All right, everyone. So I did this podcast for me and I'm going to explain why today's
guest is this guy named Jack Carr.
If you don't know who Jack Carr is, you guys should look him up.
But basically he has this series of books called The Terminalist.
Terminalist is now a, it's definitely a bestselling book.
They've sold millions of millions of copy.
It's a novel about a Navy seal who's wronged and then there's like eight books of him getting revenge.
And it's an Amazon Prime show with Chris Pratt.
It's awesome. However, I had Jack Carr on the podcast because I read his book when I was going through a little bit of a period where I had just had a daughter and I wanted to do something where I would become a little bit more of a man than before.
I wanted to learn something about high integrity, about things I should be doing as a man.
And it's just kind of honestly changed my life.
And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, I think you're going to enjoy this episode.
We talk a lot about his writing process.
But we mostly talk about the process of masculinity and what it means to be a stand up person.
We talked about the business of writing books and how he makes money.
I think you're going to enjoy this one.
It's a little bit out of left feel.
But try it out. I love this guy.
So check it out. So I'm happier here, man.
We, this is a business show until like we don't do like authors and stuff like that all the time.
But I published a podcast where I was talking about how I loved your books.
And I, I'm halfway through the third one.
And the reason I found you guys or I found you is because I tweeted out I want to read a book that's the ultimate man novel.
Something that is action, adventure, page churning, high integrity, like teaches you values because I just had a kid.
And I was like I want to be inspired a little bit.
And all these people were tagging you and saying Jack Car.
And I was like I've never heard of Jack Car.
I don't know. I don't know anything about this.
What is this all about? And I started reading the terminal list and I read the first book and I was hooked.
And I'm so hooked. I'm on I'm halfway through number three and I'm going to make it through all through seven.
And you, I think you actually are like a lot more business savvy than most authors.
I had to guess. It's more entrepreneurial than I think there's a difference between being entrepreneurial and being business minded, which is why at some point you grow up so potentially sell or bring in a business person to run it and professionalize it and scale it and that sort of a thing.
But I didn't really think of myself that way and tell about I'd say a month before the book first book came out.
So I'm all into the novel leaving the seal teams and just writing.
Cause I love it. My mom is librarians.
I grew up surrounded by books and a love of reading as you can tell from the the background here have quite the collection.
Always been a reader and it's really the foundation from which everything else has grown.
And so it's all about the book.
And then about a month, maybe two before for first book publication in March of 2018, I was like, Oh, okay, I'm going to look at this the way I looked at the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, meaning you are looking for gaps in the enemy's defenses.
You're looking how to adapt to capitalize on momentum.
And I just looked at the space in general.
And I was like, Oh, wow, all this thing really hasn't kept up.
It's a very, it's a very legacy type of a business.
And they do so well because they've been around for so long.
So they're very entrenched in what they do.
And it makes money, but they're safe as far as business goes very slow to adapt to things me, even like audio books or ebooks, that sort of that thing.
So I looked at it and I was like, Okay, why when I get my iPhone, it doesn't just come in a manila envelope.
It comes in packaging and as much thought went into that packaging as went into the actual product itself.
And when I was getting books from other authors for blurbs or that sort of a thing, they were just coming in these manila envelopes.
Yeah, you send these like amazing gift boxes.
One of my, one of my really close friends is Richard Ryan.
And I went to his house and I saw like the boxes that you send to people.
I told I told Richard I go after this pod, I'm going to try to make Jack like me so much that he sends me one of these boxes.
I got your names, your names on them one of this with the next one.
So it's a gun case and it has the book.
Does it have anything else in it?
Yeah. So it's the openness thing up and it's kind of a way to make people who want to help you.
Like we get easy for that.
Like I'm a friend. Sprat maybe he has time to open it.
Maybe he doesn't. But if he does, then this makes it easy for him to do a 15 second something to help you know.
So that's awesome. This bookmark that has the letter bookmark all super high quality stuff because everything has to be that commensurate level as the novel itself.
So everything I do has to be like right here.
Like we talked about you guys talked about your site.
Merch on the site. It's not just a glass where you go to some company like pick key chain pick hat, pick mug.
It's like those are hand picked by me and they're all the best you can possibly find or the best I could possibly find.
I try to do made in America not always possible.
Try to view your towards better known businesses.
But book is in there inside the book is personalized to the person and then they have stickers.
There's three stickers personalized all of them personalized all.
How many do those do you send out?
