How Rubber Meets the Real World - Case Study 08

Marketing books results in - publishing yet another book.

Got back to work getting my checklist/spreadsheet executed. With the revisions I added.

Now that the site was mobile-friendly for real, I then turned to the next most obvious distraction - no opt-in for the site. Even though I say to get this done as a first action.

I cast around and found several PLR articles which had to do with writing children's books, as well as a lecture from C. S. Lewis on the same subject (public domain as the 1952 copyright wasn't renewed.)  Added an Intro to it, a Summary, and an addendum on how to get it published.

In this book, I also changed something. While I had been only giving a single link to Midwest Journal Press for these books - specific to that book - in this case I set up a Bibliography which linked to all the books in this series.

This is supposed to be hard-linked, so that showed up another problem: I hadn't created minimal landing pages for each of these books. Mainly because I found and added another Art book, and also four Writing books.

None of these books are themselves actually ready, as I would have created landing pages for each of them.

About this new book

It's a little book, about 66 pages. I've gone through all the articles and they make sense and have decent grammar (important to do with PLR - as well as looking for stupid things like keyword padding that makes them read poorly.)

This book is on the other side of where I've been for so long - simply getting a book written. (And yes, this has a link to my "Just Publish!" book so they can learn all about self-publishing.)

It's simple, a quick read, and will be priced low as well. The cover (by John Morgan) is very enticing. As it's mostly PLR, I don't put my own name on the cover and will publish it under the "Thrive Learning Institute Library" imprint.

The description isn't bad, but could be better.

The idea here is to have an ebook which people can buy if they don't want to wait for the lessons to come to them. I'll take the individual chapters/articles and create the lessons from those. These articles will be published as individual PDFs on Slideshare and embedded in the lesson page. Creating pages on Blogger still gives you access to the sidebar material, but can be set up to mostly be ignored by the search engines as they lack a lot of the features of SEO. (One simple trick to hide pages from search engines is to give them the exact same meta-description and use no keywords at all in the title.)

These lessons will come one per week and eventually will give them access to a free membership - when I get back to building that membership site.

Right now, I'm focusing on simply getting this series published and using them as a case study for doing the marketing completely. (Although I'll probably skip testing the affiliate sites on this round, since this is not a major or key book series.)

Catching up is hard to do

Mostly a point of focus. I'd already seen that I was missing both a few of the landing pages and also the opt-in script and ethical bribe. The spreadsheet brought these home.

By setting things out in a spreadsheet, you don't get the opportunity to skimp steps.

And by having a spreadsheet, you can line up any series that had been previously published and fill in the missing steps. (I've got a series on Copywriting and another on Max Freedom Long's Huna, plus several self-help series, and one on sustainable agriculture. All need actual marketing. Looking forward to getting these really done.)

What's still missing from the spreadsheet

Not that I'm going to work on it now, but there is a book launch sequence which is missing. Any book can be re-launched. What we are doing here might be best called "the invisible launch." It's simply published with no send off at all.

Any book can be re-launched. Some authors spend a great deal of time (and money) at this. If you follow Jeff Walker, you'll see this can be ramped up into a very intense, month-long release. And the real work behind Walker's release is to build your list - even from nothing.

Where this really takes off is to have Joint Venture affiliates to push your released product. That is really why I'm not particularly testing the affiliate site section of this spreadsheet. Because it's going to move into quite another set of tests - where I really need that membership site ready to handle the flood.

This is basically an "internal launch" in Walker's terms. I'll announce this to my little list, and then get the social signals working for it through Synnd.  Each book will get a video trailer, which will also be distributed through Synnd. Otherwise, a lot of the work will go through IFTTT. (And I have to go back and verify these as being in place.)

The trick with landing pages is to set them up with an address, and then turn them back to draft while you get them ready for publishing. When you then publish them for real, IFTTT should pick them up and send them along to the other sites. Or that's the idea, anyway. The other option is to set up custom links for them and never take them live until you have everything in place (all video and PDF embeds active, etc.)

This means we are still playing with the bubble-wrap, this is so new.

