Case Study:#1 Bestselling Author Philipp HummFrom Newbie to 1M+ Followers and Leading Storytelling Expert
How Philipp Humm followed my course as a complete beginner with no following, wrote a bestselling book, and built an audience of over 1 million followers.
By Gundi Gabrielle
12 min read
This Philipp Humm case study is about one of my own students, and he is the reason I love sharing these stories.
Philipp came to my course as a complete beginner, with no following, no author platform and no book. He followed my teachings, and he was also one of my coaching clients. Today he is a bestselling author with a following of over one million across platforms, and speaking and coaching engagements around the world.
I had him on my Author Success Stories series to find out how he did it. The full interview is right here, and below it I've pulled out what I think any nonfiction author can copy.
One note before we start: this interview comes from Bestseller Empire, the pre-AI version of my course. Golden Bestseller Empire is its next chapter. The methods are exactly the same, and they're timeless: finding the gap, researching it properly, building a launch team and giving readers a reason to join your list. What's new is that you now have AI-assisted tools and 31+ one-click generators that make every one of those steps even easier.
Who is Philipp Humm, and why is his story worth studying?
Philipp is a storytelling and communication coach from the Netherlands. Through Storylab he offers training, workshops, courses and coaching in storytelling, presentation skills and communication. He has three books to his name, including The StorySelling Method and Public Speaking with Confidence, and he speaks and coaches around the world.
He is also a creator with real reach. His Instagram shows 887K followers, and his YouTube channel has around 300K subscribers, so his audience is well over a million across platforms.
Here's the part I love most: Philipp did not start with that audience. He started with a book idea, a corporate job and my course. The books came first, and the following grew from them.
π Want your own book to be the start of something? Golden Bestseller Empire walks you through it. β See how it works
How did Philipp learn to do all this?
He learned it from me. Philipp took my Bestseller Empire course as a complete newbie with no following, and he was also one of my coaching clients. He followed my teachings step by step, applied them to his own topic, and made them his own.
That's what makes him such a good case study for my course and my methods. He wasn't a famous author or a marketer who already had an audience. He was a corporate consultant who followed the process, and this is what it led to.
The tools are what changed since then. Back when Philipp learned this, every step meant doing the work by hand. Today the same method lives inside Golden Bestseller Empire, with the AI-assisted tools doing much of the heavy lifting, while the writing stays yours.
How did a corporate consultant end up writing a bestselling sales book?
Philipp spent about ten years in a corporate career, working as a consultant and a product manager. He wasn't in sales, and he wasn't a storytelling expert.
Then he started looking into storytelling and noticed something. Almost everything out there, the books and the courses, focused on big stage storytelling, the kind you see in TED Talks. That's lovely to watch, but he realized it was no help in a real sales conversation, where you might have one or two minutes to share a story.
Those short stories were what salespeople actually needed. And nobody had written the book on them.
π Starting from zero, like Philipp did? Golden Bestseller Empire guides you step by step. β See the 8 steps
Why did finding a smaller niche make the difference?
This is the lesson I teach again and again in my course. Sales training is one of the most crowded markets there is, with courses and books everywhere. Yet one specific need inside it had no good book at all.
Philipp didn't try to be another general sales author. He picked a smaller, underserved slice, short stories for sales conversations, and became the go-to person for it.
That's how you win in a competitive topic. You don't need an empty market. You need a specific question that readers are asking and nobody has answered well.
I've seen the same pattern in other success stories in this series, like a clinical director who wrote the first book on servant leadership for medical professionals. A niche inside a big market is where a new author can stand out.
How did Philipp research his book?
He didn't guess. Philipp contacted 72 executives and sales leaders and interviewed them for the book. Over a few months he gathered what they told him, pulled the best practices together, and packaged them so anyone could understand them quickly.
He told me that packaging is what he does best, and I'd say it's one of the most underrated skills in nonfiction. Readers don't pay for information they could find anywhere. They pay for the best of it, organized, tested and made easy.
His first book even opens with a story about a young sales representative whose results jumped after she started using his method. That's the method itself, used to open the book.
How did he write the book without waiting for inspiration?
Philipp told me that a few years earlier he would have said he'd never write a book. If he ever did, he figured he'd hire a ghostwriter.
What changed was a mindset shift. He started treating the book like a business project, much like launching a first version of a product. What is the goal of the book? What is the structure? Then fill in the blanks, and if you don't know something, interview someone who does.
He also borrowed structure from books he admired. He mentioned how clean the writing in a well-known business book is, and decided to take the same style and structure and apply the best practices to his own topic.
I agree with him completely. A nonfiction book is a business tool, a tutorial for your reader. You are not waiting for the muse. You are presenting information in a way that's easy to follow.
π Have a story only you can tell? Your own words stay in your book with Golden Bestseller Empire. β Start your book
How did he build a launch team of about 150 readers?
This is where Philipp stood out the most. In my course I tell authors to aim for at least 100 people on a launch team, because only about a third of them will actually leave a review. He went well past that.
He told me he decided early to invest the effort in building a big launch team rather than struggle later with too few reviews. His approach was simple:
- He invited everyone on his newsletter.
- He invited his connections on LinkedIn and anywhere else he was active on social media.
- He emailed past clients, which was one of his best sources.
- He posted in his Facebook group.
- He kept everyone informed: four weeks before launch, two weeks before launch when the book was sent, and the day before launch.
By his own estimate, his launch team ended up around 150 people. For his next book he plans to aim for 300 to 500, because every extra review on launch day makes the whole life of the book easier.
