Anna David's Blog, page 17

Sarah Alaimo on Going From "I Can't Write a Book" to Launching Her Book

 

 Career happiness coach Sarah Alaimo wasn't really planning on writing a book. But one day her then-fiance, now-husband asked if she wanted to come out to LA for a book writing retreat. 

Sure, she said.

That retreat never happened because a pesky thing called COVID-19 intervened but she ended up connecting with the retreat leader (spoiler alert: me!!) One thing led to another and now her debut memoir, Pearls and Probation: Adventures of an Alcoholic Good Girl, is out.

So how did she walk through her fears and put pen to paper? How did she know what to do after that? How did she get clients from her book before it was even out? In this episode, we broke down every step. Come with us!

RELATED EPISODES & LINKS 

How Did Alex Strathdee Get 40,000 College Students to Read His Book?

What's the Difference Between a Ghostwriter, Editor and Coach?

Samantha Perkins on the Anxiety of Launching Your First Book

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM~

How Do I Re-Launch a Book?

Those of us who were published traditionally but have learned how to publish on our own often want to get the rights to our books back and have a go at publishing them ourselves. This post walks you through how I did it for Party Girl (to be re-released September 15th!)

1) Get the Rights Back.

Depending on when your book was published, the rights may have reverted back to you, as was the case with Party Girl. Check your contract for the answer. Getting my rights back was incredibly challenging but the reason it was such an ordeal was not that [HarperCollins] cared so much about holding the rights but that they didn't care. It was impossible to get them to even respond.

My point is: have a lawyer or agent check with the publisher.

2) Design a New Cover.

This part will be exciting. Because your publisher had the final say on your first cover, usually with very little input from you, chances are you didn't like it. When designing your new cover, ask yourself what you didn’t like about the first one. How can it be improved? Book covers today are Instagram-friendly, they’re bright, the letters are huge, they're gorgeous and that's what I wanted for the new Party Girl cover.

A big advantage in re-releasing a book is you can use the blurbs and reviews from the first version of your book in your new cover design.

3) Come up with New Keywords.

Research the latest keywords. For Party Girl, my team’s using the ever-reliable Publisher Rocket. You can use this affiliate link to purchase it for $97. 

4) Have a New Angle.

If you’re re-launching your book, you need a new angle. For Party Girl, that new angle is that back in 2007, Quit Lit wasn’t a thing. There weren’t sober bloggers or sober influencers, or a lot of recovery memoirs as there are now. Party Girl was one of the first books its kind.

5) Use the Latest Tools.

The new A+ Content from Amazon allows independent publishers to do some cool things to their book pages. Here's an example.

6) Transfer Your Amazon Reviews.

Have Amazon move the reviews from the original ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) to the new ASIN. You'll need to call Amazon and provide both numbers. You can do this by clicking on “Help” in the upper right-hand corner of your KDP dashboard, then go to “Contact Us” at the bottom left.

7) Switch the Copyright.

Last but not least, after reversion, authors should consider updating the US Copyright Office’s records with their works’ new ownership information. The records held by the US Copyright Office will likely list your publisher as the copyright owner (“claimant”) and/or the point of contact for permission to use the work. After reversion, it is up to you (as the new owner of the copyright) to update this information.

Fortunately, new copyright owners can record a transfer of copyright with the Copyright Office to update these records. Updating the Copyright Office’s records after you revert rights establishes a public record of your new ownership rights. This will make it easier for future users to find accurate information about the current ownership status of your work. When people know who to contact for permission, it can help increase the dissemination of your work, and potentially your compensation if you license paid uses.

A transfer of copyright can be recorded by submitting a signed or certified, complete, and legible copy of the document being recorded (such as a rights reversion letter from your publisher) to the Copyright Office, together with the required fee (currently $105 for a single title) and Form DCS cover sheet. If accepted, the Register of Copyright will record the document and issue a certificate of recordation. As of July 2019, the processing time for recording transfers or other documents related to copyright is nine months. For more information on recording transfers of copyright ownership, see Copyright Office Circular 12: Recordation of Transfers and Other Documents.

8) Add a Call to Action.

Your goal as an author is to get people to buy your books and, more importantly, join your email list. Better than just a “how to reach me,” offer a cheat sheet or a quiz as an incentive to join your mail list. At Launch Pad, we put a QR code at the beginning and end of the book on the page so readers can simply scan it. Studies show the number one thing readers want to do when they finish a book is to connect with the author.

Also, at the end of your book, don't be afraid to ask for reviews. Just a quick “Hey, if you liked this book, please leave a review." If they’re reading your book on an e-reader, here’s how to make a special Amazon book review direct link. 

