Last year I built a cover in one hour for my most popular book on writing.

I used a method I’d been refining for years.

Five steps.
Predictable result.
I used my favorite hot pink color and modeled the cover after Atomic Habits.

That cover has been my Mini Book Model cover ever since.

Last week I got curious.

AI tools have come a long way in twelve months.
Canva templates have multiplied.
Maybe the hour-long manual method was overkill now.

So I ran an experiment.

I gave Gemini one hour.
I gave a Canva template one hour.
I put both up against the QUICK Method cover I’d already made.

Same book.
Same hour budget.
Three very different results.

Here they are.
You be the judge.

Cover 1. Gemini AI. One Hour.

I opened Gemini and went to work.

Wrote prompts. Refined them. Tried different styles, different palettes, different layouts. Iterated for a full hour.

This was the best version I got. (Check out the ugly one I got without massaging it for 1 hour)

The shapes on the original have movement. The pink and navy palette feels somewhat modern. The exploding book in the center is a clever visual metaphor.

A cover has one job though.
Sell the book.

This one doesn’t. It is art.
The title fights the artwork for attention.
The subtitle disappears into the chaos.

Gemini gave me a poster. Not a Mini Book cover.

I could sell some books with it… but I’d be fighting uphill.

Cover 2. Canva Template. One Hour.

Next I opened Canva.

Searched book cover templates.
Picked the one closest to my brand.
Spent an hour swapping fonts, adjusting icons, tweaking the layout.

This is what an hour of template work looks like.

The pink is on brand. The little circular icons feel relevant to the Mini Book idea. The type is clean.

The cover still feels safe.

The icons are stock. The layout is template default, but I did make a few decisions that made a big different.
Nothing about it claims a category.
Nothing says you HAVE to read this book.

It isn’t BAD. Mini is big enough I like it better than my original one from years ago, but not it.

A reader scrolling Kindle thumbnails sees ten thousand covers like this every month. They swipe past in half a second.

Templates skip the work that wins sales on Amazon.

Cover 3. The QUICK Method. One Hour.

This one I made last year.

Same hour budget. Different process.

I modeled it after Atomic Habits. The number one bestseller in self-improvement. Millions of copies sold and counting. (of Atomic habits… not mine)

Here is what QUICK stands for.

Q. Qualify three bestselling covers in your category.
U. Upload them to Canva as your blueprint.
I. Insert and recreate the elements that matter.
C. Customize everything to your book and brand.
K. Kindle ready, with the right specs to publish.

The hot pink dominates the thumbnail. The splatter texture borrows a complexity from a different proven cover.
The font is HUGE (which I love).

When a reader scrolls past this cover, their brain whispers something familiar.

That looks like a book I should buy.

That is the whole game.

The Verdict

I’m sticking with Cover 3.

AI got faster.
Templates got prettier.
Neither beat a method built around how readers actually buy books on Amazon.

The thumbnail decides if your book gets clicked.
The cover decides if the click becomes a sale.
The whole funnel runs on seconds of visual judgment.

The QUICK Method puts your book next to category winners on day one. It puts you in the same visual conversation as the books readers already trust.

You don’t need to be a designer. You need a process.

I’m Teaching It Live This Tuesday

Tuesday May 4th. 6 to 9pm Eastern.

I’ll be on screen building a Cover 3 from scratch. Live in Canva. Step by step through every letter of QUICK.

You bring your title. I’ll walk you through building a cover that belongs next to the bestsellers in your category.

Three ways to join.

Revenue Writers Member. $35 a month. Attend free. Replay through end of week.

À La Carte. $197. Lifetime access to the full course. Goes to $247 after Tuesday.

Founding Member. $400 one time. Full Revenue Writers membership for life plus the complete course.

Click below to register.

Register for the Workshop

Talk soon,

Chris Mini Book Guy

I had some family events come up I didn't expect and I have to delay the QUICK Book Cover Workshop until next Tuesday.

I apologize for the confusion and delay.

Looking forward to helping you all make your book cover live.

Not only so you have a cover but that you know how to design covers forever moving forward.

We'll meet Tuesday May 5th 6-9pm

Coach Chris Stanley

I’ve been designing my own book covers for years.

Never really talked about it.

It felt like one of those things that was just part of the process — find some covers I like, open Canva, figure it out, ship it.

Then a client asked me to find them a professional designer.

I found one. A good one. The quote came back at $3,500.

For one cover.

I paid it, it was the right call for that project. But it made me realize that most authors don’t know there’s another way. A way that produces covers that look just as professional. That convert just as well. That don’t require a designer, a budget, or any design experience.

I’ve been doing it for thirty books.

Tuesday night I’m teaching it live.

Three hours. Start to finish. I’ll build covers on screen so you can see every decision in real time.

The QUICK Book Cover Workshop, Tuesday April 28th, 6–9pm Eastern.

Three ways to join:

Revenue Writers Member — $35/mo Attend free. Replay through end of week. Not a member click HERE to register.

À La Carte — $197 Full course lifetime access. Templates, tools, replay, everything as it’s built. Goes to $247 after the event.

Founding Member — $400 one time Full Revenue Writers membership for life plus the complete course. Full access for a year. Already a member? Click HERE to register.

Buy a Ticket & Lifetime Access to the Course

Buy Lifetime Access

Chris

P.S. If you’ve ever looked at your cover and felt like something was off but couldn’t explain what, Tuesday night you’ll know exactly what it is.

I just paid $3,500 for a book cover.

For a client project, and it was worth every penny for that situation.

But most authors don’t need to spend that.
Most authors shouldn’t spend that.

You need a cover that looks professional, signals the right reader, and doesn’t embarrass you on Amazon.
Trust me, you don’t need to spend thousands to get there.

I know because I’ve designed most of my 30+ covers of my books. I’ve also hired people off Fiverr, 99 Designs, tried to use Canva templates, even AI Covers… none of it works for me.