He admitted the constant reminders felt a little cringey, like following up in sales. But they work, and your readers are getting a free advance copy of a book on a topic they care about.
What did a BookBub feature do for his book?
Philipp told me that the promotion that made the biggest difference was a BookBub feature. He was accepted twice for the US market, as he remembers it, and he called it a massive lift. He was turned down on a third try, which happens. BookBub gives its readers a break from the same authors, and being accepted is also a compliment to the quality of the book.
For the first push he followed my Power Launch method from the course. What I'd take from this: a launch is not one trick. It is a launch team, reviews, a strong cover and title, promotions, and ads, working together.
How does a free lead magnet turn a bestselling book into an email list?
Philipp's newsletter was the biggest source of his launch team, which shows how valuable an email list is around a book. My advice is to put a free resource, called a lead magnet, inside your book that readers can get in exchange for their email address. When a book is selling well, especially around launch, it's the best moment to grow your list, because readers are excited and ready to join.
Then the next book gets easier. You're marketing it to people who already like your work. The second time is always easier than the first, and that's why the first book matters so much.
π Launch day is easier with a plan. Golden Bestseller Empire includes launch tools and my proven strategies. β See the launch tools
How did he face his fear of public speaking in his second book?
His second book, Public Speaking with Confidence, comes from a very personal place. Philipp told me he used to be terrified of speaking in front of people. His heart raced, he sweated and he couldn't get a word out.
Over the years he found techniques that worked, and the one he calls the most effective is constructive embarrassment. You put yourself on purpose into an embarrassing situation, in small steps. His first time, he went into a coffee shop and lay down on the floor. Other options he mentioned include asking a stranger for a high five or singing in the subway.
What you find out is that it's not nearly as bad as you imagined. And I love how the story turns a personal struggle into a book that helps other people who feel the same way. That's often where the best nonfiction comes from.
What would I do next if I were Philipp?
At the end of our interview I shared my advice for taking a book like his even further, and I think it applies to any nonfiction author with a book that solves a clear business problem.
- Reach out to corporations. Sales managers at big companies can make a book recommended reading for hundreds or thousands of salespeople. For a company, a few books are a small marketing expense.
- Look at business schools and MBA programs. If a book becomes part of a curriculum, it keeps selling for years.
- Send copies to thought leaders in your field. If they like it, they may recommend it to their own audience, and other people's audiences are the best traffic there is.
A book on a topic that never goes out of style, like storytelling in sales, can keep working in the background while it brings in clients, speaking invitations and new readers.
What can you learn from Philipp Humm's case study?
If you take only a few things from Philipp, take these:
- Find the smaller gap inside a big market. Short stories for sales conversations beat another general sales book.
- Research beats guessing. Interviewing 72 experts gave him material no one else had.
- Treat your book like a business project. Set the goal, build the structure, fill in the blanks.
- Build your launch team early and keep it informed. Aim for more people than you think you need.
- Give readers a reason to join your list. A free resource inside the book turns buyers into subscribers.
- Let the book lead to everything else. Coaching, courses, speaking and a bigger audience can follow.
Philipp's results are his own, and results vary from author to author. See my Earnings Disclaimer.
How does this fit Amazon's new book algorithm?
Philipp's niche worked because he understood what his readers wanted and described it clearly. That matters even more now, because Amazon is moving toward relationship-based discovery, where a book is understood by who it's for and what it solves, not only by keywords. I've explained how that works in How to Get Your Book Page Ready for AI Shopping.
This is exactly why I built Golden Bestseller Empire the way I did. Your Book Planner blueprint is turned into an algorithm-ready outline and a knowledge graph. That same blueprint then feeds your book description, A+ content, backend keywords, translations and Amazon ads keywords. I don't know of another app that does that.
And your book stays yours. The Writing Studio works like a word processor where you write or dictate, with an AI Writing Coach and an AI Editor on your side. I used the app myself to write and publish AI for Beginners, and it reached #1 within three days.
Watch the full Philipp Humm interview
If you'd like to hear Philipp tell it in his own words, including the Starbucks story, watch the full interview above, or visit his YouTube channel and Storylab.
If you have a book inside you, whatever the topic, I'd love to help you get it out, the same way I helped Philipp. Golden Bestseller Empire guides you from your first idea to a published book, step by step, with a full publishing course and AI-assisted tools, and your words stay yours. When you're ready, take a look here.
That's the Philipp Humm case study: a complete beginner with no following, my course, a gap nobody had filled, and a book that started everything.
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Created By
Top 100 Business Author Β· Carnegie Hall Conductor Β· Founder of Golden Bestseller Empire
Hey, I'm Gundi, and for over a decade, I've helped thousands of everyday people turn what they know into a bestselling book.
Along the way, I sold over 350,000 books, and was listed in Amazon's Top 100 Business Author Charts, ahead of authors like Simon Sinek, BrenΓ© Brown, Tim Ferriss, Robert Kiyosaki, or Brian Tracy.
No traditional publisher. No massive budget. Just understanding Amazon's algorithm and researching what readers actually want.
In my earlier years, I was a classical conductor & organist, touring the world, incl. Carnegie Hall & a performance for the Pope on St. Peter's Square.
These days, I love traveling as a Digital Nomad and orchestrating busy AI Agents π. Out of that came Golden Bestseller Empire β a complete AI-Powered Book Publishing Studio now helping authors around the world.
Can't wait to see you inside & help you publish your dream:
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