The Top Ten Ways to Market Your Book - Lessons Learned - 2016 - 2017

The Zbooks.co Successful Authors Podcast

Lessons Learned in 2015 and 2016 plus the Top Ten Ways to Market Your Book

Well my friends, I couldn't get an interviewee on time -this- time, so here I go alone! 

Hope you like it and remember it's available on iTunes HERE.

                                             

Show notes:

Top Ten Ways to Market Your Book

1. Word of mouth - or better said "Influencer Outreach"

I ask you this:

What's easier, tweeting something 10,000 times, or getting an influencer to send one message to his/her 10,000 followers?

Steps

1- Start a spreadsheet.

2- Make columns: Influencer Name, Influencer Website, Influencer Email, His/Her top 5 posts.

You are building your DREAM TEAM here of the top influencers in your niche. The people you would most LOVE to have promote YOU!

3- JOIN HIS / HER MAILING LIST!

4 - DO one of their tutorials.

5- Report the results to him/her.

Basically you must develop a relationship (at least a cyber or online relationship) with this person and help them. If you do one of their tutorials and show some good results, they will LOVE to show you off on their website and then promote your book too!

Advantages

You get promoted to an influencer’s list of 10k+ !

Disadvantages

None - aboslutely none.

2. Publish a free book or cheatsheet on amazon which is linked to your “full” book.

This is the most awesome technique — and my favorite method. As long as your free book is on amazon, it is "sitting" there collecting leads!

Steps

Go here: I will be teaching this in a live 7 Day Challenge - sign up here! !

Sometimes called the “perma free” model, you publish a book or preliminary material for free and it acts as the tip of your book funnel. Funneling readers to your other — paid books.

Advantages:

• You can test your titles and keywords on the actual platform(!) before you pubish the full book.
• You BUILD your list before launch — for FREE!
• As long as your free book is on Amazon you are getting free traffic to your blog or book landing page!

Disadvantages:

• None! What are the disadvantages of publishing a book? If it bombs just unpublish it!

3. Your own website/book landing page/author page - A MUST!

Get the SEO right and you will have a constant stream of views - for FREE.

Get the offer right, and you will have a constant income!

This is actually the preferred method if you are publishing a high value information product. E.g. Pat Flynn sold his book on his blog which helped people pass the LEEDS exam. He made 8,000 in the first month!

And our very own Zbook’er Jean-Yves Ponce does the very same, and sells his book as a pdf on his website.

Steps

See this post and podcast

http://www.zbooks.co/2015/11/the-most-awesome-seo-blueprint-ever_9.html

Advantages:

• You don’t need to promote yourself. Your audience is Google and Bing and all the other search engines.
• You can charge a MUCH HIGHER price than if you put your book on Amazon. Pat Flynn charges $24 for his .pdf!

Disadvantages:

• It is very tricky. SEO is a pseudo-science and has a HUGE learning curve.
• You are totally at the mercy of Goog’s whims. They change their search algorithm constantly. If you think you can game them — you are definitively wrong.

4. Facebook ads - still the KING of paid advertisement

This is my new favorite method, and as you know by now, the subject of my signature course Facebook Ads for Authors Crash Course.

You can see the posts on the blog, and soon the guest post on Kindlepreneur.com .

Long story short:

I use these to build up my list for launch, about 3 months in advance —  and they work like magic!  

Once you get the targeting right, it’s like turning on a faucet!

Steps

Get your FREE training here!

http://bookmaster.co/fafacc-a/

Advantages:

• You build your list FAST!
• Your list stays “warm” and you have high open rates.
• You can reach a lot of people around the world at the flip of a switch.

Disadvantages:

• It costs money, -BUT- this is almost not a disadvantage; because when you are A-B testing your ads, you get subscribers even from the less successful ads = awesome!

5. Email drops

Everyone is going to tell you BookBub here, but BookBub costs over $300 AND - does not accept any book without 75 reviews.

My platform of choice: BuckBooks. As you saw in my last mail, it works!

My recommendation:

Do a Buck Books promo, and when you finally get 75 reviews on your book, THEN apply at BookBub.

Nothing can beat BookBub’s list — they have over a MILLION subscribers!

