How to Successfully Self-Publish with a Small Platform (Part 2)

In case you missed it, we’re in a series right now on how to self-publish a book when you’re growing or have a little audience. There’s a ton of advice and information out there from some amazing A-Listers but a lot of it won’t work unless you have a large platform. If you missed part one, check it out here.

I personally know the frustration of putting your blood, sweat and tears into a book, releasing it to the world and having it be largely ignored. You’re frustrated, you’re confused, you followed all the advice and it didn’t work, what’s up with that? That’s why this series is here, I hope it helps you see self-publishing in a new light.

Let’s pick up where we left off:

3. Adjust your expectations. You’re not going to build sustainable income with one book. Is it impossible? No but it’s highly unlikely. Almost all of the successful self-published authors have multiple books: Amanda Hocking, John Locke, Jasinda Wilder, Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler and the list goes on. If you click on the link for Joe Konrath, you’ll see he has self-published 40 books since 2009!

a. Realize your first book is just the beginning. What we’re building here is a house and the first book is the foundation of that house. From this first book you’re goal is to spring-board into more books and use the exposure from this book to launch other revenue streams. If you’re self-publishing a book, I’m going to assume you’re build something that you want to support you and your family one day, the first book is just the beginning. Instead of expecting it to be a NY Times best-seller or sell the same number of copies as an A-Lister you saw launch a book, set a realistic goal for yourself.

The number that I’m setting for the two case studies we’ll do at the end of this series and the goal I give my coaching clients is 1,000 books during launch week. That number isn’t crazy high and it’s not too low. Look at your book as a small piece in a big puzzle that will support you someday.

b. Launch other income streams. In this series we’re going to use the launch to not only sell a book but launch other income streams in our platform. If you’re a coach, we’re going to tie in your coaching business, if you’re a speaker, we’re going to tie in your speaking business. There’s so much exposure during your launch that it would crazy not to convert it for more than just your book. If you have a small platform, this can be the key to creating something that actually supports you and your family. We’re adjusting the expectation that this one book is going to be it, we’re realizing that we need more.

The best way to do this is cross promotion and packaging. What can you package with what to make the deal irresistible to the buyers? Again, I’m assuming you’re building a real business here, not just selling a book, so tying in your other offerings is a killer strategy to create good income during the launch.

c. Set goals, not dreams. This is the goal we’re setting for this series: 1,000 book sold during launch week. 1,000 books isn’t going to make you rich but it’s a good starting point and it’s decent income. You can use that number to spring-board your book in Amazon’s algorithm. That’s the goal I want you to set and plan how to achieve.

We’re also going to set other revenue goals. During the launch of my second book, Are You Living or Existing?, I wanted to sell books but I knew I had an opportunity. I packaged all my offerings and in the end added over 1,000 new people to my email list, I sold over $400 in other products on my website, I got $12,000 in new coaching business.

I don’t have a large platform, you can duplicate these results, seriously. Set goals for how much you will make on your other offerings and if you don’t have any other offerings, start putting them together now.

d. Realize you have more than one chance. If the launch doesn’t go as planned for you, this isn’t it. Self-publishing isn’t a race, it’s a marathon. Determine now that you’re going to be in this for the long haul. Determine that this is about building, not a get-rich-quick type of situation. If your launch didn’t go as planned, put together some better bonuses and offerings and relaunch your book.

4. Create killer bonuses. Typically we’re told to create two or three things we can offer people, the more things, the more appealing buying the book seems, wrong. Instead of creating or offering ten things no one really cares about, create two or three things that are specific to your target audience and that they really want. In this series we will get super specific and create things that blow our target audience minds. These will be for the customers, the launch team (we’ll get into what that is) will get a different set of bonuses. This is going to require some serious thought, planning and a bit of work to create something killer.

There’s a temptation to get a little lazy or even ask other people to contribute something to your launch. If they’re book or product doesn’t speak to your target audience, they’re not going to be interested. There’s a lot of books launch everyday with a lot of bonuses, people are on bonus overload, to get your book to stand out, you have to be different.

“Our goal isn’t to be better than our competition, our goal is to be different.” Steve Jobs  Click to Tweet

If your audience is young couples and your releasing a book on how young couples can survive the first years of marriage, you could create a downloadable weekly check list young couples can check every week to make sure they’re on track. You could interview ten couples that married young and have made it. Get their one tip to make a young marriage last and throw it into a video or downloadable PDF.

Those young couples would love material that they can actually use and some advice from people that have done what they hope to do, it’s super specific. Those would be better bonuses versus an ebook on a topic that’s not even close. We need to adjust our thinking that way, put ourselves in our audience shoes and create something they really want and need. When you do that, the results will be incredible.

This is the end of part two, I hope you’re getting value, I really want you to rock this self-publishing and online business building stuff. In part three we’ll start talking about the how-to stuff, come back and bring a friend!

What kind of response did your book get during launch week?