Stop Listening to People Who Have No Experience with What They're Doing.
There’s that old expression “Those who can’t do teach,” which is of course insulting to teachers but there’s a scarier reality out there today which is “Those who know nothing do.” It’s the thorny thing about the authority people can earn on social media or just fake altogether: look like an expert and people will pay you money to help them with whatever you’re claiming to be an expert in.
Not to date myself but back in my day, you wouldn’t think to so much as exaggerate on a resume. I don’t know if we were more honest or just less industrious. Today I know people who have faked entire careers simply by putting BS on their LinkedIn. I know people who post on Instagram about how they felt when they made their first million when they have made nowhere near that number. Con artists are everywhere and why shouldn’t they be? We reward the biggest ones out there with book deals, TV shows, Dancing with the Stars appearances, People magazine cover appearances and lifelong fame.
I come from a family of less-than-honest people which I think has made me abnormally obsessed with con artists. I can listen to podcasts about them all day (I sometimes go to podcast apps and just search the word “con”). I’m sure I’ve had numerous less-than-honest moments in my life (I am in recovery from addiction, after all, and there is truth to that joke “How do you know an addict is lying?” with the punchline “Because their lips are moving.”) But I think it’s because of my family’s commitment to lying that my own personal rebellion has been to become very, very honest. I naively assume most people are as well and feel shocked and betrayed if I find out someone I know isn’t.
But while the cuter con artists become famous, many of the low-grade ones simply take your money.
I’m talking about “social media experts” who have zero social media following. Or “business strategists” who don’t actually have successful businesses. Or, yes, book publishers who have no experience with traditional publishing.
The truth is it takes a lot of time and effort to build legitimate authority out there. (This is why I’m obsessed with using a book to do it; it’s the fastest and most direct way to do it.) So many of the people who are out there posting and recording and telling the masses how to do something have been spending their time posting and recording and telling and not actually doing what they’re telling you they can do for you.
I know dozens of book publishers that have popped up over the past few years that offer what my company does. They say things like that they write and publish books that are indistinguishable from traditionally published New York Times bestsellers but they have no experience with traditional publishers, let alone New York Times bestsellers. They just discovered that many people want to publish books and that they could figure out Amazon and charge those people a lot of money. Maybe they even decided to start a publishing company because that’s the idea that popped up when they went and searched “how to make money online.”
In the most egregious scenarios, the companies get busted. But even when their jig is up, they fight the good fight. Let’s say you’re twin brothers raking in $50 million a year with your publishing company and people are starting to find out. What do you do? Admit they’re right? Hell, no. You put a story on your site with the headline “The Mikkelsen Twins Reviews: Legit or Scam?”
By doing that, you attract people who are searching for info on whether or not you’re a scammer (helpful hint: if you need to search someone’s name followed by the words “legit or scam,” the jury is already out).
In the story, you blame the internet for the negative rumors by writing, “The internet has no shortage of opinions, that’s for sure, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find even one popular song, movie, or business leader who hasn’t experienced some doubt or criticism. It’s just how it is these days.”
You go on to subtly praise those brave enough to perservere in their quest for information about such infamous people by writing, “But the internet also gives us all the power to conduct our own research and make our own decisions, which is a blessing.”
You then explain how wrong the sh*t talkers are and suggests that anyone who believes the negative rumors may not be up for the “publishing life.”1
I’m certainly not saying that Legacy Launch Pad is the only legitimate book publishing company out there. I know of good ones that actually charge a lot less than we do. But there are so many bad actors out there professing to promise you success when they haven’t had it and sometimes they speak with so much confidence that I can fall for their schpiel even when I know for a fact it’s not true.
So do your due dilligence. Or go with your gut. If something sounds too good to be true—say, your life changed with a book that only costs you $5000—it is. If someone doesn’t have success with what you’re paying them to do for you, run in the other direction.