Steps

7. Blog Tours

This is my next conquest, and I will be trying this for Be Freud and report back to you.

For now, here is an awesome article with the best resources:

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2014/02/greg-strandberg/

8. Forums "Arbitrage"

This could be any forum, everyone thinks of Facebook, but I have found FB to be the LEAST effective.

The most effective is a forum for your niche, like The World's Largest Poetry Site or the Kboards (go there first!)

Reddit is supposed to be very good too but...

Pinterest is gaining on them all and leaving them in the dust, check out Nick Loper's latest podcast with a very successful blogger who is really acing it with FREE pinterest methods.

9. Tools

KdRoi is very good here, it submits to over 30 sites!

Wesly Atkins the mastermind behind KdSpy and KdRoi is constantly updating the tool and adding sites. As it is, when I use the tool for my funky non-fiction books I get at least 10 or more sales.

That’s not ground-breaking, but it’s not chopped liver either.

10. Hybrid technique

ALL of the above or a combination thereof!

If you want results NOW as in really right now — TODAY:

I recommend doing #2, #4, and #5.

Read More

The Pre-sale method, Shortcut to a bestseller, D2D vs Smashwords vs Amazon KDP

Happy New Year My Friends! This is the first post of the year, I hope you like it and I hope it adds value to your authoring process:

Related posts:

What Every Author Must Do

Tyler Wagner The Launch Expert

If you are not using the PRE-SALES technique in D2D or Smashwords ... you are doing it wrong![highlight to tweet!]

Get the show notes , and PDF presentation with all the links here:

Get the show notes , and PDF presentation with all the links here:

1. This is to date, imho the best book on the pre- order launch technique. It’s linked just click here >>>
2. D2D and Smashwords Pre-sales Launch 3 months to 1 year (!) No rank! Why Pre-sell? Because those pre-sales count on launch day, and can spike your sales to the top of the bestseller and “what’s hot” categories in Smash,D2D, AND iTunes!
3. Amazon Pre-sales Launch 3 months only Ranked! In Amazon the pre-sales count from day 1, hence no spike in sales from pre-sales. HOWEVER , it is still a great way to market your book in advance and get sales and raise awareness of your book. ALSO - if you do it right you can leverage pre-sales for REVIEWS! This way your book has reviews on launch day - important!
4. Amazon example:
5. Smashwords:
6. Amazon:
7. LINKS http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/how-to-reach-more-readers-with-ebook.html !
8. LINKS Lose the Gut - Get Sexy Pre-order example Live Pre-order example http://writenonfictionnow.com/hit-the-bestseller-lists-with-ebook-preorders/ - More details about pre-orders http://www.seanogle.com/guest-posts/launch-a-kindle-book - Lise Cartwright’s excellent article about 99cent launches http://www.authority.pub/podcast/book-launch-strategy/#comment-356 Steve Scott’s new launch is also at 99 cents http://timgrahl.com/the-book-launch-crash-course/ Tim Grahl launches print and ebooks to the top of NYT with pre-sales technique! Tim Grahl’s Launch Book “LAUNCH”
9. I hope this presentation adds value to your authoring process. I want YOU to finish your book. Come join in on the fun and learn how to Jump-Start your authoring career! JOIN ZBOOKS !

And here is a support answer from Draft2Digital themselves(!):

Eric,

We do not have a "store" like Smashwords so when we list for pre-orders it is at our Store sites. 

The vendors we use that accept Pre-orders are as follows:

Apple & Tolino - up to 1 year in advance

Kobo - up to 6 months in advance

B&N - up to 90 days in advance

If you've selected vendors that don't support preorders (Inktera, and Scribd), your book will go live on your selected release date.

Free pre-orders are not supported by any of our vendors.

Apple, and Kobo will generate a publicly available sample from whatever document you provide, so you should not upload a file if you do not want it shown to the public (an unedited file for example).

If your manuscript is not yet complete, you may set up a pre-order without a manuscript (or cover art). Please do not upload "placeholder" or "dummy" manuscripts as this will cause problems with your preorder and will likely result in the pre-order being cancelled. Placeholder cover art is okay.

