The Publishing Profits Podcast Show | Writing | Marketing | Books | eBooks | Audiobooks | Authors | Entrepreneurs

Ricardo Fayet is a cofounder of Reedsy, an online marketplace that connects authors with everything you need to succeed, from free educational courses, to a platform to help you find the best cover artists, book designers, and publishing support. Ricardo and a friend got the idea for Reedsy in business school. They approached developing Reedsy from a reader perspective. The Birth of Reedsy Ricardo and his friend were among the first early adopters of the Kindle device. They began thinking about how the device was changing the publishing industry for publishers and authors. They asked themselves several questions: What does it change for authors and publishers? How does it change how readers read books? Will there be more ebooks produced than paper books? After asking these questions, Ricardo began learning about self-publishing. At first, self-publishing was a fascinating market space. As Ricardo looked into self-publishing more deeply, he realized that there’s a lot that goes into publishing a book beyond simply hitting publish. You have to: Edit the book. Do cover design for the book. Market the book. That’s when Ricardo and his partners decided to create a marketplace for authors who were self-publishing, as well as the people who were leaving traditional publishing companies. When self-publishing started to take off, in the period from 2010 to 2011, a lot of people who had worked for traditional publishers decided to do freelance work instead. They like the freedom and flexibility of working as a freelance provider, and they also like the access to self-published authors. “It’s really a misnomer to call it self-publishing. No one does it by themselves. You have to have cover designers, book designers to do the layout, and usually marketing support and help. So there’s a big team that any self-published author needs to create in order to make a project really successful.” – Tom Corson Knowles How to Create the Best Team to Support Your Book “The most common advice out there is to ask your peers and other authors in your genre. On the one hand, I think it’s great advice, because obviously what worked for one author might work for you. But on the other hand, it depends a lot on your genre, for both cover design and editing. Editing depends a lot on your personality and writing style.” – Ricardo Fayet The most important factor that affects cover design is your genre or category. If you ask authors in your specific genre or category for advice on cover designers, that advice will probably work for you. The most important factor that affects your relationship with your editor is your personality and writing style. Because every writer is different, it’s less likely that one author’s advice about a good editor will translate into a good working experience for another author. When looking for an editor, it’s best to look for an editor who specializes in your genre. On Reedsy, the editors in the marketplace specialize in certain genres. As an editor: It’s simple to specialize in a genre. Simply choose to edit the books you like to read. Once you get some clients and do good work for them, they will recommend you to other authors who write in their genre. Then you can begin to build a portfolio as an editor. As an author: When you’re looking for an editor, reach out to three or four and see how they work. Send them a small sample of your work, about 3,000 words. This allows you to get a feel for the relationship before you commit to working together on the larger project. When you’re looking for a developmental editor, you definitely want someone who specializes in editing your genre. Ricardo recommends asking for a sample feedback letter that they wrote for another author. You can’t really ask them to look at a sample of your work because they need to see the whole book in order to give you good feedback. But by asking for a sample letter, you can get an idea of how they give feedback to authors. Some editors are very blunt. Some editors like to sugarcoat their feedback. By looking at an editor’s sample feedback letter, you can get a sense of the type of feedback you’re likely to receive from that editor, and you can decide whether or not that feedback will help you write a better book. When you hire an editor, it’s all about developing the right kind of relationship. That’s why it is important to reach out to several people, get several quotes, and get an idea of what type of feedback each editor will give you. Reedsy only accepts 3% of the freelancers who apply to be listed in the marketplace. They are very selective about the professionals they choose to offer to authors. Reedsy has never seen any freelancer abuse their access to the creative work of authors. A lot of the freelancers on Reedsy come from traditional publishing. They’re not going to compromise their good working relationship on Reedsy in order to publish some author’s idea under their own name. In many cases, they aren’t even authors themselves. A lot of the best editors on Reedsy make between $10,000 and $15,000 a month. They’re not going to risk their reputation to publish an author’s work themselves. The biggest problem Reedsy has run into as a platform is editors and authors not getting along. That’s why Ricardo recommends that you get several samples from copy editors and a sample feedback letter from a developmental editor. The best way to make sure you’re going to have a good relationship with an editor is to try out numerous applicants until you find a good fit. The editor/author collaboration is a real partnership and you have to make sure your personalities match as much as possible before you agree to working on a larger project together. If you use a freelancing marketplace like Reedsy and you make sure you’re going to have a good personality match with the editor, you’re never going to be unhappy with your results. When an editor quotes you a price on Reedsy, Reedsy will add a 10% service charge to the price. That’s how they make money. So, if an editor quotes you a price of $1,000, your final bill as the client will be $1,100. Of that, $100 will go to Reedsy and the agreed-upon $1,000 will go to the editor. The Hiring Process on Reedsy You can use Reedsy to hire a variety of professionals to help with your manuscript. Hiring an Editor Let’s say you’re hiring a developmental editor through Reedsy. Reedsy is going to give you a form that asks a lot of questions. They’re going to want you to send a sample of your manuscript, as well as describe the characters in your story. They’ll also want to know when you want to publish your book and when you want the editor to get back to you. After the editor receives your submission, they’ll likely have additional questions. Typically, after an editor responds to you, a natural conversation takes place. If, after you send initial information to an editor, that conversation doesn’t take place, you should look for another professional. Communication is always key. If you start a project with a $500 budget and you find a cover designer who says they’ll design you a cover without asking questions, that’s a warning sign. You haven’t said what genre your book is, or whether your cover design is for a print book or an ebook. Those are very basic questions that any good cover designer would ask. There’s a lot of information that freelancers need before giving you a quote for the service. Most likely, you’re not going to think of all the information they need. You should expect to get questions back when you put a project on Reedsy. If you don’t get questions back, you should look for another professional who will give your project the kind of attention it deserves. Hiring a Cover Designer It’s always good when you’re working with a cover designer to send them inspiration. Find two or three covers on Amazon in the genre of your book that you really like. When you send those to the cover designer, that’s going to give them an idea of what appeals to you, and then they’ll most likely begin a conversation with you about the specifics of your cover. Experienced freelancers are going to ask the most questions up front because they know the process, and they know all of the issues that might pop up during their work. So they want to have as many answers for those potential problems as possible before they put in the time and effort to do the project. It’s important that you hire a cover designer who has experience with book cover design, especially if you don’t. If you are an experienced indie author, you can take on an inexperienced cover designer because you’ve been through it before. But if this is your first project, you want someone who knows the ins and outs of cover design. You’ll want someone who: Knows the type of images that will work for your genre cover. Knows the kind of typography that will work for your genre cover. Knows how to lay out your cover so that it looks right. Has experience with the types of problems that can occur when designing a cover. What to Do If the Project Isn’t Working Out the Way You Want When a project starts going wrong, it’s important that you manage the expectations of the freelancer. It’s also important that you be honest and upfront from the very beginning. The biggest problems on Reedsy’s platform happen because authors don’t make freelancers aware that they’re unhappy until very far along in the process. If you’re honest and upfront at the beginning, the freelancer can either adjust direction, or you can part ways without wasting any more of each other’s time. When you’re not honest about a problem at the beginning of the process, it leads to miscommunication, hurt feelings, and bad relationships throughout the entire process. This means a loss of time and money for both you and the freelancer. The longer you wait to let your freelancer know there’s a problem with your project, the more likely it is that you won’t be able to publish your project on time. When you hire a freelancer through a third party like Reedsy, you should get them involved as soon as you feel like something is starting to go wrong. The sooner you get Reedsy involved, the more time they have to look into the problem before it leads to a real issue with your publishing schedule. Almost all the problems you might encounter can be avoided by communicating with your freelancer before you hire them. If things go really wrong, the final recourse is a legal one. If you’re not hiring a freelancer through Reedsy, make sure you sign a contract. Make sure you read all of the provisions in that contract before you sign it. Make sure the contract: Protects your intellectual property. Protects your copyright. Clearly defines the consequences to each party of canceling. Ricardo has heard horror stories about cancellation fees and communication breakdowns when a project goes wrong. Reedsy has developed standard contracts to protect both parties that are a part of their normal terms of service. Overall, Reedsy has conflicts between freelancers and authors only 2% of the time. In those cases, Reedsy steps in as a neutral third-party mediator. In Ricardo’s experience, every problem can be avoided by communicating with the freelancer up front before you hire them. Don’t be afraid to tell a freelancer that you don’t like the way the project is going early on. Ricardo knows of one publishing company that uses Reedsy to find cover designers. The managing editor insists on having a “kill fee” in the contract. If she gets three cover designs she doesn’t like, she’ll pay the cover designer $300 or $500 to kill the project. How to Have the Best Customer Experience on Reedsy All the freelancers on Reedsy have been vetted by the company. That means they all have the same basic level of ability to do the work. That being said, it’s probably best to work with editors and cover designers who have fewer clients. If you work with freelancers who have fewer clients, that means they’ll have more time to devote to your individual projects. Reedsy has quite a few editors who worked on big traditional books, and a lot of people want to hire them. They’re all able to do their work, but when you hire a famous editor who’s working with several clients at once, you’re not going to get the type of attention you could get if you work with someone who’s only working on your project. Ricardo has noticed a career trajectory for editors on Reedsy. The editor will start with one or two clients. Those clients will be satisfied and recommend that editor to their friends. Now the editor has more clients. Those clients will be happy and recommend the editor again. At some point, the editor will book one client too many. When they book one client too many and then have issues in their personal lives come up, that’s when problems arise. As an author, you can’t predict when that’s going to happen for an editor. Ricardo recommends you be patient if you realize the editor may have booked too many clients. He also recommends that you always ask the editor how many clients they have booked for the time that they’re going to be editing your project. The fewer clients they have booked, the more time they can devote to editing your work. Advice for Authors in a Rush If you’re on a tight deadline, it’s important that you contact more good applicants for the position you need filled. It’s also important that you brief them really thoroughly about the project itself so that the rest of the process can go smoothly. In general, cover designers can come up with a good cover design in a week, but you’ll want to contact more of them because if you have a hard deadline, more of the cover designers you want to work with will be booked during the week you need them. Good copy editors can work with you on a tight deadline. It’s important that you contact more of them to find one who is available, and that you brief them thoroughly on the specifications for the project. Good developmental editors are generally booked a full 3 to 6 months in advance. That’s a good thing! They know how many clients they can handle and they stick to that number per month. Those are the kind of editors that you want. If you need a developmental editor, it’s important that you don’t put yourself in a position where you’re on a fixed deadline. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview https://reedsy.com/ – a marketplace connecting authors with the freelancers they need to self-publish their books. https://blog.reedsy.com/learning/ – free courses for authors on writing, editing, design, marketing, publishing, and distribution. [email protected] – contact Ricardo directly. Feel free to ask any questions you want. He’s also happy to recommend freelancers for your project. Advice for Authors Who Want to Use Reedsy.com 4 tips to find your dream editor on Reedsy What to Look out for When You’re Looking for an Editor Book Cover Design: How Self-Publishing Authors Can Do It Best 6 Tips for Briefing Your Book Designer Is It Worth Partnering with a Book Marketer   The post 178: How to Build a Team for Your Self-Published Book with Ricardo Fayet appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Ethan Jones is the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the best-selling Justin Hall Spy Thriller Series. Ethan always wanted to be a writer. He started writing novels seriously in 2008, but ever since he was a kid, Ethan would watch TV shows and movies and imagine future adventures for the heroes he loved. He doesn’t have a favorite spy movie, although Salt, The Bourne Identity, and the James Bond films rank fairly high with him. In 2008, he began carving out extra time to schedule to write his own stories. He always loved TV shows and movies that had to do with spies, so he figured that writing spy thrillers would be right up his alley. It turns out his audience agrees with him. In this episode, we talked about Ethan’s author journey, his writing process, and the importance of treating your writing like a business. We also talked about Ethan’s marketing strategies, his daily routine, and some mistakes Ethan made early in his career you can learn from. This was a fast-paced interview jam-packed with information. Ethan’s Turning Point Ethan decided to write his first novel after he read a spy novel that wasn’t very good. He thought for sure that he could write something at least as good as the book he’d just finished reading. That was the beginning of his writing adventure. It took Ethan one year to write his first book. The first book is always the hardest to finish. He wanted to write something a little different than the standard spy story. So the story takes place in Canada and his hero is a member of the Canadian special forces. Usually in spy fiction, the hero is a member of some sort of US government agency, whether that be the CIA or FBI or another alphabet soup agency. How Ethan Developed His Writing Process Ethan developed his writing process by writing books. He wrote his first book completely by the seat of his pants. There were one or two places where he wrote himself into a corner, and he had to spend a few days figuring out how the story was going to work out. These days, Ethan has an idea of where the story is going to end. He doesn’t have a detailed outline, but he has some idea of what the major plot points are and roughly where they occur. He’s not so tied to his outline that he won’t let the story change as he writes it. He allows his characters the flexibility to discover the story as they’re living through it. Having an ending firmly in mind has been helpful for Ethan when writing his books, even if the ending might change as he produces the manuscript. Why Pantsing Works for Ethan Ethan tried to plot a couple of his novels in detail. He found it was difficult for him to force the story on to the path he wanted it to take. It broke his creative flow. Ethan is much more productive with a loose idea of where the story is going and the flexibility to allow his characters to react naturally. Most of his stories are about spying and spycraft. So his characters have a lot of trust issues, and it’s very easy for him to manipulate the mood of a character to make them more suspicious, then gently nudge the story where he wants it to go. Writing mostly by the seat of his pants just works best for Ethan. How Ethan Comes up with His Story Ideas To develop his stories, Ethan does a lot of research. He pays attention to international news, and specifically news about the region