing, audience research, and how brands grow when clicks matter less. Hosted by Amanda Natividad, Chief Evangelist at SparkToro and Co-Author of the book, "Zero Click Marketing," the show explores how marketers reach audiences, build influence, and earn attention in a zero-click internet. New to the show? Start with Episode 2: What Zero Click Marketing Actually Is.
[00:00:00] Ben Putano: Most book marketing tries to reach as wide of an audience as possible to get on a bestseller list you'd need a super wide audience, so like a lot of traditional PR firms will, pitch random business books for like Good Morning America or Good Morning Muncie, like whatever they can get you on. we do the exact opposite. We start with finding the people who are absolutely going to love your book, we get to know them, we expand that circle, and, we grow out.
[00:00:33] Amanda Natividad: I'm Amanda Natividad and welcome to Zero Click Marketing. So friends listening, Ben Putano is our publisher. He's a founder and CEO of Damn Gravity, the hybrid publisher that we are working with, that we worked with for the launch, for the creation of the Zero Click
[00:00:47] Ben Putano: day one
[00:00:49] Amanda Natividad: This is fun, dude. Um, I get why people publish books.
[00:00:54] Ben Putano: Yeah, when you start signing, leaving little messages, kissing babies, getting [00:01:00] invited onto Oprah, it's, it feels nice.
[00:01:02] Amanda Natividad: that's, that's the next
[00:01:03] Ben Putano: We're working on that, Yeah.
[00:01:05] Amanda Natividad: happen anytime soon. No, but, um, thank you for, thank you for your work and for your support and for being awesome to work with. Rand and I were in a nice position where we got to meet with a number of publishers, very different kinds of publishers, and ultimately we went with Damn Gravity because we know you and like you and trust you.
[00:01:29] Ben Putano: Well, thank you. That really means a ton coming from you and Rand. It's been... I mean, what, I, I don't remember how many people I told when, when, uh, you decided to sign with us, but it was, like, in the low hundreds, I think.
It-- was... I was so excited. So it's, it's been a pleasure, and I can't believe it's here, two weeks. And thanks for having me, too. This is so, this is so fun to explore books through the lens of zero-click marketing, the zero-click world.
[00:01:55] Amanda Natividad: So let's do it. I have my questions. All right, our f- here's, here's, like, the [00:02:00] main question that I know we've both been thinking about. So you've been thinking about this idea that books might be especially valuable in this now zero-click era. So the first question is why? Like, what can a book accomplish that other marketing assets can't?
[00:02:19] Ben Putano: Yeah. I mean, ever since we started working on this, this idea sort of like been percolating in the background for me, like what is the role of books? And we've been thinking about that anyway, like what's the role of books in 2026 and, and beyond? And I think it comes back to something that you and Rand say in the book that, and it is sort of some, uh, it captures why books are uniquely valuable in this new era.
And you say, "Zero click, not zero influence." And I think that's exactly why books are valuable here. So books, one, are extremely recommendable. Um, it's easy to say like, "Hey, go check out Amanda's [00:03:00] new book, Zero Click Marketing," as opposed to saying something like, "Hey, go check out these six blog posts on, building zero click playbooks for, you know, PR, social media, email marketing." So it's like a, a package of your best work, really easy to share word of mouth. Um, and they also are, a good book anyway, it signals an enormous amount of influence, specifically like expertise. Like you're literally the person who wrote the book on zero click marketing. Um, so that influence expands too in a few unique ways, um, because books are like these machines for content, for word of mouth, for publicity.
I mean, content, you- we have 60,000 words here we can pull apart and repurpose and share across, uh, you know, every channel on Earth. You know, to quote Ross Simmons, we, publish once and we can distribute forever now I'll give you an example.
You know, if you were, Amanda, working on, um, repositioning y- uh, the [00:04:00] ZeroClick marketing consulting firm, uh, and you're like, "I'm looking for some advice," I could say, "Oh, well, go, go to April Dunford's website and check out these six articles on, um, identifying your competition, your unique values, the benefits that your c- uh, your customers care about, and yada, yada.
