How to Write a Bestseller A Conversation with Erik Qualman, Author of Socialnomics

with Shane Barker

Erik Qualman joins Shane Barker to discuss the secrets behind his bestselling book Socialnomics. He recounts how real-world insights and creative storytelling propelled him to digital marketing success. From juggling corporate life to publishing six books, Erik’s journey underlines the importance of passion, structure, and authenticity. If you’re curious about what it takes to craft a blockbuster manuscript, Erik’s experiences offer invaluable inspiration and hands-on advice.

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A man wearing glasses and a dark suit with a white shirt stands with arms crossed, smiling confidently at the camera against a plain background.

Today's guest...

Erik Qualman

Erik Qualman is a globally recognized digital leadership speaker, #1 bestselling author, and futurist who has collaborated with organizations ranging from NASA to Disney. Named a Top 50 Digital Influencer by Forbes, Erik coined the term “Socialnomics” to describe how social media transforms business, marketing, and personal connections.

With a background in digital innovation and data-driven insight, Erik has delivered keynotes in over 55 countries, inspiring companies to embrace the possibilities of social platforms and emerging tech. His books—Socialnomics, What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube, and The Focus Project—offer hands-on frameworks for leveraging technology while cultivating a balanced life.

Combining storytelling with actionable advice, Erik is a sought-after mentor for executives, entrepreneurs, and students. Through Equalman Studios, he develops training programs that equip teams to lead with agility, empathy, and foresight. He continues to pioneer digital transformation, empowering individuals and organizations to thrive in the modern world with confidence.

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Episode Show Notes

In this episode of The Marketing Growth Podcast, host Shane Barker speaks with Erik Qualman—author of the bestselling book Socialnomics—about the process behind writing a bestseller. Erik has penned six books, including his latest, The Focus Project, which explores the challenges of staying productive in a world full of distractions. He shares candid insights into how he first dove into digital marketing, working on pioneering websites for automotive giants.

Erik explains how frustration and real-world observations propelled him to write Socialnomics, a groundbreaking book on the power of social media. By focusing on authentic stories and relevant examples, he found a way to make complex digital concepts accessible and entertaining for global audiences.

Listeners will learn about the key elements Erik relies on for a winning manuscript—structure, consistent writing sessions, and genuine passion for the topic. Additionally, he talks about balancing an active speaking career with the demands of producing high-quality content. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, marketer, or simply curious about the genesis of bestsellers, Erik’s journey offers practical tips and enduring inspiration. Tune in to discover how to channel your ideas into a book that resonates with audiences worldwide.

Books mentioned

The Focus Project by Erik Qualman
Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

Brands mentioned
Ahrefs
Cadillac
Pontiac
Yahoo
Travelzoo
Disney
TikTok
SBA
SBDC

Speaker 1

00:10-01:35

Welcome to Marketing Growth podcast. This podcast episode is sponsored by Ahrefs. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and I have with me today Erik Qualman, best-selling author and keynote speaker. In the previous episode, Erik talked about how he got started in digital marketing. Today, we’ll take a deeper dive into his literary journey. Before we start the interview, I wanted to share a success story with you real quick. Here it goes: one of my clients was struggling to drive traffic to their website. They tried all sorts of keywords and SEO strategies, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, they approached me for help. We used a great keyword toolset called Ahrefs to analyze the keywords they were targeting. It turned out their keywords were not the best in terms of cost, competition, or search volume. We started overhauling their SEO strategy step by step. We didn’t want to abandon their high-ranking pages, so we used Ahrefs’ Top Pages feature to compare page performance on the SERP.

Now we knew which pages and backlinks to keep. Next, the tool found keywords worth targeting—the ones with low risk and low volume. It also snooped around their competitor’s website and dug into their keyword analytics. From there, it was just a matter of replicating or improving upon their strategy. Lo and behold, the website started to get some traction. If you’re facing the same traffic issues, head over to ahrefs.com, watch them in action, and sign up for their seven-day trial. It’s just $7; verified website owners can use their Site Audit and Site Explorer tool for free. Just sign up for the Ahrefs webmaster tool—no credit required. For tool details, check out their blog and their YouTube channel.

