How To Successfully Self-Publish Books With a Small Platform (Part 1)
Let’s start off with what makes me qualified to talk about this. Three years ago I self-published a book that completely flopped, it sold five copies in the first six months, I was devastated.
After almost having a nervous break down, I decided to pick myself up and become a student of self-publishing and online marketing. Three years later my two self-published books have sold over 82,000 copies and I have a traditionally published book.
I’ve hesitated to talk about self-publishing, writing is my passion but marketing definitely is not. The reason why I want to talk about this now is because there’s a lot of information out there but it’s not relevant unless you have a large platform.
I’ve read the posts from the A-Listers and it’s solid stuff but people read it and expect the same results. The launch strategies that some authors are using are to make the NY Times and other best sellers lists, it’s specific to larger platforms.
If you have a small platform, those strategies aren’t going to work. I want this series to be a help those who have tried to self-publish and haven’t gotten the results they wanted, the ones that followed the advice and it didn’t work for them.
I also want this to be a blueprint for those who want to self-publish. At the end of this series is going to be an opportunity to see if this strategy works. I’m going to give you a chance to be a part of a live demo.
What is a small platform?
I think the answer here can vary but for the purposes of this series I’m going to say anyone with less than 1,000 email subscribers. Once you get to 1,000 email subscribers you can really make significant income from your platform. The word platform just means your overall online presence: email list, social media fans/followers.
The Strategy:
Understand who’s your target audience. This is for writing the book and marketing it. This is the key for everything we’ll do. If you’re not clear about who you’re talking to, you’ll never be able to figure out where they are and how to best reach them. Your book isn’t for everyone, you have to get it in front of the people who it’s meant for, that’s who will buy the book. Once you know who your target audience is, use that information to create a campaign that they can’t resist.
Start building your platform ASAP (whether your book is out or not).
a. Build your traffic through targeted guest post. The key to effective guest posting is by being featured on sites that speak to your target audience. If you’re talking about real estate but guest post on a leadership blog, what do you think the results will be? When we have a smaller platform we want to be featured in as many places as possible but that’s not a good strategy. Good guest posting is targeted, it focus on converting. Good guest posting is also good for building back links to your site, which is good SEO.
b. Focus on a difference maker- conversions. If you have 20 people on your email list, focus on converting 15 of those 20 people. Too often we focus on getting new people when the reality is most of our sales come from our existing audience.
c. Basic SEO. Strong headlines that are simple and have good keywords. Mentioning the keywords you’re targeting in the first paragraph. Breaking up your content into chunks based off of the keywords.
d. Interviews. Blogtalk radio is your best friend when you’re starting out or have a small platform. There are thousands of shows, you type in the keywords related to your topic and see what shows are talking about your topic. Reach out to the hosts and highlight your story. Too often we want to jump in with why we’re a good fit for a show, let your story sell you. We all have a story to tell, it’s the reason we do what we do, highlight that.
e. Network with others in your industry. I’m not talking about trying to form a relationship with an A-Lister in your industry, too many people are trying that strategy. What I’m talking about is focusing on the Third tier and building your network from the ground up. Years ago guys like Dave Ramsey, Dan Miller and Michael Hyatt were friends who shared a same passion for this industry, they were friends and were there for each other during the building years, they built their network from the ground up. You have the same opportunity with those around you that might not have huge platforms but are building like you, what if you built together? Where would you guys be in ten years?
f. Social media. Beyond just having accounts set up, maximize social media by deciding where you’re going to be active and where you’re going to be present. You only have a limited amount of time and you can’t be everywhere. Research the platforms your audience is most active on and spend that little bit of time you have there. That’s where you’re active, present means you’re not active on the other ones but you post things from time to time. Give helpful tips and tricks on the non active sites. We’ll get more into social media later but it’s a great, free way to expose your book to the world. To build your platform through social media, give people a reason to come back, it has to be fresh and as original as possible. Don’t just copy what you see the A-Listers doing.
These are the basics but again, if you’re going to do this well with a small platform, you have to focus on conversions. It’s not about building large numbers, this is about building strong, targeted leads that will turn into customers later. If you only have 100 people but 80 of them buy, you’re in business, that’s our goal.
This will be the end of part one, come back Tuesday as we dive in and get really specific. Can you self-publish with a smaller platform and still sell books? Yes! What results have you gotten from self-publishing?