Tuesday April 28th from 6–9pm I’m walking through my exact process live, start to finish, so you never have to pay $3,500 for something you can build yourself in an afternoon.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. How to find a cover idea that will actually sell

2. How to build it in Canva so you never have to hire a designer

3. How to make sure it connects to your brand and ecosystem

4. How to turn it into a physical and digital cover Amazon accepts

Three ways to join:

Member · $35/month Become a paying Revenue Writers subscriber and Tuesday’s workshop is included free.
Replay access will only be available through end of week, five days to rewatch and apply it.

→ Already a paying member? You’re in. Just register at the bottom of this email and show up.

À La Carte · $197 Just want the course, no membership required. Full replay, every template, the tools I’ve built to speed up the process, and the complete course as I finish building it. Yours forever.

Price goes to $247 once the course is fully built.

Purchase a Ticket & Course

Founding Member · $400 one time One annual payment. No monthly fee for the year.

Full Revenue Writers membership for 1 year plus the complete QUICK Book Cover Course included. Every workshop, every resource, everything going forward the rest of the year.

Register below at the bottom of this email and you’ll be registered for the live event and receive the full course after its complete.

Tuesday April 28th · 6–9pm Eastern

— Coach Chris Stanley

P.S. $3,500 is what a professional cover costs when someone else builds it. Tuesday night I’ll show you how to build one yourself and know it’s good before you ever upload it to Amazon.

PAYING MEMBERS REGISTER BELOW

Read more

In 2016 I was running a region for someone else’s company.

Good job. Good money. Not my thing.

Then I read Play Bigger.

I remember sitting with it thinking, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to do without knowing what to call it. I didn’t want to build another adjuster training company. I wanted to build something that didn’t exist yet. A category nobody had named.

I went back to work Monday morning thinking differently.

A few months later I started IA Path.

From day one I built it the way Play Bigger described.
Not better than the competition.
Different from the competition.

I named a category, Virtual Adjuster Mentorships, then evolved it into EXP Free Career Paths. I stopped talking about training and started talking about a new way to start an insurance career without the experience requirements that kept everyone else stuck.

People started calling me the auto guy.

Others tried to copy the model. Most couldn’t figure out why it worked for me and not for them. Some customers complained we were the only option in our space.

That last one is how you know category design is working.

Here’s what Play Bigger taught me that no other business book had:

The goal isn’t to win the competition.
The goal is to make the competition irrelevant by creating a category they can’t follow you into.
If they do follow you into it they are playing by your rules.

Most businesses design a product. Some design a company. Almost nobody intentionally designs the category at the same time.

That’s the Magic Triangle, company, product, and category designed together simultaneously. Whoever aligns all three first becomes the category king. And the research behind Play Bigger showed that category kings capture 76% of the market. Everyone else splits the remaining 24%.

The math on competing suddenly looks very different.

Four authors wrote this book together.

Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead, Dave Peterson, and Kevin Maney. They used category design to write the book on category design, as I write a category publishing article about it, which is about as meta as it gets.

The book itself was their lightning strike.

They’ve gone on to do different things since.

built , the newsletter and podcast empire that has become required reading for anyone serious about category design.

runs Play Bigger advising founders and CEOs on how to apply the framework at the highest level.

just released a new book on category design and runs a consulting firm around it. They’re not all in the same room anymore, but they’re still the dominant force in the category they created.

Nobody has displaced them.
Nobody is close.

That’s what happens when you write the book on the category.

You don’t just lead it at launch. You lead it permanently.

This is Vol. 04 of How They Claimed It, the series where I break down how the books that changed my thinking actually claimed their categories and what it can teach us about how we can do the same in our own categories.

Named it.
Framed it.
Claimed it.

The Category Publishing Law applies every single time.

The person who writes the book on a category gets remembered as the leader of it.

Coach Chris

P.S. Play Bigger is still in print. Still relevant. Still the best single book on why competing is the wrong game. If you haven’t read it, read it. If you have, read it again. I’m on my 10th pass.

It’s the foundation I’ve built the concepts of Mini Books and Category Publishing on… you won’t regret reading it.

They look at royalties. They look at downloads. They celebrate when a number goes up and panic when it doesn’t.

But they never ask the one question that actually tells them whether their marketing is working.

Did my BookBub ad sell books?

Not, did I sell books the week I ran ads. Not, did my royalties go up this month.

Specifically. On the days my ads ran, did more books sell than the days they didn’t?

What did each sale cost me?
That’s the number.

That’s the only number that tells you whether your ad spend is doing anything or just quietly draining your account while your book stays invisible.

Here’s what I found when I finally tracked it properly.

On days I ran BookBub ads, 9 books sold per day on average.

On days I didn’t, 5.

Same book.
Same Amazon page.
Same price.

The only variable was the ad.

That’s the LAZY principle in action. You’re not trying to make the ad profitable. You’re trying to prove the ad is working.

Once you know it’s working you keep it running.

Once you know it’s not, you stop and test something new.

Z — Zero In With Targeted Ads, is the chapter in the LAZY Book Launch Model that covers this. (coming soon)

The whole point isn’t to find a winning ad once. It’s to build a system that tells you when an ad is working and when it isn’t so you never waste money guessing.

Most authors guess forever.

I built a tool so you don’t have to.

It’s called the LAZY BookBub Ad Tracker.

​

You upload your KDP sales report. You upload your BookBub ad report. It analyzes both and tells you exactly what happened, cost per book sold on ad days, units sold with ads vs without, and what the data is actually saying.

I’ve got some upcoming additions to it, but this alone I would have killed for these past 9 years of book marketing.

It’s included free for everyone who grabs the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass.

Seven chapters. Twenty-six lessons. The full system for marketing your book without it taking over your life.

And now a tool that tells you whether any of it is actually working.

Get the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass →

Your Book Coach,
Chris

P.S. 234 books sold. $428 in ad spend. $3.15 cost per book on ad days. That’s what the LAZY BookBub Ad Tracker showed me about my own book.

Now I know exactly where to keep spending and where to stop.
Now I can actually decide if its worth it or not.

And you can to.