where he’s going to set his next book. Recently, Ethan decided to write a book where ISIS featured prominently. He watched a lot of documentaries by journalists about the group. For Ethan, research is essential in coming up with his ideas and making sure his book seems like something that might actually happen. Write in a Genre You’re Passionate about Some time ago, Ethan tried his hand at romantic suspense. There was less research involved, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Those books took much longer to write because he wasn’t as passionate about the genre. “Writing good spy thrillers does involve a lot of research, but when you’re doing something you really enjoy, it doesn’t sound like work.” – Ethan Jones Ethan’s Publishing Journey Ethan wrote Arctic Wargame: A Justin Hall Spy Thriller back in 2008. At first, he tried to get a traditional publishing deal. Self-publishing wasn’t as popular back then as it is now, and a traditional publishing deal seemed like the way to go. In Canada, the book market is smaller, so you don’t necessarily need an agent to have your book traditionally published. Ethan tried submitting his book to agents and publishers. Some of the people he submitted to requested a partial manuscript, and he got good feedback from them, but he couldn’t secure a book deal. In 2011, a friend suggested that he self-publish his manuscript. Before diving in, he took some time figuring out how self-publishing works. He was able to publish the first book in the Justin Hall Spy Series in 2012, shortly after finishing the manuscript for the second book in the series. He published the second and third books in 2014 and hasn’t slowed down since. Back in 2012, you didn’t need to do a lot to promote a self-published book. Just the fact that was in the marketplace at a price lower than traditionally published books was enough for you to make a few hundred dollars a month, as long as the story was decent. The market was less crowded in 2012, and it was a lot easier to make money as a new author in the marketplace. Today, it takes more work—and more books. Ethan has three series out right now, and he plans to add another series in March 2018. Lessons Ethan Has Learned about Writing and Publishing in the Last 10 Years Things change in the self-publishing marketplace quickly. Things are often different just month to month! It’s important to adapt to changes as they occur. Don’t expect things to stay the same. Ethan suggests that all indie authors should consider wide distribution. There’s value in not having all your eggs in one basket, or all your books in one distribution system. Having your books available at different bookstores creates multiple income streams. That way, if one website’s sales slow down for you, the other booksellers might be able to pick up the slack. Ethan tried Kindle Unlimited as recently as early 2017, and his books didn’t stick in Amazon’s ecosystem. He’s had much better luck going wide. He’s done particularly well with his books in Kobo. Kobo also gives you opportunities to promote your work. Think about physical products. Sony televisions are available in a number of different stores and chains. They aren’t exclusive to Wal-Mart or any other chain of stores. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but always focus on collecting data that gives you information going forward. Ethan’s Strategy for Launching a New Book Ethan didn’t do any active promoting of his books until early 2017. His promotional strategy for his early books was to: Tell his mailing list that a new book was available. Be active on social media. Write Facebook posts and tweet about the fact that a new book is available. Write a blog post on his website announcing that a new book was available. Ethan’s Paid Promotion Strategy, Starting Early 2017 Ethan has been experimenting with Amazon marketing ads since early 2017. He’s also been experimenting with boosting his Facebook posts. Ethan’s Free Promotion Strategy Starting Early 2017 On the free side of things, Ethan has been building his network of authors in his genre and cross-promoting with them. The authors Ethan has teamed up with tell their mailing lists when he has a new book out. He returns the favor when they have a new book out, or when they have a deal going on. “Cross-promoting with authors in your genre is the best marketing you can do, because that audience is already hot for books like yours. Also, you’re not an unknown person to them, because you’re coming with a recommendation from the author that is writing to them.” – Ethan Jones Depending on how involved the author recommending you wants to get, they can say they read the book and enjoyed it and their subscribers might enjoy it as well, or they can simply say that you have a new book out and it looks good. It’s very important to be honest and aboveboard with your email list at all times. You shouldn’t lie to your readers to drive up book sales. You might get some short-term benefit, but it will cause you headaches in the long run. Cross-promoting with other authors is kind of like dating. Working with some authors might get you a lot of book sales. Working with other authors might not get you many sales at all. You’ll never know which partnerships will work best for you until you dive in and give it a try. It’s best to network with authors who write in your genre, because they have readers on their list who will probably like the books you’re writing. Ethan’s Daily Routine Ethan has a full-time job and has to carve out writing time wherever he can. He takes the bus to work every day, and that commute takes about an hour. He writes every morning as he commutes to work. There are times when he wishes the bus would take longer because he has to stop at a point where things are going really well for him. Sometimes Ethan wakes up earlier in the morning to do his writing. He has to get on the bus at 7 a.m., so he’ll get up at 4 or 5 a.m. to start his writing day. “I used to think writing was only to be done when you could have four or five uninterrupted hours on a Saturday. But realistically, that’s difficult to do when you have a family and other obligations. So even if I can spend 15 minutes and write it’s possible to get 100 words down in that period of time. So even if you only spend 15 minutes a day, by the end of the month, if you’re consistent you can get a few pages down for sure.” – Ethan Jones Mistakes You Can Learn From Ethan has made many mistakes in his author journey. Here are some of the bigger ones: Ethan’s biggest mistake was not having a mailing list from the beginning. Ethan wrote his books without a mailing list for three years. Without a mailing list, Ethan could only communicate with readers who sought him out; he had no way to follow up with his audience. You should have an autoresponder, a mailing sequence for your readers, and a call to action to join your email list at the front or back of your book. It’s important that you adopt a business mindset when it comes to publishing your work. Ethan had to learn more about how a business is run, how promotions work, and how to market his books. Business skills don’t come naturally to many authors, but they’re important if you want to be successful. In the beginning, Ethan priced his books too high. He also wishes he had begun networking sooner. It’s also important to improve your writing craft. It can be harder to see your writing mistakes than your business mistakes. When you’ve read over your manuscript a few times, you can get to the point where you’re tired of rereading it. It can be much easier to see your business mistakes when you do a promotion for your books and they don’t sell very well. Of course, if your book isn’t good, or it doesn’t have good packaging, that can certainly affect your sales. But you absolutely must have: A good story A good cover A good, succinct description An opening that grabs your readers. Readers can usually see about the first 10% of your story for free in the different online bookstores. You want to make that beginning as good as you can to draw readers in. A promotion that brings more traffic to your product page should lead to more sales. Also remember that some promotional websites give you a better return on your investment than others. Ethan Reflects on his Author Journey Ethan tried to get his first book published through a traditional publisher. As with all authors, his first book was his weakest in terms of craft. He also wrote the book to be a standalone story, something he doesn’t recommend for today’s authors wanting to make a living. Series sell better because each new book is an advertisement for all the other books in the series. He wants to improve his writing style, particularly focusing on some weak areas readers have pointed out in the past. You don’t have to put all of your research into the book you’re writing. Nobody likes a show-off. If the detail of your research doesn’t add to your story, leave it out. You should only add details about setting if they’re unique to the place you’re talking about, or if they add to the story. If you’re talking about a beach or a gun, you don’t need to describe every minute detail. Even if your readers haven’t been to the beach you’re talking about, most of your readers have been to a beach. Don’t get bogged down in details that don’t advance your story. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Ethan Jones Books – Ethan’s website where you can join his mailing list and get a free short story. He wrote the short story recently and it’s one of his better works. Ethan Jones’s Amazon author page The Justin Hall Spy Thriller Series – Ethan’s first series. It’s about a spy in the Canadian Special Forces. The post 173: How Author Networking and Co-Promotion Can Help Sell Books with Ethan Jones appeared first on TCK Publishing.

AJ Cosmo is the bestselling author of The Monster that Ate My Socks and more than 20 other fun children’s picture books. His stories are crafted to help parents teach children lessons in a fun and engaging way. Six years ago, AJ was at his day job searching for ways to make money online. One of the ideas in a writer’s forum was to write books and put them up on Kindle because, as the poster said, “Kindle is a gold mine!” The group of writers AJ eventually joined were publishing two types of content: adult fiction, and children’s books. Some years ago, AJ moved out to Hollywood to try his hand at being a screenwriter. The first books he tried to publish and sell on Amazon were adapted from screenplays. When he got the suggestion to try publishing children’s books, it interested him because it was something he felt he had a talent for, because he’s able to draw and be a little goofy. AJ wasn’t interested in writing adult content. When AJ wrote his first children’s book, he didn’t know anything about the different grade levels or reader expectations. He just wanted to tell a funny story and do some illustrations. It took three or four books before AJ saw any kind of return on investment with his writing. His fourth book was The Monster that Ate My Socks. That book took off and allowed AJ to make a career from publishing children’s books on Kindle. It took off on its own, and ever since then AJ has been trying to reverse-engineer its success. Six years later, AJ has published more than 40 books. And he’s doing this full time to earn a living. The Success of The Monster that Ate My Socks AJ still doesn’t understand exactly why The Monster that Ate My Socks became such a huge success. One thing that contributed to its success, as far as AJ can tell, is that it’s short. The book is about 3,000 words, and 20 pages in print. The book has six illustrations. There isn’t a magic number when it comes to the number of illustrations in a children’s picture book—you use the number you need to get the story across. In fact, the book actually goes against the traditional wisdom regarding the number of images you need in a children’s picture book. The Monster that Ate My Socks is technically a chapter book, but it’s much lengthier than a typical chapter book for very young children…and yet the language is much simpler than books published for middle-grade readers. The book carved out its own little niche in the children’s book world. If AJ had known the rules of writing children’s books, he never would have written The Monster that Ate My Socks. Parents have told AJ that besides being entertaining and funny, the book actually solved the monster problem for them with their kids. It humanized monsters, and allowed children to relate to them so they were no longer afraid of turning off the bedroom light and going to sleep. Marketing Considerations for Children’s Books “Children’s books [like nonfiction books] can have meaning and purpose beyond just entertainment.” – AJ Cosmo “When you’re selling children’s books, you’re not actually selling to children—you’re selling to the avatars of children: their parents or their teachers. You have to communicate something to the parents, that your book is beyond mindless entertainment.” – AJ Cosmo Parents expect a children’s book to be entertaining by default. What they want to know is, beyond entertainment, what can this book do for them or their children? There are thousands of children’s books published every year. So in order to differentiate your children’s book from other books for children, you have to consider what lesson your book can teach your audience. You have to walk a fine line. If your lesson is too serious, your target audience will zone out and their parents won’t buy your next book. But if it’s got too little lesson in it, the parents won’t think it’s valuable enough to buy your next book, either. The lesson your book teaches is a marketing point. It’s something you have to consider, but always remember the age of the audience you’re aiming your book at. There’s nothing wrong with creating a book that’s entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with creating a book that specifically designed to make children laugh. AJ is currently working on The Giggle Game, a book designed to do exactly that. But even The Giggle Game has a point to it. The book is designed as a wind-down game for children before they go to bed. Giving your books a reason to exist beyond entertainment is a major selling point in the children’s book marketplace. What’s Your Book’s Purpose? This lesson can be extended to other genres of fiction. If you’re writing a romance novel, what is the extra that the audience is getting besides the romance? Are you showing them an exotic location? Are you showing them a situation they’ve never seen before? “What are all the aspects you can have to sell your book? How can you communicate that?” – AJ Cosmo How to Test a Children’s Book in the Market Testing ideas in the marketplace is smart, because it helps you see if your book has the potential to sell well. So how do you test a children’s book? You ask other parents. You get your book in front of children and get their reaction. If you want to be a children’s book author, it’s very important to actually read the books to children and gauge their reaction. Kids are the best critics in the world because they’re honest. If your book isn’t holding their attention, they will wander off and go find something to play with. Meanwhile, you want parents to like reading your book as much as children like it. AJ has heard of several books that parents hide from their children because they’re tired of reading the book to them so often. Children are learning pattern recognition. Their learning to predict things that will happen. That’s why they want books read to them multiple times. Ask other writers of children’s books. A lot of people think writing a children’s book is an easy thing to do. It’s really not. AJ has revised some of his children’s books more than he’s revised his novels. Don’t assume writing a children’s book is going to be easy. How to Do Illustrations for Your Children’s Book Illustration can make or break a book. You need to make sure your illustrations are of good quality. “Your illustration needs to be up to par based on the expectation of what a good illustration for children’s book is. That is a huge range.” – AJ Cosmo When you go to illustrate a book, figure out what your budget is to hire an artist, then see how many books you would have to sell in order to recoup that cost. It’s a simple business calculation, and you have to factor it in if you want to make writing children’s books a business. It’s important to live up to the expectations that the audience has. Tips for Collaborating with Your Illustrator It’s important to understand what you have, and what you want from the end product. Do you have comparable books? This is something every author should be checking out no matter what type of book they’re writing. Find books like yours and analyze them to see what elements you can incorporate into your books. Once you find comparable books, give those books to the artist so they have an idea of what type of illustrations you want. Give hard deadlines to your artist. Try not to micromanage your artist. Micromanaging will drive everyone crazy. Break up your payments to be delivered over the life of the project. Check on your artist. But give them enough freedom that they enjoy the process of helping you create your book. By giving the illustrator artistic freedom within guidelines, you’re going to get the best product possible, and possibly far below market rate. How Do You Publish a Children’s Book? Formatting is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to publishing children’s books, because you’re publishing to a split audience. Some people have original black-and-white Kindles, or the Kindle Oasis. Those devices don’t support rich formatting. They only support basic pages that allow for static images with text. Kindle Fire models, as well as the Kindle apps for iPads and smartphones, allow you to do much more dynamic formatting. On top of that, the aspect ratio for a children’s ebook is different than a print book. So you have to take that into consideration. You sometimes have to make multiple versions of the same image to make sure that your book works on multiple devices. You can make CreateSpace perfect-bound soft covers if you want to put your children’s book into print. The problem with that is, if your book is a short picture book, you end up publishing what looks like a pamphlet. You can do hardbound books with crisp full-color illustrations through Ingram Spark. The