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RELATED EPISODES

What Are the Exact Steps to Publishing a Book?

How Do I Get Reviews for My Book?

How Does John Lee Dumas Launch a Book?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"The reason getting the rights back was such an ordeal was not that they [HarperCollins] cared so much about holding the rights but that they didn't care."

How Do I Throw a Book Launch Party?

 Know That It Won't Sell Books 

Bad news first: your party, no matter how awesome, won't help with book sales (unless the party is at a local book store but even then, you can only count on so many). Chances are, you'll actually be giving books away! So why do it? Because it's fun. Because you deserve to be celebrated. And because why not? So what are some ways to do it?

Rent a Venue

For Party Girl, I rented out the top floor of a (sadly now gone) restaurant next to Book Soup for the few hours after my book signing there. It was fun. It was an investment. I got great photos. End of story.

For my second book, Bought, I threw a party at a New York restaurant and that's when I started to wise up. Yes, I got lovely photos, yes I got to celebrate, yes it even got some press but it was a lot of trouble to go to for not a terrific payoff. And so I thought: I need to have a party that attracts a lot more buzz!

And so, for my next book, Reality Matters, I coerced some genuine reality stars (from The Bachelor, The Real World, Sober House and more) to show up and rallied to get the press there. Again, a lot of trouble for not a huge payoff. So figure out why you're doing your party and whether or not the planning is going to be fun. I'm a slow learner so it took me three times to realize I didn't think it was fun. For my next few books, I didn't do any parties.

But really, I concluded...

It's a Great Idea for Your First Book 

That's why we offer what we call a VIP Launch for clients of ours who want to come out to LA to get the celebrity treatment. We get the press there, we gather a crowd, we even get a red carpet featuring their book cover and secure meetings for them with movie and TV producers to discuss the viability of their book as a movie or TV show. My feeling is: if you can afford it and someone else is going to do the leg work, go for it! 

And Then There's the Marie Forleo Way

In many ways, Forleo was the first online marketer—and she's certainly the most glamorous. Her first book was called How to Make Every Man Want You and her husband is an actor who’s been on Sex and the City, for God's sake!

As legend has it, she was a bartender who started her mailing list by asking people who came in for drinks to sign up on a notebook. And she’s managed to not only show people how online businesses are done, get endorsed by Oprah and make millions in the process but also to incorporate her myriad interests (hip hop dancing anyone) into her business.

You get it: she doesn’t just break the rules; she makes new ones. And so when she was figuring out how to launch her book Everything is Figureoutable, she basically pulled an Erika Jayne: declaring herself a stage presence.

And she pulled it off, selling nearly 2,000 tickets for her New York launch, with people flying in from 42 states and 21 countries.

What'd she do? She danced! "Imagine," as she put it, "if a Beyoncé concert and a TED talk had a baby, then threw a block party."

Then she took it on the road, securing famous friends in every city to help bring the hype— Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach in Orlando, Chase Jarvis in Seattle and Brene Brown in Houston. She and her team went on to London and Australia.

Did it work? Well, the book became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Was that solely because of her Beyonce-like tour? Surely not. But it sure looks like that made the trip to the top fun.

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RELATED EPISODES & LINKS

A Play-by-Play Breakdown of How Rachel Hollis Launches a Book

Neal Pollack on How He Launched His Book 

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"Your party, no matter how awesome, won't help with book sales. Chances are, you'll actually be giving books away! So why do it?"

10 Free Ways to Promote a Book

There are a million ways to launch a book—some expensive, some not so expensive and some utterly free. Today we're talking about 10 free ways to launch a book:

1) Create a sales page for your book.

Most authors have a website or a page on an existing site that contains a description of their book as well as the cover. But what if you approached the book as something you're selling and not something you hope people just buy? To understand the difference, check out this post. It explains how breaking the book pitching page down to a message from the author, with testimonials and bullet points, can make the book about the reader and not about the author.

2) Pitch media.

I've said this before but if you want media attention and don't know where to start, get thee-self to Help a Reporter Out (HARO). Subscribe to their newsletters and then, whenever a journalist is writing about a topic related to your book topic, reach out and explain why you're the ideal source. Also, search for journalists writing about your topic and pitch them ideas over Twitter or find their email addresses on sites like Hunter.IO. 

3) Put together a Launch Squad.

I talked about this in the Reviews episode but the best way to launch a book and get it to the #1 spot in all its categories is to gather a group of people to read the book a month ahead of time and then, a few days before the official release, buy the book on Amazon and post their review. It's a simple system and it's a system that works.

4) Create a book trailer using Clips.