Got great feedback. People showed up, stayed till the end, and walked away with a real system for marketing their book without it taking over their life.

So I want to do another one.

This time it'd be the QUICK Book Cover Workshop.

I’ve designed all of my own covers. Figured out what works, what screams self-published from 2009, and how to model what already sells without copying it.

No designer. No budget. Just Canva and a strategy that actually works.

If that’s something you’d show up for, drop a comment or hit reply. Want to know if there’s interest before I set a date.

— Chris

Hey Revenue Writers,

You wrote a book.

Real work. Real thinking. Real value inside those pages.

And if you’re honest, the marketing around it has never quite matched what the book deserves.

Not because you don’t know what to do. But because every piece of advice out there assumes you have unlimited time, a launch team, and a tolerance for chaos that most business owners with an actual business just don’t have.

A few weeks ago I ran the LAZY Book Marketing Workshop.

Good people showed up. We went deep on the system. But when it was over I had a decision to make.

I could put the replay up and sell it.

I’ve bought those. You probably have too. One long video you watch with good intentions, get pulled away from twenty minutes in, and never open again.

That felt like a disservice to the book you wrote.

So instead I built the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass. Not a replay. Not just a course you buy and feel good about. A system you actually run.

Here’s what’s inside:

L — Leverage an email list that sells your book for you every week.

A — Optimize your Amazon page so the people already finding your book actually buy it.

Z — Zero in on targeted ads that cost $30 a day and keep you on the bestseller list for a month.

Y — Build a year-long launch so the book keeps working long after everyone else has moved on to their next release.

Seven chapters. Twenty-six lessons. And built into every chapter are prompts and templates that do the thinking with you. Tell the welcome sequence prompt what your book is about. It gives you a sequence. Tell the book description prompt your person, problem, and POV. It gives you the copy.

You fill in what only you know. The tools handle the rest.

Your book is good. It deserves marketing that treats it that way.

Get the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass

Your Book Coach,
Chris Stanley

P.S. The system behind this kept one of my books at Amazon Bestseller for over a month. While I was living my life.

Hey Revenue Writers,

I rebuilt my adjusting company’s website using StoryBrand.

Before I did, I thought the site was solid.

Clear offer.
Good story.
Knew my audience.

Then I read the book and wanted to delete everything.

My website was about me.
My credentials.
My story.
My team.
My process.
My history.

Page after page of me auditioning for a role, which comes across as begging to buy.

The customer showed up looking for help and found a guy talking about himself.

StoryBrand has a name for this. It’s called making yourself the hero. And almost every business does it without knowing.

The fix sounds simple.

The customer is the hero.
You are the guide.
Your job is to hand them a plan and get out of the way.

I rewrote the whole thing. Led with their problem. Positioned myself as the person who’d already solved it.

Made the next step obvious.

It worked.

StoryBrand became one of my favorite business books of all time. Still is.

And here’s the thing I noticed every time someone else tried to teach storytelling in marketing after that.

I compared them to Donald Miller.

Every single time.

Not because they weren’t good. Some of them were brilliant. But Donald Miller had become the measuring stick.

When you’re the measuring stick nobody else wins.

That’s not luck. That’s Category Publishing.

He did three things really well.

Named It

He named it. Not “story marketing.” Not “brand narrative.” StoryBrand. Two words anyone can remember, explain, and search for. Simple enough to own. Specific enough that you instantly knew whether you had it or not.

Framed It

He framed it.

The SB7 Framework. Seven parts.

1. A character.

2. A problem.

3. A guide.

4. A plan.

5. A call to action.

6. Success

7. Failure.

He took something that existed since the beginning of time (story telling) and made it teachable on a Monday morning. The framework is what made it spreadable without him being in the room.

Claimed It

He claimed it. And here’s the part people don’t always know.

The book wasn’t the product. The book was the door.

He did what most of us should do, he used his book to get high quality leads.

Every person who finished Building a StoryBrand closed it knowing exactly what they needed next. A certified Guide. A two-day workshop in Nashville. A BrandScript review. The certification empire, the conference, Business Made Simple, all of it flowed from one book that made you feel the gap and made the next step obvious.

Before the book he wrote memoirs.

After the book he was the person you called when your message wasn’t working.

One book.
One framework.
One name.

That’s the Category Publishing Law.

Question is what unique process do you have?

What problems have you solved that you could establish a new way of thinking… a new category or subcategory that would allow you to stop competing?

Most of us have these things. We know we are different than other competition, but its hard for us to figure out how to stand out.

If you need help working through what makes you unique.
What your category is and could be.
If you need help getting your book written and published so you own that category and way of thinking…
That is what I help people do.

I’d love to help.

Your Coach,
Chris Stanley

P.S. Who should Vol. 04 be? Hit reply.

Hey Revenue Writers,

Gary Chapman didn’t invent the idea that people feel loved differently.

Therapists had observed it for decades. Couples had felt it without being able to name it.

Then Gary Chapman wrote the book on it.

And everything changed.

Not because the idea was new. Because he gave it a name. A framework. A taxonomy.

Five Love Languages.

Words of Affirmation. Acts of Service. Receiving Gifts. Quality Time. Physical Touch.

Five categories. One quiz. Every person on earth fits somewhere inside it.

That’s Category Publishing.

But before I get into what Gary did — let me tell you what it did for me.

My love languages are Physical Touch first. Words of Affirmation second.

Which means I feel most loved when my wife reaches over and grabs my hand while I’m driving the bus down the highway.

Or when she says, out of nowhere, I’m proud of you.

Those two things fill my tank completely.

The Five Love Languages gave me the language for what I already felt.

And it changed how I love her back.

Because here’s the thing about love languages, yours is rarely theirs.

My wife’s primary language isn’t Physical Touch.

Understanding that changed everything about how I show up in my marriage.

Then I started watching my kids.

One of my boys wants little trinkets from the store.

A Hot Wheels car.
A pack of Pokémon cards.
Something small.

It’s not about the price. It’s never about the price. It’s about the fact that I saw something and thought of him.

That kid is a Gifts person.

The moment I understood that I stopped feeling guilty about stopping at the dollar bin at Target. That two dollar toy isn’t spoiling him. It’s speaking his language.

Then I thought about my sister.

Growing up she was the same way.

You could hand her a piece of gum, literally a single piece of gum, and it would make her whole day.

Not because she needed gum. Because you thought of her.

I didn’t understand that as a kid. I thought she was just easy to please.

She wasn’t easy to please. She was a Gifts person. And nobody had named it yet.

I didn’t understand any of this until Gary Chapman gave it a name.

Gary Chapman named it.

He took something people already felt. Already experienced. Already knew somewhere deep down.

And he named it.

Framed it. Wrote the book on it.

Gary Chapman didn’t change how humans love each other.

He just gave us the words to talk about it.

Twenty million copies later, those five words are part of how we describe ourselves.

“My love language is Physical Touch.”

Say that sentence out loud. Feel how naturally it comes.

That’s the power of a book that claims a category.

Name your category.
Frame it with a system.
Claim it with a book.

The person who writes the book on a category gets remembered as the leader of it.

What category are you not claiming?

Chris

Hey Revenue Writers,

I’m doing a new feature this week.

I’ll be highlighting each week how an author has claimed their own category by writing a book on it.

Category Publishing is the act of writing a book to claim your category.

Some of these people didn’t intentionally do it to “Claim a Category” but that is exactly what they did.

I did a post last week highlighting this first one and people told me it was the best post they’ve ever seen me do… so here we go with the expanded version.

Let me know in the comments if you like this.

How They Claimed It — Vol. 01: Atomic Habits

James Clear didn’t invent the habits category.

BJ Fogg also wrote a book called Tiny Habits. There were dozens of habit books before Atomic Habits.

So why does James Clear own the category?

I’ll get to that.

But first let me tell you what his book did to me.

4:30am. Every morning. For six months straight.

I had a goal.

12 books in 12 months.

I woke up every morning at 4:30. Wrote until 7:30. Three hours before my family woke up. Before the bus moved. Before the day had a chance to steal my focus.

It worked.

I published six books in six months.

Then I hit a wall.

I was exhausted. Burnt out. Running on empty. The goal that had driven me out of bed every morning suddenly felt like a weight around my neck.

So I gave up on it.

I stopped chasing 12 books in 12 months.

But here’s what I didn’t stop doing.

I kept waking up at 4:30. I kept writing for three hours. Not because of the goal. Just because that’s what I did in the morning now.

The goal was gone. The habit remained.

And at the end of that year I counted my books.

Twelve.

I hit the goal I gave up on because I kept the habit I built chasing it.

That was Atomic Habits working exactly as James Clear said it would.

He said something in that book I’ve never forgotten.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

I had built a system without realizing it.

4:30am wasn’t a goal anymore.
It was just what I did.
It was who I was.

A writer who writes in the morning.

The goal of 12 books was irrelevant. The identity of morning writer was everything.

Now here’s what James Clear did that nobody else did.

He didn’t just write about habits.

He named the category.

Atomic.

Not tiny.
Not small.
Not micro.

Atomic, implying explosive power from something microscopic.

That one word created a new mental category in the reader’s mind.

Then he framed it with a system anyone could remember.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change.

1. Make it obvious.

2. Make it attractive.

3. Make it easy.

4. Make it satisfying.

Four laws.
Any habit.
Any person.
Any life.

Then he wrote the book that claimed it.

Before Atomic Habits, James Clear had a popular blog and newsletter.
After Atomic Habits, James Clear owned the habits category.

25 million copies sold. Not because the ideas were new. Because the book made him the obvious choice.

That’s what a category claiming book does.

It names something people already feel. It frames it so anyone can use it. It claims the territory permanently.

I felt the power of habits before I read Atomic Habits.

I just didn’t have the language for it.

James Clear gave me the language.

The book gave him the category.

That’s Category Publishing in action… that’s how he claimed it.

Name your category.
Frame it with a system.
Claim it with a book.

The person who writes the book on a category gets remembered as the leader of it.

What category are you not claiming?

Chris
Founder of CategoryPublishers.com | The Mini Book Guy

Most authors think their book failed because of the book.

Wrong cover.
Wrong title.
Wrong category.

But the book is rarely the problem.

The problem is they launched to nobody.

They published on Amazon and waited. They posted on social media and hoped. They told their email list and prayed.

None of it worked because none of it put the book in front of people who were already looking for books like yours.

That’s the whole game of book marketing.

You don’t need more followers.
You don’t need a bigger list.
You need to get in front of readers who are actively searching for books like yours right now.

That’s exactly what BookBub does.

I showed 22,777 readers my book for under $2.00.

Not followers. Not subscribers. Readers. People who were on BookBub that day specifically because they wanted to find a book to read.

Its how I hit Amazon bestseller on-demand. It’s how I find 5-15 people a day to buy my book without breaking the bank.

It’s how I make thousands of sales per book each year (where most self published authors are lucky to sell 200 in the books life)

I’ve spent 8 years book marketing and this is the strategy that’s worked for years and keeps me sane and at #1. (if I want to be)

Tuesday night I’m walking you through exactly how I do it.

The LAZY Book Marketing Workshop. March 31st · 6–9pm EST.

First hour, the full strategy.
Second hour, we set up your first campaign together live.
Third hour, I answer anything you want about mini books, book marketing, launching etc.

Free for Revenue Writers members. (you can join for $35/mo. by upgrading to premium to this Substack.) Or purchase lifetime access to the event and replay for $197 standalone.

Buy a Ticket to the Event

See you Tuesday.
Chris

I had several people ask me to just purchase my upcoming LAZY Book Marketing Workshop as a standalone (for more money) instead of having to subscribe to another monthly payment.

I totally respect that.

They wanted the workshop.
Not the newsletter.
Not the community.
Not the payment.
Just the system.

So I set it up.

If you want to learn the stress free way to hit Amazon Bestseller in less than 1hr a week, without social media, podcast tours, or dancing on TikTok, you can now grab Tuesday’s workshop as a standalone.

$197. One time. No subscription.

You get the live workshop Tuesday March 31st 6–8pm EST.
The full replay.
Plus the raw unedited manuscript of my next book months before it hits Amazon.

My editor hasn’t touched it.

It’s yours Tuesday night just for showing up.

Grab it here.

Purchase the LAZY Book Marketing Workshop

Or if you’d rather only pay $35/mo. you can join the Mini Book Revenue Writers on Substack and get access as well by clicking HERE.

See you Tuesday.

Chris

Hey Revenue Writers,

Writing a book is hard. Publishing is a pain in the neck.

It takes months. Sometimes years. You pour everything into it.

And then nobody, but Aunt Kathy buys.

So you’re told to market it.

Marketing the book turns into marketing yourself.
Building a business.

And before you know it you have a part time job being a dancing monkey on TikTok lighting your books on fire hoping to sell a few.

I’ve done it all. (Well, not TikTok, who do you think I am)

Social media.
YouTube.
Podcast after podcast.

It all works. But it’s exhausting.

I’m a father.
A husband.
A full time nomad.
The CEO of a 30+ book business and a $750k/year company built on the back of my books training insurance adjusters.

It was too much.

I needed a way to market my books that didn’t drain my energy.
Didn’t steal me from my family.
But still gave me enough control to hit bestseller whenever I wanted.

I tested everything.

Amazon Ads.
Giveaways.
Email swaps.
Social media ads.
Podcast interviews.

Only one thing gave me the control to be completely LAZY about book marketing.

Tuesday night I’m walking you through exactly what I do, start to finish, when I want a book to hit bestseller status and sell consistently in less than 15 minutes a week.

It’s how I’ve kept this book at Bestseller for the past 10+ days… on a whim.

The LAZY Book Marketing Workshop

Tuesday March 31st · 6–8pm EST

Only available to paying members of this Substack.

Register by clicking below. Can’t wait to see you there!

Read more

Hey Revenue Writers,

200 DMs. $200k pipeline. One $9 book.

That’s the result from one week.

Last summer I worked with a consultant named Stuart. Epic guy. He’d written three books but none of them were building his business. He helped companies save expensive, late running projects.

The more he told me about his process the more I realized something. Stuart wasn’t doing what any other consultant did.

He did it different.
Nobody knew.

I read his previous book. It was smart. Too smart.

He’d created an entirely new way to rescue late running projects. A new category. And without realizing it he’d orphaned it. Just left it there lying in the cold. Anyone could pick it up and claim it as their own.

His category had a name buried inside his thinking. It had a process. It had a framework. But his book didn’t make it clear and certainly didn’t claim it.

So we wrote a different one.

Stuart authored Waterfall Project ER.
Project ER became his category.

He is now the emergency room for late running projects. Amazon bestseller. More importantly, clients.

Last week he led with that book in a DM sequence. 200 people. 35 downloaded the book. Two said yes to a $6,000 assessment call in the first week. Typically each of those converts to a $50-100k engagement.

One book. One week. $200k pipeline.

I know this works because I lived it too.

When I wrote the Mini Book Model I knew Mini Books were the right category for me. I’d used small books to grow my business for seven years. I just hadn’t named it yet. Category Pirates had coined the term but told me to run with it. So I did. I wrote the book on it. Now people call me the Mini Book Guy. Not because I invented the term. Because I claimed it… with a book.

That’s the pattern.

You can’t be the authority on a category you haven’t authored.

Stuart named his category inside a book nobody remembered. He framed it with a process nobody could repeat. But he never claimed it. That’s Category Abandonment. And Category Abandonment creates orphans, categories lying in the cold waiting for someone else to pick them up.

Category Publishing is the discipline of finishing what category design starts.

You name your category. You frame it with language. You claim the category by writing the freaking book on it.

So the question is simple.

Is your category orphaned?

Reply to this email or comment if your category is orphaned.

- Chris Stanley

Hey Revenue Writers,

We’re on the home stretch of the LAZY Book Launch Model.

So far, we’ve covered:

• Launch Lunacy: Why Traditional Book Marketing Is Broken

• L - Leverage an Email List - How your weekly emails become 52 sales opportunities

• A - Amazon Page Optimization - Why clarity beats cleverness (and my $1,000 mistake)

• Z - Zero in With Targeted Ads - The 5-5-5 Method that finds your winning headline for $75

Now we’re at Y - Year-Long Launch. The chapter nobody wants to hear but everyone needs.

Because here’s the truth: two weeks after launch, you’re going to feel like a failure. Even if you hit bestseller. Even if you got reviews. I’ve launched 30+ books and felt it every single time.

This chapter is about why that feeling is lying to you and what to do instead.

Also I’m thinking about doing a workshop on LAZY Book Marketing. But if there’s something else you’d rather dive deep on, let me know.

Take the poll and let me know.

Let’s get into it.

—Chris

Y - Year Long Launch

Two weeks after launch, you’ll feel like a failure.

I know because I’ve been there thirty times. Hit bestseller. Got reviews. Made sales. Still felt disappointed. Even when I hit my goals, I felt frustrated. There’s always this unspoken expectation that the book will change everything immediately.

It doesn’t work that way.

Most self-published authors never sell 200 books in their book’s entire life. Not because their book is bad. Because they stop talking about it. They do one big launch, burn out, and move on. The book sits there. Dead.

That’s not LAZY. That’s quitting.

The year-long launch fixes this. You stop measuring in days and start measuring in years. You stop sprinting and start showing up weekly. You stop expecting instant transformation and start trusting the process.

Here’s how.

Think in Years, Not Days

Launch Lunacy measures success in days. The 7-day launch. The 30-day campaign. Hit your spike and pray it sticks.

That’s not how books work. Books are long-term assets. They appreciate or depreciate over time based on how you treat them. A book you invest in for a year becomes more valuable. A book you abandon after launch week becomes rusted, busted, and dusty.

