What does Shark Tank's Kevin Harrington, Mariel Hemingway, Daniel Baldwin, Kate Flannery from The Office and Chris Noth from Sex and the City have in common? Aside from the obvious fact that they are celebrities, they all work with J.J. Hebert and his company MindStir Media to help elevate authors' books through promotions. As a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author, as well as the CEO of MindStir Media, J.J. Hebert is always on the lookout for ways to help independent authors stand out. Celebrity marketing, which in this case consists of attaching a celebrity to a book by way of a YouTube video and/or foreword written by a celebrity, is a strategy geared toward bringing attention to the author and his/her book.
In a recent interview with Disrupt Magazine, J.J. Hebert explained the power of celebrity marketing, "Obtaining a celebrity endorsement for your book or product in general is a game-changer. Most authors don't know how to go about getting an endorsement, never mind one from a celebrity like Kevin Harrington or Mariel Hemingway that can spur sales and boost credibility. We have turnkey solutions for that. You no longer need to deal with getting lost in obscurity. Your book will stand out with the celebrities attached to it."
J.J. Hebert is no stranger to the publishing scene, having published over 1,000 titles on various subjects for clients across the United States. His own books have won nine literary awards and have all spent time on best-seller lists including Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com and USA Today. The Good Men Project also called him the "Self-Publishing Guru" due to his extensive experience in self-publishing specifically. Additionally, J.J. writes about book publishing and marketing for Forbes and Entrepreneur, two prestigious publications. So when J.J. recommends a particular book marketing approach, authors listen. That's one of the reasons why his celebrity marketing strategy for books didn't take long to take off.
The process goes like this: An author client contracts with J.J.'s MindStir Media and J.J. connects the author's book to a celebrity on MindStir's roster. With the celebrity's approval, the celebrity will write a foreword for the book and/or film a video endorsing the book. MindStir then publishes the book and then uploads the video to its official YouTube channel where a Google advertising campaign generates thousands of views. The video becomes the streaming world's version of a TV commercial, with the celebrity as a spokesperson for the book and the author. A recent example is a book by Chris Masiello, Change Short & Simple, for which Kevin Harrington wrote the foreword and filmed a video. This celebrity endorsement combined with bestseller campaigns helped the book become a no. 1 Amazon Best Seller in November 2022 and the no. 1 eBook on Barnes & Noble the following month, surpassing books by Stephen King, Nora Roberts and John Grisham at Barnes & Noble. The book by Masiello also became a Kobo no. 1 Best Seller.
J.J. Hebert founded MindStir Media in 2009 to publish his own book, Unconventional, which sold over 100,000 copies. He originally had no intention of publishing other books through MindStir Media but, as a result of his success, many authors contacted him for help with their own books...and MindStir Media as we know it today was born. J.J. works with trusted contractors all over the country to provide book design and editing for his clients prior to publication. He partnered with Ingram to handle printing and distribution. The marketing programs are hand-picked by J.J. himself, according to the MindStir Media website. Free consultations are available at mindstirmedia.com.
