Before The Bestseller

We're excited to welcome back Thomas Umstattd Jr. , founder of Author Media , host of the Novel Marketing Podcast , and creator of the Novel Marketing Conference . With more than a decade of experience helping authors market their books, Thomas joins us to talk about how AI is changing publishing, what’s happening with book sales, and what authors need to understand about reaching readers in...

We welcome back Ryan Levesque, author of Ask and Choose , to talk about the book marketing strategies behind his newly released book, Return to Real . After selling hundreds of thousands of copies of Ask , Ryan shares what he's learned from his previous launches and how he's applying those lessons to his latest book. In this episode, Ryan takes us behind the scenes of writing and marketi...

For our 200th episode of Before the Bestseller , today’s special guest is Ryan Levesque , founder, seven-time Inc. 5000 CEO, and #1 national bestselling author of Return to Real . Ryan has generated more than $100 million in revenue, and his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal , USA Today , Forbes , and Entrepreneur . His experience building businesses has given him a front-row view...

Mike Michalowicz is back on Before the Bestseller to talk about his latest book, The Money Habit , and what he’s learned from writing more than ten books and selling roughly 1.6 to 1.7 million copies across his titles. This time, we look beyond the launch itself and into what Mike has learned about writing books that continue to find readers over time. Mike breaks down the framework he uses to thi...

We welcome back bestselling author and entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz , whose books have tackled nearly every corner of entrepreneurship, from profitability in the bestselling Profit First , to building a business that can run without you in Clockwork , to standing out in a crowded market with Get Different . After building and selling two multimillion-dollar businesses, Mike turned those experienc...

We’re back with Jayson Gaignard , author of Community Made: The Truth About Success and the Relationships That Created It . Jayson is a veteran entrepreneur known for building communities and bringing entrepreneurs together through his invite-only events, with past guests including Tim Ferriss, Marc Ecko, and Dave Asprey. His work has also been featured in Forbes, Lifehacker, and Business Insider....

Our special guest for today is Jayson Gaignard, a Canadian entrepreneur, author of Community Made: The Truth About Success and the Relationships That Created It , and founder of Mastermind Talks, an invite-only gathering that has brought together people like Tim Ferriss, James Altucher, and Esther Perel. After building a million-dollar ticket business and later finding himself $250,000 in debt, Ja...

Last episode, we talked with Mark Wolynn about the ideas behind It Didn’t Start With You . This time, we’re talking about what happened after he wrote it and how the book eventually sold more than 3 million copies. Mark takes us back to the beginning, from spending nine years developing the material and nearly self-publishing the book to landing an agent and a traditional publishing deal. But when...

Our very special guest today is a leading expert in the field of inherited family trauma, the director of The Family Constellation Institute, and the creator of The Core Language Approach. He has taught at institutions including the University of Pittsburgh, the Western Psychiatric Institute, The Omega Institute, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. I’m joined by Mark Wolynn , author...

This final episode of our four-part series from Ed Rush ’s Top Gun Author event in Dallas brings everything together. Instead of focusing on another guest interview, I walk through the framework we use at Shelf Life to turn book marketing ideas into an actual plan. The goal is simple: know what you’re going to do before launch, during launch week, and long after the initial excitement wears off. W...

Welcome to Part 3 of this special four-part series of Before the Bestseller , recorded live at Ed Rush’s Top Gun Author Live Event 2026. In this session, I’m sharing the real stories behind books that found their audience, from Atomic Habits and Profit First to Rich Dad Poor Dad , Go for No! and How to Win Friends and Influence People . The strategies are different, but they all show how creative...

Welcome to Part 2 of this special four-part series recorded live at Ed Rush's Top Gun Author Live Event in Dallas. In this episode, I want to talk about something that doesn't get enough attention: how to stop wasting your time and money on book marketing. After working with hundreds of authors, I've seen the same mistakes happen over and over again. The good news is they're av...

