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For decades, independent and self-published authors floundered to get their books seen and sold. With over a million books published each year, most of those aforementioned authors fell through the cracks because they didn’t have any connections or the means to generate massive exposure on their own. J.J. Hebert changed everything and leveled the field in 2009 by introducing his mentoring and publishing options through his firm, MindStir Media, an award-winning self-publishing company.
J.J. Hebert offers one-on-one mentoring through his company, helping authors primarily with marketing. He also provides a full suite of marketing and publicity services to create a buzz. J.J. is a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and no. 1 Amazon best-selling author; therefore, he knows what works and what doesn’t work and all of the services offered through MindStir are hand-picked by him based on his own success as an author. So authors don’t need to go into publishing and marketing blindly as before. Examples of the services offered include not only everything needed to publish a book professionally but also bestseller campaigns, billboard advertising in Times Square, author website creation, social media marketing and management, pay-per-click advertising and management, and a wide array of publicity services, among other items.
A couple of years ago J.J. Hebert rolled out celebrity marketing for authors as well, a particularly revolutionary approach for the publishing industry. Celebrity marketing has been popular for brands for decades, but authors – especially indie authors – have largely overlooked this strategy. J.J. partnered with Shark Tank’s Kevin Harrington in 2020. Harrington is one of the original “Sharks” on Shark Tank. J.J. created a special publishing and marketing option centered on Kevin Harrington that allows Harrington to write the foreword for select books and promote those books through video marketing on YouTube. Unknown business people with books can connect with Harrington and leverage his brand to gain credibility for themselves.
J.J. Hebert didn’t stop at Kevin Harrington, though. He connected with Mariel Hemingway, Oscar-nominated actress and the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway. J.J. formed the same type of publishing and marketing option for her as he did with Kevin Harrington. Through J.J. Hebert and MindStir Media, fiction and self-help authors are able to get a famous Hemingway to endorse their books through written forewords and YouTube videos, generating tremendous interest in the marketplace.
Getting a celebrity or famous author to endorse one’s book used to be an option generally available only to well-established, traditionally published authors. But as an independent author himself, J.J. Hebert saw the need to help authors collaborate with celebrities to help grow their author brands. These authors no longer have to rely solely on their own following, which is usually minuscule at the start. Instead, by aligning themselves with celebrities, they receive a major boost in their visibility and trustworthiness. For instance, if the average consumer sees a book praised by a celebrity they like and trust, they are more apt to purchase said book. Without the celebrity endorsing the book, the consumer might have never seen or noticed the book to begin with.
J.J. Hebert is the founder and CEO of MindStir Media, the company that the International Business Times hailed as the best book publisher in Los Angeles. J.J. is also a contributor at Forbes and Entrepreneur. The invaluable self-publishing and book marketing tips he shares on those platforms, as well as his own blog and social media, have many calling him the self-publishing guru. He and his brand MindStir Media have helped self-publish over 1,000 books, including numerous bestsellers and award-winners. Many celebrities have recommended MindStir Media and J.J. Hebert to authors such as Gary LeVox from Rascal Flatts, Tom Arnold, and Daniel Baldwin.
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Photo provided by the author with written permission from J.J. Hebert.