In order to ensure that your release goes smoothly, the final manuscript MUST BE uploaded no later than 10 days prior to release. This is to ensure every vendor has time to review that file and to provide ample time to get any potential flags or errors reported by the vendor resolved before release.

Please be advised that changes (including changes to the release date) made within 3 business days of release may or may not be applied to your book prior to release due to certain review processes at our vendors.

You may adjust the release date of your book forward or backwards. However, if the book is a no-asset pre-order, moving the release date forward MUST allow ten days from the time the final file is submitted for the book to go through a full review process at our vendors.

Currently only Apple and Barnes and Noble provide pre-order estimates. Apple estimates are available daily and B&N estimates are delivered weekly.   This information is not yet available on your dashboard as these are estimates of the pre-order sales only.   We are looking to add this information on your dashboard in the future but at this time this information is not available.  You may contact us directly to get estimates by email or phone.

We hold all pre-order sales until the day of release and then they reflect those sales as release day sales, potentially bumping up an author’s book rank on release day. However, this does mean we do not see the pre-order totals until the day after release day.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Best Regards,

Draft2Digital

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MARKETING,MARKETING,MARKETING, let me count the ways...

Ebook marketing is a hot topic.

According to some, the low hanging fruit, the “easy pickin’s” have already been picked!

Gone are the days when you just write like crazy and fill the gap … in the long tail (Amazon’s long tail that is) .

Selling ONE book is one thing, but seriously making money is a totally different ballgame.

The short answer?

 

Your ROI will be directly proportional to the amount you invest in the Marketing of your book.

OK — GET TO THE POINT ERIC!

So how do you make serious money nowadays?

I have summarized the various methods of marketing your ebook below along with the pros and cons of each method.

Indeed it looks like the low hanging fruit is gone and we need to start marketing more towards the tower of the long tail – the PULL system.

That is QUALITY OVER QUANTITY.

We will take a closer look at method 1 and 2 in this post.

 

The methods:

1.    40 blogs in 40 nights – my own favorite system!  Write multiple blogs until one gains traction.  Then make that blog your funnel.

Pros - This is a great technique for a brand new writer and you can remain completely ANONYMOUS.

    Cons - Takes a lot of writing, but you’re a writer, right?

2.    The Funnel - Nick Stephenson — Make 1 book permanently free and a second free only if they subscribe to your Email list.

        Pros - Your Email list is Gold - you are not dependent on Amazon

                                 for sales anymore.

        Cons - None, really!

3.    Beta Readers + mass marketing - Charlie Hoehn — Validate your book in forums and blogs. Then leverage them to launch your book.

        Pros - Your Beta readers are like free editors and launch teams!

        Cons - Can take a long time to build a team of good Beta readers.

4.    Write a Best Seller - T.Ferriss — Through extensive research and contact with bestselling authors, you write a book that is VALIDATED and offers “evergreen” content.

        Pros - You make one book  that sells forever.

        Cons - Easier said than done!

5.    Perma Free – Lindsay Buroker — You make one book permanently free on all the platforms and let Amazon and Kobo etc. do the rest.

        Pros - Probably the simplest method of all.

        Cons - You are totally dependent on someone else’s platform.  

(amazon, kobo, nook etc.)

6.    Loyalty Transfer Blog - John Locke — You “cross pollinate” from Twitter to your blog and website and other platforms like Facebook with “loyalty transfer blogs”.

        Pros - You get a strong fan base that buys!

Cons - You gotta be really internet savvy to build the base through blogging and twitter etc.

7.    Contests – Bart Baggett — run a contest for an ipad, in order to enter, they have to buy your book and rate it in Amazon.

Pros - You get quick results and launch your book straight to the top of a given category!

Cons - You gotta give away a prize, no big deal, but are these a solid fan base or just one time buyers?

9.    Product Platform – Mike Geary

Pros - Very similar to method 1, your blog/website is your funnel, you are not dependent on anyone (like amazon)

Cons - This takes a long time to set up, and you must have a “hit” product.  Therefore VALIDATE!

 

METHOD 1 - Fourty Blogs in Fourty Nights

This is my own patented favorite method.

 

Step 1:

What you do is write like crazy!

You are a new author right?

You don’t have much of anything, you’re just starting out and you are totally confused and you have NO CLUE what to do!