In this first episode of a special four-part series recorded live at Ed Rush 's first-ever Top Gun Author Live event, I take a step back from the usual interviews to share the foundations of book marketing. Before we talk about ads, social media, or launch strategies, we need to understand what actually makes a book succeed and why so many authors end up busy without making real progress. Thr...

Today we're back with Scott Hogan , author of the bestselling book Built from Broken , which has sold more than 300,000 copies. Scott is the founder of SaltWrap , a company dedicated to helping people stay strong, mobile, and pain-free through practical approaches to nutrition, training, and recovery. As an A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer, Orthopedic Exercise Specialist, and nutritional sup...

This week we're joined by Scott Hogan , someone who has turned a lifetime of injuries into a mission to help others move better, recover smarter, and keep doing the activities they love for years to come. Scott is an American Council on Exercise certified personal trainer, certified orthopedic exercise specialist, nutritional supplement formulator, founder of SaltWrap , and the author of the...

We're back for a second episode with Karen Anderson , a publishing strategist and direct response marketing expert who has worked across every major publishing model and co-author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller The Bezos Letters . Building on our previous conversation about what makes a book worth publishing, we now explore what makes a book actually work, from reader psy...

Today, we're joined by Karen Anderson , a strategic book advisor, Associate Publisher at Morgan James Publishing , and co-author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon . With more than twenty-five years in publishing and contributions to numerous New York Times bestselling books, Karen brings an unusual combinatio...

Today we welcome back Steven Pressfield , bestselling author of The War of Art , Gates of Fire , The Legend of Bagger Vance , and his newest novel, The Arcadian . Across a career spanning fiction and nonfiction, Pressfield has sold millions of books and built a reputation as one of the most influential voices on creativity, discipline, and the challenges that stand between people and their life&ap...

Today we welcome a very special guest and one of my favorite authors for a long time, Steven Pressfield , author of more than twenty books spanning fiction and nonfiction, including The War of Art , which has sold more than a million copies worldwide and has become a foundational book for writers, entrepreneurs, artists, and creators. He is also the acclaimed author of Gates of Fire , The Legend o...

We're back with Eric Ries , entrepreneur, startup thinker, and author of the bestselling books T he Lean Startup and Incorruptible . With millions of books sold and ideas that have influenced founders, executives, and organizations around the world, Eric joins us again to share how he approached building not just successful books, but movements around ideas. In this episode, we explore how Er...

Today, we’re honored to have entrepreneur, creator of the Lean Startup movement, and author of the international bestseller The Lean Startup , Eric Ries , on Before the Bestseller . His work changed how founders think about building companies by replacing assumptions with experimentation, validated learning, and building what customers actually want. We talked about Eric’s unexpected path from tea...

We’re back with Nicole Gebhardt , publishing strategist and CEO of Niche Press , for a conversation about what publishing looks like in a world shaped by AI, shifting reader behavior, and shorter attention spans. Nicole has helped entrepreneurs, experts, and business owners turn books into long term brand and business assets, and in this episode, she breaks down why the books people buy and finish...

Today we welcome Nicole Gebhart , CEO of Niche Press , where she has worked with hundreds of business leaders, advisors, and experts to help them clarify what they want to be known for and turn that into a book that actually drives opportunity. With a background leading communications strategy at Caterpillar Inc. and years of consulting experience, she brings a structured, strategic lens to publis...

Marshall Karp , #1 New York Times bestselling author, TV and screenwriter, documentarian, and playwright, returns to Before the Bestseller alongside Danny Corcoran , a former NYPD detective whose 24 years on the job now inform the realism behind Karp’s fiction. Working with James Patterson , Karp cocreated and cowrote the NYPD Red series before continuing it on his own starting with NYPD Red 7: Th...

Today’s guest is someone whose career spans advertising, Hollywood, and bestselling fiction. Marshall Karp is a #1 New York Times bestselling author known for his work on the NYPD Red series with James Patterson , along with his own novels including Don't Tell Me How to Die and the Lomax and Biggs Mysteries . Before writing novels, he built a successful career in advertising and later transit...