Take
Your product's packaging should get as much thought as the product
Carr noticed authors mailed books in plain manila envelopes, while an iPhone arrives in packaging as considered as the device itself. He decided his books should ship like premium products.
“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.”
Take
Your product's packaging should get as much thought as the product
Carr noticed authors mailed books in plain manila envelopes, while an iPhone arrives in packaging as considered as the device itself. He decided his books should ship like premium products.
“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.”
Tactic
Make it frictionless for famous people to help you
Carr sends elaborate personalized gift boxes so busy influencers like Chris Pratt can do a quick 15-second promo if they have a moment. The box lowers the activation energy for someone to help you.
“it's kind of a way to make people who want to help you, like, make it easy for them. Like, if I send this to Chris Pratt, 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?”
Steal thisWhen asking a busy or famous person for help, package the ask so the effort on their end is near zero.
Number
Carr personally sends ~350 custom gift boxes as thank-yous
Jack Carr hand-personalizes and sends roughly 350 collector boxes per book, mostly as thank-yous to researchers, early fans, and people with no social following, plus a few celebrities like Chris Pratt.
$350
Custom gift boxes sent per book · boxes
“I send out about 350, and most of them go to people as just thank yous. They're so people with no social media presence at all, just a thank you for whatever, X, Y, or Z.”
Take
His only metric: how happy is the publisher
Carr refuses to track copies sold, calling it a waste of bandwidth. His single metric is whether Simon & Schuster is happy, and he reports they're ecstatic.
“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 metric is, is Simon and Schuster happy and how happy are they? And they're ecstatic.”
Story
Why Carr always planned two books: the John Grisham playbook
Carr knew he'd write two books before having a deal, citing John Grisham, who couldn't give away his first novel A Time to Kill, but broke out with The Firm and has published a thriller every year since.
“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 since.”
Steal thisDon't bet everything on one shot; plan a second product so a slow first launch doesn't end the game.
Tactic
Use specific gear as character shorthand for authenticity
Carr argues that naming the exact pistol, holster, belt, or watch a character carries tells insider readers (military, law enforcement) whether the author knows their world. The right gear builds authenticity; the wrong gear signals the writer is a fraud.
“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.”
Take
The answer is always $0: never sell placement in your recommendations
Brands repeatedly ask Carr how much to pay for a spot in his gear guides or his books. His answer is always zero, because the moment placement is paid, the authenticity that makes it valuable is gone.
“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 $0. The answer is always $0. People have reached out and said, how much do you need to put my product on your gear guide? And the answer is nothing.”
Framework
Build new readers with free value because legacy authors own the old ones
Carr reasoned that authors like Patterson and King have 30-40 year reader bases he can't match, and today's reader faces far more distractions. His answer: use podcasts, social, and a blog to add free year-round value and manufacture new readers.
“what can I do today to create new readers? Because those authors that have been around for so long, they have a reader base that they have built up over 30, 40 years. I have not done that. And there's more distractions today.”
Steal thisIf incumbents own the existing audience, manufacture a new one by giving away year-round value through channels they ignore.
Story
The garage-startup author: be the CEO, CFO, CMO, and fulfillment all at once
For years Carr ran everything solo, with his wife handling fulfillment amid boxes piled around the house. He compares it to building a computer in a 1976 garage: doing every role himself until the finances justified a team, which only reached 6 people this year.
“it's just been me essentially startup in the garage, making a computer in 1976, 1977, Building all the parts, also letting people know it exists, why they need it, and doing every single— being the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, the creator, being every single piece.”
Framework
The one-pager test: is this worth a year of my life, and would a stranger pay for it?
Before committing to a book, Carr writes a one-page executive summary (like back-cover copy) and asks two questions: is this worth the next year-plus of my life, and would a stranger grabbing it off a Hudson News shelf get excited enough to spend hours they'll never get back?
“I read it to myself and I ask myself that question, is this worth the next year, year and a half of my life? And if the question is yes, if I'm that excited about it, then I read it again and I ask myself another question. If someone's walking by Hudson News in the airport, they're pulling this off the shelf”
Steal thisWrite the one-page pitch first, then gut-check whether it's worth a year of your life and whether a cold stranger would pay for it.
Story
Helping a teammate transition out came back years later as the Chris Pratt deal
Carr once mentored a SEAL teammate, Jared Shaw, through his transition out of the military, expecting nothing back. Five years later Jared called, asked for a copy of Carr's upcoming book to give his best friend Chris Pratt, and that connection became the Amazon Prime show.
“you're the only person that sat me down in your office, talked about transitioning out of the military, introduced me to people in the private sector, followed up with me, said, asked if you could do anything else. And I've never forgotten it, and I always wanted to thank you.”
Steal thisHelp people generously with no expectation of return; the payback can arrive years later from an unexpected direction.
Story
Reinvest everything, even on a credit card, before you can afford it
Carr says he's still only on the cusp of financial freedom because nearly all proceeds have gone back into the business. He funded the premium boxes and movie-quality book trailers out of pocket, on credit early on, rather than holding the cash.
“a lot of this has been invested back in. So I think a lot of people probably would've held on and not done boxes when you can't afford it and put it all on your credit card early on.”
Resource
Carr's storytelling syllabus: Pressfield, King, Morrell, and Campbell
For learning the craft and the business of storytelling, Carr recommends Stephen King's On Writing, Steven Pressfield's books on resistance and doing the work, The Successful Novelist by David Morrell (creator of Rambo), and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
“the one on Stephen King on writing, series of books by Steven Pressfield that all really talk about same thing, but go into different nuances as far as overcoming resistance, doing the work, putting in the time, becoming a professional. So those ones, another one's called The Successful Novelist by David Morrell, who created Rambo with First Blood back in 1972. There's that one. And then The Hero's Journey through Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.”