I still haven't found anyone else who is attempting this precise use of SEO and social signals as part of their marketing. So you're seeing a very pioneer work - even though all the steps of these have been tested thoroughly, none of this has been built into a single, comprehensive sequence of steps that I know of.

This spreadsheet of actions could actually be used to promote any digital product online. Some Internet Marketing guru's I've read of would give their hind teeth for this spreadsheet, as it's a course on it's own.

When this (and the additional testing of launches and affiliates) is run through completely and tweaked, I'll go and make it a course on its own - and launch it as a full system.

Meanwhile, I have a few dozen books to publish and a dozen dozen which haven't been marketed at all. So don't hold your breath...

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The Author as Producer - it's not just about ebooks anymore. Case Study 04

Becoming a Media Producer: Even Better Than an Author

The point I have to pause here is to tell you that you've just morphed into something more powerful and more creative than you've ever been before.

Books, especially ebooks, have become a new type of critter. They bring you people to your website and into your mailing list/membership so you can help them with improving their lives.

Books are a messenger, an invitation much like the one Harry Potter got to come to Hogwarts.

You as the author, when you start your self-publishing, are also beginning an incredible adventure. It's real, it's 3-D, and will keep you involved from here on out.

Fiction writers often fight this when they should embrace it (much as J. K. Rowlings has expanded her life into that famous series.)

Authors become Media Producers When they Self-Publish

It's true. I ran across this simple statement when studying up on Copyblogger's New Rainmaker.

As we continue explaining this spreadsheet of tested and proved promotional actions, this becomes painfully obvious.

People don't all want to experience their lives in hardcopy books. They also want video, audio, images as well as several formats of ebooks - and in different combinations.

Once you take on the mantle of Content Producer, you can convert your words to all these formats to reach the widest possible amount of audience.

You reach out to your friends the search engine bots and let them help you spread the word.

Those two paragraphs above encompass the bulk of what it means to promote your book these days.

The Spreadsheet Promotion Section

A/V
    Audio,   Presentation,   Video,  
Synnd Campaigns
    Video,   Bookmarking,   Social News,   Twitter
Doc-Sharing
    Slideshare,   Issuu,   Gdrive (public),   Scribd,   Doc-Stoc, 
Video
    Synnd
Audio 
    Archive.org,   Soundcloud
Cover Art
    Pinterest,   Flickr,   G+ (public)

You're probably familiar with several of these sites. Others are new. (We'll cover Synnd later.)

That just proves the point that no two people utilize the same resources to get their data the way they like it.

It may also have given you the idea that in order to get your content to all these sites, you are going to get into a lot of work. Yes and no. Lots of this is automated. And more of this automation isn't visible in the above. We'll get back to this shortly - let's keep talking about the broad strokes at this point.

Producing Varied Content (Media) From Your Book

You take your text, record it (audio), make a presentation from it (a new PDF), combine audio and presentation to make a video.

You can also take excerpts from it (cover, text) and create promotion pieces which link back to your landing page, as well as to all of the distributors.

The cover itself is content to use - which will promote your book on these sites, linking back to those landing pages.

One point I mentioned briefly last time was courses. This is yet another production, but is capable of being short versions as ecourses to get email opt-ins, and also long versions which are paid renditions of your book. Particularly useful in non-fiction.

If you record your audio for each chapter (such as you'd do in order to create lessons) then you now can combine these into an audiobook. More sales.

Each chapter can also go out as a podcast - linking back to where they can buy the book, which also has an opt-in to become members of your list (even join your membership and pay you monthly for the honor and privelege.) 

Courses can also apply to fiction works, particularly where you've done extensive background work (character studies, sketches, photos of the area it takes place in - if based in real locations, or even if inspired by real locations. In that way, you are taking fans through your concept art as they access each chapter.  Again, leverage your original work to get an extra income source.

All this sets you up as a media producer, no longer just an author. And no longer just dependent on whether a single version of your book sells.

You've just freed yourself from Amazon's chains

Having only published on one distributor, or only in hardcopy, or letting some traditional publisher govern how to produce and sell your book - these are all a form of slavery. Letting other people and corporations control your life - albeit, it allows you (if successful) to just sit down and write. (If you are in this scenario, look down and at the corner of your eye - not directly - and you may see a shadow of a shackle on your ankle...)