Here are these six articles. Go read them. Oh, by the way, let me email you the URLs so you can look them up." Or I can just say, "You've got to read Obviously Awesome by April Dunford, the definitive guide on positioning. It's awesome. You gotta go read it."
so when a book does its job, when it's a good book, that's how easy it is to share it, and so it spreads really easily on word of mouth.
and then publicity. I mean, I, I think the jury's sort of, like, changing their mind on, like, how valuable brand mentions are. Maybe it's more about, in terms of, like, AEO and AI search, but i- maybe it's more about, like, you know, um, strong recommendations around those brand mentions. But, you know, you only have so many times in your life where you can go out and, and share something new with the world.
You started a new business, you sold that business [00:05:00] or, you know, one of the big ones is y- you write a book. So it's, um, a great opportunity to share your expertise with other people's audiences and pull
them into your own audience, which then just kicks off that content and word of mouth flywheels again.
[00:05:13] Amanda Natividad: books are very easy to recommend, right? It's like, you need the answer for this, go check out this book. Like, and it's also a way of saying, "Hey, go learn this thing for the next five or six hours," or, you know, however long it takes someone to read.
For me, it's probably eight hours, but you know what I mean.
[00:05:30] Ben Putano: Mm-hmm. And a bit of fiction, friction I think
is what lend, uh, creates some of that influential, ability in books too. If you spend like a few hours reading someone's work, that's much different than like reading a few tweets of theirs or a LinkedIn post. I don't really think of books as marketing assets, and I think that's why they're such good marketing assets. Like a, a good book is, is a story. It's, it's educational, it's entertaining, ideally, like it makes you think about the world differently. And if you write a great book [00:06:00] and you can do that with some readers, like that is the best influence you can create, and it doesn't feel like a marketing asset because it's really not. But, you know, that's what makes it so influential
[00:06:11] Amanda Natividad: Yeah, that's true. I mean, yeah, to your point, it isn't really a marketing asset. It's the product. It's, it's the thing.
[00:06:18] Ben Putano: Right. It's a product
[00:06:20] Amanda Natividad: okay, so you talked about, going back to what you said really quick about, like, April Dunford as an example, which also a great example because her book is fantastic. But you talked about, like, I would say, you know, go to someone's web- go to her website, read, show the five blog posts, or pick up her book.
so what makes a book worth reading? Like, we know that, uh, you know, you've said this before, like, a great book is essentially a strong point of view with all the research and the receipts to back it up. So what separates an actually truly valuable book from, like, 200 pages of repurposed blog posts?
[00:06:57] Ben Putano: yeah. And there's a lot of books out there that are just a bunch [00:07:00] of repurposed blog posts,
[00:07:01] Amanda Natividad: Right. That's 12 blog posts in a trench
[00:07:03] Ben Putano: 12, yeah. Yeah, exactly. but you know, I think the answer is counterintuitively, it's one memorable idea. That's what makes a great book worth reading. It, it's really hard to, A, get people to read books, but B, get them to remember anything.
So as a publisher, I mean, maybe it's a low bar, but I think, I think about it as if we can get readers to just remember one thing, if we can get one big idea stuck in their minds, that's a win. And I think if you think about the, you know, all the nonfiction books that, um, that you've read and you found worthwhile, there's probably one big idea in there that you remember.
Maybe it's just right in the title. Maybe it's Atomic Habits. Oh yeah, I need to like, you know, success comes from like tiny habits, developed over time. With April Dunford, it's, um, understanding that like the first step of positioning is understanding your competition actually, which is sort of counterintuitive for most [00:08:00] positioning work. with Zero Click Marketing, it's the idea of, you know, zero click but not zero influence. If we can get one idea stuck in the readers' minds, that's a win. a counterexample of that actually, I, a friend of mine just recommended a book to me. and I mean, it sold 11 million copies, so maybe this is like, maybe this like blows my theory out of the water.