There are a million ways to create book trailers but easily the easiest, quickest and least expensive is using the Clips app, which allows you to add images, text and music in less time than it would take you to research video editors on Fiverr. The videos you can make aren't fancy but they definitely do the trick.

5) DM your social media contacts.

It's laborious and certainly may irritate some but sliding into people's DMs can be an effective way to let them know about your book. You may think, "Well, I posted about it so they know." Er, chances are they didn't see the post and if they did, they got distracted by the cat video they watched right after. A Direct Message to your Instagram followers, Facebook friends and/or LinkedIn contacts—even if it's a generic one you copy and paste—will definitely move some copies.

6) Create quote cards on Canva.

Canva is God's gift to those who are flummoxed by Photoshop, easily allowing all of us to use the same font, colors and images from our book cover to highlight some of the book's best lines.

7) Throw a virtual party.

Whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Zoom, a virtual launch is a great way to gather folks from across the globe. But rather than just throwing a party to celebrate your book, try to incentivize people to come. For Make Your Mess Your Memoir, I threw a "Messy Pitch Party" where I asked two writer friends to co-host and we allowed guests to pitch their book ideas to us.

8) Submit your book for a Readers Favorite review.

I did that for Make Your Mess Your Memoir and ended up with a lovely early review that I could post in places (and which Readers Favorite also posted in a few spots. You can also pay for reviews in Kirkus (click here for info) and Publishers Weekly (click here for info). You can also submit your book to BookBub for a featured new release or a featured release (while those cost money, you will more than earn back your investment if they select your book to feature). 

9) Make mock-ups of your cover.

An amazing site called Adazing gives subscribers an opportunity to upload their book cover and create images of that cover in a field, in a library, being held by a group of children and every other scenario you can possibly imagine. While you can pull the sneaky move I used to and just keep getting mock-ups of different covers by inserting new fake email addresses, the best money you could ever spend is investing in the software so you can continue to create mock-ups of your cover, guilt-free! This affiliate link gets you access to the entire $198 archive for more than half off. 

10) Ask friends with newsletter lists and popular blogs to mail for you and/or allow you to guest post.

All of our lives would be easier if we had lots of friends with massive email lists. But we make do what we have, which is a few friends who have maybe not massive ones. It doesn't matter. If you have a friend with one person on their list, that is one more reader for you. And that reader could love your book so much, he or she tells his entire list of a million about you. You just never know. I did this for Make Your Mess Your Memoir and also did guest blog posts on a couple of writing websites and all of it helped. 

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RELATED EPISODES & LINKS

How Do I Get Media Attention From My Book?

How Do I Get Reviews For My Book?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"If you have a friend with one person on their list, that is one more reader for you. And that reader could love your book so much, he or she tells his entire list of a million about you."

What Are the Exact Steps to Publishing a Book?

Write and Rewrite

Then you have your book edited. This part is obvious, no? But after that, you have the book edited three times: first a developmental edit, then a copy edit to fix grammatical errors and missing words and then a proofread to catch all the mistakes the copy editor missed. Please note: these should be three different people since our eyes fill in words that may be missing and that's why you need three different sets of eyes on it.

Lay the Book Out

You can hire a layout designer, upload it to Amazon directly or use Vellum software. A layout designer is going to be the most expensive, the Amazon upload is going to be the least (it's free) and Vellum software, which you can purchase using this affiliate link, is $249 for a lifetime license. I personally love it (I only have affiliate accounts for products I love) but it is, for the moment, Mac only. (Sorry, PC-ers! Still love you, though.)

Design a Cover

While you can, of course, be designing a cover far before you do the layout, you shouldn't begin designing it until you've finalized your title. (I have learned this the hard way.)

Much like with layout, there are free, medium-priced and expensive options. You can design a cover that's not half-bad on Amazon if you're going to sell exclusively on Amazon but you can also design a free cover using Canva that looks, in my opinion, a million times better. (My Launch Your Book course walks you through how.) 

Keep in mind that you only need a front cover if you're doing ebook only but you also need a back cover if you're doing a paperback and you need a back cover plus flap copy if you're also doing a hardcover. Make sure that your bio and book description and blurbs have been finalized before designing the back cover. (I have also learned this the hard way.)

Cover designer costs cover the gamut but I have found that paying more doesn't always mean you get a better cover. My favorite designer charges $500 a cover whereas I've hired others who weren't as good who charged $1k and over. Good cover designers, much like good editors, are worth their weight in proverbial gold so if you find a good one, hang onto them for future books. (This page lists potential options for who to hire but it's wholly unvetted. These are just people I've heard of who do freelance book work.)