Amazon does one thing well - make income from your book.

What they don't do well is to reward the authors for their work. KDP Select makes sure you can't sell it anywhere else. Current surveys show that the sales in doing this aren't as high as they once were. And you can never know what sales you didn't get if you don't also put that book elsewhere. (Mine show that it's roughly 1/2 to 1/3 more on top of what you are making on Amazon for the same set of books.)

Amazon's new all-you-can-read buffet is even worse for authors. Great for Amazon, though.

Meanwhile, the traditional publishers have renogitiated their contracts with Amazon so they can raise their prices. The results: lower income for authors, higher income for Amazon.

The point of this short rant is this: publish everywhere you can, in as many formats as possible - and leverage your original work to much higher incomes.

One sidebar to this sidebar - when you are only on Amazon, you only show up once in Google. If you are on 6 distributors for the same books, you have a chance of showing up in 6 places out of the top 10 or 20 rankings for that book. That's just distributors. Now put your book trailer out there on several video sites, and your promotional PDF on the doc-sharing sites (as well as the paid-for full versions), and your promotional presentation out there - and you have a chance to take most of the top 20 spots on Google for that book title.

If you do this for all your books, guess what happens when someone looks you up as an author - yes, you're everywhere. And all those links go to where they can buy your book.

Leverage.

More Book Income.

Financial Freedom.

See where we're going here?

Next: the pure promotion play - involving the reading communities

We've run a bit long again, so there's going to be one more installment about this spreadsheet.

You're overview will be complete.

At this point, we've converted and published all the content and media we need to. The next step is to tell the three main reading communities about your book.

After that we create bundles for promotion and for sale. This then set your audience up to make money from your book by recommending it to others. As well, you'll be able to get professional salespeople to start pitching your book for you. This means you are now going to be leveraging those people's lists - and getting sales you aren't able to on your own.

I'm chomping at the bit to get this next one out to you - so stay tuned...

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Related articles

• Solving Distractions and Getting Your Book Ready - Case Study 02
• Getting Your Book Published and Marketed: Actions List - Case Study 03
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• How to Sell Your Books Online, Old or New.
• Focus on Value Instead of Delivery
• The Great Amazon Suck - Why Other eBook Distributors Don't

How to Sell Your Books Online, Old or New.

Selling books online doesn't have to be hard,

...but you have to know what to do when in order to be successful.

(Photo: RIAN archive) 

Just because your book never sold well doesn't' mean it can't. 

Just because most books don't sell well, doesn't mean it can't.

Just because you don't know how to get your book(s) to sell well, doesn't mean you can't.

Just because most authors (self-published or not) never cover their expenses from their books (and have to keep their day job) doesn't mean they can't.

What's possible is that any author can make a living writing, publishing, and selling their books.

While there is no guarantee that any book can or will become a bestseller, any author can get their books to sell decently, or even sell well.

And yes, this is even despite being poorly edited, with a poor cover, and lousy description.

I had to work this up recently, as I'm about to do the same for a number of my books which aren't selling well. 

The main idea for most authors is that when they publish their book, it should be a set-and-forget situation. What drives most authors bonkers is that this is also the idea that almost all the big publishers have (and all of the distributors who sponsor self-publishing.)

It's always been that the author has to do their own marketing.

But writers just want to write.

The trick is to learn what you need to do and then automate it as much as possible.

And we are talking about doing this online, not in person - since most writers don't know how to "sell" and don't want to learn. Writers want to write. That's what their whole life revolves around.

What the indie author needs to have in order to successfully sell books online.

1. Books that are published online, or could be. (Yes, that's plural.)
2. A mailing list for their audience.
3. A blog. (On your own domain, not a freebie.)
4. Someone to edit their book, someone to make great covers, someone to write classy descriptions.
5. A daily schedule which allows you some time to manage your books daily, or weekly.

Once you have all these, you can follow the steps below to make your books sell well online.

Steps to get your books selling well online

(Disclaimer: While truly awful books are selling these days, it's also true that really good books aren't. Your mileage will vary depending on how well you implement what follows below. And you can see that I don't say how much you can make - or that you'll ever have a bestseller. You can get your books selling better, though. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary to get the results you want - and cleaner hair.)