I send out about 350 and most of them go to people as just thank you.
So people with no social media presence at all just a thank you for whatever X, Y or Z someone helping with research on a novel.
This one someone helped me with some aircraft stuff because I'm not a pilot.
So he'll get one some fans that were with me from the very beginning.
They get they get them and then people like Chris Brat get them and and he gets the same one is as everybody else.
But the coin goes in there and a coin different coin with every single awesome.
And you can't buy these and I know you talked about on that podcast where you talked about me and James Patterson.
You also talked about the momentum more coins.
I don't sell these. You should.
It should but so they fell words for if you were to make some money on it but for me right and I'm not saying I never will because people asking to sell them all the time.
But I have to give you one.
So that's kind of the thing with these is I have to get a book signing law enforcement military firefighter or somebody they they coin you and they have this in their hand and they shake your hand and then I have these in my back pocket and I coin them back.
All right my friends we're going to do a quick meditation break.
Take a deep breath in. Now slowly exhale.
You feel that calm feeling in your body right now.
That's how I feel when I use HubSpot.
They're all on one customer platform takes all the chaos out of business and replaces it with one powerful platform for all of your teams.
Generate better leads for marketing.
Close more deals for sales.
Earn more five star reviews for service and take the chaos out of your life.
So don't hold your breath any longer.
Visit HubSpot.com. All right the breathing session is over back to the chaos.
I want to talk about the economics and all the stuff but how do how do I introduce you to people?
So like I was thinking about this.
I was like well so Jack writes these books that so the one line summary is basically a Navy seal who's wronged and he goes and gets revenge involving family country and a bunch of adventure.
It's a seven or eight book series.
Now it's a Amazon Prime show starring Chris Pratt but the cool thing about the book you do a bunch of things interesting interesting but it's like a huge hit and when I was on Amazon it has like a hundred thousand plus reviews across all the books something like that.
Can you say how many copies have you sold so far?
You know I don't know because I don't keep track of those things and this is where the entrepreneurial side versus the business side comes in that we talked about at the beginning is I spend zero bandwidth worried about that.
So my my metric is is Simon and Schuster happy and how happy are they and they're a static.
So that is my millions I would assume.
Yeah it's up there. Yeah.
Is it do you think it's north of 10 million?
No. So that's just a guess.
I don't know but I think they tell me if it was north of 10.
It's up there. I think we had I'm friendly with James Clear and Mark Manson and I think that they have some of the best selling books of the last like maybe decade.
I would imagine I would have imagined that after a few more years you're going to be up there because you you are a Navy seal which you've talked a bunch about but you started writing but the books are relatively new right?
Yeah so 2018 I started writing the first one I was still in as I was getting out of the military so I think December of 2014 I wrote my first words for the first book so they first they came out 2018 and then they've been one a year ever since and this is the first year with two books so I have my newest one the seventh book in the series Red Sky Morning comes out in June and then I have my first nonfiction that comes out in September so September 24th and that's on the 1983 Bayer Barrett spotting and you probably noticed I weave a lot of history into the happens as well.
That's why I liked it so much you know I'm reading a looming towers right now and I typically read American history that's what my audience knows me for and that's why I wanted to read yours and what's weird is a lot of I think without giving away there's talk of a virus there's talk of Ukraine before any of this stuff was even a thing.
Yeah that was crazy so the book with Ukraine came out in 2019 so I was writing it before I was writing it actually before I sent the first novel the Simon it Schuster I didn't have a publishing deal but I always knew I was going to write two books because of the John Grisham story he wrote a time to kill first and he could not give that book away and then he writes the firm that takes off it's the movie with Tom Cruise and we've had a John Grisham legal thriller every year sets you've got a good track record at the moment for like predicting a handful of things well I hope this next one doesn't count sure this next one's pretty brutal so I hope this next one does not predict the future.
