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 book marketing can create opportunities you might never see coming.
Instead of giving you another list of marketing tactics, I break down the stories behind them. We get into finding gatekeepers who already have access to your readers, tapping into existing communities, using social listening to build genuine relationships, creating corporate bulk-buy opportunities, finding a small but passionate niche, and getting your first copies into the right hands. I also share how my first book went from an Amazon bestseller that quickly lost momentum to reaching roughly 40,000 students through university partnerships, and what that experience taught me about getting scrappy when you don’t have a big marketing budget.
If you’re trying to figure out how to get your book beyond the launch and into the hands of people who might actually read it, share it, and open doors for it, this episode will give you plenty of ideas to work with. Tune in and start thinking differently about the relationships, audiences, and opportunities already around you.
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