problem with Ingram Spark books is that you only make about $0.50 per book sold for a short, full-color children’s book. There are a lot of options when it comes to getting your children’s books out in the marketplace. The challenge for indie children’s book authors is that they have to create a different edition for each one of the distribution methods. It’s a lot more challenging to do a children’s book in terms of formatting than it is to write a novel. If you don’t know what you’re doing, definitely get professional help with the formatting. It’ll be worth your investment. Make sure whatever version of your book you’re working on works for whatever type of book you’re formatting for. How AJ Promotes His Children’s Books AJ has a fan club of readers within his email list, and he’ll send his book to them first. He’ll send a free copy of his book to his fans before the book is live on Amazon. He’ll also send a note asking them to please give their honest opinion of the book on release day, and if they wouldn’t mind posting about it on social media, that would also help. Having good word of mouth is the best thing you can do to boost your book sales, and having an early review crew is the best way to get early word of mouth going. For the last book AJ published, he had a review crew of 35 people. You should always seek out twice the number of reviewers as you want reviews on launch day. Only half the people you ask to review the book will actually review the book by launch day. Don’t try to control your results beyond that. There are several different things you can do to promote your book. You can:   Give away a gift card. Give away a print copy of your book. Dedicate your book to your early review team by name. Do anything else you can think of that might cause people to show interest in reviewing your book. Send a reminder email when you send the book out, and then remind them on the day of the launch. That’s how you successfully build an early review team, and get reviews for your books on launch day. Make your marketing as organic as possible. When you first release your book, talk about how people are receiving the book on your social media platforms. Share Your Progress Be sure to show a lot of gratitude. Showing the process of creating the book, especially with children books, can be a great way to build buzz for your book before it’s released. Showing your audience your process is a very organic way to market your book. It also gives them things that they will want to share. Creating a children’s book is a very cool thing, and it’s interesting to lots of people. Sharing your process allows you to talk about something you’re excited about in a genuine and authentic way that doesn’t seem salesy. Get Feedback The other thing you can do is ask for feedback, even if you’re not going to incorporate it into the finished product. What you learn may inform future projects, and any way your audience can feel like they were part of creating the book will give them an investment in your success going forward. People who have contributed to the final version of the book are more likely to buy a copy on launch day, and they’re more likely to tell their friends about it. Try Amazon Ads You can also buy Amazon ads. When you do Amazon ads, you have to know what your comparable titles are. Who are the authors in your genre people know that have books like yours? Knowing your comparable titles will influence: What your cover looks like. What your product description sounds like. Where and how you advertise your book. Your ad copy. Be consistent. Share things on Facebook and your other social media channels, but don’t be annoying. The last thing anyone wants to see is an advertisement on their social media. Make your marketing organic. Make it as disguised as possible. And make it about yourself. How to Market Children’s Books Offline Offline marketing is also critical for selling children’s books. Talk to other authors. Tell people in person what you’re doing. Make yourself known. In general, say yes to everything. Help other authors before you ask for help. Any kind of help you can give people will want to reciprocate most of the time. Network with other author friends and see if you can split the cost of some book fairs. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview The Monster that Ate My Socks – AJ’s bestselling children’s book www.ajcosmo.com – AJ’s website www.thoughtbubblepublishing.com  – AJ’s publishing company https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/tag/kindle-kids-book-creator/  – Chris McCullen’s Kindle Kids Creator how-to https://scbwikitetales.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/news-from-the-internet-re-flowable-or-fixed-format-whats-best-for-digital-childrens-books/   – AJ’s SCBWI article on fixed format vs. fluid for kids’ books https://www.scbwi.org/ – the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators. You can join this organization to get yourself known within the children’s book community. Use IngramSpark to publish your children’s book in hardcover. AJ Cosmo’s Amazon author page The post 169: How to Write Children’s Books and Work with an Illustrator with AJ Cosmo appeared first on TCK Publishing.

James Blatch is a former BBC defense reporter. He reported on the UK military from Kuwait, the Arctic Circle, and during the Kosovo conflict in 1999, among many other crazy war zones and places. Today he is the director of The Self-Publishing Formula Course. He’s an online course provider for independent authors. He also cohosts the weekly SPF podcast. James took the lazy way into journalism. He did nothing to build a professional career until about the age of 25. He started by going into computers. In the late 80s, you didn’t need any qualifications to go into computers. But James realized quickly that he hated the field. Pursuing His Dream At some point in his 20s, he had a moment where he realized he wanted to achieve different things in life—he wanted to achieve his childhood dreams. One of those dreams was to work for the BBC. He started knocking on doors and eventually convinced someone to let him make tea for the sports coverage team on the weekends. Then he started reading the cricket results. From there he started covering other sports, like soccer and ice hockey. He got a staff job at the BBC after a year and a half of hard work. His regular BBC job started as a radio production job along with some on-air time. He slowly but surely wormed his way into the newsroom because the newsroom was a more exciting place to be. It’s always good in a newsroom to have a specialty, and having the defense beat made sense for James because he was always an aviation geek and he came from a military family. So he had some idea of how the military operated, which wasn’t the case for most of the people in the newsroom. James’s favorite part about being a reporter was being out in the field and doing stories. A lot of his colleagues wanted to be behind the desk reading news copy, and he never understood why that was more appealing to them. James got to do a lot of cool stuff as a reporter: He got to fly in fast jets. He got to travel to the Arctic Circle. He got to ride in Formula One race cars. As a member of the press, you are given unparalleled access because being covered is very valuable to people. James mostly covered the Royal Air Force. “The RAF generally fought their wars from four-star hotels about 1,000 miles away from the danger.” – James Blatch During the Kosovo conflict in 1998, James was with the RAF in Italy eating gourmet cuisine while friends of his were with the relief convoy on the ground near the border, set to go in after the violence ended. The most excitement James had as a military correspondent were the two times he was embedded on an aircraft carrier. James also enjoyed the travel associated with his journalism career, for the most part. Because he started his career 10 years later than everyone else, he was traveling quite a lot when he had little children at home. That’s when he decided to shift careers again. The moment in James’s 20s when he decided to be an action-taker has led him to change careers every 10 years or so. He worked for the BBC for about 10 years. In his mid-30s, he decided he wanted to be around his family more. He could’ve continued with the BBC at a desk job, but he decided he wanted to pursue another childhood obsession and become a film classifier. James was 10 when his father took him to see Star Wars in 1977. That was a real turning point in his life because it was the first time he was exposed to the idea that an ordinary person can be the hero of the story. From that point on, James always wanted to work for the BBFC. The entire job of the BBFC is to sit around and watch films and TV shows and give them ratings like PG-13, like the MPAA does in the United States. James began to target the BBFC in the same way he targeted the BBC 10 years before. The BBFC was a much harder organization to break his way into because of the limited number of slots available and the number of people who want to do that job. When James worked at the BBFC, he would go to work and watch 350 minutes of video a day. If he was unlucky, he would get something he wasn’t particularly interested in, like wrestling. Quite often, he would get to watch a series that he really liked. One of the problems he ran into with that job is he would often watch episodes of TV shows he was watching at home, before they were broadcast to the general public. Quite often, those shows would be spoiled for him. James worked at the BBFC from 2007 to 2013. It was during those six years that he met John Dyer and Mark Dawson, who were also working there. At the end of his tenure at the BBFC, James decided to join forces with John and start a video production business. James enjoyed video production. He enjoyed traveling the world again. The problem with his video production business is that it wasn’t scalable. That’s when John and James decided to start looking at other opportunities to make videos that they could sell multiple copies of, on an ongoing basis. They figured out that online courses were a scalable product. It was around this time that Mark Dawson called James and told him about the tremendous opportunities available in self-publishing, and they began to discuss the possibility of creating a course together to help teach new authors how to succeed in the indie publishing marketplace. How the Self-Publishing Formula Helps Authors Currently, the Self-Publishing Formula has two major courses for authors. Author 101 is for people who haven’t published their first book and want a foundation in self-publishing. Author 101 talks about the nuts and bolts of self-publishing, and the importance of cultivating the right attitude. It’s important that you treat your self-publishing business like any other business. You have to put out the best product you possibly can in order to compete in the self-publishing marketplace. Advertising for Authors is for authors who have written two or three books and are working on a series. The course teaches you how to find your readers on various social media advertising platforms. Advertising for Authors started out as Facebook Ads for Authors and has expanded to include Amazon ads and YouTube ads. It now has more than 40 hours of video content for students. The Biggest Challenges New Authors Face One of the biggest problems new authors face is being organized about how they approach advertising platforms. Implementing your marketing plan will require as much, if not more, attention than you put into writing your book. “If you’re going to be a self-published author, the word published is in there. You are effectively a one-person publishing house. And publishers market books.”  – James Blatch Successful indie authors spend a significant amount of their time marketing their books, especially in the beginning of their careers. You should plan to spend at least half of your time marketing your books if you want to build an audience quickly. The Biggest Mistakes New Authors Make One of the biggest mistakes new indie authors make is not putting enough time and attention into their cover. Books are judged by their covers. Your cover needs to look like it belongs in the category you placed it in. If your cover doesn’t look professional, it’s very unlikely new readers will give your book a try. It’s also important to spend the money you need to spend to get your book properly edited. At the end of the day, this product represents you in the marketplace. You want to put your best foot forward, and have the best book possible represent you. The Importance of Having an Email List The email list is the heart of every indie author’s business today. Having an email list of interested customers is vital for discoverability and success in the online marketplace. Things to Consider when Setting up a Facebook Ad Campaign Start small. If you spend $5 a day for two days, you should be able to get enough data to know if an ad campaign will be profitable for you. Split test everything you can. Try different images for your ad. Try different ad copy. Try targeting different audiences. Target other authors in your genre. Be sure to target yourself. Even if you are starting out small, some people will know who you are. It will help you build your audience to have people who know you realize you’re a self-published author. When you’re in the early stages of your career, target your ads at building your mailing list. It’s a mistake to target direct sales at the beginning of your author career. Facebook will take your money whether an ad is good or not. So it’s important to start small and only scale up when you see that an ad is performing well. How Facebook Ads Can Help Build an Author Business There are two things that determine your success as an indie author. They are: The size of your email list The number of books you have available for sale. In the beginning of your author career, your Facebook ads should point to a squeeze page. Once people sign up for your email list, you should have four or five automated emails that tell people who you are and what they can expect from you. That “onboarding” email sequence should get people excited for whatever book you are promoting. It can be used to help build your advance review team. Don’t be afraid to show people who you really are in your emails. This will help separate out the people who will like your work from those who won’t. How to Build an Advance Review Team James built his advance review team by asking people on his email list if they’d be interested in getting an advance review copy of his book. He specifically asked for people who knew or worked on the type of plane that is at the center of his first novel. Beyond simply asking people to join your advance review team, it’s important that you develop and maintain a relationship with the people on your email list. You do this by: Emailing them regularly. Having contests or sweepstakes. Being honest and genuine in your emails. Replying to everyone who contacts you. Being as accessible as possible.     Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview https://selfpublishingformula.com/ – an online course for self-publishing authors that teaches how to write, publish, and sell your self-published book. SPF podcast – a weekly podcast with Mark Dawson. James and Mark interview successful self-published authors so their audience can learn how to be successful. http://jamesblatch.com – go here to learn more about James and the book he’s writing. You can join his email list and study his “onboarding sequence.” https://selfpublishingformula.com/courses/ – you can get Mark Dawson’s list building tips for authors free on this page by simply giving Mark your email address. The post 167: How to Build Your Platform as a New Author with James Blatch appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Evan Marshall is a literary agent and owner of the Evan Marshall Agency. He’s also a multi-published novelist and a nonfiction author, and the creator of The Marshall Plan novel writing software. Evan was born in Massachusetts. His first job was with the Big Five publisher Houghton Mifflin in Boston. Then he moved to New York and worked with Signet Books and a small company called Everest House, which is no longer in business. He also worked for a very famous old company, Dodd Mead, known for publishing Agatha Christie. After working with these traditional publishers, Evan became a literary agent. He started working for another well-known agent, Sterling Lord. Evan started his own literary agency in 1987. What’s Changed in the Publishing Industry over the Last 30 Years When Evan started in the publishing industry, there were many more publishers than there are today. There were many small independent publishers that were actually considered major industry players, typically based in New York City. Over time, the small independent publishers engulfed and devoured each other so that now there are just the Big Five traditional publishers. Macmillan Penguin Random House HarperCollins Hachette Simon & Schuster Most of the publishing companies that existed when Evan started in the business are either now imprints of one of these five publishers or they don’t exist anymore. What this means for agents and traditionally published authors is that now there are fewer places to sell books. Very often, Evan will submit projects to different imprints within a publishing company, but when he does, he has to tell each of the editors that he’s already submitted to that company, because the individual imprints of the publishing company can’t bid against themselves. That’s very different than the old days, when Evan could submit to truly separate publishing houses, and get more and higher bids. Publishing is no longer a “gentleman’s business.” There are no more midlist authors. Midlist books were books that were bigger than so-called category books, but not “top of the list books” as they would say in the industry. Basically, a midlist book is a book that has the potential to perform solidly in the market, earning a good living for its author, but isn’t going to be a massive bestseller. These were the books authors built their careers on, putting out a reliable stream of books and getting a reliable, if not massive, income in return. Today there is no room for books like that. A book has to be a solid genre category, or has to be able to go out on its own in a big way. In the