Speaker 1

01:40-02:19

So let’s talk about this, man. You’ve written six books, right? And that is no small feat, because I started writing my first book when I was four years old, and I still haven’t finished it. Your focus book that I’m going to read—I’m literally going to read it from top to bottom—is going to be like, I’m going to focus on it, and then I’m going to finish my book. But let’s talk a little bit about… you talked a little bit about Socionomics, right? I really want to talk about The Focus Project, because that’s your newest one. Obviously, this is a podcast—nobody can see this—but you have it actually on your staircase. The picture—the guy, the picture—looks exactly like you, which is amazing. Tell us a little bit about that book. Why did you write it? What was the premise behind it? What are you trying to get out there?

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

02:21-04:50

So I was wrestling with it because I own my own company—I’m a speaker, I own my own time. And then I reflected: well, everyone does, you just happen to work at a company, per se, but you’ve made that decision. Each day, I’d fall asleep with my hair on fire. I thought, “This is crazy. If I’m having this issue, everyone must be having it.” I talked to school teachers, CEOs, huge thought leaders—you name it, everyone wrestles with focus. You only have so much time, but you’ve already signed up for all these things that you can’t get to.

It’s not even possible. Yeah. And so I started to get excited about what would happen if this month I just focused on one thing—whether that’s growth or sales—or I focused on just the house, all the stuff that needs to be done around the house. So I started to write down what it would look like if I picked one thing per month. I got super excited and had a list of about 50. Obviously, there are only 12 months in a year, so I cut that down to 12. Then, ironically, I compared that to the number one New Year’s resolutions—almost perfect alignment. New Year’s resolutions across the globe—yeah, almost perfect alignment.

And it’s like, okay, my 12 aligns with what I looked at—what are the top-selling books of all time? Almost perfect alignment, those 12 things. So I go, “Okay, this isn’t necessarily new, but it’s new in this digital world where there are even more distractions, more things chewing up our time.” We’re supposed to be working less; like, there’s a famous 1930s economist, Keynes, who wrote that we’d only be working 15 hours a day because of all this technology. Completely wrong, right? Yeah. So that’s what I was trying to unearth. And in essence, I go, this isn’t easy.

Focus is hard—really, really hard—but it’s about learning the not-so-simple habit of doing less better, the not-so-simple art of doing less better. And that’s what we learned throughout the process and unearthed a ton of stuff. I was the guinea pig, testing essentialism, stoicism—testing all this stuff that might sound good in books, but figuring out what works and what doesn’t. We had a lot of good findings that I’m happy to discuss here, and we moved the book forward. We didn’t anticipate a pandemic. You always want to launch books in October because they sell better, so it’s unheard of and crazy to move a book forward like this. But so many people were pinging us, saying, “Hey, I’m physically okay—I don’t have the virus—but mentally, I’m struggling, and I really need this book. My friend needs it.” So I moved it forward.

Speaker 1

04:50-06:05

That’s awesome. And I tell you, I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t know there was going to be a pandemic before it happened because I thought if anybody, with those glasses, you would totally know. But that’s okay. We can’t do everything. We can’t do everything with focus. I think what I liked about it—and I just started reading a little bit about it—is that you focus on the 12 months. I find focusing difficult myself, and I realize through reading that it’s everybody’s problem. As I look at this, I think if someone like you—with your animation, your book, your speaking—even at a smaller level than you, I can’t imagine what you have to deal with focus-wise, with your team and all your launches, and then how to be more productive and focus better.

Because it’s like, great—we get interns, we get this, we get that. We have people helping us, but how do we really become laser focused when it comes to getting stuff done? I think the fact that you did that in 12 months—really focused on one thing and actually did it—is amazing. I don’t know if there’s enough medication for me, and I’m not heavily medicated—I probably should be—but I just imagine how hard it was to transition and say, “Okay, this month I’m gonna focus on mindfulness,” and to do that.

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

06:05-09:13

No, very hard. Truth be told, the first year was a bunch of fails—four times I tried to do this and failed. That shows how hard it is. Then the fifth time, it finally stuck. In the book, we talk a lot about not going for perfection, but for progress. There are CEOs I talk to off stage; I say, “Whoa, this person has 20,000 people underneath them.” I go, “What’s your secret to success?” And they say, “Focus.” Then I ask, “What’s your biggest challenge?”

