Dear Friend,
I will never forget the feeling.
Three weeks after my first bestselling book (this was January 2017), I was ready to do the math.
After the dust settled on my launch, I would see my real long term royalty number. From there I would figure out how many books I needed to launch in order to retire on that beautiful passive income.
Then I looked.
Wait, what??
Despite all the sales (which I spent advertising money to do), three weeks later, that number was a complete joke.
If I recall, it was going to be like $20-40 a month in income. I originally thought I might need 8-10 books max, and I could make 10k a month.
Nope. Not even close. 100 wouldn't even do it.
The feeling was sickening.
I was not sure what to do.
If you are reading this, you have either experienced it and know what I am talking about, or you are about to.
Me, being the stubborn sort, spent the next year trying to find the secret formula on how to make big money from your book royalties.
What I discovered was both disturbing, but also an opportunity (once you realize this).
Your book is not your breadwinner.
Call it what you want, but in modern times, if all you had to do is publish a book to make money, everyone would do it.
And sometimes it seems like everyone is trying.
Amazon adds more than 1.4 million new self-published books every year. That's nearly 4,000 a day.
That is not how authors make money from books.
Books are the doorway. What you do on the backend is the path.
I know one person in the industry who lives off of his royalties. But he spends his days analyzing ads, floating hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend. He loves that technical, analytical stuff.
I don't. If you don't either, read on...
Because that is what led me down the obsession of trying to figure out how my favorite authors actually made money. I was all-in, ready to spend time and money to do it.
And that nearly broke me.
I had sold a business in mid 2018 and put $150,000 in the bank. And from mid 2018 to early 2020, I did what "I was supposed to do."
I bought every class. Joined every mastermind. Hired an expensive coach. Hired an ads agency and ran Facebook ads.
By early 2020, I had blown the entire $150,000, specifically on ads, "this coach", and expensive ads managers.
Worse, I had also been boxed into an approach for my business that was totally not me. (More on that later.)
So, we were out of cash, and then the Covid outbreak occurred.
Things were looking very dim. I couldn't even pay the mortgage in March that year.
The money was all gone, and I had nothing to show for it.
I had one last Hail Mary going.
I had happened to have received some amazing advice from Steve Larsen, of ClickFunnels fame (his interview is waiting for you in the Vault), advising that if he were ever to start over, he would run a summit.
I had started creating my first summit just prior to the cash running out, and had it scheduled for the next month in April 2020. I was down and deflated.
But my ego wouldn't let me lose face, and cancel the summit. I ran it anyway.
And something strange happened...
I made $1,200 the first day.
By the end of the week, I had made $12,126.
The week after I ran something else, I made another 19k.
That changed my world. I had found THE real solution for authors: summits and email lists.
I went on to create a done-for-you service, and the Summit Lab course. As Mandalorian says...
This was the way.
(Until it wasn't... for everyone.)
I had finally found the answer. The one that had cost me $150,000 to learn the hard way.
And once I find something that works, I become relentless about it. I tell everyone, I teach it, I build courses around it. I become the guy at every event saying the same thing, over and over, because it changed my life and I want it to change yours too.
For years, that's exactly what I did.
Since 2020 I have been pounding the table that everyone needs to do a summit, and have an email list they mail daily.
Some have done it, and had amazing success.
Others ignored it, or planned to go down this path and never did.
When I started paying attention, to both my students, but also my partners, very few decided to use summits and email, nor wanted to.
Yet, many of my partners were still very successful.
I also started paying attention to every course I had purchased.
They all had the same mantra (that ironically I had), that "My Way is the Only Way to do things."
That is when I realized it was simply not true.
Everyone has different skillsets, and different wants and needs. There are obviously not two people alike in this world.
So every course you invest in that requires you to follow their method exactly (I get why they do it as teachers) does not allow for personal preferences or desires.
Back in 2018, this was my experience too. I was basically being pigeon-holed into this: you must do ads, to a course, this way, using an ads agency, a webinar, and just any old course.
As you already know, that almost caused me to stop altogether.
The other thing that happens is you start feeling like you have to buy a $2,000 course on each topic, just to discover if that method even works for you. (Ask me how I know.)
That was when I realized that we, as authors who know that books will not do it on their own, needed clarity, not more courses.
With clarity we could figure out where to invest more (and then maybe some of those specific courses).
I can recall just thinking about the next $10K I needed to spend for 5 more courses just so I could figure things out.
It doesn't have to be this way...
So I created something for the clarity. Something that makes things way easier.