past, there used to be midlist thrillers that had modest sales projections. If the book hit those projections, that was great. In order for a thriller to be successful today, it really has to sell in big numbers or, more than likely, that author will be canceled. Publishing is a much more hard-nosed business today than it was 30 years ago. Another example of how the publishing industry has changed is that bookstores very rarely want to do signings anymore, unless you are a big brand-name author. There used to be signings practically every week at local Barnes & Nobles and Waldenbooks, all the brick-and-mortar bookstores that used to exist. Now, many brick-and-mortar stores say it’s not worth their time to have a book signing unless you’re a big brand-name author, like Oprah. Some small bookstores will hold signings for local authors, but these events often don’t sell many books. One positive development in the publishing industry are the new independent publishing companies like TCK Publishing. Small publishing companies like TCK Publishing make it possible for projects that don’t have a home with one of the Big Five traditional publishers to be put out in the marketplace, so they can find readers. Most editors have to play it safe. They’re looking for reasons to say no. They have to buy something they know will work because they know their jobs are on the line. Ironically, many times the Big Five publishers will try to swoop in and sign an author who has done well with a smaller publisher like TCK Publishing. And yet, when authors are asked if they want to switch to one of the Big Five publishers the answer is often no. What Are Traditional Publishers Afraid of? Basically, traditional publishers are afraid they’re going to buy a book that won’t sell very well, and then people higher up in the company will fire them. Every editor at one of the Big Five publishing companies has a cost-benefit analysis done of them as part of a regular review process. The publishing companies compare: What the editor bought Whether the projects they bought were profitable How profitable those projects were as compared to the editor’s salary If the books the editor bought don’t make more money (usually a lot more money) than the editor is paid by the publishing company, very often they are fired. That’s not to say that new things never come out of New York. But when New York tries something new, it does so in a very safe way. A few years ago, 50 Shades of Grey was an unexpected success, so now all of the big publishers want to publish S&M romance. That was a new development, but it was safe and new because the ground had already been broken. What Should Writers Do if They Want a Big Book Deal? One approach to getting a good book deal is to work backwards. You find out what the editors are looking for. You go to places like Publishers Marketplace or the deals page of Publishers Weekly. You read book reviews. You read the New York Times book review. You go to writing conferences where publishers’ staff appear and explain what they’re looking for. And if you think you would enjoy writing something in one of those areas, you read their guidelines and give them exactly what they want. Just remember: You have to look carefully at what they’re already publishing so you don’t give them something too close to what they already have. If, on the other hand, you’re an author who has an idea that’s a little different and doesn’t fit into what the traditional publishers want, there’s nothing wrong with indie publishing. Indie publishing used to be called vanity publishing, and it was an embarrassment to most people. Generally, it meant that your work wasn’t any good and you had to pay $5,000 or $10,000 to fill your garage with books that usually just got moldy, that you were never able to sell. Typically, the author just ended up giving them away to friends and family. Everything is different now. You can have your book on sale as an ebook and a print-on-demand paperback in a matter of weeks. Especially if the book you’re writing is in more of a niche genre or subgenre, it makes perfect sense to indie publish your book. Don’t waste any more time banging your head against the wall trying to sell to gatekeepers who aren’t interested. If your book does well enough, traditional publishers will come knocking at your door after your book has proven itself. You Can Get a Book Deal after You Self Publish Your Book It’s entirely possible to get a publishing deal after you’ve self-published a book. Today, self-publishing your book and getting a bunch of sales is a way to prove to traditional publishers that your book as a product, and you as an author, are a safe bet. Evan has many clients who got a traditional publishing deal after their book sold many copies in the marketplace as an indie published book. Evan has also successfully sold indie published books to the Big Five publishers after the book sold many copies online without a traditional publisher backing it. Often, a traditional publisher will rebrand the indie book they bought by giving it a new title and new cover. But remember—the book has to do really well first. On the whole, unless a self-published book has sold phenomenally well, agents aren’t going to be interested in taking it on to try and place it. – Evan Marshall If an indie book doesn’t sell well, publishers believe the book has “had its life.” For traditional publishers, an indie published book that’s selling phenomenally well is a book that selling hundreds of thousands of copies per year and continuing to do steady sales. Usually when an indie author is selling that many books, though, they aren’t interested in a traditional publishing contract. The money you can make as a phenomenally successful indie author is far more than you can make as a traditionally published author under contract who has the same level of success. There are examples of authors who began as indie published authors, got big advances for their next projects from traditional publishers, didn’t sell as many copies as they did with their indie published books, and now have returned to the indie publishing marketplace where they started. In general, publishers aren’t going to be interested with an indie published book. If you really want a traditional book deal, it’s better to offer them something fresh. How to Get a Traditional Book Deal in 2017 The process of getting a traditional agent and book deal begins with a query letter. A query letter is simply a professional business letter. One of the first things that professional business letter would say is if the author querying was referred to Evan by somebody that he knows. Then it would launch into a description of the book the author is trying to sell. The description would include: The genre The word count Any comparisons between the book being offered for sale and anything out in the marketplace now, or any book that has been out recently (either one or several projects) A brief description of the plot At the end of the query letter should be a brief list of any credits the author might have. You’ll want to include: Anything you’ve published Any honors you might have Any organizations you might belong to The initial query letter should really be no longer than one page. If Evan likes what he sees and the query looks promising, he asks to see the manuscript. Evan will either read it himself or give it to a trusted reader. If he gets a recommendation from his trusted reader, then he’ll read it himself. If Evan likes the book and thinks he can sell it, he’ll give the author a call and they’ll have a conversation. In that conversation, Evan will: Tell you who he thinks he can sell your book to Ask you what your career plans are Ask you how many books you think you can write in a year Ask if you want to keep writing the type of book that you submitted to him His general goal in this conversation is to get a feel for the author that he might be representing. Evan is really interested in working with people who are in it for the long haul. He likes to help people achieve their goals. Many of his clients have been with him since he started his company 30 years ago. He even has a few authors who were with him before he started his own company. Evan has had many authors who started their journey with him and went from unpublished to bestseller. Certainly that’s not true of every author, but quite a few have seen great success. Often, agents and authors have a very close relationship. Sometimes the agent plays the role of manager, and sometimes the agent plays the role of therapist. The agent and author work together to build a career as a team. Evan has two or three trusted readers who used to work as editors at one of the Big Five traditional publishing houses. They aren’t paid employees, but they are trusted professional acquaintances. They know what he’s looking for. In some cases, they have even bought books from him. The benefit of using former traditional editors as first readers is they know what to look for. They also know when to stop reading. Evan’s Process for Reading a Manuscript Often, Evan will stop reading a manuscript very quickly. He does that when he sees that the author has no idea how to write point of view. One viewpoint error you want to avoid when writing fiction is writing in an omniscient viewpoint that jumps from one character’s point of view to another within the same scene. You also want to avoid writing in what Evan calls “cinematic viewpoint.” That’s when you describe the setting of the scene without actually letting the reader experience it through the viewpoint of any particular character. Evan also looks for grammatical errors. What he wants to see is smooth, professional fiction writing. If he sees too many errors, he knows this author doesn’t know what he or she is doing, and he won’t spend any more time going over the manuscript. However, when Evan sees that a person gets the rules of writing professional fiction, he gets very excited and he wants to finish the manuscript because he wants to know what the author has done with the story. It’s funny how the right way to write fiction is right there in front of us in bookstores, on our own shelves, and yet there’s a disconnect between what we read and enjoy, and what we do when we try to do it ourselves. – Evan Marshall Evan thinks that some writers, deep down, just need to do it their own way. And that’s fine! But he is looking for writers who want to write stories the way publishers and readers want to see them. Those are the authors Evan can sell. Evan can usually tell on the first page of a manuscript if the book isn’t going to be a good fit for him. If he gets to the bottom of the first page and the writing is good, he’ll generally read the first chapter. The goal for Evan is to get to the end of the book without stopping because the book is so good. Two Steps to Getting a Literary Agent Write a great query letter that gets the agent to ask for the manuscript. Write a great manuscript that has the agent reading until the end. Just as there are great examples of fiction all around us, there are also examples of great query letters all around us. It’s very important that you make every effort to be professional when presenting yourself to an agent or publisher. Once you’ve mastered the art of the query letter, you are through the first door. If you have great fiction to back it up, you will find an agent and get a book deal. What Happens After You Find an Agent The first thing Evan does after he has signed a new client is go over all the material they have to make sure it’s as strong as it can be. If the author has submitted a full manuscript, Evan will often send the author notes on improving the manuscript. He might ask for some revisions on the manuscript that he thinks would make it stronger. Very rarely does Evan get a perfect manuscript. The next thing Evan and his new author talk about involves future planned projects, so that when he’s talking to editors at the Big Five publishers, he can talk about his author’s future plans. Once Evan has everything he needs and a good solid bio of the author, he’s ready to start submitting to publishers. He submits his authors’ work right away and keeps his authors informed of what he’s doing. He likes to show his authors the correspondence he’s getting from editors about their work, so they can learn from it. After all, in the traditional publishing model, writers are selling to editors. While Evan is trying to sell a project, he’ll encourage his author to write something new. Selling a book to a traditional publisher can take anywhere from two months to more than a year. The only way to have the best chance of having a successful career as an author is to write multiple books. You only have unlimited time when writing your first book. Traditional publishers generally want an author to publish a book a year. Books have to be good, and they have to be written fast. Evan’s most successful authors write top-quality fiction, and they produce it regularly. When it comes to genre fiction, Evan will often sign his authors to multi-book contracts where the publishing company will lock the author into delivery dates for future fiction. Authors have to produce regularly and they have to be on time. What Happens when an Author Doesn’t Meet Their Scheduled Delivery Date It’s imperative that authors maintain communication with their agent and give them a fair warning—if at all possible, at least a month in advance—that the book won’t be ready. If you give your agent enough warning and the agent is able to reset the delivery date, and you deliver on that new delivery date, then you aren’t really late. It’s when the publisher is waiting for a manuscript to fill a publishing slot and the manuscript doesn’t arrive that real trouble ensues. Things take a long time to get published in traditional publishing, but that also means the publishing process is equally stretched out. If the production process on the book gets going without a manuscript being delivered, and with no warning that the book is delayed, it’s a black mark against the author and they’ll never work with that publisher again. Everyone is human, and life circumstances can cause delays. Publishers and agents are very understanding as long as the lines of communication stay open. Sometimes a big-name author is late. That puts the agent and editor in a real bind because they don’t want to lose the author. With big-name authors, all the sales channels are ready to go. Big plans are being built around some of these bestselling series with loyal fan bases. One thing you have to realize as an author is that you’re part of a much bigger plan. Write Your Second Book while You’re Still Trying to Sell Your First The benefit of writing your second book while you’re still trying to sell your first is that you’re focused on the day-to-day work of writing. You want to avoid focusing on the process of selling your first book. Selling your book is not a result you can control. The other big mistake authors make is focusing on the results other authors are getting. So much information is public knowledge now. Sales figures are public knowledge, and often advances are public knowledge. What you have to realize is that we are all on our own track. Focus only on the results you can directly control. That is the surest way to success. You’re only competing with yourself. That’s the healthiest way to look at it. Otherwise you’re just going to become bitter. – Evan Marshall   Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview The Marshall Plan novel writing software https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ – one place to find what publishers are looking for. Publishers Weekly Deal Page – another place to look and see what’s selling in the traditional publishing marketplace today. The Evan Marshall Agency – Evan’s agency website. The post 165: How Traditional Publishing and Agents Work with Evan Marshall appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Ricci Wolman is the founder and CEO of Written Word Media. You may not have heard of Written Word Media before, but I’m sure you’ve heard of some of their brands, including Free Booksy, Bargain Booksy, and Red Feather Romance, all of which are very popular book promotion websites. Ricci has more than 10 years of experience building online audiences using data-driven customer acquisition techniques, and she has an MBA from Harvard University. Ricci’s background is in online marketing, and specifically the part of online marketing that is data-driven. She is an expert at running ads and figuring out the ROI (Return on Investment) or figuring out how much it costs to acquire a customer, whether that’s getting a customer to give you their email address or getting them to buy something at your online store. Ricci actually got her start with The Body Shop, a natural beauty company, working with their e-commerce division at headquarters. After helping build their e-commerce division and working for a couple other companies, Ricci decided to start her own consulting firm. She specialized in helping medium-sized companies acquire new customers. When she started working in the online marketing space 11 years ago, everything was new. Facebook was new! Ricci remembers when Facebook came out with its first ad product, allowing people to pay for customers to like their Facebook page. She’s seen how sophisticated online marketing has become over the last decade, and she’s helped several businesses navigate the online marketing space. The Birth of FreeBooksy While she was running her consulting company, Edge on Marketing Group, Ricci’s mom published a book. Her mom asked for her help getting that book onto Amazon. Once it was live on Amazon, though, it didn’t sell any copies, and her mother was very disappointed. This was around the time that Amazon launched their exclusivity program, KDP Select. In the original incarnation of KDP Select, you could opt for exclusivity with Amazon and have the ability to give your book away for free for 5 days out of every 90-day period. Ricci convinced her mom to opt into KDP Select and offer the book for free. The book still didn’t sell any copies. Ricci was confused. She expected her mom to see at least some activity when the book was offered for free. So she dug into the data to figure out what went wrong. She discovered that on the days her mother’s book was free, so were 5,000 other books on Amazon. Her mom’s book had a real discoverability problem, both when the book was priced