As an Eagles fan and someone who works in publishing, nothing has fascinated me more so far in 2025 than the Inner Excellence story. For those who aren’t aware, Inner Excellence is a book by Jim Murphy that went completely viral after Philadelphia Eagles star wideout AJ Brown was caught reading it on the sidelines of their playoff game against Green Bay.

The video caught waves and the book sold millions of copies, reaching #1 on the Amazon bestseller list practically overnight.

Perhaps the funniest part of this whole thing is the fact that (according to Nick Sirianni, the Eagles head coach) AJ had actually been reading books on the sideline all season. It was only until the playoffs that a camera happened to capture him reading, and it led to a meteoric rise in book sales for Murphy.

Knowing Eagles fans, this isn’t really a surprise. Philly fans are a collection of localized diehards who tend to obsess over even the most miniscule details of their teams, and something like their football team’s #1 wide receiver reading a book in the middle of an important game made for an easy new in-game obsession.

After the Eagles won the NFC championship, fans took the celebration to Broad Street, and some fans even brought copies of the book with them and were reading them while climbing the poles. Never change, Philly fans!

When asked by reporters about why he reads during the games, Brown tweeted, “This game is 90% mental and 10% physical for me. I bring it to every game and I read it between each drive. I use it to refocus and lock in despite what may transpire in the game good or bad.”

After Murphy’s book exploded in sales, Murphy went to the NovaCare complex to meet AJ Brown in person and thank him for making his book an overnight sensation. I have no idea if Murphy was an Eagles fan before AJ Brown, but if he wasn’t, we’re happy to welcome him to the coop.

Inner Excellence, as the name implies, is a self-help book about the methodology and performance secrets of some of the top athletes, artists, and successful performers in the way they train, prepare, and go about routine habits that lead to their excellence. The mental aspect – how they think and give themselves confidence – is a major aspect of the book’s message.

Murphy himself was an athlete, a former outfielder for the Chicago Cubs, and has also tamed his mind and spirit through the methodology he studied and researched the secrets of excellence for 9 years and traveled abroad to over 50 countries. Murphy confessed he didn’t think anyone would read his book and pushed himself into debt before he released it.

This entire story got me to thinking: what’s meant to be, will be.

For authors and readers, the topic of social media and book publicity has probably already been discussed ad nauseum, but I think Murphy’s situation paints a valid picture of the social media game when it comes to publishers. Social media is very unpredictable, and a lot of what determines what becomes viral or not is completely random.

While there are plenty of ways to manipulate the algorithm via keywords, SEO, hashtags, trends, etc., what we’re left with is thousands of “sludge posts” that cram up the place and become essentially white noise.

The internet used to be so much empty space, the early 2000s were truly a “new frontier” in every sense of the word, but the decades since the internet has felt crowded; so many more ways to share your voice, yet fewer and fewer ways to be heard. As if everyone is talking into a megaphone at once, trying to share their message.

It’s got me to wondering, sometimes the key to a bestseller is just about believing in the book. While we can sit here and stress about hashtags and keywords, here’s Jim Murphy whose book sold millions purely by some unintentional publicity, because AJ Brown – and subsequently, an entire fanbase – felt aligned with the message of Inner Excellence. That’s the beauty of social media sometimes.

It also helps that Self-help is already massive genre in the industry. The late 2010s to early 2020s boom led by Atomic Habits by James Clear, Don’t Overthink It by Anne Bogel, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, and a bevy of other books have time and again shown readers’ desires for bettering themselves and listening to the personal anecdotes of those who have made breakthroughs spiritually and mentally in their lives.

Obviously so much of book publicity strategies these days contain social media, even with the recent upheavals (TikTok banning, Musk-Twitter takeover, Meta’s data scandals, dead internet theory, etc.), which I have no qualms with, and I still push to my writers to keep at least a mild social media presence – though it isn’t required.

My advice to authors seeking advice on social media and publicity, don’t stress about the numbers and SEO, and focus on the message of your book, why it’s important, and how it can impact millions of readers. Because AJ Brown’s influence may have brought the horse to water, but it was the message and theme of Murphy’s book that made it drink.