We start with the fact that any author who has ever made real money online had two things:

1. a schedule for daily writing, daily business maintenance (emails, etc.), daily inspiration (reading other bestsellers - in their chosen genre or not.)
2. a backbench of books in series.

Those are undeniable, and are found with any bestseller, as well as those authors who simply make a quiet living from their books. Fact. I would be so bold to say that you can't find any author in history - who didn't die broke - that only had a single book which sold well. One-shot wonders, like the music industry, doesn't make for any continuing financial success.

Some other facts:

• Any book can be re-launched and made to start profiting you.
• Amazon needs reviews and sales. Everywhere else needs related books by the same author and/or series (and sales help.)
• In getting a previously published book to start selling, you'll either be creating a new edition, or a sequel.

NOTE: The following steps are only broad strokes - this would be a massive book or course on it's own (and I'll get around to it sooner or later.)  While this is easier to consider from a non-fiction POV, it can easily be done with any fiction series.

NOTE2: Some of these linked tools are affiliate links. 

0. Make sure your book is ported everywhere else as well. 

(List: Lulu, iTunes, Nook, Google Play/Books, Kobo, Amazon, Scribd, Doc-Stoc, Espresso Network, Leanpub - you can use an aggregator, but you'll profit more if you DIY.)

1. Re-do your marketing research:

Audience demographics
Avatar/First Customer
Verify Keywords (Market Samurai)
Similar Books recommended by Amazon
Verify your tags
Verify your categories (BISAC) - Amazon long-tail niches

2. Creat an ethical bribe (ecourse) and start building a list

Requires an autoresponder (AWeber or similar)

Might need a membership backend (Rainmaker, or roll your own)

Update your ebook to have a link to this opt-in landing page

3. Start blogging daily about something related to the book

Needs a domain and webhost - don't use free sites any longer than you have to. 

Then export/import when you have your backend ready (Rainmaker, again.)

Have your opt-in script show up just below each post, as well as in the sidebar

SEO these posts as you build them (Rainmaker built-in plugin's help.)

Include images, embedded PDF's/Videos.

PDF's are also ported to major doc-sharing sites with links to that post as well as book distributor buy-links.

Promote these posts with Pinterest, G+, LinkedIn, Flipboard

Bookmark and Social News campaigns via Synnd.

Buy traffic via Stumbleupon (optional)

4. Get surveys filled out by your list on what they want, like, and have questions regarding your book.

5. Re-edit the book.

Get feedback from your list on the improvements/additions

6. Redesign the cover.

7. Rewrite the description.

8. Create a hardcopy version

Set this for Global Distribution, getting proof(s) approved, etc. (Use Lulu, not CreateSpace.)

Note: The PDFs you get from Lulu for interior and cover are then ported to Espresso Network for their use on that network.

9. Work out a release date and pre-sell the new edition/sequel

10. Get your audience (list) involved in the re-release. 

Gift them free copies (iTunes, Ganxy) or discount coupons - get them to review it on Goodreads, which can happen prior to it going "live" on Amazon.

11. Use the profits to re-invest in additional versions of the book

• Audiobook
• Hardback
• Pocket Paperback

- - - -

Thanks for reading this far. You can see that this is just an overview - a set of points you should know if you want to move out of the $500 level of book payments annually.

I'll have another book coming out soon, once I do some additional testing and research. I'll flesh out all these steps when I do.

[Update: Been busy fleshing out these steps as part of a real-world case study. One point forgotten - make a BitTorrent bundle of promo clips for your book. Use IFTTT to update your social posts automatically. More later - stay tuned. With Twitter integrating back into Google, Synnd campaigns along this line become more key.]

So - subscribe above to make sure you keep in the loop. ;)

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Focus on Value Instead of Delivery

Kobo's recent piggy approach to public domain self-publishing has a lesson.

And that is: Concern yourself with delivering value, not just book sales.

Having to edit the meta-info on several dozen books didn't exactly make my evening. Swallowing the fact that I could make only 20% off these books from here on out also didn't sit well. (That royalty rate is just above what I'd get if a traditional publisher signed me a contract.) It is better than not publishing at all, though.