But, it's called The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, which
I've heard a lot of people recommend this, but I was like, "Oh, like, do you remember anything from it?" And he said, "No. I don't actually remember anything specific about the book." He only remembered that this was like, you know, a, a lecturer who was like, you know, had, you know, terminal cancer and this was literally his like last lecture and life advice, which is a really cool hook in itself.
but you know, not a great sell if you're trying to recommend it. So, yeah, I just look for that one thing that, that might get stuck in someone's mind, and I think that's what makes a book worth reading
[00:08:53] Amanda Natividad: I'm gonna look that up, by the way. I'm like, "Oh, that sounds like the kind of book that I would like, that my soul would like to read right now." [00:09:00] Um, wait, so w- I do wanna ask, what's a formative book for you? Cause I, I mean, like, you probably read, like, a book a day at the, at this point, so like,
[00:09:13] Ben Putano: various forms,
[00:09:14] Amanda Natividad: in various
forms.
[00:09:17] Ben Putano: yeah, ugly first drafts probably
[00:09:20] Amanda Natividad: Yeah. So maybe like, I'm sure... So I'm sure there are a lot of books that have changed your thinking on something or changed a worldview or something. So maybe just, just one. Like, what's one book that has changed the way you view something?
[00:09:34] Ben Putano: the one that comes to mind, and probably because I've read it like seven times, I... Until I had my son a year ago, I was rereading it every single year, like as a New Year's thing, and since then my my reading ability is like, is kind of tanked a bit.
[00:09:48] Amanda Natividad: It's probably shouldn't say that, but,
Hippos Go Berserk. That's, that's her book.
[00:09:53] Ben Putano: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love The Mouse and the Strawberry. It's a great book. no, the book, the book is, [00:10:00] uh, Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. It's, it's like Stoic Philosophy 101, but I read it so many times that it really rewired how I look at challenges in that at first, like it's scary. It's like you have this oh sh*t moment, but then I find myself naturally now thinking like, "Okay, like what's the opportunity here?" Like, you know, we, we had a printing issue. Okay, like what's the opportunity here? Like, I can go above and beyond and make the authors feel seen and, build that trust and that credibility, and also I can like, you know, extract some, compensation or some, some credits from the printer or something.
I don't know.
[00:10:41] Amanda Natividad: Yeah
[00:10:42] Ben Putano: Just, just looking for an opportunity, um, in every challenge. That's, that's, uh... I think about that a lot
[00:10:48] Amanda Natividad: That's cool. I, I, I just bought it. I feel
[00:10:52] Ben Putano: Obstacles away? I need to put my Amazon, uh, affiliate links in here.
[00:10:57] Amanda Natividad: Oh, shoot. I should have asked
[00:10:59] Ben Putano: I'm just joking. I [00:11:00] don't have those. Uh, but
[00:11:02] Amanda Natividad: What are you wearing? Can I, can I buy that too? Drop your affiliate link.
[00:11:07] Ben Putano: Yeah, we're on TikTok Shop right now actually
[00:11:13] Amanda Natividad: Um, no, I appreciate that. I think like... Well, what I don't re- I don't, I don't think I've really read much stoicism principles. I just kinda know some of them, right? So I think I, I think I would appreciate this kind of book. Um, I'm gonna answer my own question, which is like a formative book. So I've read a bunch, but I will take an unpopular popular route, which is you mentioned Atomic Habits.
That actually helped me a lot, and I think they're, I think now where that book is not controversial, but I think now there are a lot of people who are like, "This book is kinda, kinda mid." Like, "Come on, this is not that helpful." There are people who are like, "Yeah, this advice worked for this high-functioning person who is able-bodied [00:12:00] and like reasonably intelligent."
You know, where I'm like, "Yeah, that's true probably." And I think there are probably people who read it and are like, "I didn't learn anything." And I'm like, "You know what? That's fair," because everyone has a different perspective, different experiences, right? That we all have something different that we're bringing to the table.
