Case Study · Book Launch & Live Events
Austin Mayor Steve Adler
The former Austin mayor had a book coming out. We ran the whole launch: filmed the campaign, built the ads, managed the marketing, and covered his book events live. The book went to #1 on Amazon.
Who we work with
Steve Adler served as mayor of Austin while it became the fastest-growing big city in America. Hot Seat, Hot City is his account of governing through it: housing, COVID, homelessness, policing, and the calls no one else could make.
Endorsements and foreword as printed in the book.
The challenge
A book's launch week is decided before it ships. Pre-orders drive launch-week rankings, and rankings decide whether a book about one city reaches readers in every other one. Hot Seat, Hot City had a fixed August 25 ship date and a five-week window to build that momentum.
A launch like this has a lot of moving parts: the videos, the posts, the ads, the emails, and the events after the book ships. Most authors stitch that together from several vendors and end up managing all of them. Steve needed one team to own it.
The subject matter raised the stakes. Housing, homelessness, and policing are topics where one wrong post reads like a political ad instead of a story, and a former mayor's comments section is never quiet.
What we did
Filmed the whole campaign up front
We captured every video in our Austin studio over one weekend, before the first post went live. From then on, the campaign never waited on Steve's calendar.
Designed the ads around it
We put paid spend behind the posts that were already winning on their own, on Facebook and Instagram, and pointed every dollar at the book page instead of at impressions.
Managed the marketing end to end
Steve approved the plan once. We wrote the copy for every platform, timed it with his email newsletter, and published every post on schedule.
The campaign arc
Five weeks, built like the book itself, with every post pointing at launch day.
The open
The announcement, starting with the hardest three weeks of his time in office, then the story behind the foreword.
Chapter by chapter
Housing, COVID, homelessness, the Uber and Lyft fight, policing, and race, each told as a true story from inside City Hall.
The person behind it
His first campaign in fourth grade, the ultimatum that got him to run, and what a mayor knows that national politics forgets.
The closer
A final push built on the mayors' own words, with one last call to pre-order before the book shipped.
Then we covered the tour
The launch didn't stop at the posts. When Steve took the book on stage, our crew was in the room for the whole thing.
In conversation with Congressman Greg Casar
Full coverage of the conversation, the audience Q&A, and the signing line, with clean audio and reaction shots throughout.
A second conversation and signing
A two-camera crew on the panel, the room, the books, and the people waiting to meet him.
Every talk becomes content: clips for social, footage for the next launch, and proof that people show up.
The work
The video that opened the campaign, as it ran on Steve's LinkedIn.
The outcome
Hot Seat, Hot City shipped on August 25 and went to #1 in its Amazon category. The campaign carried the pre-order window from the first announcement to launch eve, so the book arrived with readers already waiting for it.
One team owned every piece of it, from the first studio take to the last book signed. Steve wrote the book. We handled everything it took to get it read.
Have a launch
coming up?
A book, a course, a speaking tour. A free 30-minute strategy call, no pitch deck, no obligation.
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