So start writing blogs, one for each topic.

You are going to write about things you care about, you are going to write about things you DON’T CARE about.

You are going to write positive blogs, and negative blogs — oh yes! I have had more viral posts with negativity than with positivity, sad but true.

The point is you are going to write about anything and everything, and forcing yourself to write about things you don't think you are interested in, forces you as a writer to be disciplined, AND it gives you an amazing different point of view. You are in the initial phase right now so you have to throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks!

 

IMPORTANT!!!!  Every single blog post you ever write MUST HAVE TAGS!  Otherwise Google’s crawler can’t find your blog+posts.  And no one finds you :-(

 

I personally had to write over FIFTY blogs before I got results with this technique.  But somewhere along the line it’s going to happen, one of those blogs is going to start getting hits, and if you have written well, one of those blogs is going to start getting a lot of hits, around 200 per day. This is our target — 200 unique visitors per day or more.

 

This fulfills two important things:

1. VALIDATION
   1. Validating your products and books is a very important step — YOU MAY NOT SKIP IT!  You must validate your book BEFORE writing it, otherwise how do you know people will buy it?  By making multiple blogs and finding out which blogs resonate with the readers, you have just indirectly validated your product or book. Now all you need to do is give your readers the book they want, and you know what it is because you have been writing a blog about it and the readers are telling you what they want!
2. TRAFFIC
   1. You need traffic to move and sell things.  Obvious right?  Well don’t get too happy about 100 uniques visits per day, nor 150, good results start at 200 and pick up around 300 unique visits per day — and these are relatively LOW figures.  But we’re just starting out right? So a solid 200 - 300 uniques per day is a decent start.

Step 2:

Take the winning blog and poll the readers.

Maybe you already know what they want because the topic of your blog is so specific?  If not, just ask them! There are many ways to do this, directly in a blog post, or if you have been collecting emails — email your readers.

Once you have thought of the perfect Ebook for these readers, make it!

 

Killer Tip #1:  Make an Ebook out of your winning blog! Take the best posts and the best questions from the reader mail and collate it into one slick and good looking Ebook!

Step 3:

Once you have made the book you put it smack dab top and center of your winning blog. Not only that, but you put an affiliate link to your book in Amazon.

Homework:

Go to Amazon RIGHT NOW and set up your affiliate account.

Whenever you launch a book, you will use YOUR AFFILIATE LINK when telling people to go get your book!

 

That’s it! Keep making books for the readers of this blog and remember to “cross pollinate” to your other books and blogs.

 

This technique does not rely too much on Email lists but instead on traffic from google.  This means your blog must be interesting and your posts must be tagged with a lot of keywords.  This is called SEO - Search Engine Optimization, and it is a whopper of a  topic in itself.  See this article about “good” keywords and SEO for your posts.

 

METHOD 2 - The funnel + lead magnet

The Email List is the most important online marketing tool of our age. It is THE method nowadays and you if you are not building your Email list right now, you are simply in the stone-age with the fax machines and other anachronisms.

This method is so good I am going to let the master of it - Nick Stephenson - tell you about himself:

http://noorosha.com/what-are-reader-magnets/

I strongly recommend you read everything Nick has to say about marketing.

Nick makes a SIX DIGIT INCOME from his Ebooks, employing mainly the method in the pdf above.  That’s reason enough to do it, isn’t it?  

There is a major lesson to be learned from Nick:

The Email List Building “technique” is the single most powerful “internet technique” out there. You can sell ANYTHING if you have a solid fan base in the form of an Email list — it doesn’t have to be books!

 

So please give Nick your likes and love by subscribing to his blog, and pick up his free Ebooks and Videos while you’re at it, it’s worth it.

 

THE SHOWDOWN — A/B TESTING MARKETING METHODS!

Eric vs Nick!

 

In a matter of weeks now, I am going to launch four books, two with method one — my own method, and two with method two — Nick Stephenson’s.  I will be posting the results on my blog, www.zbooks.co  — live, in real time:

A.) Fourty Blogs in Fourty Nights (I already have a 200+ unique blog).

B.) Funnel+Lead Magnets (setting it up right now with 2+ books).

Stay tuned my friends, this is going to be fun!

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