and when it was free. That’s when she decided to start FreeBooksy. Originally, FreeBooksy was a blog that picked 5 to 10 free books on Amazon every month and helped them gain exposure. Ricci also featured her mother’s book when it was free to try and give it some exposure. FreeBooksy: From Hobby to Side Project FreeBooksy started as a hobby and a way for Ricci to help her mom. It quickly became a side project because she used FreeBooksy as a sandbox to test out online marketing techniques for her consulting business. She used FreeBooksy to test all of the major social media ad platforms as they came out. Because Ricci spent the time testing ad platforms with the FreeBooksy brand, she began to build an audience. When the social media platforms first started running ads, they were very inexpensive. Facebook’s first ad platform allowed you to run ads for a penny apiece. So you could end up spending $10 in a day and literally get hundreds of likes. After Ricci built an audience, authors began to approach her, offering money to have their book featured on her Facebook Page and blog. That’s when FreeBooksy turned into a side business. Ricci decided to focus on FreeBooksy and build Written Word Media three-and-a-half years ago, after the business grew to the point where it became her primary focus. How Book Promotion Sites Actually Work FreeBooksy has two types of customers: readers and authors. How FreeBooksy Works for Readers FreeBooksy gives readers an easy way to discover new books. There are literally thousands of books free every day on Amazon and it’s really overwhelming for a reader to wade through all of that and discover something they might like. When a reader signs up for FreeBooksy, they give FreeBooksy two pieces of information: What genres the reader likes. What device the reader likes to read them on. With these two pieces of information, FreeBooksy is able to come up with a highly personalized experience for the reader. Every single day, FreeBooksy sends an email to its subscribers with a list of books that meet their criteria. FreeBooksy subscribers are highly engaged because the emails give them a unique customer experience tailored to each individual. FreeBooksy is able to help authors get their books in front of readers who will be interested in reading them. The fact that FreeBooksy’s reader audience is highly engaged means that it’s a very attractive opportunity for authors. Ricci and her team have 3 to 6 slots per daily email promotion. She and her team have found that depending on the genre, readers prefer having 3 to 6 choices. The email recommendations are a mix of paid advertisements and editorial selections. The paradox of choice: If you give your customer one choice and say “it’s this or nothing,” they generally become upset because of the lack of choice. If you give the same customer two choices, they become happier. If you give that same customer three choices, they become happier still. However, if you give that same customer 15 choices, they’ll be less happy than when they had two choices. Ricci and her team have found the best balance is to give readers 3 to 6 choices depending on the genre. How the Written Word Media Sites Work for Authors Here’s the process authors use to promote their book with one of Written Word Media’s book promotion sites. Choose your brand. The first thing you have to do as an author is choose which site you’re going to promote your book on. If your book is free, you’re going to use FreeBooksy. If your book is $4.99 or less, you’re going to use BargainBooksy, and if your book is a steamy contemporary romance, you’re probably going to use Red Feather Romance. Choose your timeline. Go to the appropriate website and check to see that the days you want are available. Occasionally the website(s) do sell out certain days. Submit your book. Once you’ve decided on available advertising days that work for you, you submit your book to the site; the team there will help you make sure your book cover and description will maximize book sales. Watch the sales happen. On the day your book is scheduled to go out via email blast, you will see a spike in sales. Ricci’s goal is that you make enough sales to cover the cost of the ad within 48 hours of the email blast. That’s why ads with Written Word Media sites range from $25-$100. The Top Strategies Ricci Uses to Build Her Reader Base Ricci uses a variety of techniques to make sure there’s an active, engaged reader audience for each of her sites and services. Paid Advertising Ricci uses some paid advertising. She advertises on all of the major social media platforms that support advertising. She runs Facebook ads to build an audience. She also runs ads on Pinterest and Twitter. Word of Mouth There’s a huge word-of-mouth component because the users of Ricci’s email service love the service, and they tell their friends about it. Authors should use the same mix of advertising strategies. Paid advertising gets traffic to your book page so that people know it exists. It’s vitally important that you write a good book, so that when people do find your book, they like it and tell other people about it. Building One Brand vs. Building Many Brands One of the choices for Ricci early on was whether or not to build up one brand, or to diversify and build different brands for different types of readers. BookBub is an example of a company that decided to invest all of its energy into building up one brand. Clearly, they have been successful. However, Ricci still prefers building out different plans for different readers, because it allows authors the opportunity to target readers more specifically. At the same time, it allows for a more individualized approach to the emails being sent. The one downside to building multiple brands is that every time you build a new brand, you’re starting from scratch. How Authors Can Promote Their Books There are quite a few techniques Ricci has learned that authors can use to maximize the potential of their books. How to Launch a New Title The first 30 to 60 days is the most critical time for launching your book and building an audience. This is especially true on Amazon because Amazon relies heavily on computer algorithms to generate visibility for new authors. As of November 2017, Amazon’s current algorithm favors new books. Amazon will give your book a bit of a boost when it’s first released because it’s new. If you can leverage that in the beginning and drive your target readers to your book within the first 30 days, Amazon will continue to promote your book for you going forward. “One mistake authors make is they release a book and send an email to everyone they know saying, ‘Please purchase my book.’ And that will definitely help your ranking, but what it can do is confuse the algorithms.” – Ricci Wolman What you want to do when you’re releasing a new book is define a target audience for Amazon’s algorithm. You want to promote your book to a group of readers who like the type of book you’ve written. It’s fine if you want friends and family to purchase your book, but what’s more important is that you have more of your target readers purchasing your book. Defining the target audience for Amazon’s algorithms is one of the most important things you can do that will lead to success. Using Book Promotion Sites to Promote a New Release You can use the various promotion sites to help you gather your target reader. If you’re going to use book promotion sites, you should look at sites that use subgenres to market to specific readers. At Red Feather Romance, you can place an ad for several specific types of romance, including (but not limited to): Sweet romance Steamy romance Historical romance The more specific you can get with your reader targeting, the better. If you’ve written a historical romance and you promote your book using a site that only emails to romance readers in general, you’re not going to have the results you want because romance is such a big genre with many subgenres. Find Your Fans Identify your target reader. Who are the people who will read and like your book? Figure out where your target reader hangs out. Go where they are, whether it be a Facebook group or a forum. You can join these communities and find beta readers or people who might be interested when you do a free promotion. Using Paid Advertising to Build a Fan Base Facebook ads and Amazon ads can work to build a fan base. But again, you have to know who your target reader is, so your advertising ends up in front of the right people. Use Email Marketing to Build and Cultivate a Fan Base Email marketing is the most effective way of marketing online. You own the email address, and you’re not advertising on anyone else’s platform. Even with dipping open rates these days, you are still reaching 20%-70% of the people who say they are interested in you. Contrast that with Facebook, where if you have a fan page, you’re reaching at most 10% of your audience. As you grow your email list, every time you send an email, you will see a spike in sales. It becomes almost addictive and you have to find the right balance so that you don’t annoy people and cause them to unsubscribe. As an indie author, you will find that email becomes one of the core drivers of your business. Used correctly, email allows you to have a spike in sales when you want to have a spike in sales. Final Words of Advice “Success is within reach but it’s not going to be instantaneous.” – Ricci Wolman The number-one factor in success for indie authors is how long they have been writing and how many titles they have in the marketplace. The vast majority of authors earning $100K a year are authors who have been writing books for the last six years. Everyone starts somewhere. First, you have to get your first book out there. Then you have to get your second book out there. The key to success for indie authors is perseverance, just like with any other business. You have to keep on keeping on until you’re successful. Book Promotion Sites https://www.freebooksy.com/ – a website that helps indie authors build an audience by facilitating free giveaways of ebooks. https://www.bargainbooksy.com/ – a website that helps indie authors build an audience by advertising when their book is $4.99 or less. https://www.redfeatherromance.com/ – a website offering the best new, discounted, and free ebooks in the romance genre. https://www.newinbooks.com/ – another Written Word Media brand. This brand is aimed that new releases in the marketplace. You should also go here if you want to promote audiobooks, paperback books, or hardcover books. http://landers.bookbub.com/ – BookBub is the leader in book promotion sites. They have very granular reader categories. http://ereadernewstoday.com/ – another good book promotion site with granular reader categories. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview https://www.thebodyshop.com – the British natural beauty company where Ricci got her start. https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/ – a blog that has monthly data-driven articles about the indie publishing business. For more on how to promote your ebooks online, read on! Top Kindle Book Promotion Sites for Paid Kindle Books $0.99 and Up List of Sites To Promote Your Free Amazon Kindle Books 13 Sites to Publicize, Promote and Market Your Book With Little or No Marketing Budget The post 163: How Book Promotion Sites Work and Data-Driven Online Marketing Strategies with Ricci Wolman appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Tyler Basu is the content marketing genius at Thinkific, one of the fastest-growing online course platforms. In episode 48, we talked with Tyler Basu about how to create a lifestyle business and live your dream life. He had just launched Lifestyle Business Blueprint. Since then, Tyler has gotten on board with Thinkific as their content manager. Thinkific helps entrepreneurs easily create and distribute online courses to their audience. Why Is the Online Course Market Growing so Quickly? The online course market is growing quickly because online learning is so attractive. People want to learn specific skills outside traditional learning environments. They want to have the flexibility to learn at home, and to learn on their own schedule. Plus, there are a lot of topics that you can learn online that you don’t learn in school. That’s a huge part of it. The demand for online courses has gone up significantly in recent years, and in response to that, entrepreneurs are creating online courses to serve their customers. In 2017, the e-learning industry will reach $255 billion in total sales from people buying online courses. The traditional book industry is between $80 billion and $100 billion—which makes the e-learning industry 2.5 times the size of the book industry globally! The major reason for this is that the price point for online courses is much higher than for a book. The e-learning industry has a range of price points. There are online course marketplaces like Udemy where you can buy a course for as little as $10, and there are private courses hosted on entrepreneurs’ websites that can go for more than $1,000. Another factor in the growth of the e-learning industry is that the cost of attending a college or university has skyrocketed in the past few years, making taking courses online a much more affordable option for most people. On top of that, people are beginning to question the value of a traditional college degree. There are certainly specialized fields that require a traditional degree to enter, but there are a lot of professions, especially in business, where you don’t need the degree—you just need the skill set. Online courses are perfect for jobs like those. Online courses provide skills at a price point much lower than that of traditional education. The number-one value of online courses is that they can give you skill sets that you can use in your career. In the internet age, there’s information available on every topic you can imagine, whenever you want it. If you decide you wanted to design a logo, and you went to Google and typed in “how to design a logo,” you’d have no problem finding information that would help you in designing your logo. But the best online courses go beyond just giving you information. The instructors go a step further and make sure their students are implementing the information they are given to develop skill sets that make their students more valuable in the marketplace. That’s the difference a good online course can make. The value for the student of any online course is actually implementing the lessons that you learn. Design Your Course So Your Students Implement What They Are Learning Before you create a course with your information, and maybe even before you write a book about it, you should test out your system and approach to solving a particular problem with other people. Before you put it out in the marketplace, your system should work for more people than just yourself. Maybe put up a free video on your YouTube channel. Maybe offer to coach some clients for free. Before you put anything up in the marketplace, you need to be able to prove that it works for different kinds of people. You are not your audience. After you can prove that the information or system that you have is transferable to another person and that it worked for them, the next thing you have to consider is how to create a course that will cause your student to actually go through the material and implement it. Create Short Lessons The first thing you can do to increase engagement and implementation of your information is create short, actionable lessons. You want to create a lesson that doesn’t take a long time to consume. Give Your Students Action Steps After each lesson, you might want to give your students action steps they can do to implement what they’ve learned so far, immediately after learning it. The more your students get in the habit of taking action, the more likely they are to successfully implement your course’s lessons in the long run. Give Students Worksheets or Quizzes about Your Lessons Another good tactic to use involves giving your students a quiz about the lesson they just took, or a worksheet that helps them implement something they’ve been taught by guiding them through the train of thought that leads to action taking place. Allow your students to get quick wins. Don’t give them a ton of content without allowing them to experience the benefit of implementation. “If all you offered was video lessons, you’d be doing a disservice to your students because we all have different learning styles.” – Tyler Basu Pay Attention to Learning Styles People have a variety of different learning styles There are: Visual Learners Auditory Learners Kinesthetic Learners And many more! Some people learn best by watching videos. Some people learn best by listening. And some people learn best by actually doing the activity they’re learning about. Most people learn through a combination of all three methods. If you want your lesson to be accessible to all of your students, you should: Create a video of the lesson. Create a slideshow of the lesson with blanks that people can fill in. Record an audio presentation of the video lesson so that your students can listen to it. Have the audio of the lecture transcribed so your students have a document they can read. Create worksheets that students can use to help them internalize and implement what you’re teaching. Create different types of media and different ways of teaching that same lesson. Those are the best ways to approach creating content for your course that makes it accessible to all of your students, regardless of their dominant learning style. The Marketing Advantage Courses Have Over Books With books, reviews are practically everything when it comes to selling. Word of mouth is a huge factor in any bestselling effort for an author. Word of mouth is still the best way to sell anything. If you have a great course that delivers the result promised to the student, that course is going to do well over the long term. The major difference between an online course and a book is the price point. Because online courses are so much more expensive than books, the return on investment for advertisement is much greater when selling a course than when selling an ebook. Because you stand to make more money, you can afford to spend more money when promoting your courses. This makes it easier to initially get the word out about your course. Courses make it possible to have a sales funnel that allows you