Smokin’ hot books® is officially a registered trademark, yall! 🔥
On April 28, 2026, I got the notification from my trademark lawyer, Berkley Sweetapple.
Smokin’ Hot Books® is a USPTO trademark.
It was a breeze to work with Berkley and her team.
I get a lot of questions about the name “Smokin’ Hot Books®”.
Where did it come from?
Do I write erotic fiction?
I do love me a good romance novel, but no.
I was just in Spain, biking with some friends I met on Substack.
One of my new friends, Cristina, who speaks predominantly Spanish, asked me what “smokin’ hot” meant, as someone not familiar with the American idiom.
Smokin’ hot has many connotations, but to me, it means…
Energia. 🔥
Rapido. 🔥
¡Andale, andale! 🔥
In 2022, I signed up for a book marketing mastermind hosted by Steve Harrison (one of Robert Kiyosaki’s first book marketers) and Jack Canfield (who co-created Chicken Soup for the Soul, the world’s first billion dollar book brand).
Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand, hosts book marketing masterminds for authors.
I was there because I wanted to be in the room with successful book marketers.
At the time, I had a book that was making me around $5,000/month in book sales alone.
But, I was comparing myself to other people who were making $20k, $30k, $40k/month in book sales alone…
And I was looking for a way to get there.
This mastermind was filled with successful entrepreneurs of many flavors.
Many of them who had founded and were running million-dollar companies from scratch.
Incredible stuff.
I felt intimidated.
The imposter syndrome was real.
About 24 of us had signed up for this mastermind.
Each of us took turns, in alphabetical order, to present our book and our problem.
Each of these incredible entrepreneurs, successful in their own right, talked about their book.
How they were proud of it.
But they were struggling to sell it.
Maybe they had sold 100, 200 copies.
(Maybe that sounds like you?)
Many of them had paid an agency to help them write the book & build some landing pages.
But the reason they wrote the book, which was impact, leads, and authority, still felt so far away.
Their books stayed in cardboard boxes in their office.
And it was hurting them.
Slowly, I recognized a pattern.
When it was finally time for my hot seat, I took a shaky breath, and realized I could proclaim something I could finally be proud of.
“I wrote a book about rainwater harvesting. It has sold over 8,000 copies so far.
It’s smokin’!”
That book had quietly opened opportunities for me over the past year, such as podcast invitations, speaking invitations, and trips to Hawai’i, on autopilot.
A publisher from New York pitched me to buy the rights to it.
A publisher from Italy was scrambling for the rights to translate the book for the Italian market.
Just last week, a book club asked to feature it. A publisher from France wants the French rights.
I realized what I had was what many entrepreneurs wished they could have.
A smokin’ hot book.
One that opens doors, makes impact, gets people fired up about what’s possible for them.
I started to realize I knew way more about book marketing than I originally thought.
And that I could help people, in my own way.
I started talking to potential clients, and the people who had failed books know exactly what it meant to desire a book that was smokin’ hot.
Because they know the acute pain of putting everything they have into a book that flops.
I know that feeling well ($20k spent on 4 flopped books. Yeah, it sucks.)
I also know what it’s like to finally see your book take off, with the right strategy.
And my clients, who have had failed books in the past, know what it’s like, to have a smokin’ hot book now too.
So here’s your invitation:
When will your book be smokin’ hot? :)
Can’t wait to see where your book takes you.
Best,
Renee