So for me, when I, when I read Atomic Habits, uh, several years ago, I had never read any kind of productivity book, like ever. So that was... So, so part of it was a lot of the stuff he was saying was new to me. Like I didn't know that before. And the ideas of just breaking down your habits into tiny, tiny actions and like, um, stacking habits, right?
To make them stickier. I mean, it became the reason that I exercised. Like I never used to, but like I started with just do f- just do five minutes a day, and then it became 10 minutes a day. And then it just became like, oh, it's actually a lot easier for me to work out every weekday of the week, but just make it short.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] Ben Putano: Mm-hmm
[00:13:01] Amanda Natividad: Like that helped me. So maybe I'll just... I'm sure people listening are like, "Mm."
[00:13:06] Ben Putano: I mean, w- it's sort of a victim of its own success because
those ideas became so ubiquitous via influence. Maybe you didn't learn anything because you just heard those ideas parroted for the last 10 years across all
social channels and, and blog posts. Like, it was so formative, it's created this entire basically, like, mini content industry around habit building.
So those t- ideas aren't new anymore, but they were the ... They were one ... Not the first, I would say, but they
were, they were by far the most influential, uh, when, when that book came out.
[00:13:40] Amanda Natividad: Yeah, I think so. Yeah
[00:13:42] Ben Putano: and you say that, and actually I, I do a lot of those things now
too. Like,
if I, if I wanna work out in the morning, I gotta have my stuff set out, like, away from my bed, like set out ready to, to put on. Yeah, just so do- just get to the gym, just Yeah, so
that's more, more, um, formative than [00:14:00] I give it credit for, I think
[00:14:01] Amanda Natividad: No, totally. And I mean, it also just goes to show, like, everyone's needs are different. Everyone's motivations are tapped into or activated differently, right? So if it works for you, it works for you. And if it doesn't, that's true
[00:14:17] Ben Putano: another one. There's a lot of books out
[00:14:19] Amanda Natividad: Yeah, it's like, you know, it's true for us, true. Um, okay, I wanted to ask about books as word-of-mouth machines, 'cause that's a thing you've said before, like, books are word-of-mouth machines.
But not every book generates word of mouth. So, you know, we talked about how books are recommendable, or at least good books are. what makes people recommend a book to someone else? And do you think an author can deliberately engineer that?
[00:14:49] Ben Putano: Yes. It's hard, but there is sort of a, a formula, and it goes back to the, you know, the last point we were discussing, which is what makes a book readable. It's kind of the same [00:15:00] thing. It's, to me, it's that one big idea, and that one big idea becomes the pitch for other people. I mean, we just, demonstrated the power of that pitch when I, when I mentioned Obstacle Is The Way and identify- you know, looking at challenges as opportunities.
You said, "I'm gonna go buy that." And even Ran- you know, the last lecture, Randy Pausch, spoke to you in a way.
And so, to recommend another book, Rob Fitzpatrick, uh, he wrote Write Useful Books.
He takes this to an extreme. He... His books, Write Useful Books, uh, he has a book on presentations. He has a book called The Mom Test, which is about one single test to determine if your product is worthwhile or not. he boils down his books to just one really strong pain point that he can solve for the reader, whether that's to write a useful book or to make a presentation. so that's like, you know, when you're thinking about, like, the one big thing that's memorable, I like to think about it as a pain to be relieved [00:16:00] or an opportunity to unlock. like, oh, you need to improve your product positioning? Read Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. Oh, you're trying to figure out, how to run a marketing campaign when no one's gonna click on your links. Like, go check out Zero Click Marketing. That's your answer. I call this the happy hour pitch, and we do this
in our positioning work, actually, right at the beginning of every book project. It's like, if you and a friend were at a bar getting a drink after work and you just read this great book, like, what would you say to that person that gets them to buy the book? And there's your experience with it, but it's also, like, context related too. Like, if you told me,
[00:16:38] Amanda Natividad: Mm-hmm
[00:16:38] Ben Putano: you know, you were, like, struggling, like, going to the gym every day, Maybe I would say, like, "Go check out Atomic Habits. It tell, it, it taught me how to, like, break down that big habit of going to the gym into, like, very small little habits that I could do every single day." That's the happy hour pitch. So a book becomes recommendable when it can be distilled into this happy hour pitch and by the way, [00:17:00] actually, so funny enough, romance and fantasy novelists do this so well.
