John Lock's Marketing Plan - Can you make it work?

John Locke’s Marketing Plan – Can you make it work?

John Locke sold one million books in five months.  He’s the first self-published author to do
that.  As soon as the numbers were
confirmed, he published a book outlining how he did it.  The book, How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5
Months, is number five in self-help books on Kindle (7/16/11).  John didn’t hold back anything – including
all the things he did that didn’t work. 
But that isn’t why I bought the book. 
To put it bluntly, I bought the book to find out what I had to do to
duplicate what he did. 

I’ve read the book twice, and I know that John attributes
his success to two things – (1) his blog and (2) Twitter.  I can do that, I thought.  I began using my Twitter account that had
been dormant since I opened it months ago. 
I polished my web site and blog, and I published my third book that should
have gone live a month earlier.  I’ve became
a serious John Locke fan, and I’m not ashamed of it. 

Now I have over a 1,000 followers and a number of them have
become good friends.  On a trip to the
supermarket a couple of days ago I caught myself “tweeting” everyone in the
store.  When I got home I read a couple
of blogs about John that were at best cynical, at worst critical.  I’m 68, almost 69, years old.  I haven’t been in a physical fight in almost
50 years and where did my mind go when I read those comments?  Yep. 
That’s where it went.  I was
steamed. 

I cooled off pretty quick, probably because I’m 68 years old,
or maybe because I live a long way from those who were criticizing John’s
book.  Then I realized that anyone who
has a problem with John Locke’s marketing plan doesn’t understand it.  The nuts and bolts are easy:  Write a Book – publish it on Kindle, Nook and
Smashwords  – use Twitter to develop a
following – steer your followers to your Blog with loyalty transfer posts, and
they will buy your book(s) and promote them to others.

That is simple but there is more: a secret.  It’s not hidden like an invisible door in a
video game.  In fact, he directly
mentions it twenty-five times.  The
secret is sincerity.  Search the book for
these words and phrases: sincere, sincerity, friends,
close
friend, and close Twitter friends and you will find twenty-five occurrences
– that’s not a secret.  However, it’s not
what many people expect or want to hear.  

Sincerity cannot be taught or faked.  You either are sincere or you aren’t, there’s
no in between.  We know when someone is
putting us on.  We know intuitively.  If John Locke wasn’t sincere, we’d know; and we
wouldn’t buy his books or recommend them to our friends and followers.

Now, right now, today, the issue isn’t John, it’s me, and if
you want to be a successful writer, it’s you.  
There are no short cuts to selling a self-published book, and there is
no way to avoid doing it.  You, me, John
Locke, Joe Konrath, and Amanda Hocking; all self-published authors, must build
a following; a fan base which will buy what we write, but more than that, we
must find friends who will promote our work. 
Here’s what John says about self-promotion,

 “Beyond special achievements, you should
virtually never promote yourself on Twitter. 
Why?  Because if you’re working
Twitter properly, your friends will promote you, and you can publicly respond
to their comments, adding a little along the way?” 

Your book(s) no matter how good they are will not generate
promoters – only you, the author, can do that. 
Zig Ziglar put it this way, “You can have everything in life that you
want, if you just give enough other people what they want.”

Promoting and ultimately selling books is not a timed test,
and writers who try turning it into one, will fail.  John says we have to build our Twitter
friends one at time.  Sincerity builds
friendships.  There isn’t a sincerity
widget, and there isn’t a marketing company that can make you sincere.   Sincerity is a choice that you make every
moment of every day.     

JEB Stuart signed all of his dispatches to Robert E. Lee,
“Yours to count on.”  If I want Twitter
friends, I have to be someone they can count on.  To do that I have to give my friends my full
attention.  Years ago a friend who had
just joined Mary Kay Cosmetics scraped up enough money to go to the national
convention.  While she was there she met
Mary Kay Ash, the founder of the company. 
Later, she told me, “There I was, the newest member of the organization,
actually talking to Mary Kay.”  She
paused, reliving the moment and then she said, “Bert, for at least five
minutes, probably more, Mary Kay talked to me and in all that time she never
broke eye contact, totally ignoring all the people who were trying to get her
attention.  She was mine, and I knew it.”

That’s the way to convert followers to friends to supporters
– there is no other way.