EMBA的小眼睛

70% re-orders is a sweet spot

My latest book, Your Turn, just went back for its third and fourth printings, bringing the total to more than 100,000 copies in print.

I did some math on the orders and discovered that more than 70% of them were going to people who had previously ordered a copy.

This never happens.

It never happens because the book industry is built on the idea of inventing desire and then destroying it by selling the reader a copy. You never need two copies of a book, after all, and so there's an insatiable need for new readers.

In the case of Your Turn, though, the book is intentionally built and sold as a way of spreading an idea... once people see the benefit in spreading the idea, many of them decide to spread it more. Most people buy the 5 pack.

It occurs to me that 70% is almost a magic number for re-orders in just about any business. It means that new people are hearing about your work and showing up to try it, and it also signifies that there's a base audience that's counting on you to do what you promised.

How would your project change if you re-organized what you do to get to a sweet spot of re-orders? I had to take a leap in the creation, distribution and pricing of my book to create that dynamic. What would you need to do?

PS To celebrate the new print run, I just added a long lost video of me launching Linchpin in NYC in 2010. It's on the Your Turn page, about a third of the way down. Read the copy near the top to get the password.

Thanks for the work you do and the impact you make.