I will admit that I don't read a lot of it, but I'm, I... They are, like, the leaders in innovative book marketing and positioning. They describe every book by just mood, just pure vibes. Like, um, I looked at w- I, I pulled this example 'cause I literally saved it on Reddit the other day. I was, I was thought this was like, this is just, like, so evocative. It was like, "Queer psychological thriller about dreams, strangers, and toxic love." Like, that is a feeling.
[00:17:37] Amanda Natividad: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Ben Putano: Or they'll say, like, "Intense desire, angsty, dangerous characters."
So it's like pure emotion. And actually, I
think more business books could, could lean into this, that pure emotion of the
pain or the opportunity they're trying to unlock. We
try to keep it, like, real s- uh, real stiff sometimes, you know? Like, keep it [00:18:00] boardroom appropriate.
But I don't think there's anything wrong with, with getting a little angsty and,
[00:18:04] Amanda Natividad: No, that's great. Totally. And then plus like if you, you know, if you hear that and you think, "Ugh, I don't want that," well then good, right? Because it, that's good positioning. Good positioning attracts the right people and repels the right people.
[00:18:18] Ben Putano: Exactly. The, and, uh, you know, author, romance authors are often pretty prolific too, and every single book will have a description like that. So if you're feeling in the mood for, like, dreams and strangers and toxic love, they got a book for you. If you want some dangerous angsty characters, they got a book for you
[00:18:33] Amanda Natividad: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Well, friends, Zero Click Marketing has two dangerous marketers at the helm. There's a murder mystery
[00:18:44] Ben Putano: Yeah. I would call it, like, witty, like super entertain- like you're, like you're, like drinking tea with your two in-the-know best friends, in-the-know best, like, marketing friends. And all those footnotes that you add are, are so funny. [00:19:00] It's, it's very fun, very entertaining, which I think is also underrated, just making an en- an entertaining book
[00:19:06] Amanda Natividad: Yeah, that's underrated. And it's hard to do, right? 'Cause if you're not entertaining and then you try to force it, that's not good.
[00:19:14] Ben Putano: And especially today, like every, you know, four out of five books probably are, are being written by ChatGPT now. If you just have a real human voice, that is an advantage today, which is crazy, but, um, it's true
[00:19:29] Amanda Natividad: Yeah. You know, talking about the happy hour test. Was that, was that what you call it? The
[00:19:34] Ben Putano: A happy hour, pitch,
[00:19:35] Amanda Natividad: happy hour pitch? You know what's funny? When I was teaching my Content Marketing 201 course, something in my curriculum was what I called the dinner party test. It's the same thing a- as your happy hour pitch, because it's basically like
And, and my framing was, you know, kind of similar, right? My framing was like, imagine you're at a dinner party with like six other people, [00:20:00] and so these are people that you know kind of well. They're probably your friends. They're probably not your peers exactly, right? Because it's like an intimate dinner party.
And imagine you're trying to communicate an idea to them. Like, what are you gonna say to them in a way that's accessible? How would you get them to care? But also, like, you're having a conversation, right? So you're not gonna get too wonky about all the details. Like, how would you talk about it then? And so I have, I had people in this, in my course, like kind of do this with each other in small groups to be like, you know, pretend it's a dinner party and you're just saying like what your next piece of content, like your next meaningful piece of content, which could be a book, right?
It could be a really thorough blog post. It could be anything. But like, how would you communicate that idea to them?