After sleeping on it (and venting in a polite blog post) the reaction mellowed a bit.

Kobo is a single distributor. I know of at least seven other major players in this area. (Feedbooks would be another if their upload process weren't so antiquated.) If Kobo has decided to penalize self-publishing authors for public domain, it's still not as bad as Smashwords - who won't accept these at all. Meanwhile, Lulu will send your PD-based books direct to iTunes and B&N, while Amazon just makes you add "10 images" at a minimum. GooglePlay almost doesn't care what you upload. So, Kobo can move itself to the bottom of this heap if they want. It's free choice.

(Meanwhile, my income from Kobo has seldom been higher than other distributors. They beat B&N in volume, but not by much.)

[Update: Just found out that iTunes/B&N are now rejecting new public domain works. Seems to be a duplicate content script. Two more distributors out of the profit loop. See note below.]

You have to look at why we are doing this. Aside from having stories in your head screaming to get out, the primary reason for marketing is to improve someone's quality of living by allowing them to exchange something with you (money) for a valuable product of yours (books). The higher the book quality, the more they are likely to return for the next (or previous, or both) in that series. That means you get to help them some more.

The reasons for re-publishing public domain books are:

1. They are still in demand, so the value is high.
2. You are able to market them better to bring them to people who have not yet found that solution, but are looking. (More market out there.)
3. Publishing books as a business plan allows you increased financial freedom of passive income so you can help even more people.

All markets have tradeoff's. It's easy to get your book buried in Amazon. iTunes and GooglePlay don't reach near as many people, but they are on all the portable devices out there (at least until Microsoft buys B&N.) If you are on those three, you have around 80-90% of the sales. While Kobo and B&N each say they own 20%, the reality is that they probably split what's left over.

The point of this is that you have many different choices of where to publish your books. 

You also have many formats. Lulu and Createspace will publish hardcopy versions for you. Leanpub will give you PDF's, .mobi, and epub versions. Convert it to an audiobook and upload to ACX for distribution. Your video versions have multiple outlets. PDF's can be sold on Scribd and in other venues (although Scribd has a nasty "duplicate filter" content which throws out public domain books they already have.)

Again, that's all mechanics.

What are you doing that will help people the most? 

For me, that's converting these books into ecourses so that people can study them from their mailboxes, audio so they can listen on their commutes, video - if that's their preference, PDF so they can read it on any device.

The message behind the book is the help it can give to people to improve their lives.

Kobo? Maybe you want to simply do a book review with excerpts that then link to a page where they can get the full book from another distributor or in any format they want. That would fit Kobo's requirements nicely for public domain content.

The bottom line: 

• What matches your production resources, and 
• What format(s) are your readers needing that would help them the most?

Keep those in mind to achieve your success.

Happy publishing!

[Update: My PD series I just published on Copywriting got summarily rejected after Lulu tried to push them to iTunes/B&N. I'll do another test to see if this is both of them, or just one. Regardless, it means that a quality derivative work is needed, not shortcut-versions. iTunes/B&N just went into the Smashwords category, leaving GooglePlay, Amazon, and Lulu on the top of the heap, Kobo in the middle.

It also means you are going to need to do a lot more of the heavy lifting in order to succeed at this profitably. Writing a quality book, with substantial value is the real method now. Blog your reviews of books, include the chapter(s) you are reviewing, and then publish based on that.

I'll do this with these dozen copywriting books and let you know...]

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• Notes on Book Publishing

Notes on Book Publishing

Some collected tips, hints, and tricks to get your book written & published.

I just published yet another book, this one a collection of interviews and writings on writing I had laying around, or had published earlier in some other format.

And it led me to a growing list of tips and tricks which I hadn't put in any book or told anyone in particular about writing, publishing, and marketing books. These are in note form and may or may not flow from one to the other. (They might even seem to repeat...) I'll post this when thing quit "bubbling up" - so you have the complete collection.

Tips:

Just stumbled on this recently - in LibreOffice, don't create an index (table of contents - or TOC) before you port to epub. This makes you do a lot of hand-editing in Sigil to get it up to snuff.

Sequence on that line up should be: