Who else would love to publish a top ranked book on Amazon, but thinks it's going to take you a ton of time, money or effort to make it happen? Think you've got to be "Shakespeare" to write a best selling book? Or, maybe you think you've got to be a "guru" in your niche, market or industry to write books that appeal to a HUGE global audience? The truth is, you need none of the above, and I'm going to share with you the simple formula I used last week to write a book, publish it, and literally... watch as it went to #1 in MULTIPLE categories, in just the last few days. (and launched it for the most part, 100% for free)
The funny thing is, the EASIEST part was actually writing the book. It took me a long weekend to complete, and runs about 140 + pages altogether. (I included and modified a few blog posts as examples for the book, which added about 20 pages, so realistically it was 120 of new content).
The secret is, to OUTLINE everything well in advance. I do what I call a "content cornerstone" which is tantamount to a niche knowledge data dump, where I took a book of sticky notes and simply wrote a chapter title, or topic on each one.
(Then I just organized them into a good sequence, set them down next to my keyboard, and quite literally, "riffed" on each topic until I was exhausted the information listed each note).
Once the document was completed, I simply went to FIVERR, and paid for both a cover, and for a kindle conversion to be completed. (In other words, a nice looking cover makes a BIG difference and I had my .doc file converted to EPUB, so it could be uploaded to Amazon).
I literally did all of that in about 3 days. It was a pretty long weekend of work, and believe it or not, for a day and a half I barely left my office.
The good news?
I got the cover and conversion work done by Monday (by the FIVERR workers I picked) and my book was actually live on Amazon by late Monday night. (they approved it in about 12 hours)
Here it the KEY to my promotion strategy. I'm almost embarrassed how rudimentary this is... but it goes to show you how POWERFUL a platform can be.
I made the book "FREE" for 3 days. When you enroll in the Amazon KDP program like many of you know, (which is totally free) they allow you 5 free promotional days every 3 months. So making my book free, allowed it to get maximum exposure across a number of fronts. (People who list and re-publish free books everyday, free book Facebook pages, etc).
I actually paid someone on FIVERR to do a little bit of this for me as well, although I'm not 100% sure how important that was to my results.
BUT, the BIG thing I did that I could control, which certainly helped was THIS:
I simply emailed my blog and newsletter list, and told them I had a new book up, and that it was free, and that they had 3 days to download it without having to pay.
My book is in the Entrepreneurial and Motivational marketplace... which is pretty competitive, especially by other marketing types.
Within 24 hours, on the POWER of my "platform" (my list of subscribers) my book was #1 in business motivation, and small business entrepreneurialism in the free offer section (right next to Mark Cuban's new book!).
It has stayed #1 in Motivation for 3 days now... and has been in the top 3 in a whole bunch of other categories as well. (Of course, again... it's FREE, so I'm not making money yet, but that's not my goal for week 1).
Tomorrow, the book will still rank very highly of course, and folks who find it will have to pay, to see what the buzz is about.
And more important for me, because I don't care all that much about the income... it positions me as an expert to MY target audience, higher income and budget bloggers, brand builders and business owners, and adds one more simple accomplishment to my resume, when I sell myself, and our services to them. (Because of course, if I can do that for ME in a matter of a few days of work, I can certainly help THEM do it far more professionally... with a lot more effort as well).
The key takeaway for YOU should be this:
You CAN write and publish a book in a very short time, even if you are not a professional author or writer.
You CAN (and should) be leveraging your list to build your brand, your business and your bank account.
And if you are NOT building a list in your niche, market or industry... you are losing out in a major league way to your competition who is.
The whole launch cost me under $30 bucks - and now, with a book that's sitting at top of the Amazon charts, I have an incredible amount of flexibility to REALLY promote it, and to explore and experiment with some unique strategies Ive always wanted to try! (And if you are PASSIONATE bout your niche, so too can you).
0 comments:
Post a Comment