Determine the Best Categories for Your Book

Unlike keywords, categories are something everyone sees. Categories within Amazon are what’s known as BISACS (Book Industry Standards and Communications) but all you really need to know is that these are the lists within Amazon where your book is categorized so it's how people get the glory of being a #1 bestselling author—it means that their book was selling more than any other in its category at that time.

They get a Bestseller tag next to their book title, which they can screengrab and share and they never lose that status: once your book has earned this, you are always a #1 bestselling author.

Remember: You Are Looking for Very Specific Categories

If you select “Non-Fiction” or “Memoir,” you will be competing against tens of thousands of books so there’s no way your book will get to the top of the charts but if you go into a main category like “Memoir” and then pick a sub-category or a sub-category within that sub-category, your chances of hitting the #1 spot increase exponentially.

Here's an example: within “Self-help” there’s “Abuse,” “Anger management,” “Anxieties and phobias,” “Creativity,” “Death and grief." Then, within “Death and grief,” there's “Grief and bereavement,” “Pet loss,” “Suicides,” “Motivational new age,” “Personal transformation. These sub-subcategories are your key to success.

Your Secret Category Tool

I highly recommend researching potential categories using Publishers Rocket, Dave Chesson's software (you can use this affiliate link to get it for $97 and it's the best money you can possibly invest in your book career).

Let the software guide you to categories you may not have thought of as it shows you how many books you need to sell to hit the top 10 in that category; for example, it will tell you that you have to sell 80 books to hit the top 10 in dating.

If you put your keyword phrase in “Competition Analyzer” in Rocket, it will pull up ALL the categories using that keyword; then click “Unleash categories” and it will list every category that keyword is listed in. I highly recommend creating a spreadsheet as you do your research.

An important point: don’t pick a category because it’s not competitive but the books in it sell well IF IT DOESN’T FIT YOUR BOOK; trying to game the system in this way will backfire because people will find your book when searching for a different kind of book and not buy yours (thereby hurting your book in the algorithm because you want the people who come upon your book page to BUY) and may even buy it and then write a nasty review because your book wasn’t what they wanted!

The Myth of the Two Categories

When you upload your book on KDP, it asks you to provide two categories but if you call or email Amazon, you can request eight more; here’s how:

Go to www/author.amazon.com/en_US/contact, click “How We Can Help” and select “Amazon Book Page”

Then select “Update Amazon Categories” – it says You can submit a single request for all category updates. Add a line per marketplace, using the example below.

Example: ASIN or ISBN, .COM, UK, DE, JP, etc., eBook or book, preferred category

It says you can only submit a single request but it’s worked for us to submit all eight new categories at once. It usually takes between 24-48 hours for those categories to be updated. 

You never actually SEE all 10 categories on your book at once; usually, it’s three at a time.

Keywords and all the Rest

While keywords is a whole topic onto itself (which I go into in detail in the Launch Your Book course), the most important recommendation I can make is to use Publishers Rocket to do your research and then use your keywords not just in the backend of Amazon but also in your title, subtitle, bio, description and everywhere else. 

There are a million other tiny things you can do to enhance your launch and make it a success but those are the necessities.

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RELATED EPISODES & LINKS

How Long Does It Take to Publish a Book?

Do People Look Down on Self-Publishing? 

What's the Difference Between a Ghostwriter, Editor and Coach?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE POD:

"Cover designer costs cover the gamut but I have found that paying more doesn't always mean you get a better cover."

How to Get on Podcasts to Promote Your Book with John Corcoran

John Corcoran may be my new favorite human. A former White House speechwriter and attorney who worked in Hollywood, he now runs Rise25, which helps businesses get more clients, referral partners and strategic partners through their done-for-you podcast service.

In the brief time we've known each other, he's introduced me to countless people, advised me on my business and given me ideas that have sent my head spinning, in all the right ways. This man is a fount of wisdom!

And Corcoran isn't just an expert in podcasts—he's an expert in getting podcasts to further your career.

He's been in the podcasting game over a decade and his show, Smart Business Revolution, is a must for anyone building a business (and if you're an author, I do hope you're building a business that your book can support).

In this episode, he explains how you can promote your book on podcasts, when you should be reaching out and why having your own podcast is the best promotional tool of all.

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RELATED EPISODES & LINKS

The Debut of Launch Pad with Dave Chesson

Affiliate link to Dave Chesson's AMAZING Publisher Rocket software

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM~

How Did Alex Strathdee Get 40,000 Students to Read His Book?

Alex Strathdee is no ordinary writer.

That's because he's as much an entrepreneur as he is a writer.

How do we know this? Because when he wrote his book, Experience Over Degrees, and it didn't transform the world—or even his life—he didn't just shelve the book and the experience like most people.

Instead, he asked: how can I get more people to see this?

What followed was a targeted campaign to colleges and then a targeted campaign to businesses to pay for that first campaign. It's an ingenious approach and he breaks it all down in this episode.

Now he helps other authors make an impact with his company, Advanced Amazon Ads and he even has a free gift for YOU where he breaks down his strategies. Get that free gift here.

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RELATED EPISODES & LINKS

The Debut of Launch Pad with Dave Chesson

Affiliate link to Dave Chesson's AMAZING Publisher Rocket software

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM~

How Does Pat Flynn Launch a Book?

 

Pat Flynn is one of the kings of the marketing world and that showed in the way he launched his 2016 Wall Street Journal bestseller, Will it Fly?

Because he’s very open about the methods he used, I was able to do research and determine some of his most effective strategies.

He Focused on Pre-Launch

He made an effort to build a big pre-launch audience and he did that by continually educating readers on the “value proposition” of the book—in other words, what the book would DELIVER for the reader and not what the book was ABOUT.

He had the person he hired to manage the pre-launch group, Daniel Decker, on his podcast and shared that he had over 500 people in it.

They made a big effort with GoodReads: about a month before the launch, they made sure the book page was connected to Pat’s author page and his author profile was updated with his website, bio, photo, and favorite books on his “Read/Want to Read” lists.

They asked the Street Team to post early reviews and used the built-in blog feature to announce when the pre-order was ready, the launch day party and when the book was officially live. Later they used Goodreads advertising and giveaways feature.

For the pre-launch team, they showed the behind the scenes of writing the book, he made a book trailer, he showed snippets of advance reviews of the book, he shared preliminary concepts, he showed the audience book covers that were inspirations, he shared quotes from book and he shared fun facts like the number of hours he spent writing. He also shared daily updates.

He also focused on any other “exclusive” content that he could find.

He Threw a Virtual Launch Party

But he didn’t just throw a simple thing on YouTube. He had it on Google, Periscope and YouTube on release day where he was able to announce its already impressive Amazon statistics: that it was the top 84 of all books, #2 in all of entrepreneurship.

He also shared openly about some of the issues that can definitely creep up on launch day—namely that the Kindle version was still in review!

In the 90-minute video, he’d thought of everything, down to the WILL IT FLY shirt he was wearing and the people he featured, including other impressive entrepreneurs like Jamie Tardy, Hal Elrod, Amy Porterfield, Michael Stelzner and Cliff Ravenscraft.

He Got Social

He created a hashtag: #willitfly, which generated 1,561 posts

He started his social media plan with Twitter (where, as of right now, he has 162 k followers). As he said, “Once that content was crafted, we could then extend it naturally to other social media platforms.”

This approach, he added, “proved to be very effective because Twitter forced us to keep this simple at the start and then expand and enrich them for other channels like Facebook, Periscope, and Goodreads.”

Pre-launch, his team retweeted all the #WillItFly hashtag and he knew the primary call to action, which was to drive followers to book pre-order page and then the secondary CTA of tweets which was to drive followers to book trailer, blog post, launch team signup

On Facebook, he focused on images and videos. After the launch, he featured images of readers holding the book.

(RIP Periscope. In 2016 this meant something!)

He Went All Out on the Book Trailer and Website

He made two trailers—one one-minute one that featured his ridiculously adorable kid making paper airplanes and one of him at San Diego Air and Space Museum where he talks about why he wrote the book, how it’s broken down. In other words, it is all about the viewer and not about him. The one-minute video has over 6000 views and the three-minute one has over 8000 views.

At first, Willitflybook.com was an informational page where people could sign up to be the first to hear about the book, then it became a pre-order page with graphics and then it redirected to the Amazon page (where it still redirects today).

He Actively Used a CTA

Dave Chesson, who assisted Pat with his launch, said when I interviewed him, that Pat created a mini course that was kind of like a study aid, video version of the book. As Dave said, “It's not like without the course, you can't finish the book—that might piss people off. But it's like more or less that this will help you with the book as you go.”

He made the course free and put a link to it at the front of the book so that people browsing on Amazon could click on the “look inside” and sign up for the course without even buying the book.

According to Dave, Pat said that one third of the people who bought the book signed up for the free course and he built a huge email list from that. He then created a paid course that was the next step up and the day that he launched that paid course, he made over $111,000 just from the email list that he built from the book.

What Can We Learn?

He focused on things he could control—not media but his friends, his audience and serving both. He didn’t try to do everything but double downed on the things he knew would be effective. He published the book himself, knowing that he was surrendering a chance to be on The NY Times bestseller list but making the WSJ list. Because he wasn’t being controlled by a traditional publisher, he could put CTA’s in the book and release it how he wanted.

He didn’t do everything himself. He hired someone to manage his advanced reader team. He hired Dave Chesson to help. He has a team. He spent money. He didn’t throw together a video. He hired pros. That’s not to say that this makes sense for everyone. Spending money on a video team may not make sense if thousands of people aren’t going to watch the video. Hiring someone to manage the launch team might not be logical if you can’t get hundreds of people to join.

He leaned on friends to help promote. He wasn’t afraid to ask for support.

He made it about the reader and not him. He constantly reinforced what the reader would get out of the book. He shared behind the scenes stuff so they would feel like a part of it and get ideas if they wanted to publish their own books. He featured people they would know about in his video. He featured their images after the fact. He created a course they could use.

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RELATED EPISODES

Do People Look Down on Self-Publishing?

How Can I Use Social Media to Promote My Book?

The Debut of Launch Pad with Dave Chesson

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE!

QUOTE OF THE POD:

“He made an effort to build a big pre-launch audience and he did that by continually educating readers on the “value proposition” of the book—in other words, what the book would DELIVER for the reader and not what the book was ABOUT.”

How Does John Lee Dumas Launch a Book?

John Lee Dumas, or JLD, is one of the kings of the marketing world and that showed in the way he launched The Common Path To Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment.

If you don’t know about JLD, he is absolutely brilliant and part of his brilliance is that he is arguably more open about his methods and income than anyone else out there.

He created his podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire or EonFire with the kind of fervor and passion I’ve never seen and that’s why had millions of downloads and has featured such guests as Tony Robbins and Barbara Corcoran, among everyone else. It’s a daily interview podcast. He knew no one so he hired a mentor and ended up launching into the stratosphere. I joined his group, Podcasters Paradise, and I highly recommend it for anyone launching or hosting a podcast. 

So it’s not surprising both that his book was successful and that he was very open about the methods he used to make it successful. 

He Leaned on His Friends—Intentionally

This comes straight from the man himself. As is documented on Chet Holmes’ site, JLD said, “When I sat down and was getting ready, going into book launch mode, I said “Who are my Dream 100?” 

And I said ‘Who are these hundred people?’ and the list was done so quickly. I’m like ‘There’s still a ton of people I want on this list so I’m like, let’s bump into 200. Okay now, there’s 200. Let’s bump into 300.’ And by 300, I’m like ‘Okay I’ve just carved out a lot of work for myself.’

Because all of my Dream 300 had been a guest on my show, I knew I had built up a lot of reciprocity bringing them on my platform, sharing their voice, their message, their mission with the world. Now, I was like ‘It was so great having you on my show. To share your message with the fire nation, now I have spent 480 hours writing this book 71 000 words 273 pages. I spent almost all of 2020, my quarantine time writing this book, and it is such a passion project of mine. Will you help me share this message with the world? Because by the way, you are part of it.’ I’m saying this in the video and I’m like ‘Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, you guys were a part of this because it’s the 3000 people I interviewed that are the knowledge of this book. This doesn’t come from my brain and my story. This is your story, your brains that I learned over the years as a mentee to your mentorship during these interviews, and all these things that make this book up. So I would love to ask you these three specific asks.’ 

Then I got really specific on this and these are during the four-minute videos. I said, ‘Number one, will you go onto Amazon and buy three hardcover copies?’ I was really specific, I wasn’t like ‘Buy one or buy a few.’ I said, ‘Will you buy three hardcover copies? Then I told them why: ‘Amazon will base their bulk orders based on how many pre-orders that we have. So I would love to really jack that up to have as high numbers as possible, so Amazon has their bulk order as high as possible.’ So I asked them specifically what I wanted them to do but then I gave them the why. I didn’t just want them to do it, like ‘Give me three dollars because I get about a dollar per book.’ I wanted them to do it because it was going to help the book sales with Amazon buying their bulk order.

Then I said, ‘Number two, I made all these great bulk buy options where you can start at 12 books and go up to 1200 books. Will you check out the bulk buy options? And if it makes sense, will you buy one of those bulk orders for your team or for your audience?’ 

‘Number three, you have an amazing platform. Would you consider having me on your platform to talk about The Common Path to Uncommon Success? This is your knowledge that I would love to share condensed into this 17-step road map that I’ve created to financial freedom and fulfillment. Will you let me do that via a podcast? Or a show you know or Instagram live, Facebook live. Whatever platform you feel best serves your audience, I’d love to do it. Here’s my booking link to book me right now. Or if you want to reply with your booking link, I’ll find a time that works best for you.’

A great example is when Rory Vaden sent it to all his clients. Rory has baller clients, and so all of them were like ‘Hey, I have big platforms. I’d love to promote the book as well. Let’s make this happen.’

So I did a lot of research on what the best video platform would be to actually share these videos. And I settled upon this tool called Bomb Bomb. It’s just really cool because you can record the video and like hi-def really easily and quickly. Then you have a little button to click that’s just going to click the email Html code that you need to then paste it into the email, and it gives this cool three-second preview of you actually talking.

So instead of just a screenshot since you know you can’t have a video in the email, it actually gives you this three-second gif of you talking.’”

He Created a Website

He didn’t just make a site that gave a book summary and showed a cover. On uncommonsuccessbook.com, he created a one-minute video of him talking about the book. He drops names of people his readers will have heard of, like Jeff Walker, Amy Porterfield and Pat Flynn. And just like Pat Flynn, he makes that video all about the reader.

His site breaks down his bulk buy offers (these days it just says that the bonuses have expired but you can email him for information on discounts). 

On his site, he also gave away the first chapter. 

Now About Those Bulk Order Bonuses

He gave anyone who pre-ordered the $17 Kindle version or the $28 hardcover three of his bestselling books: The Podcast Journal, The Freedom Journal and The Mastery Journal. That’s a $150 value that he had shipped to everyone who pre-ordered. But he’s open about the fact that he got a $350k advance so that was surely worth the investment (if not in terms of financial rewards now, it does in terms of getting another book deal should he want it).

For a certain amount of pre-orders, he even flew the person and a partner to spend a weekend with him and his girlfriend in Puerto Rico.

He also did a live Ask Me Anything for just the people who pre-ordered.

What Can We Learn?

He spent money on the bonuses. He knew his goal, he knew that a dollar in might be two dollars back. 

He was open about his process all the way through. 

He leaned on his friends with big audiences.

He focused on his medium: podcasting. He’s very open about the fact that he’ll go on podcasts, even small ones, but he gives a time limit for how long he’ll be on and schedules one after another on podcast interview days.

You may not have that budget or those friends with big audiences but you have your own version of that. Like everyone who’s successful, he focused on a few small things and double downed.  

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE!

QUOTE OF THE POD:

“I said, ‘Number one, will you go onto Amazon and buy three hardcover copies?’ I was really specific, I wasn’t like ‘Buy one or buy a few.’ I said, ‘Will you buy three hardcover copies? Then I told them why: ‘Amazon will base their bulk orders based on how many pre-orders that we have. So I would love to really jack that up to have as high numbers as possible, so Amazon has their bulk order as high as possible.’"

How Does an Author Build a Newsletter List?

A newsletter list is the single most important tool a writer can have when launching a book. But how do you get started—and what do you do once you have?

First off, you need to, no matter how daunting it seems and how much it seems like you don’t have time to.

You Start Small

Don’t get discouraged when you hear other people with newsletter lists talking about their huge numbers because having a small number of people who open your newsletter and take action is better than having a huge number that doesn’t. I’ve been building mine for years and can’t get it above 4000.

You can start by adding people you know but I will say when I did that, I got some grumbling. Maybe the people you know are nicer than the ones I know? I’ve had friends add me and I’ve been happy about it and then people I don’t know very well add me and I’ve found it annoying so use your best judgment about who to add.

Get a Newsletter Provider

Most people start with Mailchimp, which is free for up to 2000 contacts

You can also do it on Go Daddy. I host my site on GoDaddy and found their newsletter options too limiting but I know people who are very happy with it.

Other options include Constant Contact, Drip, ConvertKit, AWeber, InfusionSoft, GetResponse and IContact. I use Kajabi which I love but I do everything from there—website, courses, payment, the whole nine. If you need that, there’s no better and if you want to sign up using my affiliate link, do that here.

Have a Lead Magnet

If you offer people something, they’re way more likely to sign up for your newsletter than if you just say, “Sign up for my newsletter.”

A quiz is definitely a way to capture interest from people who care about your topic since everyone is endlessly interested in themselves! When I had one, I used a website called TryInteract.

If you’re saying, “Well, what would I put on my quiz,” here’s an example of a quiz I used to use as a lead magnet:

1. I would like to have a career where I could help people through my creative work.
2. I would be more motivated to embark on creative projects if I knew I had an audience for my work.
3. I believe sharing my creative work could help other people.
4. I believe sharing my creative work could help me.
5. Friends tell me I should share my experiences.
6. I have never heard of someone with experiences exactly like
mine.
7. I have a unique take on things.
8. I believe if more people knew about my experiences, I could help
them.
9. I have spent some time thinking about creating work based on
my experiences.
10. If I'd been exposed to work like mine when I was struggling, it
would have helped me.
11. I have been wanting to embark on new creative projects for a
while but haven't known the exact steps to take.
12. At some point in my life, I have kept a journal.
13. I tend to feel better after doing something creative.
14. I believe I could complete a project I was passionate about.
15. I am open to sharing what I’ve learned with the world.
16. I believe my life would be better if I did something creative
every day.
17. I believe I would follow through on a project if I had guidance
and accountability.
18. I believe I would follow through on a project if I had a way of
knowing people would hear about it.
19. I've gotten encouraging feedback when I've expressed myself
creatively.
20. I have occasionally made excuses for not meeting my goals.
21. I periodically believe I can meet my creative goals but then find
myself discouraged.
22. I think my work is as good as work I’ve read and seen and
heard.
23. My recovery from my darkest experiences is one of the most
interesting things about me.

I then created two videos based on people’s responses to the quiz and funneled them into two different email sequences from there.

Truth? I found this process very confusing so I switched back to a cheat sheet.

Finding the right cheat sheet has been a challenge but I think I’ve finally found one that works: 20 Ways to Launch a Bestselling Book which if you’re reading this, you probably have. If not, remedy that now! The purpose of the cheat sheet is to give your newsletter readers something they can use but can lead to a need that your book can meet.

I just found out about someone named Glenn Allen who offers a mini course as his lead magnet and that seemed really interesting so I am considering looking into that.

Have a Nurture Sequence

Introduce yourself to your people through a few emails spaced a few days apart. Try to set it up so that if you’re sending regular newsletters, they’re not coming at the same time as the nurture sequence. 

If your book is already available, tell your readers during the nurture sequence about it and offer a link to it in the last one. If you’re writing your book, tell them about it. If you have a product, use your nurture sequence to offer it to them.

And then send newsletters regularly. I recommend picking a day of the week, telling them during the nurture sequence that day and sticking to sending newsletters then. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to get people used to opening your emails. 

Provide Value

If you use a newsletter to just tell your readers about yourself, people are going to stop opening. Find out what they care about and give it to them. Make your newsletters entertaining. Here are some examples of amazing newsletters I subscribe to:

Ash Ambirge: No matter what she’s writing about, it’s hilarious. She’s not dashing these off. She’s infusing her personality in every line. And don’t say, “I don’t have time to do that.” Consider a newsletter a writing exercise. She defies my advice about how you have to have a lead magnet to get subscribers but that’s because she’s that good.

Jane Friedman: If newsletters for writers were studied in school, Jane Friedman would be core curriculum. She tirelessly scans for the most relevant stories. She has a weekly newsletter, Electric Speed, and then a paid subscription called The Hot Sheet that comes every 2 weeks and is worth so much more than the $59 a year she charges. (You can get your first 2 issues for free if you want to check it out.) She was onto the paid subscription model early. In that, she lists, dissects and reports on the most relevant stories about publishing, sometimes from sources like Publishers Weekly, sometimes exclusive reports from book expos and then every link that could possibly be of interest to anyone interested in writing and publishing a book.

Anne Trubek: I honestly don’t know how I stumbled across Anne but she has to write the best newsletter I’ve seen from a publisher. And I’m a publisher. Her company, Belt Publishing, focuses on books about Rust Belt, the Midwest, and its writers. and while she promotes those books in her newsletter, Notes From a Small Press, she also writes honestly and articulately about the business of being a writer. A recent one just killed me in all the best ways—it was all about why she was resentful about being quoted in The NY Times. She says the things other people won’t.

Ann Handley: She’s considered the queen of newsletters and for good reason. Her newsletter, Total Annarchy contains links and thoughtful stories; it’s the perfect mix of personal and professional. And she defies my advice about how you have to send a newsletter every week because she sends hers every two weeks. It’s so value packed that she gets away with it.

Here’s the thing: None of these people aggressively push their books in their newsletters. In fact they barely mention them. And yet I’ve bought and read all of them because I became such a fan of them because of their newsletters.

_______________________________________________________________________________

RELATED EPISODES

How Do I Use My Book to Get Email Subscribers?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM~

QUOTE OF THE POD:

"None of these people aggressively push their books in their newsletters. In fact they barely mention them. And yet I’ve bought and read all of them because I became such a fan of them because of their newsletters."