[00:20:47] Ben Putano: Yeah, that's really
powerful to take this 60,000-word thing or like, you know, years of your work and distill it to,
into like a 30-second pitch basically
in a very casual environment. That's hard to do, but[00:21:00]
recommendable books
get there
[00:21:03] Amanda Natividad: You know, yesterday when I was at, I was at LA Tech Week at an event hosted by Wistia, I ended up at some point kind of, kind of being able to give the pitch on zero-click marketing. And something I kind of had fun with was, so the audience there was, it was creative LA people. So there was a mix of like some entrepreneurs, founders, right?
Some designers, but also like, people who worked in the entertainment industry. So kind of a mix. All kinds of creative people, right? But it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily my audience of marketers, you know? So I had fun with how do I communicate what zero-click marketing means for them, right? So I did talk a little bit about like 68% of Google searches end without a click.
What does that mean for your business? And I was like, "Well, what it means is Google is [00:22:00] showing people results or answers, and people are not going to your website. Like, why should you care about that? Because here's why it might affect your business." And what I also ended up talking about was, but this book is also about the recent history of the internet, like how we got to this point, like what happened over the past 10 to 15 years.
And I think anybody on the internet probably cares about that.
[00:22:26] Ben Putano: That is a really good point. And that expands the TAM of the book
[00:22:30] Amanda Natividad: It does,
[00:22:31] Ben Putano: to like the verge, like, you know, more like, you know, technology business audiences. That's,
that's a really, that's a really interesting angle
[00:22:41] Amanda Natividad: I feel like it's almost like if you're not in marketing, right? If you're just like a person today, you could just read the first half of the book and be like, "Oh, that's interesting
[00:22:51] Ben Putano: Yeah, that's why Google is, like, giving me all these AI answers and,
[00:22:54] Amanda Natividad: Yeah. Like, "Oh, that's why this is happening
[00:22:56] Ben Putano: Yeah. Oh, interesting. This is good. This [00:23:00] is, this is good for our PR push.
That's a good angle to, to test out.
[00:23:03] Amanda Natividad: Tell Liz.
[00:23:04] Ben Putano: I'm, yeah, we're on it.
[00:23:06] Amanda Natividad: Okay, um, I want to talk a little bit about, like, book marketing. So, you know, I think ... By the way, people have reached out to me to say like, "Hey, the way you guys are doing book marketing is really smart." And I'm like, "All credit to Ben and Damn Gravity." Um, so my question now is what sh- what do you think authors should be doing before the book comes out, like to give it the best chance of reaching more people?
[00:23:31] Ben Putano: Yeah. You know, ideally you have this like brilliant idea back in like 2023, 2024, and you start talking about it and like it becomes your whole business and like the thing you've, uh, you know, the thing you become known for, a
la zero click marketing, zero click content, Amanda Natividad. we believe in starting marketing like on day one. The editorial process, and I come from a content marketing background, so I think about even books a bit as like, as just [00:24:00] like, you know, marketing content. but like that whole process creates all of this, all of these amazing stories, whether they end up in the book or not.
Even the story, like creating the thing is interesting on
some level. So we start sharing ideas from the book and trying to identify that one big idea that's going to be memorable as soon as possible. And social media, like, you know, whatever your channel of choice is, we do a lot of LinkedIn since we're business and technology titles. That becomes your testing ground for big ideas and then of course where you prime your audience and grow your audience Where we approach marketing a little differently than the large traditional publishers is that we start with the core avid reader for the book. Most book marketing tries to reach as wide of an audience as possible.
You know, the, to get on a bestseller list you'd need a super wide audience, so like a lot
[00:25:00] of traditional PR firms will, will pitch random business books for like Good Morning America or Good Morning Muncie, like whatever they can get you on. it's these, so these like really general audiences, and we do the exact opposite.
