The 99 Authors Project – Season 4 – Episode 2 with Joel Salomon25 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello, this is Janine Bolon here, and you may or may not know that the Janine Bolon show is the syndicated program of four separate podcast programs that were combined in October of 2021. My team and I merged all four of these podcasts into one program just for you, and up to that point you probably were following us on four separate podcast called Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations, and The Practical Mystic Show. But we’ve combined them all together for you, and that way, we help you save your money, we help you save your time, we help you save your knowledge, and we help you save your sanity. And you know what’s really cool, is today, we’re going to be highlighting one of our 99 authors that I’m interviewing over the course of this year, so that you can receive their guidance and perspective on how to get your message, your story and your memoir out into the world. But what’s even better is the fact that this guy is like me, he’s a money guy, and I’m so excited to be able to have him on the show today. Now, many of you have been told you should write a book about your life experience. Well, our today’s guest is one of the 99 authors that I’m interviewing that all got prompted to share their stories as well, and each one will tell you what got them going writing, but then the best part is each one’s going to share what worked when selling their books, what didn’t work, and the things that they had wished they had known before they ever became published author, so you’re ahead of the game. That’s how awesome we have it today. So, today’s guest is Joel Salomon, and he is a prosperity coach who helps others overcome obstacles standing in the way of their financial freedom. This dude published The 9 Money Rules, Millionaires Use: Only The Unconventional Ones, and this was in 2019. So, long before COVID it became a best seller in the self help and personal finance. In 2018, he was busy writing Mindful Money Management: Memoirs of a Hedge Fund Manager, and that immediately became a best seller, and if you think this guy, he didn’t stop there, he’s an award winning speaker, a frequent podcast guest and he led nine workshops in teaching concepts of how to overcome limiting beliefs. He’s spoken at numerous rotary and Lions Clubs in the New York metropolitan area, as well as Mercy College MBA program, and you guessed it, Mike Dooley’s Infinite Possibilities Training Conference in New Orleans back in March of 2018. He appeared on TV with CEO Money, and also has been a guest on more than 20 podcasts including, Every day is a New Day Show, Thrive Loud, award winning Nice Guys podcast at the Financial Survival Network, and Think, Believe, Manifest. So, Joel has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, News Day, US News, and World Report and interviewed in Forbes and Bloomberg Radio. How he ever found me I do not know, but this dude is big on helping people achieve their financial dreams. Joel enjoys table tennis, believe it or not, he is a human being on planet Earth, who loves that bowling and skiing, and like me, an avid traveler, and he has visited over 40 countries and 5 continents. Welcome to the show, Joel.

Joel Salomon
Thank you, Janine, thanks so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure and honor to be here.

Janine Bolon
I just love it that you managed to come on to our program after all the other places that you’ve been, it’s always such a treat for me as a podcaster to go, oh, and they’re on my show, too. It’s always so much fun. So, not only are you this amazing, fabulous money manifester, entrepreneur, multi-book author, what made you decide to start writing to begin with?

Joel Salomon
Great question, I had a message, and well the first thing was I shut down my hedge fund to become a prosperity coach, and I figured the way to get people to find me was to write a book. And so I had my investor letters from my hedge fund, for three plus years, I’d written 10 pages each month to my investors, put it together, you have a book, 360 pages, you know, 12 months, 10 pages, three years, 360 pages. So, I was done. Except when I sent it to my closest friends and family, they said, Joel, please don’t show this to anyone else. This is terrible. This is crap.

Janine Bolon
Oh no.

Joel Salomon
So, I actually got somebody in Mike Dooley’s network to give me some advice. She was a best selling author and she told me, take out what you had written for your investors, and I had written about a paragraph or a page for each month that I had written in addition to the investor letters, and she said, keep that but put everything else in the appen, keep the investment letters in the appendix or take it out, and that was the book. So, I basically rewrote the first book, and it became a memoir, as opposed to just letters to investors, and I wrote about my career and how I became a hedge fund manager, which was my dream. And it was an inspirational uplifting book about how to be mindful when you manage money.

Janine Bolon
Thanks for sharing that, because I know what’s interesting is whether people will write under their own name or not, and so you’ve kind of answered that question, which is, I use my own name, because you were writing basically a memoir at that point.

Joel Salomon
That’s a nonfiction book about me.

Janine Bolon
Right. There you go. And so, obviously, you had a mindset that you were going into this with, did you have any marketing background before you started writing your book?

Joel Salomon
No, I’m actually a former Actuary Credit Analyst, Equity Analysts, Portfolio Manager, and Hedge Fund Manager, and you may want to know the difference between an Actuary and an Accountant. An Actuary looks at his feet when he talks to you, and an Account looks at your feet when they talk to you.

Janine Bolon
Good to see that you’re a little bit of an introvert understatement of the universe, right?

Joel Salomon
But I am not the typical Actuary, even though they say Accountants are Actuaries with charisma.

Janine Bolon
Brilliant. Well, talk to us a little bit about you know, you’ve had this wonderful assistance from somebody who helps you with your book and said here, do this, do that and you started rewriting your book. What most surprised you about the book marketing process, as well as publishing your book?

Joel Salomon
I think the biggest surprise is how much I needed to learn about marketing the book. And I actually read three books, including one that helped me the most it was called, How to Market a Book by Joanna pen. And that book, and I think, Book in a Box was another one. And both of those talked about how important it was to start a mailing list. Have people who you can talk to directly and tell them about your book before it comes out, after it comes out, while it’s coming in.

Janine Bolon
And for you, like a lot of authors where you had you, your mom, and your website designer on your newsletter, and then you read that book, and you went, oh oh.

Joel Salomon
So, yes, before Mindful Money Management came out, I did not have a mailing list, I didn’t have anything, but at the time, LinkedIn, so, this was 2017, at the end of 2017, or early 2018, LinkedIn had the ability to actually download your contacts, your connections, now, you can’t do that anymore. But I know LinkedIn was taken over, I think by Microsoft, but yeah, so back, then you could download it. So, I downloaded that, and I put it into MailChimp, and I was off and running, I had over two thousand people on my list. Of course, they knew a hedge fund manager, they didn’t know an author, and when I started sending him an email about Mindful Money Management, I was expecting 90% of them to leave, but thankfully, only 10% left.

Janine Bolon
That’s impressive to only have a 10% dropout rate is incredible. And also a lot of people don’t understand that those smaller lists are actually very valuable because you have higher open rates, like people are always surprised when they find out how my list size is around the 3 to $4,000. Sorry, I’m talking to a money manager. Anyway, 3 to 4,000 subscriber list, and their like, it’s not larger? And I’m like, no, I don’t want it being too large, I want everybody who’s on my list to be highly engaged with me. So, that immediately excludes a lot of the, I just jump onto your list because I want your free thing, and then I drop out, you know, those are not the people I’m after. I’m after people who really want me to help them, and you are the same way. Yeah, it’s kind of cool. So, what was kind of a surprise for you when it came to actually publishing the book though?

Joel Salomon
Publishing, it was actually really easy. I think self publishing and publishing on Amazon is really, really simple. They create space at the time, and now Amazon Kindle KDP they make it really, really simple, and so, it’s very inexpensive. And doing it yourself, I’m sure even probably 10 years ago, it was many thousands of dollars to self-publish. And now I will tell you, you can do it for under $1,000.

Janine Bolon
Right? When I was publishing in 2005, it was 3 to $5,000 per book. So, I would have to sit there and work a job. And then when I had my savings account, I called it my book account, when it hit $5,000, then I knew I better get rockin and rollin on the book and finish it up, because I now had enough money to publish it. Yep, you’re absolutely right. So, what made you, what would you change about yourself or your own process, if you had started marketing, say your book today? What are some things that you can offer to new up and coming authors?

Joel Salomon
Probably would not do it myself. I did everything myself, I would hire somebody hire the expert, to do all the steps that I took in my prior three books. And so, for me, it’s Who Not How. I don’t know if you read that book, Who Not How. It’s where are your expertise? What is your expertise lie, and do those things. And then hire out those people who, it’s their passion to market a book, my passion is creating content and helping people become financially free. That’s my passion, you know, being of service to others. My passion is not marketing, and doing all the aspects to get the book out there. So, hire somebody who loves that, who’s passionate about it, who’s also passionate about your mission. And that way, you can continue to do what you love, they do what they love, and it’ll probably take them a lot less time as well.

Janine Bolon
Definitely, definitely, well tell us what worked best for you, when you were going out and selling your books, what worked the easiest for you or the best?

Joel Salomon
I think getting other people to promote it, getting them involved in the process. In the Nine Money Rules Millionaires Use, I got acknowledgments, I went to people and said, I’m gonna put you in the book, acknowledging your help. And I actually have a long list, probably of 75 to 100 people that I acknowledged that they supported me either by being BETA readers, giving me edits, helping me with marketing the book, and so they were acknowledged. And I think that, them supporting me, I supported them. Having people I know commit to reviewing the book in advance, so, get 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 people, as many as you can hundreds of people, if you can, you have a long group, big group that can support you, before the book comes out. I think, and then, what sold the most was setting up a promotion on Kindle, doing like a 99 cent promotion for a weekend, or even doing a one day free, and then just putting it out there because people like free, people like dollar or less, and that actually got sales going through the roof on the first weekend. And then, now getting your mailing list engaged in the whole process, ask them what they think the best title would be. Ask them what they think the chapter titles, get them involved in the process, even maybe give them a chapter or two or five in advance, I recorded four or five chapters. And I sent it out to my mailing list and said, what do you think, in advance of the book coming out? So, get them involved. Getting people interested. Getting people anticipating it months in advance, I think is really helpful.

Janine Bolon
This is one of my favorite questions, because every author has an answer to this. And that is, what process did you try? What system? What marketing venture did you try, that was an epic failure at selling your books? And I always like to bring this one out, so, we can kind of help the next generation not do what we did.

Joel Salomon
I mean, for me, to be open with you, Janine, was Facebook ads. And I just didn’t see any sales from Facebook ads. So, I wouldn’t do that again. I think people do business with those they know, like, and trust, and no one’s going to just buy a book from somebody they don’t know.

Janine Bolon
Right, and that is something that for me, I had several experiences where when authors come up to me and say, well, what would you recommend that I do? And I’m like, well, let me tell you about the top three things I would not do. I can save you more money that way than telling you what to do. Right? So, thank you for that on the Facebook ads because I can confer on that. And I actually hired people to help me really create a good Facebook ad but the demographic is changing so much as you say. So, for smaller businesses not really where you want to go. And I’ve also noticed that if you sell more products, like if it’s a product based industry and being an author, not necessarily the product that I’m talking about, but if you have a product you’re selling, where you can have a video that shows you using the product, that’s where it is for you. So, as authors, we’re kind of out in the cold on that one. I’d love to hear what story do you like to tell about yourself, that gets the most laughs from your audience?

Joel Salomon
I already told one of my actuary jokes so, I have a few of those. Two actuaries they go moose hunting. They get the camouflage gear on, they get the rifles all set, and the first actuary spies a moose, and he says, I got him, I got him, and he shoots, and he misses five feet to the left. And then the second actuary says no, no, I got him, I got him, and he shoots, and he misses five feet to the right. And they give each other high five and say on average, we got him.

Janine Bolon
I love math. Geek joke. Sorry. I love them. I love them.

Joel Salomon
So, a lot of stories in my book are inspirational stories, the hero’s journey about things that didn’t go right in my life and how I overcame them. They do tell my audiences about the three big secrets to becoming financially free. Now big is an acronym. B stands for beliefs. I stands for intuition. And G stands for the financial advisor named Goldstein.

Janine Bolon
Some of us have heard of that one.

Joel Salomon
Just kidding. Just kidding. G stands for good looking.

Janine Bolon
Right, right, that one.

Joel Salomon
Okay, but actually G, I have two G’s in my book, G stands for gratitude, and another G stands for giving.

Janine Bolon
Giving. Yep. philanthropic giving is one of the best things when it comes to, because I don’t know about you, and I know a lot of people that listen to this show. Money for money’s sake is not a driving force for for us. For the people that I attract into my life, it’s like, what money can do for us is the driving force, not necessarily the collection and being able to say who has the most toys wins or what have you on that score. So, thanks so much for sharing that, I always love hearing whether people tell a joke, or if they tell a story on themselves. It’s always fun to see what an author will pop up with because they’re such a diverse group of people. So, thank you so much. Share with us what was the biggest change that you saw in yourself when you started marketing your book?

Joel Salomon
For me the biggest change is that I realized that how to overcome my biggest fear in life, public speaking.

Janine Bolon
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dunnnn.

Joel Salomon
In 2016, and into 2017, that was my biggest fear in life. But I knew that if I wanted my first book to be a success and talk about it in public, I would have to overcome this fear, and I did something that my mentor Mike Dooley recommended, which was join Toastmasters. And after giving over 150 speeches at Toastmasters, which, for the listeners who don’t know, Toastmasters is a group of supportive people, where you go up in front of 15 or 20 people, you give a 3, 5, 7 minute speech, and immediately afterwards, there’s a speech evaluator who comes up and evaluates your speech, so that the next time you give a speech, you can make it even better. And they evaluate you on gestures and eye contact, and tone of voice, and so on, content as well. So, I gave over 150 speeches at Toastmasters, I actually became an advanced communicator gold, and I believe that it’s no longer my biggest fear, though, I will tell you, I still get nervous, and I still do my breathing techniques before I speak, even on a podcast.

Janine Bolon
Right? It’s so true. That’s how I helped myself with my introvertism, was I was a taught Toastmaster, and I became a certified Toastmaster, and that was the thing is you gave so many speeches. And the other wonderful thing was the person who evaluated the talks, always talked about what you did well first, and then they would end it with what you did well, so the synchrony, any correction that they gave you was in the middle of two very positive comments. That was such a safe place to be so I can’t recommend Toastmasters enough, and when I saw that on your bio, I was like, oh, I’m gonna leave that up. I’m not gonna mention that. We’ll bring that out in the questions, anyway.

Joel Salomon
I will tell, I tell my clients, I tell everyone that I’ve made a ton of awesome, amazing investments in my life. That was the best. For $150, it cured me of my biggest fear, and generated a lot of earnings too, as well. And I’ve actually, now I’ve spoken and people have actually paid me to speak.

Janine Bolon
Right, and that is such a huge return on your investment. You know, it’s beautiful, it’s wonderful. So, since you’ve had all these experiences, written all these books, and just the sheer volume of knowledge that you have between your ears, what are some of, what are your like top five tips that you could give authors when it comes to selling their books?

Joel Salomon
Don’t use Facebook ads.

Janine Bolon
I’m sorry, that didn’t come through. That’s why I was laughing.

Joel Salomon
No, don’t use Facebook ads. Two would be reach out to podcasters in advance of the book being published. I did cold emails, now I have a list that I’ve been on, so, I can reach out to them again, when the next book comes out. In fact, when Infinite Love and Money came out last year, Molly, my co-author said to me, we should, we gotta get on podcasts. So, I just reached out to all the podcasters that had me on the first two books, and we were on those again. So, just reach out. Don’t assume that people don’t want you. Assume that people do and they will, beliefs are powerful. Three, get a mailing list established even if it’s, like Janine said, with you, your web guru and your mom, just start, right? Even if it’s just with a few people, you got to start somewhere, I basically started with zero. Get people to anticipate the books coming out, giving them a chapter for free, or the introduction or like what I did a few chapters by audio in advance, and tell everyone you know that it’s coming, before it’s coming, before you have a date even. But I would also work on setting a date, a deadline to complete it, even if it’s very conservative, so, many months in advance and ensure that it shall be completed by then, even if it’s 18 months in advance, so you get people anticipating it. I did that with, I didn’t know that in my first book. My second, and third book, that’s what we did, we started creating a little bit of groundswell by, ooh, this is coming. And we did, Molly and I were on a group called Video Socials, and we recorded videos for the eight weeks before, and we just posted on social media, the eight weeks before the book came out about each chapter of the book. So, we went through eight chapters of the book, and did a three or four minute video, that was just getting people to know that it’s coming so.

Janine Bolon
Those are excellent ideas, and I know that we haven’t talked to any author yet, that mentioned two of the most powerful comments that Joel made was doing audio. There are so many audio learners, and they’re the ones that listen to your podcasts and that sort of thing. People have learned to multitask after 2020, they have learned very effectively that if they’re out in the garden, or they’re doing something, they’re going to be listening to something positive, and so having your audio product available, that was absolutely brilliant. And then the video socials is fantastic, especially when you have those videos down to one to three minutes, people have no problem listening to a three minute video or watching a three minute video. It’s if you go too much beyond that, then you’re getting into how to make it a videographers dream, you know, then you’re having to do some high, high techniques that I don’t know about you, but I’m not qualified to do some of the things to set people up with that. So, thank you, those two comments alone are definitely so valuable to the new up and coming author. So, if you don’t mind sharing with us, what’s the one thing that you most misunderstood about becoming an author or being an author?

Joel Salomon
How important the marketing of the book is. To be a best selling author, you have to sell the book and you have to sell yourself and that’s really important. It’s called best selling author, best selling book, right? So, you have to sell. And I have some limiting beliefs. I’m not perfect, and one of my living beliefs is I’m not a salesperson, I’m not a marketer, so, if you’re not, hire somebody, like I said earlier, Who Not How, get the best, or get people to help you do what you don’t love to do.

Janine Bolon
And just asking yourself that question, like you said, from the title of the book, who is it that can help me don’t worry about the how, but who can help me and that is what really moves and shake, a lot of the authors. So, what’s been your biggest reward being an author? I always like to ask this question because I never know what’s going to pop out of people’s mouths.

Joel Salomon
Reaching many more people than I had if I wasn’t an author, and it’s moving me towards my goal of helping at least 100,000 people become financially free.

Janine Bolon
And that is an awesome goal to have and help that many people. And I want to say thank you so much as somebody who helps people with debt free living, and you’re on the other side, which is helping people become financially independent. I just want to say thank you so much, because we need as many teachers on that as possible. And that’s it, folks. Joel has answered our questions and has more information in store for you also about his latest work, I really encourage you to go to his website, which is www.salaurmor.com. Tell us about your latest project Joel.

Joel Salomon
Working on another book, a woman reached out to me a few months ago, and she said Joel, would you be willing, could you commit to writing 15 minutes a day, until you’re done with your portion of the book, and I said, how can I not commit to write 15 minutes a day. And so our next book together will be called, Purpose and Prosperity. And the goal is, I saw this a lot when I was a hedge fund manager living my dream job, I would commute into Manhattan, and people are so unhappy. I know the last two years has been called the great resignation, and people are moving towards their dreams and doing their purpose more. But still a ton of people out there are not doing that purpose, and I truly believe when you are living your purpose and enjoying your life, and your passion, you will be more prosperous.

Janine Bolon
And that is information we definitely need to have. So, thank you so much for your time today, Joel, we really appreciate you being our spotlighted author today.

Joel Salomon
My pleasure, it’s a really, really great honor, and I’m really excited for everyone to get the benefit of this. So, thank you.

Janine Bolon
Yes, I can’t wait. So, definitely reach back around to us. I am one of those podcasters that will be happy to help you promote that next book because your mission is so important to not only our country, but to those 100,000 people you know you’re supposed to reach. So, let’s make sure that happens for you. And that’s it for today. If you are an author or you know of an author that you would like us to spotlight, please visit our website, www.authorpodcasting.com where you will find the 99 author project listed. We talk to all authors from all walks of life as we build out book number twelve, The Advice from Authors to Authors in 2022, and this is Janine Bolon signing off with you today, and all of us here at The 8 Gates that produces the Janine Bolon show. We wish you a wonderful week, and encourage you to get your message, your story, or your knowledge out into the world and make it a better place. Just like Joel, who is helping newer authors and 100,000 people get financially independent, come along behind us. We’ll see you again next week, and until then, keep sharing what you know with others, keep shining that light that is you, and don’t forget to go out today, and just do something for yourself, that’s fun. See you next week.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.