I didn't create another tactic.
I didn't create another "9 step formula to author riches."
I created a way to figure out which tactic, which strategy, which path, actually fits you.
Because here's the secret nobody wants to say out loud, least of all the people selling courses...
There is no Mandalorian. There is no "this is the way."
(Sorry, Mando. I love you, but you've ruined an entire generation of marketers.)
There are successful coaches. There are successful course creators. Successful speakers. Successful software founders. Successful summit hosts. Successful affiliates.
And the question was never which one makes the most money.
The question is which one fits you, your skills, your lifestyle, and what you actually want your life to look like three years from now.
Which brings me to today.
I built a course that does something I haven't seen anywhere else in the author world. It isn't another stack of tactics. It isn't another course on building a webinar funnel, or a summit, or a software company, although we'll talk about all of those.
It's a decision-making system.
I'm calling it Book Profit School.
Most courses sell knowledge. Book Profit School sells clarity.
Inside, you'll go through the same Seven Secrets that changed how I see this entire business, the same ones that took me from a man boxed into someone else's method, to a man running his own.
You'll discover your Traditional Profit Centers, the ones most authors have heard of (coaching, consulting, courses, memberships, speaking, summits, software), and exactly which ones actually fit you, not which ones I'd pick.
You'll discover your Alternative Profit Centers too, the ones almost nobody talks about.
This part matters enormously if you write fiction, or if you're in a tight nonfiction niche that doesn't have an obvious market for a $2,000 course.
You don't need one.
There's an entire world of income that has nothing to do with teaching, coaching, or even your book's topic, and it lets you keep writing the books you actually want to write.
You'll choose your Audience Builders, the ones that fit your personality instead of draining it.
And you'll design your own Perpetual Profit Engine, the thing that finally lets you stop starting over every single month.
Here's just a taste of what's waiting for you inside...
The Secret Profit Center To Being Financially Free. A friend of mine in real estate used to sell enormous luxury homes with high commissions, the kind most people dream about. He admitted he was happier the day before the check arrived than the day after. We spend an entire module on how to avoid that feeling (Inside, you'll see exactly why that feeling never has to be yours again.)
A famous real estate expert's "money tree" method, the one that made him a fortune for decades, works even better when you bring it into the author world than it ever did in real estate. (Lesson 24 shows you why, and exactly how to plant your own.)
Most entrepreneurs only ever make it through two of the three stages every lasting business eventually passes through. Failure to address that third one, will eventually stop any business. Learning it early on can save you.
Why convincing people not to buy your products is a counterintuitive, but almost mandatory strategy for long-term profits. There is a strange psychology that you as the business owner must employ. One of the 20 experts inside the vault section this program taught me that lesson, and once I actually believed it, all of my offers started selling themselves.
Most people think Tesla revolutionized the car industry with electric motors and autopilot. That isn't the real story. There's a much quieter reason Tesla makes the kind of money most car companies never will. No one is talking about it. (Inside, you'll see how to bring that same advantage into your own business.)
Learn about the one type of buyer that no one focuses on, but will bring in 70-80% of all sales. (You'll see exactly why that happens, and how to engineer it into your own business.)
The audience building method that you can only utilize while making sales. One high-quality influencer I know (a name you probably know) was a great teacher, but his list was very low performing. He made one subtle change to selling and it completely changed the performance of his list. I just witnessed it this year, and now I am implementing his technique heavily going forward. In fact, I am using it with this course. (I'll walk you through exactly what he did, and why it worked, inside.)
Churn is a real issue for most business owners, but it doesn't need to be. Many coaching programs lose somewhere between 60 and 70% of their clients every single month. Done the right way, you can access a model that only churns between 6 and 8%. That gap is the difference between a business that exhausts you and one that compounds while you sleep.
One single sentence from Russell Brunson changed how I focus on my entire business, permanently. It's the reason I no longer stress about hustling week in and week out (Inside, I'll share the concept, and how to let it change your focus too.)
This 100-year-old newspaper insight allows you to get paid for the same piece of content twice. It's a key part of my internal business strategy, and it should be part of yours if it fits your style. (Inside, I'll show you why it works and how to know if it's right for you.)
Why the Law of Diminishing Returns must be factored into any business blueprint. For ten years I ran a property management company. At our peak we managed over 1,300 units across two states, a hundred employees, and a payroll most people would consider a dream. I was also completely unhappy. (Inside, you'll learn why income was never the real measurement, and what to track instead.)