Each and every day, they go “Maintaining that focus.” Yeah, so that’s what we’re trying on Earth: we’re not going for perfection; we’re going for progress. I actually graded myself each month, and you brought up mindfulness, which is great, because I think, off the top of my head, I got a C-plus that month, which was so much better than the F I was getting. We know we’re supposed to journal, do yoga, and meditate, but it’s finding that time and doing it consistently.

And so, a C-plus is much better than my F, but there’s still a long way for me to go. It’s not necessarily that we don’t know what we need to do—it’s how to do it. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I’m gonna ask you a question, because it’s helpful to know yourself. Learning is about knowing your strengths and how to play to them, or basically, know thyself and go deep on it. Focus on that.

So there’s basically four focus animals that we figured out: the Hedgehog, the Chameleon, the Army Ant, and the Squirrel. Now we’re gonna major in one and minor in another. You probably have some tendencies of all four, but you really major in one and minor in the others. So, a squirrel—you can probably imagine that’s FOMO, right? You’re really good at starting projects, and then you go to the next shiny thing, and that can be a good thing. You might be in sales and able to kick off a project, but you can’t finish it because the next thing looks too good. So that’s what a squirrel looks like. If you look at a chameleon, a chameleon is a people pleaser, and normally that’s a good thing, right? When you think about tribes for thousands of years, they’ve been really good at helping people. You have good emotional intelligence, but you might be doing something like filling in the blank—saying, “I’ll be in this role because my kids are in school, and I really need to pay for their education.” So you’re putting someone else first, which is okay, but you’re not chasing your dream. And that’s a problem for everybody in that segment.

It is. You might not think that, but that’s what a chameleon looks like—putting others first. For example, saying, “I’m gonna get a degree in accounting because my mom’s an accountant and I’ll make her happy.” That’s an example of a chameleon. Their focus goes to the other person; their focus isn’t on their own dream. If you look at some of the other ones, the Army Ant can carry 5,000 times its weight, but that doesn’t mean it should, because it might not go down the hill in the hole. You can’t get it in there, yeah. And so that’s what I kind of major in. I take on too many things at once, and one of the big learnings was that you’ll actually get more done when you focus on one thing at a time rather than parallel processing a bunch of stuff. And so that one’s really intriguing from that standpoint. So of those three I mentioned, which one do you think jumps out?

Speaker 1

09:13-10:29

So it’s funny. Army Ant used to be me. I was really terrible at delegation—I used to take on everything myself. Then something happened—an epiphany. I realized I couldn’t keep going in that direction. So I pivoted, and now I have a great team of 36 awesome people.

I would say the squirrel thing used to be a big issue. COVID actually helped me with that because the squirrel thing was like, “Hey, we should do this. Hey, we started doing this,” and I’m like, “Oh, look, we can do this too.” Then my team was like, “Oh, what about this?” and I’m like, “Oh, we’ll keep doing that, and we’ll do this too.” And they’re like, “Oh, cool. Should we hire more people?” No, let’s do it with the current. And they’re like, “How do we…?” And then, obviously, we had 10 projects going. COVID helped me with this because what I did was re-evaluate.

“Hey, I’ve got 10 things going. What is really making money? How much time am I putting into that? And is it beneficial for the community or for people?” I started to look at that and went, wait a minute. I cut out four or five projects that were just going because we had enough money to do them, and that’s great, but the problem is there’s really no benefit to it yet, right? I mean, it’s like, why am I continuously doing this at 10% and not going to really get it done for another year when there’s no benefit to putting tons of resources into other stuff? And then the chameleon is actually interesting, because I think…

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

10:30-10:53

I forgot a hedgehog, but I was projecting you. But your listeners might be a hedgehog. A hedgehog is someone who essentially will say, “I’ll write a book once I get a master’s in writing.” Do you feel like you have to have armor before you go into the arena—like, “I’m going to do that tomorrow when I’ve completed XYZ,” rather than starting today? So that’s what a hedgehog looks like. I was kind of projecting and going over it, because I know you probably don’t have that tendency, but some of the listeners might.