The year-long launch is how you turn your book into a business asset, not a forgotten file.

The 200 Book Threshold

Most self-published authors never sell 200 books in their book’s life.

They stop talking about their book. Whether they did Launch Lunacy or a silent launch, authors become the quietest person about their book. You should be your readers’ greatest advocate for solving the problem your book helped you solve.

The only way to help someone solve that problem is if they read your book.

200 books becomes our new metric.

If you followed the LAZY method, you may have sold close to 200 from pre-order and launch week alone. If you didn’t, use it as your first marketing goal. You have 1 year to make sure your book sells at least 200 copies. When you do, you move onto bigger goals like 1,000 books sold.

One year. 200 books. That’s the starting line, not the finish line.

Your Book Is a Business Asset

Many authors think of their book as a product. A revenue stream.

Your book is a business-building tool. Like a large piece of machinery, it can be expensive to purchase and maintain. But your book, done right, does the heavy lifting for you.

Like a business asset, your book can depreciate or appreciate over time.

How you treat that book determines whether it becomes more valuable or less valuable. If you invest into it, it brings you dividends for years. If you don’t, it becomes rusted, busted, and dusty.

That’s why the year-long launch is so important. You invest into it for a year to make sure you not only get a return on your investment but appreciate the value over time.

This is a legacy, not a launch.

Measure in Years, Not Days

9 years ago I wrote the Independent Adjuster’s Playbook.

I did a launch and it was great. But the best part? I’ve never stopped promoting that book or the message in that book. It has been the engine of my business since I wrote it.

That’s what you want. Not a rusted forgotten piece of machinery.

A book is a legacy. It lasts longer than social media posts or YouTube videos. It compounds over years, not days.

Books matter because they last.

Stay Visible Weekly

Your audience will forget which book you wrote. They’ll forget to read it, even if they bought it.

This is why the year-long launch works. You show up weekly. Same email. Same audience. One extra line in the P.S. That’s it. No new campaign. No new content. Just the email you’re already writing.

Constant contact keeps you remembered.

The Weekly P.S. Strategy

You will be sick of writing about your book long before your audience is.

Just like I highlighted in the Leverage Email chapter, email once a week and mention your book in the P.S. Keep writing about the same problem you wrote about in the book. You solved it and documented it for yourself, but everyone else is still fighting that same problem.

Keep telling them how to beat it.

I know good friends who purchased my book and forgot to read it. Years later they’re like “Why didn’t you tell me to read this book!?!” Obviously I did. That’s why they owned it.

One line. 52 times a year. That’s the strategy.

Reviews Compound Over Time

I don’t get a ton of reviews right out of the gate.

Because I don’t do Launch Lunacy and beta readers, I don’t get those early reviews. But I do keep getting reviews for months and years. I’ll never forget looking at the Mini Book Model listing and seeing over 80 reviews.

I hadn’t looked in almost a year. It was at 15 the time before that.

You have to stay consistent to get reviews.

It takes people time to finish your book and remember to review it. Asking someone to review your book doesn’t have to be some sleazy thing. If someone mentions that your book helped them, ask them to leave a review.

Over the year, your reviews keep going up.

Transformation Takes Time

The most important thing we forget during launches is it isn’t about the book.

The book is only a tool to help others achieve a transformation we experienced ourselves. That transformation takes a while and compounds over time. Someone reading your book today may not experience the total transformation for months or years.

This is why the year-long launch works. You give people time to change.

The 6-Month Gap

The real results don’t show up for 6 months.

Think about someone who buys your book on launch day. A month later they remember and finish your book. They apply your 90-day roadmap and get some early wins. Months later those wins compound into a whole change of life.

That is the 6-month gap.

I see this in my IA Path business. Insurance adjusters buy my book. Follow the 8 steps. 6 months to a year later they’re back to buy my program.

Change is slow. Transformation takes time.

Transformation = Trust

Stuart reached out, pivoting for the 2nd time.

I’d helped him write his book about project management. He wasn’t seeing many leads come in, so he felt the book wasn’t working for lead flow 30 days after his book launched. 6 months later, as we were wrapping up his 2nd book, he said, “It’s ironic we’re working on this new book and the old book’s funnel just took off.”

Now he’s scaling using the same book he declared didn’t produce leads.

Once that transformation happens, you get customers.

People trust those who have helped them. If your book transforms one aspect of their life, many will want to get an even bigger transformation with your help. This is why your book is an appreciating asset.

For 1 year you’re just pushing people to the book and seeing what pops out.

The LAZY Year-Long Launch in Action

Just do the LAZY method whenever you want to push your book.

As I was writing these chapters, I spun up a new push for Mini Book Marketing. Dropped the price to $0.99 and ran my proven BookBub ads with a new headline.

Below are the results I got for a book that’s been out for 8 months.

Dates Run: March 10-16, 2026 Bestseller: March 11-17, 2026 Ad Spend: $130.00 Royalties: $87.93 Net: -$42.07 Books Sold: 49 (Total in Series) Target Book Sold: 30 Average Target Per Day: 5 Cost to Acquire Customer: $0.85

Big caveat here: I know it isn’t fun to lose money to get customers. But if I sell one other book to each of these readers, I break even on acquiring them. Getting a reader and potential customer for under $1 is a steal to me.

I’ll keep running these ads as long as I have money.

This keeps me at #1 and getting new people into my series and business. That’s the year-long launch. Not one big campaign. Just showing up when you want to push and using the same LAZY method every time.

One year. 52 P.S. lines. Occasional ad pushes when you want a spike.

That’s how books become business assets.

Hey Revenue Writers,

Today I’m releasing the 3rd actual rough draft chapter (4th if you count the introduction) of the LAZY Book Launch Model.

The whole concept of a lazy book launch model relies on the ability to have some control over when and why people flock to buy your book.

A podcast guest episode is ok, but the returns are sprinkled out for months and years.

So rather than doing a lot of time and energy demanding activities I’ve more and more found ways to hit bestseller using $$$ or relationships.

I’ve used this system to hit Amazon Bestseller with the last 6 books I’ve launched… it always works. I’ve also used it to get an older book in my catalogue to bestseller status for the first time.

So no matter your situation… this chapter will give you the exact process to hit bestseller.

If you missed the first few chapters of the LAZY Book Launch Model, you can read them below.

Introduction - Launch Lunacy

L - Leverage an Email List

A - Amazon Page Optimization

Z - Zero in With Targeted Ads

I spent $30 a day and stayed at bestseller for a month.

Not $500. Not hours of content creation or podcast interviews. Just $30 in BookBub ads while I worked on other things.

Total spend? About $1,000 to keep Mini Book Writing at bestseller for over a month.

Return? Bestseller status. Hundreds of sales. Dozens of reviews. All the momentum Amazon gives you when you stay visible in a category.

Here’s the LAZY part: a couple hours upfront, then 5 minutes a day.

Same ad. Just made minor tweaks over time to keep it showing to new readers. Meanwhile, I was writing my next book, running my business, being a dad. The ads ran in the background.

That’s why ads are the “Z” in LAZY. You spend money instead of time. A couple hours to set up headlines and find the right authors to target. Then 5 minutes a day checking in.

For a new book launch, the math is simple: about $200 during pre-order for testing, about $250 during launch week to hit bestseller. Total: around $500. Way less than what most people waste trying to launch with Launch Lunacy.

And here’s the key: I only use cost-per-click ads on BookBub.

I’m paying for actual clicks from readers who are ready to buy. If my Amazon page converts (which is why Chapter 3 matters), those clicks turn into sales. If my page is broken, ads just expose the problem faster.

Let’s break down how to do this without wasting money.

What BookBub Ads Are

BookBub is an email list of millions of rabid readers.

These are the diehards of digital books. They sign up to receive a daily email of bargain books, discounted usually between $4.99 and free, in genres they’ve selected. Thriller readers get thriller deals. Business readers get business deals. These people open their email every day looking for books to read.

This is permission marketing at its best.

Your ad sits at the bottom of that email.

Right underneath the featured deals. The reader sees your ad for one of two reasons: you’re targeting their genre, or you’re targeting readers of an author they’ve bought from or clicked on before. Either way, you’re showing up to exactly the right person.

You’re putting your book in front of readers who are your target market.

Why BookBub Over Everything Else

Social media platforms don’t want people leaving.

They make money keeping you scrolling. The longer you stay, the more ads they show, the more they profit. So when you run a book ad on Facebook or Instagram, you’re fighting an algorithm designed to keep people from clicking off the platform. Even if they see your ad, the platform loses when they leave to buy.

BookBub is designed to get you to buy a book.

They make money when readers click ads and buy books. The entire platform exists to connect readers with their next read. When someone clicks your ad and buys, everyone wins. The incentives align. Social media fights against you. BookBub works with you.

Which sounds like a better way to reach readers?

Amazon Ads work great once your book has sales history.

But for a new launch? Amazon only shows ads for books that make them money. Your book is new. They don’t know if it’ll sell yet. So they don’t show your ad much, no matter how much you bid. On BookBub, you control how much your ad is shown. You set the budget. It shows up. You get clicks.

That’s why I use BookBub for launches.

Cost-Per-Click vs Impressions (and why CPC matters)

BookBub offers two bidding models: CPM (cost per 1,000 views) or CPC (cost per click).

CPM means you pay every time 1,000 people see your ad, whether they click or not. CPC means you only pay when someone actually clicks. For a new book launch, CPC is the only model that makes sense. You’re not trying to build brand awareness. You’re trying to get clicks that turn into sales.

I only use CPC for launches.

CPM works once your ad is already converting well and your click-through rate is strong. Then you can get cheaper clicks than CPC. But for a new launch? CPC lets you test without bleeding money on impressions that go nowhere. You pay for results, not visibility.

You pay for clicks. Clicks turn into sales. Sales turn into bestseller status.

That’s why I stick with CPC until I know the ad works.

My BookBub Process (5-5-5 Method)

Read more

Hey Revenue Writers,

This week is another chapter from my upcoming book, LAZY Book Launch Model.

One of the most important things during a LAZY launch is to get the most sales you can out of the traffic you send to your book page.

That is why I’m so big on spending time working on your Amazon page and that is what todays chapter is about.

How to convert browsers into buyers.
How to get sales from the people that are already window shopping your product.

As a recap, the LAZY Book Launch Model is the opposite of Launch Lunacy, what we typically see in the book marketing world.

It is designed to not burn you out or stress you out.

LAZY is an acronym for the method I’ve used for most of my 10 years launching books.

L - Leverage Email
A - Amazon Page Optimization
Z - Zero in With Targeted Ads
Y - Year Long Launch

Let’s dive into how to make your Amazon Page work for you during your book launch with the next chapter of the LAZY Book Launch Model.

A - Amazon Page Optimization

I lost $1,000 in ads because my Amazon page didn’t convert.

When I first wrote Mini Book Writing, I called it “Mini Book Straitjacket.” Straitjacket was the framework I used for writing. Curiosity abounded.

My conversions were terrible.

People on my own list asked me what the book was about.

I was being clever, not clear. After 6 months, the book struggled to get sales from the ads I was spending. I had to make a choice.

I changed the title to Mini Book Writing.

Lost all 13 reviews. Republished from scratch. Flew past those reviews in 30 days with 15 in the first month. It’s been the easiest book to push traffic to since.

Clarity changed everything.

Same story with “Dam the Amazon”,

Clever title. Terrible conversions. Changed it to Mini Book Publishing. Sales took off.

Here’s what I learned: every unclear word costs you money.

You’re either paying for every click or you could get paid for every click.

Every time someone lands on your Amazon page and isn’t sure what your book is about, you’re losing money either way. Wasted ad spend if you’re paying for traffic. Wasted opportunity if you’re emailing your list. Wasted organic clicks if Amazon is showing your book.

But during a launch? The stakes are even higher.

Amazon gives you a 30-day courtesy boost when you launch.

New releases get algorithmic love. Reviews come easier. Rankings climb faster. You get found more often. This is your window. Your best shot at momentum.

If your Amazon page doesn’t convert during those 30 days, you just blew it.

Your Amazon page needs to be crystal clear on one thing: the promise.

Read more

Most writers don't know if their writing is landing until it's too late.

You write a lot. Most of it goes out without a true editor looking at it. Something is killing your reader's momentum and you can't see it

Your book isn't converting readers into fans and you don't know why.

II had the same problem until I built something to fix it.

Ryan Levesque, the guy behind the book Ask, wrote that he built an AI fire rating system. It scanned his chapters for where the writing went cold. I knew I had to build my own.

Now every chapter of the LAZY Book Launch Model goes through my version first.

I call it Redline.

In racing, redline is where the engine hits maximum power. Right on the edge of too much. That’s where your writing needs to live.

Coasting kills books.

Redline

An AI Line Editing Tool for Revenue Writers

Redline was built specifically for the 3 Course Meal framework.

Every section you write has three components: appetizer, meat, and dessert. Redline knows exactly what each one should do. It tells you when they don’t.

Most editors have never heard of a dessert sentence.

Redline rates your writing before your reader does.

Paste a single section or drop an entire chapter. Redline scores your appetizer, your meat, and your dessert for every 1-3-1 block. Each section gets a fire rating from 🔥 to 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 with a note on what’s cold and why.

Redline doesn’t rewrite, it just tells you where you’re cold.

Here is an example of me using Redline for my example above, it took me 3 rewrites to achieve redlining for the full section.

Premium subscribers get access to the full prompt so they can input into Claude or ChatGPT to create their own Redline Editor.

I personally use Claude with a Mini Book Revenue Writers Project and have a Redline editor conversation inside that. You could create a custom GPT with it. Or simply paste it into whatever AI and then add your text.

Use this prompt in whatever way works for you.

If you want to edit it to match more your style, feel free.

You can also use AI to analyze your writing and have it rewrite the parameters using the same framework I used.

Enjoy
- Coach Chris Stanley

Read more

Hey Revenue Writers,

If you missed last weeks email/post, you missed the temporary introduction to my new book in the Mini Book Publishing series, LAZY Book Launch Model.

This week I’m continuing on with the first official chapter.

Last week I read an email from Ryan Levesque that mentioned he developed an AI scoring model using Claude that judged his sections of his upcoming book, Return to Real.

I loved this idea so much I developed one myself for my Mini Books.

Ryan’s was a bit different because we write… differently, but I’ll be unveiling my new Claude enable scoring prompt here later this week for paying members.

I used it to massively improve this chapter.

Hope it helps you know how to launch your book successfully.

Quick reminder, LAZY is an acronym and this is the first letter of it.

This chapter covers why leveraging an email list is the obvious choice for a successful book launch.

Also I go into how to build your own list even if you are zero.

I end the chapter showing my exact LAZY email launch sequence… (don’t worry you can do it, it’s LAZY)

L - Leverage an Email List

Email gives you the ability to create a ranking spike on demand.

By having an email list, you have people who said “I want more of what you have.” This is a built-in hot leads list. A buyers list. I announce a new book or discount an old one and get a wave of sales.

That’s one benefit, but not the only one.

As a business owner, I’m emailing my list weekly.

Sharing insights. Teaching my expertise. Staying top of mind with potential clients. Now I just mention my book in the P.S. I get sales. Week after week. Same email. One extra line.

One email pushes me to bestseller. Fifty-two emails sell books all year long.

When I launched each book in my Insurance Adjuster Playbook series, I’d have a big spike of sales.

After the launch I’d see smaller surges of sales and wondered what they were. When I lined up the sales with the timeline of the emails I sent, I realized my emails, both at launch and afterwards, drove the bulk of my sales. It’s so simple, we often overlook it.

Everyone’s chasing algorithms when the answer has been sitting in their inbox the whole time.

You Don’t Own Your Audience

Social media, podcasts, Medium, all rented ground.

When the platform changes the algorithm, throttles your reach, or shuts down, your audience goes with it. On social media, brands and authors insert themselves into your day whether you want them or not. Ads. Organic posts. Sponsored content pushing into a feed you opened to see friends. It’s a guy running up to you on the street selling watches.

Your email list is the only place they showed up for you.

They gave you their email address.

That’s not a follow. That’s not a like. That’s permission. The most valuable thing a potential buyer can give you. Social media followers are browsing. Email subscribers are listening. One is a crowd walking past your storefront. The other is someone who walked in and said “tell me more.”

The difference shows up in your sales.

Email Converts 10x Better

Post to your 10,000 Facebook followers and statistically 137 of them see it.

Send to 300 email subscribers and 60-120 open it. Of those, 6-15 click to buy. Same effort. Completely different result.

Browsers scroll. Buyers open emails.

The email I write next Tuesday is a book sales opportunity.

I’m writing it anyway. Sharing insights. Teaching my expertise. I drop my book in the P.S. and that same email becomes a sales tool. No new campaign. No extra work. Just one line at the bottom of something I was writing anyway.

Social media is a billboard. Email is a conversation with someone who asked to hear from you.

Your List Grows Your Business

Every subscriber is a potential buyer you can reach on demand.

Each person on my list represents revenue I can activate. As my list grew from 200 to over 12,000 insurance adjusters over 7 years, so did my revenue. I’ve looked at the data from every angle. The only metric that grew in lockstep with my revenue was my email list.

The list is the business. Everything else is just marketing.

I grow my list for my business. My book just becomes another thing my list buys from me.

Same list. Same weekly email. My book isn’t a separate launch strategy. It’s a natural extension of the relationship I’m already building. The readers who buy my book are the same people who hire me, refer me, and come back for my next one.

One list. Every revenue stream flows from it.

How to Find Your First 100 Email Subscribers

Read more