How Grapevine’s Chip Gaines Took a Willy Wonka Strategy in New Memoir Promotion

Chip Gaines must have been watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory just before he released his new book, No Pain, No Gaines: The Good Stuff Doesn’t Come Easy.

In a video that Gaines shared on social media, the Fixer Upper alum revealed that he’s hiding special tickets worth $1,000 cash and other goodies inside 10 copies of his self-help memoir, which was released March 16. Those tickets, which also are good for a $500 VISA gift card and a tour of the Magnolia Market grounds in Waco if his book ordered through the Magnolia website.

“If you’re lucky enough to pre-order at the right exact second, you will find a $1,000 check,” Gaines said in the clip.

Well, the deadline has passed, and whether those checks remain nearly two weeks into the book’s release remains to be seen. In two weeks, Gaines’ 224-page book (retail: $26.99) has sold 18,300 copies and is fifth on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover frontlist nonfiction rankings.

But it’s like that rascal Gaines, who graduated from Grapevine High School in 1993, to try a Willy Wonka golden ticket approach to book promotion.

On Fixer Upper, Chip Gaines was the comedic relief in the Waco husband/wife house renovation series that ran on HGTV from 2013-2017. His wife, Joanna, the more serious partner, writes a heartfelt four-page foreword.

The book is Gaines’ second. His first book was titled Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff. In No Pain, No Gaines, he opens up about how he and Joanna would not have been able to create the family’s Magnolia empire without a supportive network of people. He explained in detail in a Q&A interview in Entrepreneur magazine.

“This is a book about networks … not a book about networking,” Gaines said in the book’s promotional release.