Brandon Sanderson

How to launch offers that almost never fail

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Last week, I was talking to Steve “License to Quill” Raju. Steve’s a very smart guy who has over the past year transformed himself from a direct response copywriter into an AI consultant for big corporations.

Steve was telling me how he used AI to augment his problem-solving ability.

​​For example, the problem of direct response offers that fall flat.

Steve wanted to see if there’s a way to reduce the risk of offers falling flat. So he asked the AI if this problem has already been solved in other industries.

“The AI came up with the TV industry,” Steve told me with some enthusiasm, and he went on to explain how the TV industry apparently makes sure its shows are hits.

I didn’t say so at the time, but I had my doubts. Not of Steve, but of the AI’s advice.

From what I know, the TV industry is riddled with failure — pilot episodes that never get picked up, shows that get canceled after the first season, spinoffs that go nowhere.

​​Same thing holds in the movie industry. (William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything.”)

Ditto for the publishing industry. About that:

A couple days ago, I read a 4,425-word article that summarized a 1194-page book called The Trial.

The Trial itself summarizes a yearlong antitrust case that came up when Penguin Random House tried to buy Simon & Schuster, and reduce the Big Five publishing houses to the Big Four.

As part of this antitrust case, the heads of all the major publishing companies testified, and revealed the failure-ridden and frankly sad state of the traditional publishing industry.

For example, only half the books published by these companies make any money. A much lower percentage actually pay back the money advanced to the author, and make any kind of profit.

However!

There are two categories of books where the odds are much, much better.

​​These two categories do not quite guaranteed successes. Failures still do happen. But these two types of books are as close to guaranteed as it gets.

The first are books by celebrities. Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan.

The second are franchise authors. Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Brandon Sanderson.

Of these two categories, the franchise authors produce far more reliable successes. And no wonder.

Franchise authors have already built up an audience that’s demonstrated demand for a specific character or concept. This audience remains highly dedicated and forgiving, as long as the author keeps giving them more of what they already said they want.

When I put it in these terms, the lesson is hardly surprising.

But surprising or not, the fact remains that, in spite of literally hundreds of years of experimentation by established billion-dollar industries, this is still the best recipe for new offers that are an almost guaranteed success:

1. Build up an audience that’s demonstrated demand for a specific promise, product, or persona…

​2. ​​… and then give them more of what they already said they want.

​​Of course, you don’t have to write books. Short emails will do.

And if you want to see how I’ve done this using short emails, in several different industries, from supplements to pet supplies to high-ticket coaching and courses, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Even numbers are for the dead

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Last week I was visiting my home town of Zagreb, Croatia. It was my mom’s birthday. I went into a flower shop to buy her some flowers.

I pointed at some sunset-pink roses. “Six of those,” I said to the flower shop girl.

She shrugged as if to apologize. “We really only sell them in odd numbers. So five… or seven…”

I stared hard at her for a moment. “Fine,” I said. “Then give me seven.”

While she was tying the roses up I was pacing the flower shop and inspecting the orchids and potted eucalyptus plants. My irritation was growing.

“And can you tell me please,” I finally blurted out, “why exactly you only sell them in odd numbers?”

The flower shop girl looked at me patiently, the way she might with a child. “Because even numbers are for the dead. Odd numbers are for living people.”

I was taken aback. But I’ve double-checked since. The girl is right.

At least in this part of the world — Croatia, Serbia, and possibly a dozen other tiny countries with a shared cultural history — you buy an even number of flowers when you go to a wake or a funeral. You buy an odd number for weddings, graduations, birthdays, etc.

Why? Why not the other way around?

Who knows. Perhaps some practical reason. Perhaps symbolic. Or perhaps entirely arbitrary, set by some highly OCD person once upon a time who managed to enforce his will on the rest of us.

One thing’s for sure:

People love these kinds of rules. They live by them. It gives structure and coherence and even meaning to an otherwise chaotic existence.

People love these rules so much they will seek them out if they are missing.

My friend Sam sent me an article last week about Brandon Sanderson, one of the best-selling fantasy authors in the world.

Sanderson sold $55 million worth of books last year. But unlike with J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin, practically nobody, outside Sanderson’s sizeable audience, knows who he is.

The reason, as the article will tell you, is that Sanderson is not a very good writer.

​​So why the devoted following of millions of people?

One reason, according to Sanderson’s fans, is his characters. And then, from the article:

“The second answer to Why Sanderson? is his worlds. This is probably what he’s best known for. Worldbuilding, as it’s called. Sanderson dreams up far-off lands—sometimes cities, sometimes whole planets, with rules and systems and politics—and then he populates them with characters whose fates are also the worlds’.”

So there you go:

People are shopping for worlds to inhabit.

They might enjoy yours, and even pay to be inside.

In order for that to happen, one thing you will need is a strong and elaborate set of rules.

For example:

One of the rules of my world, as you might know, is that deadlines are deadly.

You don’t want to miss them.

Because I don’t extend them and I don’t make exceptions to them.

My deadlines also come exactly at 8:31pm CET.

Such as my deadline tomorrow, Tuesday, at 8:31pm CET, to get my MVE course before the price goes up threefold, from $100 to $297. That’s less than 24 hours from now. In case you don’t want to be struck down by the law:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/