Speaker 1

10:54-12:18

Yeah, yeah, I actually—hedgehog is not an issue for me. I’m just going to go do it because I can and I will, other than writing my book, which I started when I was four years old, but haven’t finished. But the chameleon thing kind of resonates with me a little bit as well, because I do think that sometimes I like to help other people, right? And that’s kind of my thing, and that’s the reason I jumped into the SBA stuff: it’s like, I can help people.

So I’m kind of putting some of my stuff aside, saying, “Listen, I could make more money doing this or doing that, but I really would love to help people who can’t sleep at night because their business is crumbling.” And if I can put some ease to that, then I think that’s where my calling is—like, “Hey, I’ve learned all this; how can I give it to people?” Of course, we’re creating a course now so that I can help thousands of people instead of individual people at once.

So I kind of feel like I’m a combination of all of them. But I would say probably the chameleon, because the squirrel used to be that, and, you know, the hedgehog—I’m not too worried about, “Hey, I can do anything I put my mind to.” I’ve got a great team; we can do it. But the focus on stuff—literally, when I say this, it’s not just me saying it for the podcast—is that focusing on stuff because of COVID has helped me, and I think reading your book is going to help me as well in being able to do that. So I’m excited about that for sure. I know that we’re going to talk about—you obviously got it on Amazon. Are you also going to be doing an Audible?

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

12:19-12:40

I’m reading it. We just have to confirm that I didn’t screw up too many times because I’m not a professional reader, but I think there’s something when the author actually reads the book—I provide insights here and there that aren’t in the printed form. That should be out in about a week or two. I’ve finished reading it, and my voice still functions somehow after reading the whole thing, but we’re all good.

Speaker 1

12:40-13:31

I think that is awesome. I agree with you. I listen to a lot of Audible books. In fact, my big thing is—I call it “beer and a book.” I live in Sacramento, so I’ll drive to South Lake Tahoe—it’s about two hours. I’ll listen to the book all the way there, go to a brewery, have a beer, have some food, and drive back. I’ve done that once again. The reason I do it is because it’s awesome—then I can focus while I’m driving. Otherwise, I’m like, “Oh, I can do this. I can do this.”

And then I’ve got ADHD, and it’s like, there goes the focus. We’re missing that. So now I force myself—my wife asks, “Where are you going?” I’m like, “B and B,” and she goes, “Okay, I’m doing a beer and a book.” She’s a nurse and works the night graveyard or whatever. So anyway, I’ll just go, and I shoot out and say, “Alright, here we go. I want to go to this brewery. It’s three hours away. I’ll get a six-hour book and just go back and forth.” That’s how I’m forcing myself to focus on that stuff.

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

13:32-13:57

So I love that. “Beer and a book.” That’s awesome. And then you probably know this—I looked this up today—the average Audible book is 10 hours. I was looking across because I finished one that was 10 hours, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, is that crazy long? Because I’m writing a book on focus. Is that too long?” Then I looked it up. Tim Ferriss is 22 hours, four and a half hours, 14 hours; Ray Dalio is 17. But then I looked at Malcolm Gladwell—seven, eight hours; Essentialism was six and a half. So it’s kind of funny. That’s funny.

Speaker 1

13:57-14:21

That’s funny. Yeah, I think you’re solid at Tim. The thing is, now I just have to find a brewery for your book because I’m gonna get it on Audible as well. I just have to find a brewery that’s five hours away. So that’s my goal. I have a brewery map, and I’m like, “This is four and a half. No, not far enough. Five, five and 15 minutes. That’s it.” So your book will be—I have the PDF, I’m gonna take some notes, look at that, and then I’m gonna actually listen to it. I’m gonna focus, yeah.

Erik Qualman

Speaker 2

14:21-14:25

We wrote in modular format so you can skip around, so you’re okay if you skip a section or two.

Speaker 1

14:26-14:36

No, that’s me not focusing, buddy. I gotta go straight from page one to page 350, or whatever it is—I gotta go all in. If not, then I’m not gonna finish it. And there we go.

Speaker 1

14:39-14:49

Thanks, Erik, that was really exciting. In the next episode, I’m excited to chat about your animation studio, Equalman. I’m curious to know more about it. Stay tuned for another insightful episode with Erik Qualman.