What did you I know that you're writing you're talking about like finding an agent and things like that and you're like I didn't even know you needed an agent I think you read like Stephen Pressfield to like learn a little bit about the publishing process but what did what would you have defined as a success like when you're first starting because I imagine now you you've made millions of dollars you're famous your books are loved it's a movie I know that you originally before Chris Pratt was even a movie star he was just a Parks and Recreate guy you're like Chris Pratt's the guy so like you've kind of manifested all this but what would you have defined a success like 10 years ago you know it's a personal or professional different different sides but for me growing up I'm reading all these books they all say number one New York Times bestselling author on the cover so I'm reading Tom Plancy I'm reading Nelson DeMille I'm reading AJ Kumail JC Pollett Mark Olden all these guys who are like my professors in the art of storytelling but at the top of each one of those paperbacks and I think I have a tie at the top last one somewhere here but it says number one New York Times bestselling author so in my head from age well let's say 11 so sixth grade when I start reading all the same types of books my parents are reading I'm fifth grade it's got that transition time from young adult type fiction to the same types of books that I'm reading and writing today they all said that and so in my head at that age knowing that I wanted to write in the future just like I knew that I wanted to be a Navy SEAL from age seven onward that I didn't think of it in terms of hey this is success once I do this but that was like a benchmark that's funny that was your goal because I think in the same podcast you said you listened to for MFM we talked about this guy I don't remember his name but basically he self published a book and he got really popular in Goodreads and I think on Goodreads collectively he also had hundreds of thousands of reviews and from reading your books I wouldn't call you anti establishment but there's like some subcontext there of like don't trust too many people and whatever I would have not thought that you'd give a shit about New York Times and more so just do lots of people love this and does this create like financial freedom and like spiritual wholesomeness for you you know what I'm saying like if you could like make if you could feel good and and make money that would be the win not New York Times yeah well the New York Times like you know that when you see a book that says number one or just like USA Today that seller what that tells me and what he's always told me is that they didn't make the New York Times list so New York Times list is kind of the benchmark because you can be a number one something on Amazon in pretty much anything so I knew that that that's not my I'm never going to say that I think the the publisher for the first or second book they put something like that somewhere and I was like they cut down I don't want that in my calculus that's not that's not me for me like leaving the military the things that were important I think it's important to articulate that no matter what it is guys we're all going to go through transitions in life whether it's a professional transition death of a loved one divorce whatever it might be but you're going to move on and do something else change just change jobs and for me it was financial freedom and being able to control my schedule and I knew I wanted to write I've been from a very early age that after my time in the military I would write thrillers just like I'm writing today were you writing books from an early age so yeah always a writer so at any time we're having an English English class in high school at that's what I gravitated towards or the most dangerous game which is a short story that came out in 1924 heavily inspired your book three I assume exactly exactly that's my so in sixth grade I said one day I'm in a right a novel it's tribute to that short story and that savage son the one that you're on right now so it's so it's so I was writing but I wasn't writing throughout my time in the military I was reading so I'm always reading and I'm reading both nonfiction and fiction so I'm always just got there's never been a time when I haven't had a book in my hand or know what I'm going to read next there's a bunch of jokes I'm friends with a bunch of seal guys and there's a joke that like many of them want to write a book because you guys experience such like crazy lives but there are like some actually interesting people doing stuff in the creative space so obviously you and then we know Jacco and people like that but then there's Mr.
Ballin do you follow Mr.
Ballin? No I know who he is but I've never never met him and I haven't washed any of his stuff yet but I know who he is so Mr.
Ballin I listened to all of his stuff so Mr.
Ballin started I think as a YouTube page and he was basically like just telling scary 10 and 20 minute stories of true crimes and I don't know how he managed to do this because but for I mean he's a great delivery he delivers his stories wonderfully so I guess it's it's it's it's it's clear how he kind of figured it out but now it's like this massive thing he's got millions and millions of subscribers in Austin near where I live he's got a billboard now where he's got this deal with Audible and it's like pretty amazing that this guy's pulled this off he doesn't pull too many details from his military days but it is like interesting to see some of these like ex-sealed guys or seal guys like tell some of these like interesting stories and be creative because when I think of you guys I think of like a tough guy I don't think of like an artistic guy you know what I mean yeah well on the battlefield you have to be creative and I think that's something that really was what made us successful in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world over the last other 20 years that we were that war engaged in those places is being able to be creative and be very we create very quickly and be aggressive problem solvers so now I can be an aggressive problem solver but you know what if I make a mistake no one's coming home in a body back and I can sleep on it and I can come back to something in a month which is why when I do the outlines for these books and I get to a place where I'm like oh how's James Reese gonna get out of this one I don't set it stall me