Every business, regardless of industry, stands on the same five pillars. Most authors are only strong in one or two of them, and have no idea which ones are quietly bankrupting their future. (Inside, you'll find out exactly where you stand.)
Would you rather make $10,000 a month working 20 hours a week, or $20,000 a month working 60? Most people have been trained since childhood to chase the bigger number on the right. I'll show you why that instinct is almost always wrong. (The Freedom Test is inside, and it might change which profit center you choose entirely.)
There's one specific question I ask myself before saying yes to anything new in my business, and it has nothing to do with how much money it could make. (You'll learn the question, and why it matters more than the money, inside.)
Most entrepreneurs treat AI like a content tool. For authors, and author business owners, you must drop that idea, and use the one I share in Section 4. (Inside, you'll see exactly how I use it to run parts of my business I used to pay other people thousands of dollars a month to do.)
There's an old baseball movie (Bull Durham) with a scene about a rookie pitcher and a pair of moldy shower shoes. It has nothing to do with shoes and everything to do with why most authors aren't ready to break the rules yet, including the ones I'm about to teach you. (Inside, I'll explain why discipline has to come first.)
Your business doesn't have to stop (or start) at courses and memberships. That is why we included an entire section on Alternative Profit Centers. (Inside, you'll see why the most stable authors I know stopped thinking of themselves as only authors.)
Most authors never get to revenue stacking. But the ones that do never have to worry again. (Inside, you'll map out your own chain of revenue sources instead of guessing at it.)
By now you've seen a sliver of what's inside the core curriculum.
But there's something else I haven't told you about yet.
This isn't a typical course where you watch some demos, get a few templates, and you're on your own.
I built something different.
A kind of masterclass that doesn't just teach you the blueprint, it puts 20 other world-class experts in the room with you.
Inside the Vault, you'll hear conversations I had with Stu McLaren, Danny Iny, Ben Settle, Steve Larsen, Derek Doepker, Rob Kosberg, Tom Antion, Nick Stephenson, Matt McWilliams, Jon Schumacher, Alina Vincent, Tom Poland, Troy Broussard, Eric Van Der Hope, Paul Brodie, Alinka Rutkowska, Karen Ferreira, Matt Stone, and Marc Reklau.
Twenty different paths. Twenty different blueprints. Some of them will fit you. Some of them won't. That's exactly the point.
And once you've got clarity on your own blueprint, you'll move into the Implementation Workshops, where the tactics finally show up, but only the ones that actually apply to the path you chose. Course creation. Virtual summits. White labeling. The Money Tree. Pubfunnels. AI leverage. You won't need all of them. You'll need the ones that fit.
One of the 20 experts inside built his entire business starting from an email list of 8 people. He now has clients in 151 cities around the world. The thing he figured out along the way is so simple it almost sounds fake, but it's the reason his business consistently outperforms everyone around him. (His full interview is inside.)
A well-known author took the concepts from one of his books and turned them into a membership. Week one, 1,100 members joined. By year three, 6,000. It completely transformed his business from over 100 days a year on the road to a multi-million dollar operation he could run from home. (You'll see exactly how he did it, and whether the same model could work for your book, inside.)
At a live event, a story was told about a woman who made $5,024 in 24 hours from a Facebook post and a PayPal link, with no sales page, no checkout system, and only 326 people in her audience. Another person who heard it, went home, did the same thing, and made over $6,000 before she left the event. (Inside, you'll hear exactly what they said, and how they said it.)
You may love replays of webinars, but check this out. One of the 20 experts inside discovered that making a replay available drops live webinar attendance from 41% to 12.5% over time. So he banned replays entirely. What he replaced them with instead actually tripled his follow-up sales without a single person watching a recording. (Inside, you'll see the exact sequence he uses.)
Hear the details of a membership site built entirely around decorative door hangers. It has 1,127 paying members. One of our experts inside will change the way you think about whether your topic is too niche to build a real business around. (His interview is inside, and it is one of the most eye-opening conversations in the entire Vault.)
The single biggest mistake people make when designing a challenge almost guarantees their offer won't sell at the end, even if the challenge itself is outstanding. (Our expert will show you exactly where most people go wrong, inside.)
I used webinars alone to take Pubfunnels from zero to multi-six-figures. I didn't run ads. I didn't build a complicated funnel. I did one thing, over and over, until it worked. One of the 20 experts inside is the person who taught me how. (His full interview, including the specific strategy I used, is waiting inside.)