to extract the maximum amount of money from each customer that you get. Using Facebook ads to market a $3 ebook by itself is not usually a profitable endeavor. But if your book is the first product in a sales funnel, that makes each customer who buys your book potentially much more valuable to your business. As a nonfiction author in particular, it makes sense to have multiple ways for people to get information from you. If all you have is a book, you’re really leaving money on the table. How to Promote an Online Course So once you’ve created a valuable online course that offers plenty of ways for your students to access and implement the information you provide, how do you get those students? Stage 1: Create a Minimum Viable Product One mistake Tyler sees people making when they decide to create a course is that they lock themselves in their office and spend hours creating the course content. Then, when they come up for air, they suddenly decide that they need to learn about marketing. This almost never ends well for the course creator because they haven’t validated their course concept. They haven’t looked at the market to see if anyone is interested in what they have to teach. They didn’t involve anyone else in the creation of the course content. Your marketing should start as soon as your course creation does. If you are thinking of creating a course, and you have some people who’ve bought your book, or followers on social media, or an email list, you should engage with them and see what type of content they might like in your course. Contact the people in your personal network, whether they’re customers, family, or friends, and say, “I’m thinking about creating a course on this topic. Is that something you’d be interested in learning, and if so, what kind of questions do you have on the topic?” Then you begin to create the course with their input. You can then presell the course to them, and teach it via a weekly webinar. Next, you would improve that based on their feedback; create better, improved course content; and relaunch it at a higher price point. This would prevent you from creating a course that nobody wants. It would also help you create a more complete, robust, and helpful course that leads to the types of results that your ideal customer wants to achieve. When you create a course, you’re not trying to create something perfect from day one. You’re trying to create something that proves that people want it. From there, you improve it and add on to it based on feedback. That’s the way to ensure your success as a course creator. Stage 2: Promote Your Proven Product So let’s say you have a great course. You’re sure of its value. You implemented the suggestions of your first students, and you have testimonials from successful students. How do you go about promoting your proven product from there? This is where authors and course creators have such a great advantage, because they’ve created a mountain of content to pull from. Tyler suggests that you use content marketing to help promote your course. It is difficult to run ads straight to the purchase of the course and have it be a successful strategy. It works much better if you warm the customer up by giving them a piece of free, useful, actionable data along the way. You have to give new customers a reason to trust you before you ask them to spend money. Maybe you can give them free training, or a series of short webinars that give useful but incomplete information. The Power of Content Marketing Thinkific uses its blog and YouTube channel to put free content out on the internet on how to build and promote your online course. Each piece of free content is a channel that allows a potential customer to find Thinkific. The free content does three things: It attracts a community of followers. It gets people talking about Thinkific. It establishes Thinkific as an authority in its market. It helps potential customers without ever asking for anything up front. Reciprocity is a powerful psychological principle. When you do something for someone, the vast majority of people want to pay that back in one form or another. Thinkific’s sales funnel goes like this: A potential customer sees a piece of free content on YouTube or on their blog about how to create or promote an online course. From there, they want the customer to either join their newsletter or a free webinar that allows Thinkific to show off its platform for creating courses. Next, that interested user can create a free account to try out Thinkific and play around with the platform. Finally, after establishing authority, showing customers how to use the platform, and then giving them a free taste of how it works, a customer will most likely decide to commit actual dollars to the platform so they can create a full-featured course. Ways You Can Promote Your Online Course There’s no one right way to promote an online course. Here are some suggestions. You could: Use YouTube Guest blog Do podcasts Use Facebook ads Market through your social media channels Every one of these strategies has been useful for Thinkific’s customer base. “Think about who your customer is. What’s the result your course teaches them to get? And then think about the journey that requires your customer to buy your course.” – Tyler Basu At the end of the day, a course is a solution to a problem. Nobody’s just going to buy your course because you put it out there. Your customers are buying your course because they think it will help them solve a problem. The key to promoting your course with content marketing is to think about: Who your ideal customer is. The result your course helps your customer to achieve. Then you want to backtrack and ask yourself: What does my customer think about when they’re not even aware of the problem? What does my customer think about when they become aware of the problem? What does my customer think about when they’re searching for a solution to the problem? What is my customer thinking about when they’re comparing solutions to the problem? What is my customer thinking about when they’re ready to buy a solution to the problem? Once you’ve mapped out your customer’s journey, you can create a piece of content around each of those questions. Your content would help guide your customer along their journey and lead them to buying with you. If you help your customer on their journey through different stages for free, when it comes to their biggest problem, they are more likely to choose to buy from you because you’ve built up trust with them. Whoever your target audience is, a very small percentage of them are ready to buy immediately. By giving away free content that helps your ideal customer on their journey, you’re building a foundation of trust that allows your customer to buy your course more easily in the future, when they’re ready. “Long-term success in business is about building long-term relationships.” – Tom Corson Knowles   “Be there for your customers both before and after the sale.”  – Tyler Basu Making sure your customer is happy and giving them support after the sale is the way you get referrals and activate word-of-mouth marketing. Three Ways to Create an Online Course There are a few ways you can create your online course. 1. Use a Marketplace You can create your course and upload it in an online course marketplace such as udemy.com or skillshare.com. The benefit to using one of these online marketplaces is the exposure. There are millions of customers on these marketplaces for you to market your course to. There are limitations to the marketplace model. There are limits to how much you can charge. And there might be limits to how you can contact your students. You don’t get your students’ direct contact information. There are also rules you have to follow if you join one of these online learning marketplaces. That being said, these marketplaces are a great arena to validate a course idea. You will also develop valuable experience starting in one of these marketplaces. 2. Build Your Own Site The second option is that you build your own website using WordPress and members’ area plugins. This requires either a bit of technical know-how or paying someone to set things up for you. You’ll also probably have to pay for the plugins, and you’ll have to manage all aspects of your course and its backend operation yourself. However, you’ll get to keep all the profits from your course, you’ll have easy access to your students’ contact information and be able to upsell them or provide bonus content at any time, and you’ll have full control over how your course looks and feels. 3. Use a Learning Management System (LMS) The third option is for you to host your course on a learning management system. Thinkific falls into that category. Thinkific has the platform. All you have to do is show up with your content. Tyler had a course he put on a WordPress site using OptimizePress. It took him a week to figure out how to put all of the content he had on his website. When he started working for Thinkific, he decided to move his course over to their platform. It took him 30 minutes. Final Words of Advice Don’t try to make your first course perfect. Perfection is the enemy of getting things done. Any time you do something for the first time, you’re going to make mistakes—and that’s okay. If the course is good enough to help someone with a problem, just get it out there! You can even offer a free course to test the waters. This will give you practice in creating a course. It will also help you validate the course idea. If the free course gets customers, you can judge the market for what a paid course in the same market space might get. Never try to build a perfect course. Perfect is very subjective. You should aim for a course that is able to help people get a result they want. You can always improve the course later. The goal should be to get a minimum viable product up so you can get feedback and improve it. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Lifestyle Business Blueprint: Top 5 Strategies For Making Money Doing What You Love From Anywhere In The World https://www.thinkific.com/ – an online course marketplace. Tyler is their content manager. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries https://www.skillshare.com/ – an online learning community for creators. https://www.udemy.com/ – another online learning community. https://www.facebook.com/Thinkific/ – the Thinkific Facebook community. This is a great resource for people who need help. https://www.thinkific.com/resources – there are blog posts and videos here designed to help entrepreneurs figure out how to create their first course. tckpublishing.com/thinkific – use this link to get three months free on Thinkific’s business plan (usually $99 per month) http://tylerbasu.com/ – Tyler’s website.   Read on for more ways to grow your email list and expand your reach: How To Build Your Email List Using YouTube How to Write an Outreach Email (plus a bonus email template) How To Write Emails That Get Results: 9 Tips for Getting Better Responses The post 162: How to Create, Promote, and Grow an Online Course with Tyler Basu appeared first on TCK Publishing.

In episode 7, we talked to Rob Archangel about audiobook publishing. In the last three years, Rob has built one of the most successful self-publishing services companies out there. I brought Rob back to talk about what he’s doing now and the lessons he’s learned over the last few years. Selling Books Directly from Your Website It’s helpful if you can think laterally about how you can use your book to grow your business. Not everybody wants to go the bestseller route. There are lots of ways to publish your book and make a profit without selling a ton of copies. The Kindle store is very competitive. It’s very difficult to stand out in the marketplace when there’s literally millions of books available. There is a big emphasis on price as a way to compete in the marketplace. If you pour your heart and soul into a book and work on it for years, it can be hard to turn around and sell that book at just $0.99 or even $2.99. But the entire Kindle business model is designed around encouraging authors to sell their books between $2.99 and $9.99. More and more people are selling their books directly on their websites so they can charge what the book is actually worth. Having a book on your topic of expertise establishes you as an expert in your field and gives you credibility. If you sell your book directly on your website, you have direct control over every aspect of your product and distribution. Selling your book directly from your website works really well when your book is on a small niche topic that doesn’t have wide market appeal. Again, you have the ability to price the book at its true value, and if you work on your website and search engine authorization properly, you can find a market for your very specialized book. You may have seen websites in high-end markets like investing and business selling specialized reports for $100 or $197. Depending on the report and what it can do for you, those price points make a lot of sense. In contrast, it doesn’t make sense to put those kind of reports on Amazon and lose 70% of the profit, because the market is so specific—you aren’t going to get many more customers on Amazon than you do just by selling on your own website, and you’ll make far less money. Rob has been in touch with an author who takes the “sell direct from your website” business model to an extreme. He sells his books for more than $1,000! Obviously, you’re probably not going to sell a million copies at the price point of $1,000. On the other hand, at that price, it doesn’t take so much to make a decent living selling to leads you’ve already cultivated through your network. Trade-Offs The trade-off of selling books directly from your website at very high price points is that you have to find an audience for your material. Finding the audience for whom the book is worth premium pricing is the real work of this business model. The benefit of selling your book on Amazon is that you have a potentially huge audience to market your book to. When you look at how to market your book, you have to look at how specific your market niche is, the actual value of the book that you’re offering, and its value to the audience you are gathering (or have already gathered). It’s best to think broadly when considering your marketing strategy. At Archangel Ink, Rob and his team can advise you on the best way to use your book to grow your brand and your business. Use Your Book as a Lead Generation Tool Jay Campbell is another client of Rob’s. Jay published the book, The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual: How to Optimize Your Testosterone for Lifelong Health and Happiness. It’s available on Amazon for $9.99 on Kindle and $15.36 in paperback. He also has it available on his website using a free plus shipping offer (where you give the customer the book for just the cost of shipping.) Jay offers the book for the cost of shipping so that he can build his email list. He has a bunch of ancillary offers that he makes money from, so the free plus shipping offer is a moneymaking proposition. One offer that is a particularly high-value item is Jay’s long-distance coaching. Jay also partners with a long-distance concierge medical practice. This service allows you to have in-home blood tests to determine your unique hormone levels, then lets you consult with doctors to figure out the best treatment for you. He also partners with a supplement company and emails his qualified list of leads their offers. That’s an additional income stream for him. Jay also has a podcast and YouTube channel. Jay estimates that he receives $100,000 more in sales per year thanks to publishing his book, and due to the authority status that book gives him as an expert in the industry. When Jay published his new book, Burn Fat with the Metabolic Blowtorch Diet: The Ultimate Guide for Optimizing Intermittent Fasting: Burn Fat, Preserve Muscle, Enhance Focus, and Transform Your Health, he had close to 200 reviews within 72 hours, selling the book at $8.95. Jay has a background in marketing and an extensive network of followers. This isn’t something you can set up over a weekend. But it is a good example of what’s possible if you have the right foundation in place. Use Your Book to Establish Credibility and Build Your Brand You can certainly use your book to build your voice in your industry. You can also use it to find leads and customers for your business and brand. Use Your Book to Build Relationships with Future Customers “One of the great benefits of writing a book is that if you are an expert in your field, it allows you a vehicle to share your knowledge with people.” – Tom Corson Knowles Writing a book makes it easier for potential customers to find you. It puts your expertise on display, and gives you a way to connect deeply with your audience. “Having a physical product to give people is really powerful.” – Rob Archangel Rob had another client, Lynda Goldman, who wrote the book, How to Make a Million-Dollar First Impression. She was invited to speak at a medical sales convention, and because she had physical copies of her book available, she was able to give out several copies of her book to the audience. Giving that book to members of the audience helped her build a network that launched her business. Having a physical copy of your book in hand helps people look at you differently. “Unless you’re in specific industries, like self-publishing, the likelihood that someone you know is actually a published author is probably quite low, so the market is quite open.” – Rob Archangel Giving people a physical copy of your book begins a conversation. It opens the door to the possibility of connection. Your book can act like a soft salesman to your prospect. It’s not a high-pressure sales tactic, but it still puts you in their mind as someone they might like to buy something from. Your audience can decide on their own how, when, and if they want to contact you. In many cases, someone who reads your book is presold. They already know, like, and trust you. How Alex Goldstein made $70,000 By Accident: A Case Study Alex Goldstein is another one of Rob’s clients. In his book Publish to Sell: Long-Term Income from Short-Term Effort, Alex tells the story of how he wrote his first book on seller-financed real estate deals, distributed it to a few dozen people, and forgot about it. This was right around the time of the financial meltdown of 2008. There was