We start with finding the people who are absolutely going to love your book,
um, who are the, the the perfect reader, and then we, we get to know them, we expand that circle, and, um, we grow out. So we do this by, again, sharing those, ideas from day one on social. We do this by incorporating beta readers, beta reader communities into the process, into the writing process to start getting feedback from real readers and also to make them part of the journey. And then, um, when it comes to pre-sales, we, uh, we start with direct pre-sales. So when Zero Click Marketing and, and all of our most recent books go out for sale, they're available on damngravity.com, [00:26:00] but not like Amazon or Barnes & Noble yet. And that's because we want to build direct reader relationships. That allows you, Amanda, to say, "Hey, I'm hosting Zero Click Summer School. Uh, would love you to attend." And that's how we got like 200-plus people at this event. Hey, we're hosting this, uh, this work- uh, we're hosting an AMA on launch day." and we send that just to our pre-order buyers. It just gives you a direct connection to your reader.
So you can start building those direct credit- connections as early as you have the idea for the book and, that's what we try to build our whole marketing campaigns around
[00:26:35] Amanda Natividad: That's super smart. I mean, because like, uh, it's hard to get people to buy a book, to read a book. It's hard to get people to just read the book, right? So it makes sense that you want to activate the people who are going to be the biggest fans, who will care the most about the book. And then hopefully, right, over time they'll write positive reviews, they'll kind of spread the word, and then like will slowly just [00:27:00] have more and more people advocating for the ideas for the book itself.
And then getting kind of the broader audience to be like, "All right. I've heard enough about this book. I'm gonna go get it."
[00:27:11] Ben Putano: Yeah. Starting with those avid readers is
how you build that word of content or word of mouth machine and how a book actually becomes influence. It's spread like one, from one person to the next
[00:27:23] Amanda Natividad: That's so smart. all right. So my last question is a little bit of like calling myself out, right? 'Cause y- I mean, you know I've kind of gone back and forth on this idea of like, how much should I care about bestseller lists? Because part of it is like no author is gonna say, "Oh, I don't wanna make a bestseller list.
I would love for people to not buy my book." No one, no one thinks that, right? But at the same time, these things, maybe a lot of people don't know this, but like bestseller lists can, can and are very easily gamified. [00:28:00] Like, if you just do the right little tactics in the right order, uh, I know it takes work, but I'm just saying, like, just because something makes a bestseller list doesn't necessarily mean it's a good book, right?
Like, fair to say. I think anyone would believe that, right?
my other question I think is how do you, how do you think about overall success of a book? And maybe it's your answer to me and like how much should I care about these things? How should I think about success? Asking for a friend.
[00:28:30] Ben Putano: Yeah. Um, And I'm lucky enough to work with authors, many authors who feel the same way, but I measure success of a book by its impact. And by impact, I do mean books in hands. Books in real hands, by the way, not just books purchased to hit a bestseller list and sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Books in hands that actually expand your ability to do what you love to do. So, whether that's grow your business, grow your speaking [00:29:00] work, coaching, maybe you just want to write full time. A success in that case would be a book that allows you to write more books. So, and this is different for every author. I think about pop music as a good analogy here.
Um, one of my favorite bands is this, like, funky little, uh, rock band from Australia called Hiatus Kaiyote. They've gotten more popular over the years, but they're just, like, super weird and cool, and I saw them in concert here in Chicago for my birthday a couple years ago, and I was thinking about this.
I'm like, these people are incredible, but they're playing this, like, pretty small theater in uptown Chicago. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift was literally in town that weekend also selling out four straight nights at Soldier Field. Both of them, Taylor Swift and Hiatus Kaiyote, are, like, the best in the world at what they do. It just so happens that Taylor Swift has this, like, incredibly likable, broad appeal, [00:30:00] worldwide appeal, where Hiatus Kaiyote does not, and they don't want to have that appeal, and I don't want them to have that appeal. Like, that doesn't appeal to me. So, like, there's these different lanes of success. Hiatus Kaiyote has this, like, small fervent audience, and they get to do what they love playing all around the world for these, like, you know, mid-size crowds.