A real estate company was getting 15,000 webinar registrations a month. With one small change to their email sequence, and nothing else, they bumped attendance rates by several percentage points. On that kind of volume, it changed everything. (Inside, you'll see exactly what our expert advised them to change and why it worked.)
Stop thinking of yourself as an author and start thinking of yourself as a publisher. I learned this from one of our experts who built his entire business around that single mindset shift, and it changed everything (His interview is one of the most important ones in the entire Vault.)
There is a difference between a best-writing author and a best-selling author. One of our experts inside borrowed that line from one of the most famous investors in the world, and then spent decades proving it was true. (Inside, you'll hear exactly what that difference is, and how to close the gap.)
Johnny Carson was one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived. When he started, he was making the equivalent of $40,000 a month. When he died, his estate was worth $400 million in today's money. One interview inside breaks down the single decision that made the difference, and why most authors are making the exact same mistake Carson was making before that decision. (His interview is inside.)
Showmanship is not a personality trait. It is a skill. Some of the most recognizable names in entertainment were, by the account of the people who worked with them, not naturally charismatic people. One of the 20 experts inside explains exactly what they did instead, and how any author can use the same method to become someone their audience cannot stop reading. (His full interview is inside.)
One of the 20 experts inside ran his funnel so well it almost put his client out of business. The client called on day one excited. Called on day two nervous. Called on day three screaming to turn it off. What that story taught him about the difference between a funnel and a business is something most online entrepreneurs never figure out. (Inside, you'll hear exactly what he learned, and how to make sure it never happens to you.)
Is the path massive royalties doable? I know exactly one person in this industry who lives entirely off book royalties. He does it by floating hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend and spending his days buried in analytics most authors would hate. But you may be interested in how he does it. (Inside, you'll see his approach, and why I chose a completely different path instead.)
A Few Questions You're Probably Asking Yourself
"Do I need a book already published to take this?"
No. But you should at least be working on one, or have one close to done. This course is about what happens after the book, or alongside it. If you don't have a book and have no plans to write one, this isn't for you. (And that's fine. There are other paths.)
"I write fiction. Will this even apply to me?"
Yes, and probably more than you think. There's a dedicated section inside on Alternative Profit Centers built specifically for fiction authors and tight nonfiction niches that don't have an obvious course or coaching market. You don't need a teachable topic to build a real business around your writing.
"Do I need Pubfunnels, or any specific software, to do this?"
No. I use Pubfunnels because I built it and I like it. You don't have to. The blueprint works regardless of which tools you use to execute it.
"How much time will this take me?"
The core curriculum is about clarity, not a 40-hour binge. Most people move through it in a few sittings. What you do with your blueprint afterward, that's up to you and your pace.
"What if I already know I want to do coaching/courses/summits/whatever? Do I still need this?"
Maybe not. If you've already got total clarity on your path and you're just looking for tactics, go find a tactics course. This isn't that. This is for authors who keep buying tactics courses without knowing if the tactic even fits them.
"How do I know if this is actually right for me?"
Honestly, I have no idea. But you probably already do. If you've read this far and you're still here, that usually tells you more than I can.
"What if I enroll and decide it's not for me?"
There are no refunds. I said that twice already in this letter on purpose. Read the rest of this page again if you're still unsure. I'd rather you decide before you buy than regret it after.
I don't try to serve everyone. And if you've made it this far, you've probably noticed I'm not exactly trying to win you over either.
That's on purpose. I can't serve everyone, and neither can you. It's one of the most profitable lessons I ever learned, and I didn't figure it out on my own. I learned it from Ben Settle, one of the 20 experts you'll hear from inside the Vault.
If this isn't screaming at you to enroll, you may not be there yet. And that's okay.
But if you found yourself nodding along while reading this, I suspect the opposite is true, and this program is for you.
I reveal many secrets of how I run my business, how I evaluate opportunities, and even my own personal blueprint inside.
Keep in mind, there are no refunds whatsoever.
If you're new to me, I'd encourage you to join my email list, read what I send, and decide for yourself whether the way I think fits the way you think, before you enroll. I believe informed decisions make better students.
So if you're still here, if none of that scared you off, here's what to do next to get clarity.
Leap. Love. Grow.
Ray Brehm
P.S. Three weeks after my first bestselling book, I sat down to do the math on my royalties, and the number nearly broke me. It took me $150,000, a global pandemic, and almost losing my house to finally learn the lesson this entire course is built around. You don't have to spend what I spent to learn it. Enroll in Book Profit School, and go find your blueprint instead.