“Hi Eric. I need your advice on what should i do. I have published my ebook on 1st june. Since then , i am having very hard time in ranking my book. After marketing it everywhere and spending $$$ , only two 5 star reviews so far and it is still ranked at 272000 which is very bad...
...I am giving up this useless kindle writing business. Nothing is working for me. After spending many $$$, i got nothing . I am in negative budget now and i dont think i will be able to cover up my investments. This is my short story -
1. I outsourced writing an ebook. The ebook which my writer wrote is not bad actually. Anyone who read the book really liked it. Its a non-fiction self help book.
2. advertised at more than 70 facebook groups.
3. i saw all these 70+ FB groups is flooded with ebook ads and no one give a shit reading to any ebook.
4. i also submitted my free ebook promotions to 80+ sites, not even a single free download as well.
5. some website asked me $ 300 to ad my book to their website and other website. WTF ! $300?? are they serious?
6. Bart Bagget's suggestions are useless - i tried his suggestions nothing worked.
Anyways thanks for your advices. I wish you all the best in this over-saturated web of kindle publishing.”
— frustrated young author
This happens to us all in the beginning, and it is a perfect example of what happens when we do not VALIDATE our product or book. Since taking the AppSumo business course of Noah Kagan, this has been my biggest takeaway. As I have said in many posts before:
“We must go from a PUSH system to a PULL system. The low hanging fruit in Amazon is gone!”
— Eric Z
So how do we do that?
ONE:
Do NOT write a book until you know people will buy it.
Ok, so ... how do you do that?!
Easy:
- You make a website or blog for each book,
- You make the cover FIRST,
- You write some enticing stuff and previews of your chapters,
- Then most important of all you CAPTURE EMAILS,
- and the best way to do that is with the free tools from SumoMe.com
I show you how to do this in less than 5 minutes:
Note to self: I must revise that video, I do NOT recommend using the Mailchimp pop-up anymore. Not only does it turn off most visitors, it simply pales in comparsion to the functionality of the SumoMe tools.
I cannot thank SumoMe enough, starting my email list and collecting emails has been the turning point, not only in my authoring career but also in my online business.
Now I have a way to directly interact with my customers, now I can easily monetize my website.
“The Money is in the List” — anonymous internet gods
But more importantly, now I can validate my books!
One of the most downright simple way is to make as many websites or blogs as you can, install the SumoMe tools and then just watch to see which book blog collects the most emails if any... = make THAT book!
This way you know people will buy your book when it’s done!
Another AWE-SUM technique?
When your free blog is up and running and you have only a few mails, maybe 10 or 20, you can already invite your list to become BETA-READERS. This is one of the most important interactions you can do.
Repeat:
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT INTERACTIONS YOU CAN DO.
Not only do you make your readers feel special, but you are engaging more deeply with them AND you are improving your book, AND for free dammit!
Isn’t that a gift?
Did I mention that SumoMe is also free?
You can see SumoMe’s List Builder and Scroll Box tool at work on this page. (Note: Normally you should offer a specific bonus to each post. I have not for this one. In this case the bonus is — go to sumome.com and install it on your blog/website.)
I am the laziest person I know, and Steve Jobs said that if he was hiring someone, he would hire the lazy guy, because he would find the most effective way to get a job done — that’s me. Not only do I find the most effective way, but if you are one of my long time readers you know I will find a FREE way too.
This is what we call “Giving Gary”. When we give things away in good will, to build customer trust and rapport. The opposite is “Leaching Larry”. These are the guys who charge you to look at their blog. Can you believe that? Their business usually dies in less than a year too — imho deservedly.
Noah and the team at SumoMe are “Giving Gary’s”, If you want to make money with your books, do what is outlined above. And by the way, I’m not the only one who says that, everyone from Tim Ferriss, Charlie Hoehn and Jim Kukral say so:
How to Make Your Ebook a Run-Away Success: An Interview with Jim Kukral
“Step 1: The very day when you have the idea of the book in your head, sit down, give the book a title, and write down who the book is for.
Step 2: The next step is to create a book cover. You can get that done on Fiverr.com for only $5.
Step 3: Place the image of your bookcover on your blog, on Facebook, or wherever you tend to hang out. You can say, ‘Hey, I’m writing this book,’ and build anticipation. It’s like the way big movies do it. You can see the trailer long before the film is ready for viewing.
Step 4: Create a short video or blog post about your book idea with an email signup form. Six months down the track when you’ve actually written the eBook, you’ll already have a group of customers waiting for it.” — Jim Kukral
SumoMe’s Listbuilder and Scrollbox, the two MUST HAVEs on your authoring website:
Listbuilder Pop-up
Scrollbox:
And while you’re at it, install heatmaps too, it’s awesome — and free:
Do it now, Fail Forward,
Eric