And then there's Taylor Swift who sells out stadiums. And if you try to be Taylor Swift and you don't want to be or you don't have, like, that sort of global appeal, it's gonna be really hard and you might be miserable anyway. So, it's really about impact and, and it's, it's about impacting the readers that you care most about that allow you to do what you love to do
[00:30:38] Amanda Natividad: I love that. Yeah, to that point too, when I get to talk to people who I know have been following my work for a while or for, who've been following Rand's work for a while and they're excited to, to read our book, that, I mean, that's, that in and of itself for me, that feels good, right? To know, oh, like our work really resonates with you, or like you've been a longtime [00:31:00] fan of my co-author and like now you're buying our book.
Like that's, that's incredible to me and like makes me also feel like, well, I'm glad that we're helping you because at the end of the day, you write a book because you want to help people with the ideas that you're putting out there, the ideas that you're testing and everything
[00:31:17] Ben Putano: Yeah. And I'll tell you, like, you know, from seeing different measures of success of books from every angle, that way you just described that feeling of someone excited to read your book, and better yet, once they read it saying like, "This was incredible. Like, this changed the way I work or changed my life", that is the peak for the author.
That feels most like success compared to anything else. Like, to give you another example, you, you mentioned it's easy to gamify bestseller lists. I knew an author once who spent $50,000 to basically guarantee a spot on a bestseller list, and it wasn't even, like, the biggest bestseller list. he did it. Uh, he reached number nine on that list. Sold, like, 8,000 copies, each at, like, 99 [00:32:00] cents, by the way. Just digital copies and made the list. Not a peep afterwards. that bestseller list placement had zero influence. and versus, like, the experience you just had of, of people, like, coming up to you, excited to talk to you, excited for you to sign their book, and then eventually saying like, "Wow, this is amazing.
I'm gonna share this with a friend or I'm gonna share this with my team." Like, night and day difference in terms of how it feels
for the author
[00:32:28] Amanda Natividad: That's, that's a really, really good reality check. I can't tell you how often I've gotten cold pitches from people. Like, whether it's... Oh, oh, and it's over the years, right? Over the years of my career, whether it's somebody pitching their boss, executive, whoever, for a conference that I'm hosting or for my podcast, for this podcast, right?
Where they're like, "Oh, like you have to have so-and-so. They're a best-selling author," you know, this and this. And then I look them up and I'm like, [00:33:00] "I've never heard of them. I've never heard their con- their name in this conversation, in this niche." And like, I'm like, "Best seller?" I'm like, "Who's buying it?"
Where it's, it's just become like a word that I'm like, I don't really know what that means, best seller, right?
[00:33:17] Ben Putano: Yeah, it's, it's pretty meaningless. The Amazon bestseller lists, bestseller lists are
completely algorithmic and it, in one
way it's like the most meritocratic, but it literally updates by the hour and it, and it determines bestseller standing by the category. So if you're in a category where the top books sell like f- you know, two copies a day, pretty easy to become a bestseller in that specific category.
And by the way, you can pick whatever categories you want
So you are a bestseller in underwater basket weaving. I just wanted to let you know
[00:33:48] Amanda Natividad: I don't know if that's hilarious. We'll like move the Zero Click Marketing listing. Hey, put it in arts and crafts or
[00:33:55] Ben Putano: Yeah, arts and crafts. That's
a No, that's pretty, that's actually a little too competitive, [00:34:00] unfortunately,
[00:34:00] Amanda Natividad: No, I actually, you're right. As I said it, I was like, "Wait, no."
[00:34:03] Ben Putano: I'm just kidding. We chose, like, legit categories
because it ma- means way more to be number one in marketing versus, you know, uh, Egyptology or whatever
[00:34:15] Amanda Natividad: Based in, yeah. thank you for joining. This was really fun to, to just, like, jam about. I feel like everything you said we can chop up into smaller clips, and those can stand alone and be our zero-click content.
[00:34:29] Ben Putano: Thank you, Ben
All right. Bye, Amanda.
[00:34:32] Amanda: Thank you for listening or watching Zero Click Marketing. We'll see you next week.