out I know that I have a year to figure this out because it's one book a year so it takes about a the whole process takes about a year but I don't get stuck there I know that I'm gonna figure it out we're on the battlefield you're making split second decisions that are gonna impact people's lives forever if you make the wrong one there's this amazing book called May to stick I read May to stick in 2008 or 2010 it's awesome it's by I think his name is I think it's the Heath Brothers out of Stanford and it's a whole book about how to make ideas stick and there's like six or eight principles and one example they give is like if I told you a movie theater popcorn had a hundred grams of fat that doesn't really mean anything but if I got a hundred grams of fat and I showed that butter and like you could grab it or if I showed you like a black smoker's long then it's an easier way to understand and remember an idea one thing that the book says is they talk about the demise of local newspapers and they tell a story about this guy in North Carolina who's got a thriving local newspaper and they go hey Will what's your deal what's your secret with this newspaper and he goes names names and names it's simple if I could print the yellow pages I would all I want to do is name as many local people and their friends as possible and their newspaper in my newspaper because people will buy it more to see their friends and family and themselves something you do in your book and this is what I talked about in the last podcast and what I thought was savvy is you name so many products like it's still the point now where I'm I have a notification on my bring a trailer profile to see a land cruiser because I want to buy a I want to buy a land cruiser I know all about land cruisers I just bought someone just I talked about that on the podcast someone just sent me one of your or not one of yours but a hatchet I'm looking at like hill people like fanny packs you like name all of this stuff where I'm like I didn't even know I need this pair of sunglasses but because jame reese is using this sunglasses like I want it or like black rifle coffee on president Richard Ryan one of the founders you name black rifle coffee all the time you talk about I think his name is a reef he has this leather type of boot that's a little bit more sophisticated the james reases because he's a more of a suave type of guy and I find myself googling this stuff and I noticed on your website you list many of the stuff so it's like james reases like daily wear in book one or or the guns the planes cars and supplies in book two do you monetize that well no yeah but a gear guy my entire life and I should monetize people like assume that you are like right from the get go but I don't know at the beginning I knew I knew some of those brands because I'm just friends with them from getting that gear to go down range with in the seal teams and that's one of the thing but not all it's just stuff that I use but I have no personal connection to the company but it added a personal not an authentic element so if you're a lot someone in law enforcement or a firefighter or intelligence agent or you know military and you're reading this thing and you can be reading a book and it can just say he picked up the shotgun he picked up the pistol he but doesn't tell me anything about the character yeah when I see somebody and they walk in or they walk onto a range I can see the pistol that they have on I can see the holster they're using the belt their shoes their hat their watch that tells me a story about them the car they pull up in that all tells me something that's giving me information and so same thing in these books and I think if you if you spend let's say 20 years in the seal teams or special forces or whatever it is then you're reading a book and it says hey the main protagonist has a background similar to yours but he's can and it says what he's carrying and you're like oh man we would never carry something like that like this doesn't make any sense this person obviously doesn't know what they're writing about and so then that impacts their story in general so it's it's a way to to add on the entity and tell a story about that person because sometimes I'll use brands that that it says this person doesn't know what they're doing and that tells that reader who's in law enforcement or military I tell me something about this guy's character even before he's described before even opens his mouth and so I so I love using those brands that way so I haven't monetized it the way people think that probably I have by looking at the website because I put together gear guides for each book and I have a father's day gear guide and a holiday gear guide and that sort of thing and I link out and if you don't have a affiliate link so there's an amazon affiliate link I don't really think it makes I have no idea if it makes anyone you're not actually but it's more for the fun of it and also to help a lot of those companies like better known businesses like this is a way for me to give back and offer a helping hand yeah and I get that for like a small business but there's many businesses that you mentioned are brands that aren't small and your website gets traffic and I'm like why wouldn't you monetize that you know like there's gear junky.com there's gear patrol there's a Steve Rinella's company meat eater and they have turned these into like big businesses of merchandise or affiliates what is stop because I know you're entrepreneurial what's stopping you from turning this into like a legitimate media company beyond what most authors do.
I think the first hesitation was that I wanted to determine authentic I didn't want anyone to ever be able to say I do or to say it anyway but it I didn't want it to be true that hey all of a sudden he had this one pistol in there and all of a sudden he switched how much are they paying him to put that in there and the answer is zero dollars the answer is always zero dollars people have reached out and said how much how can I how much do you need to put my product on your gear gear guide and the answer is nothing.
What do you think an author like you if you wanted to do it which you don't but I bet it happens what would you have what would it a brand charge.
I don't even know and at some point maybe it might turn into something like that where it's a little more more obvious and there's like the pomade podcast is something that that gets sponsored and has ads on it but those are obvious.