a hungry market for this sort of information. Since then, Alex estimates that he’s made around $70,000 from clients who have reached out to him after they’ve read his book. This money came in without him promoting the book in any significant way, beyond the first wave of self-distribution. His book established him as an expert in real estate. Clients who came to him from his book didn’t have a lot of price resistance, and they were eager to do what he said. People who came to him after reading his book wanted to work with him. Alex’s book sold him to his clients as someone to work with. There came a point where Alex actually got mad that the book he’d forgotten about was doing better than other sales methods he put a lot of time, effort, and energy into! “Imagine all the people you’re not serving if you’re not putting your knowledge out into the world.” – Tom Corson Knowles   “You never know what’s going to happen. In many cases, casting a wide net, trying different things, experimenting around and seeing what happens, and being open to that sort of market feedback can be really powerful, and might lead you to some novel insights you would not have otherwise come up with on your own.” – Rob Archangel The Process of Writing a Book Has Value in and of Itself “It’s never a waste of time to write a book and publish it. I have some books that only sell four copies a month. But going through the process of researching your book, writing it, clarifying your thoughts, and publishing it makes a huge impact on your life even if you don’t make money from it.” – Tom Corson Knowles You never know the opportunities that will come up after you publish your book. If you have something inside you telling you to write a book, don’t ignore that voice. Writing a book will change your life in ways you can’t imagine. Rob’s relationship with his business partner, Matt Stone, started with an email. He found Matt’s website and simply emailed Matt saying, “I like what you’re doing and I’ll be following you.” From that first email, an extremely profitable friendship and partnership formed. Writing a book as a business owner allows you to get clear on your own thought process and how you think about things. That’s incredibly valuable for future projects and productivity. When you’re an entrepreneur running your own business, you spend your days putting out fires, going from one problem to the next, and it doesn’t allow you to reflect on the way you do things. Writing a book gives you the space and time to reflect on what you do and how you do it. It makes you a more effective businessperson going forward, regardless of how many copies you sell after it’s published. Writing a book allows you to think about who your ideal client is and what your ideal outcome is for them. That’s incredibly valuable information for your business going forward. “The writing process helps you become much more clear and gives you a much broader perspective about what’s important in your work, expertise, and knowledge. The other great thing is it actually allows you to communicate that with your readers and customers.” – Tom Corson Knowles Answer Your Most Commonly Asked Questions in a Book The first book Rob actually published himself was the Archangel Ink Self-Publishing Report. He and his team put the report together because they found they were answering a lot of the same questions repeatedly from potential clients. When clients contact Archangel Ink these days, they’re encouraged to get the self-publishing report first and then contact them again if they think Archangel Ink might be a good fit. Rob has heard a number of examples of coaches assigning chapters of their book as homework assignments, especially in the financial planning industry. The process goes like this: A client contacts a coach with a problem. After the initial consultation, they agree on terms. The coach says, “Great. The first thing I want you to do is read these chapters. Answer the questions in the book, come back, and we can chart a course forward for you.” Being able to do that allows you to save time, because you don’t have to recap the same information over and over with each new client. It also cements in your client’s mind their image of you as an authority. You have a book about the topic you’re coaching them on. You literally wrote the book. So you’re obviously an authority who knows what you’re talking about! As a businessperson, you want that for yourself. You want to be taken seriously as a thought leader and expert. You want people to listen to you and follow your advice. Writing a book demonstrates your breadth and depth of knowledge in your area of expertise. The other benefit to giving your customers and clients a book that answers your most commonly asked questions is that it answers the questions your clients may be too afraid to ask you. Writing a book that answers commonly asked questions gives your clients and customers a base of knowledge before they start to work with you. It allows you to save time because you don’t have to spend time getting new customers up to speed. Instead, you can spend your time building on the base of knowledge that you’ve already given them in your book. Another benefit to giving new clients a book that answers the most common questions is if your client is already familiar with the information in the book. If they read the book and realize they already know the answers to the most common questions, it gives them a sense of confidence. People like people who make them feel good about themselves. If you can do that through your writing, it helps you build stronger relationships. “If you can provide a good, accessible summary that reaffirms your client or prospect is already a knowledgeable, informed, and astute person, they will have warm feelings associated with you. That makes it a lot easier for you to close the sale and form a positive relationship with them.” – Rob Archangel The Ideal Client for Archangel Ink Archangel Ink is a publishing company geared toward professionals, coaches, and entrepreneurs. They also work with writers. But the emphasis recently has been on working with clients who have a broader set of goods and services around their brand, who really want to use publishing to build on their platform and enhance their reach. They want to use publishing to market for them, to demonstrate their credibility and expertise. The company offers a number of publishing services from start to finish. They’re a service provider, so when their work is done, the author still has all the rights to the material Archangel Ink has helped them package and/or produce. There’s no royalty share involved. So if you’re someone who wants to publish and collect all of the backend yourself, Archangel Ink might be a good fit for you. Archangel Ink is also really good at filling in the gaps. Let’s say you’re a person who’s really good at publishing, and you have an editor already, but you need help producing an audiobook, or with cover design or marketing. Those are all things Archangel Ink can help you do. Archangel Ink offers a free 30-minute Skype or Zoom consultation. There’s no hard sale. Obviously, a lot of people who contact the company do end up working with them, but a lot of people just want to ask questions in real time. And they’re happy to do that. Rob and his team want to help authors expand their reach through publishing. The reason that Tom Corson Knowles keeps using Archangelink for different projects is that they’re so reliable. They always deliver on time. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Archangel Ink Self-Publishing Report – a short book that answers a lot of common questions about self-publishing. Archangel Ink – Rob’s self-publishing services company. He and his team will help you navigate the world of self-publishing, and advise you on your best route to making money with your book. http://hemochromatosishelp.com/ – Eric and Kristina Lewis are clients of Rob’s who sell their book directly on their website because it allows them to sell their product at a price point that is commensurate with the amount of work that went into creating it. The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual: How to Optimize Your Testosterone for Lifelong Health and Happiness by Jay Campbell Jay Campbell’s blog Burn Fat with The Metabolic Blowtorch Diet: The Ultimate Guide for Optimizing Intermittent Fasting: Burn Fat, Preserve Muscle, Enhance Focus and Transform Your Health – Jay Campbell’s latest book. How to Make a Million Dollar First Impression – a book by Lynda Goldman, another client of Rob’s. This book helped his client build a business. Publish to Sell: Long-Term Income from Short-Term Effort by Alex Goldstein   For more on how to build your business and brand with a book, read on: Write to Improve Your Other Career How to Write Book Titles That Sell: 5 SEO Tips for Creating a Nonfiction Book Title So You Can Sell More Copies The Power of Outsourcing: How to Write a Book While Having a Full-time Job The post 161: How to Generate More Leads and Accelerate Your Business with Book Sales with Rob Archangel appeared first on TCK Publishing.

  Brian David Crane is a serial entrepreneur. He sold his first company at age 24. He has helped launch six different million-dollar brands, including Archives.com, which was bought for $100 million three years after launch. Brian has been a digital nomad since 2014 and he’s here to talk about the downsides of the digital nomad lifestyle, and why you might want to rethink selling everything you own and traveling around the world. Brian has had an entrepreneurial streak since he was a teenager. His first business was a lawnmowing company that he started at the age of 14. When he was 17, he started a recycling business with his mother that helped him pay his way through college. He sold that business after he graduated from college at 24. Brian decided to travel the world to find himself. He was supposed to see 25 different countries during his 25th year. He canceled the trip three countries in, because it had no purpose and it didn’t seem to be helping him much. He lost all his money in the financial crisis of 2008. Brian says that’s one of the best things that ever happened to him, because he was a little too big for his britches at that point. A friend got Brian a job out in Silicon Valley. Over the next three years, he learned how to build and launch digital brands and built up a number of e-commerce brands. Then he decided to strike out on his own and build the CallerSmart app, which helps you identify blocked and anonymous callers on your cell phone. What Is the Digital Nomad Lifestyle? Brian considers himself more of an expatriate than a digital nomad. He travels to a place, lives there for 3 to 5 months, and uses where he’s living as a base from which to explore. He has several bases around the world. He has lived in: Bali Hong Kong Vietnam Poland One of the major downsides to being a digital nomad is the fact that you move around all the time. People who are contemplating this lifestyle massively underestimate the time it takes to ramp up and ramp down from traveling. It undercuts your productivity quite a bit. It’s very hard to build consistent habits as a digital nomad. It’s nearly impossible to create a routine if you’re always moving around. Dealing with the Double-Edged Sword of Envy and Perception As a digital nomad, you want to show people your lifestyle. But if you’re too open on social media, your boss and the people your boss works for will see it, and they may begin to question your work product. There’s a real danger to your income if you’re too transparent about your lifestyle. The Digital Nomad Ponzi Scheme There are a lot of digital nomads who travel the world because they convince other people who want to live that lifestyle to hire them as a coach. Instead of providing value and great insights, they make their money and support their lifestyle by telling you how you can do the same. It’s a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple. How to Find a Quality Coach Who Will Actually Help You Improve Your Skills Starting about a year and a half ago, there were a lot of Facebook ads targeting people who wanted to be coaches. These coaches would coach people on how to coach coaches. If you’re searching for a coach to help you improve a skill set, the best thing to do is search for a coach who has achieved what you want to achieve in life. You want to look for a coach who is successful and makes their income from something other than just being your coach. The best coaches are people who are reluctant to take on new clients. They are busy, successful people who don’t need to make money from coaching clients. Stay Away from Gurus There are three levels of teaching. A teacher can teach a skill without being a master at it. There are plenty of teachers who teach physics who aren’t master physicists. A mentor is someone who has mastered the skill. Mentors are people you can model to achieve success. A guru is someone who has mastered the skill and uses their mastery in one area of their life to convince people to follow them in every area of their life. Gurus can be dangerous, because everyone is unique and gurus want everyone to follow their systems regardless of your individual strengths and personality. The Real Key to Success “Become so good in your field that they can’t ignore you. Become so good that the marketplace demands more of what you’re doing.” – Brian David Crane   The real key to success in anything you attempt is to become so good at what you’re doing that people can’t ignore you. You want the marketplace to demand more of what you’re selling. To develop that kind of expert skill level requires focus. You can’t be focused if you’re always traveling everywhere. When you’re constantly traveling, your brain is wired to always think about what’s happening next. If that’s all you’re thinking about, you can’t possibly live in the moment and plan to cause real, lasting change in the world. The Problem with Materialism in the 21st Century The problem with the lifestyle advocated by books like The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris is that it creates an addiction to novelty. This type of lifestyle book advocates having experiences as being more valuable than owning things. While that may be true to some extent, there are extremes with every type of lifestyle. Becoming addicted to novelty doesn’t allow you to process your personal experiences deeply. Player Discipline and How It Relates to Online Business The Dominican Republic is really good at producing major-league baseball players. This is because they teach aspiring baseball players how to hit every pitch that’s thrown at them, whether it’s thrown at their head or at their ankles. The problem with this approach is when those players get to the major leagues, batting coaches don’t want them swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. The same can be said for online entrepreneurs. When you’re just starting out in business, you take every opportunity you can get; you hustle to get clients. The problem is, once you reach a certain level of success, it’s more important that you say no to certain opportunities that don’t work for you. The true key to success is focusing on what value you can offer to the marketplace by using your best talents. By saying yes to everything once you reach a certain point of success, you limit your effectiveness. How to Develop Your Discipline “I find for myself that if I have a sense of pushing a rock up a hill, if I listen to that, if I’m not stubborn and I pay attention to it, a lot of times that’s an indicator to me that I’m swinging at something outside my strike zone. Realizing that helps reinforce my discipline.”  – Brian David Crane   “Discipline for me is about cultivating the right habits. If you have the right habits in place, discipline becomes effortless.” – Tom Corson Knowles Brian’s Digital Nomad Habits Brian has a sound machine he uses to help him sleep. Before he goes to sleep, Brian puts his phone on airplane mode. Brian journals every night. He has for four years. Before he turns on his phone each morning, Brian does calisthenics and dancing. Brian drinks 2 liters of water every day. Brian has a set morning routine and a set nighttime routine that help him book-end the day in both directions, no matter where he’s at. At every one of his bases, Brian has a particular office setup. He uses a two-monitor display setup to do his work. Brian has found that having that stability dramatically increases his productivity. One of the keys to happiness in life is having a balance between certainty and uncertainty. You need enough certainty to be stable and develop habits. You need enough uncertainty to be stimulated and surprised by new experiences. Living a Great Life as a Digital Nomad One of the problems digital nomads have is that constantly traveling the world feels like a vacation, and yet in order to sustain your lifestyle, you have to work some of the time. So you’re never really on vacation, but you’re never focused completely on your work. It makes things muddled. That’s why Brian chooses to have a base to explore from. It gives him a place to do his work and the ability to shift mentally from work to play. Traveling while you work leads to incompatible long-term goals. And it siphons away your productivity. When considering adopting the lifestyle of the digital nomad, it’s important to know ahead of time what you’re going to sacrifice, and to know your limits. “You can have a lot of the things you want. You can’t necessarily have everything you want.” – Tom Corson Knowles   “You can have everything you want, just not all at once.” – Brian David Crane   When you want everything all at once, it leads to a great deal of pain because your expectations are out of line with reality, either consciously or subconsciously. Being a digital nomad can be lonely. Brian misses the experience of working in an office with coworkers. There’s a social aspect to working with people in an office that the digital nomad gurus don’t talk about when they’re selling the lifestyle. Another aspect to this is that as a digital nomad, all of your relationships are transitory because you’re moving around all the time. It can be healthy to have an office and coworkers you see on a regular basis. Spending time together is what allows people to build relationships. Developing and Maintaining Relationships as a Digital Nomad Maintaining relationships as a digital nomad can be difficult. One solution is to live with friends. Last year, Brian and two friends rented a ski villa outside of Vancouver, Canada. The villa had five bedrooms. So there was a core group of three people there, all of whom had online businesses, and a rotating group of friends who occupied the remaining two bedrooms. Again, the key to relationships is spending time together. Another key to building friendships as a digital nomad is to find people who are on the same trajectory, and who you’re going to see over and over again. It’s incredibly tiring to keep initiating new people into your social group. It’s important to build a community of people with similar interests around you. Having that community makes living the life of a digital nomad much less stressful. “If you want to be location independent, why not go somewhere where you already have friends?” – Tom Corson Knowles Cultivate and build friendships with people you know you want to spend more time with in the future. Using Mastermind Groups to Build Relationships Another place to find like-minded people is through mastermind groups. These groups are great because they’re full of like-minded people pursuing similar goals. They can help you professionally as well as personally. Using Local Sports Teams as a Way to Meet People When Brian moves to a new location, he finds a local sports team to follow and uses that as an icebreaker to develop local relationships. In Europe, Brian likes to follow soccer. He’s also a fan of basketball. Any team sport that will get you connected with people in the community works well. The benefits of following a local sports team are: It’s community-oriented. It’s away from the computer. It’s not motivated by business. It allows you to keep your social life and business activities separate, which is helpful from a productivity standpoint. Getting involved in local sports gets you involved in the community and away from your computer screen. Using Social Media to Connect in Person “I use Facebook and other social media platforms to find out who else is around [in my area] so we can meet face-to-face.” – Brian David Crane Some time ago, Brian was going to Oktoberfest to visit his girlfriend. He got on social media to see who else might be attending that Oktoberfest event and found out that two friends from Tennessee were also going. He was able to connect with them because he put an announcement on social media. Travel with a Purpose in Mind One of the major reasons Brian is traveling the world is to find a home where he can put down deeper roots. He knows a lot of people in their 30s who have a family and routine, and having that kind of stable life looks good to him right now. From the point of view of those friends, Brian has a really good life. It’s the old cliché that everybody wants some of what they don’t have. It’s important to know why you’re traveling and what the purpose is. That’s what’s going to allow you to get the most out of it. The one thing that Brian might regret is that he didn’t start traveling until he was in his mid-20s. He would have traveled earlier, but it didn’t occur to him until somebody invited him to travel outside the United States because they thought he’d like it. Advice for Aspiring Digital Nomads “I see so many people who jump out of the plane without a parachute and just assume they’re going to learn how to land on their feet on the way down.” – Brian David Crane In Brian’s experience, it’s much easier to live the digital nomad lifestyle if you already have a part-time or full-time income coming in. So many people tell you to just follow your dreams and you’ll figure it out as you go. You can do that. Many have. But without question, it’s the hardest way to go. Without a guaranteed income, there are so many more pressures and distractions to deal with than if you have a steady income coming in on a regular basis. Write a book. Get a side business set up that’s not tied into any particular location, and then look into traveling. It’s best to try out the digital nomad lifestyle before committing completely. Try a couple of trips to see if they work for you. A lot of people try it out and then go back to their life, either because they have satisfied their curiosity or because traveling wasn’t like what they expected. The best way to have an impact in the world is to put down roots, focus, and take action. CallerSmart and the IRS Scam CallerSmart is an app that Brian had developed. It currently has more than 500,000 active monthly users who work to keep the database up-to-date. CallerSmart can help you identify blocked phone numbers and unwanted callers. It can also help you block scam phone calls. The app works with iPhones and Android smartphones. In particular, CallerSmart can help you avoid a scam having to do with the IRS. This is where someone will call you from a blocked number and tell you that they are from the IRS. They say that you owe the IRS money and if you don’t wire them money immediately, they’re going to freeze your bank account or throw you in jail. In reality, the IRS delivers tax notices exclusively via the U.S. Postal Service. You can call the IRS, but they will never call you directly. The first contact will always be through the mail. CallerSmart will help you identify and block unwanted scam phone calls. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Archives.com – One of the most lucrative brands Brian has helped launch. It sold for $100 million three years after launch. https://www.callersmart.com/ – Brian’s current company. This app will help you identify blocked and unwanted calls on your cell phone. The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: – the foundational book for anyone contemplating becoming a digital nomad.  Healing the Shame that Binds You — John Bradshaw’s book about how to heal your personal shame. Connect with Brian Connect with Brian on Twitter – https://twitter.com/briandavidcrane Email Brian directly – brian AT CallerSmart.com The post 160: The Real Digital Nomad Lifestyle: Pros and Cons of Traveling the World with Brian David Crane appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Penny Sansevieri is the author of several books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon. She’s also the founder of Author Marketing Experts. We interviewed Penny back in Episode 22: Getting Red-Hot Internet Publicity for Your Book, where we talked a lot about how to get online publicity for your books. I wanted to bring her back again to continue our discussion about how to get publicity for your books online, and especially on Amazon, the largest retailer in the world. In this fantastic interview, we talk about how to use keywords to increase your sales, the importance of gathering a street team, and how to get reviews to help boost your sales. Amazon Is a Search Engine for Consumers Amazon is not just a bookstore. It’s a search engine for consumers. There are two important things you can do to boost your ranking within Amazon. Get a consistent stream of reviews for your book. Reviews are like updates to your website or blog. Google likes to see regular updates to websites when it does its ranking. Amazon is the same way. The more regular reviews you have for your products, the more customers are interacting with your product, and so the higher you will rank, all other things being equal. Choose the right keywords. A lot of indie authors will pick single keywords when they choose the keywords for their book. It’s better to select longer keyword strings if you can. Studies have shown that longer keyword strings—or longtail keywords—end up being the keywords people use before they buy something. No matter what type of book you’re writing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, you want to choose the keywords that your audience is most frequently typing in to find the type of book you’re working on.   Keywords have within them the intent of the reader. The more specific the reader is about what they’re searching for, the more likely their intent is to buy. – Tom Corson Knowles   How to Find the Keywords Your Audience Is Searching for Penny recommends doing all the keyword research yourself. What you want to do is: Go to the Amazon Kindle store. Enter a search string that relates to your book. Judge the competitiveness of that keyword string based on the number of results that come up, and the sales rank of those results. The more books that rank for a particular keyword phrase, and the higher the sales rank of the books on the first page of search results, the more competitive a particular keyword phrase is. After you search the keyword phrases that come naturally to your mind, you can use the Amazon suggested searches that show up as you type. However, there will be times when Amazon’s suggested keyword searches aren’t relevant to the book that you are trying to rank. Be careful of that. Penny has found it’s better to do this kind of keyword research manually because Amazon is changing all the time and every piece of software she’s tested isn’t as accurate as she would like.   How to Use the Keyword Strings You Find to Improve Your Sales Penny likes to find 15 keyword strings that she can use to help her audience find her books. Amazon allows you to directly input seven keyword strings into your metadata to help customers find your book. But there are other places keywords can go that will still help your readers find you. You can also put keywords: In the title of your book In the subtitle of your book On your book description page On your Amazon Author Central page   It’s very important that you use the keyword strings you find naturally. You should not engage in any sort of keyword stuffing behavior, because that may get your book pulled from Amazon. Penny likes to find 15 keyword strings, because you will often find that a particular keyword phrase stops working to attract readers to your book. Having 15 gives you a lot of backup options. How to Tell If a Keyword Phrase Is Working for You You can see if a keyword phrase is working for you by whether a particular book rises or falls in sales ranking if you change a keyword phrase. Penny likes to test her keyword phrases one at a time, especially if she’s in a crowded market, like dieting or dating. To change your keyword strings: Go into your Author Dashboard. Select the book that you want to modify. Go to the keywords field and change the keyword string you want to test. Monitor your results. Typically, within 48 hours, you’ll be able to tell whether or not a book is rising or falling in the Amazon rankings. You can also edit your book description to include the keyword you want to test. Amazon scans all the book description pages on its site and picks up on keywords used in them. Tips for Getting More Sales from Keywords Test your keywords. Look at your keywords every three months. Things change on Amazon quickly and you need to adjust. Check your Author Central page. If you go to the book details section, there are a lot of places you can add keywords organically to improve the discoverability of your books. The information you put in the book details on your Amazon Author Central page will end up on your Amazon book description page, and Amazon’s spiders will pick up the keywords there. How to Get Reviews for Your Book Reviews are also critical for getting exposure for your books. The more people are reviewing your book (and reviewing it positively), the higher you can climb in Amazon’s rankings and the more people will trust your book and want to buy it. Here’s how to get more reviews: Look for books similar to yours. If you click on the name of someone who has reviewed a book similar to yours, very often you will get contact details for that book reviewer. Look for people who review a lot of books. They will be better at giving you the type of detailed reviews that people respond to. Think about gathering your superfans together, even at the beginning of your writing career. Build a street team as quickly as possible. A street team is a group of people who will review every book you publish, and promote your book to their social networks. It doesn’t matter how old your book is. As long as your book is still relevant, you should be gathering reviews for that book. Current reviews keep your book active on Amazon search rankings, and it’s also good psychologically for people to see that the information in your book hasn’t become outdated. As your book ages, you should lower the price of the ebook; this will encourage more people to buy it and, hopefully, review it. Don’t underestimate the power of asking your fan base to review your book. People have short attention spans, and asking them for a review reminds them how helpful reviews are. You’re much more likely to get a review if you ask for one. I’ve found that when I ask for reviews and a fan of mine has already reviewed my work, they are likely to email me and tell me how much my work has improved their life, or tell me a story about how they have implemented the ideas in my book. Another thing you can do is deeply discount the price of your book for one day and tell your email list about it. Tell them that if they know anyone who might want your book, it’s deeply discounted for a limited time. You should tell your fans that this is an effort to get more reviews, and you should collect the email addresses of as many of your new buyers as possible. Superfans and Street Teams Superfans are people who will buy every book that you write. They love what you write, and they will most likely leave a glowing review wherever they can.   Street teams are people who buy your books, review your books, and share your books with their friends. Super fans get access to you. Street teams get access to special deals because they’re helping to raise awareness that your book exists. In order to be a part of your street team, the members have to agree to promote your book when it comes out, and when you run special deals and promotions. The Power of Micro-Influencers Penny knows a romance author who has 10 people on her email list. But the 10 people on this author’s email list are superfans who share everything that she writes with their online social networks. Because those 10 people are not major influencers connected to huge networks, they have a much higher response rate than people with larger audiences. Every person in your network is important and special. You never know which connection you make will lead to your breakthrough in discoverability. How Often You Should Connect with Your Street Team You should connect with your street team at least once a month to keep them up to date about what’s coming up. You also want to make sure you’re making them part of your book production process. You could ask for their opinion if you’re making a book trailer You could ask for their opinion on book covers. You can ask them to name a character in your book. If you’re writing a nonfiction book, ask them their opinion about the topics you cover in your book. Ask them if the information you cover is relevant to their life. These are just four examples of how you can include your audience in the production of your book. When you contact your street team members, make sure you have something valuable to say. Don’t just check in and say hi. They can get that from your social media feeds. Play with Pricing to Boost Your Sales The sweet spot for Amazon ebook pricing is between $2.99 and $5.99. You want to make sure that your book is priced comparably with other books in your category. If you have three or more books on Amazon, consider making one of them free. Making one of your books free keeps your name on the free charts at Amazon and gives you an audience of people with no barrier to discovering your work. With three or more books on Amazon, you should always have at least one promo going. This will keep you active in Amazon’s algorithms and positively affect your sales ranking. The Power of eBook Promos ebook promos are relatively easy to set up. You sign up for a promo on a site that advertises your book at a reduced price. You choose the book you want to promote and you choose the dates that the book will be offered at a reduced price. You set it up on Amazon and then you’re done. Reducing the price of one of your books on Amazon gives you the opportunity to find new readers who would not have tried you out otherwise. If they like the book they read, they’re much more likely to buy other books that you’ve written because they know, like, and trust you now. Choosing promo days around a holiday weekend has been a good strategy for Penny. Book Promotion Sites   https://www.bookbub.com – the largest book promotion site in the world. https://www.facebook.com/FreeBookClub.org/ https://kindlenationdaily.com/ https://www.freebooksy.com/ http://igniteyourbook.com/ https://bookrebel.com/   Not every book promotion site is going to be available on the promotion date you choose. It’s best to try and plan your book promotions in advance. If you’re not in a position to do that, just do a Google search for “book promotion site” and choose a book promotion site that is in your price range. Don’t forget to track your results. You can also check out our lists of free and paid ebook promotion sites: Promo sites for free ebooks Promo sites for paid ebooks $0.99 and up Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Penny Sansevieri’s Amazon author page How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon The New Business Card – a book about how to use your nonfiction book to build your business (soon to be published) Author Marketing Experts – this site has a ton of information about how to market your book. Email Penny at: [email protected]   The post 159: Using Amazon Keywords to Sell More Books with Penny Sansevieri appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Dustin Mathews is the founder of Speaking Empire, which teaches entrepreneurs how to scale up their business by selling from presentations and stages. Speaking Empire is the company behind some of the biggest speakers out there, including Kevin Harrington, Russell Brunson, and Jairek Robbins. Dustin began his professional journey after he read Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money that the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki. Dustin thought he was going to be the next real estate investing millionaire. He found a local investing club and met his business partner, Dave. He offered to work for Dave for free if Dave would teach him how to buy houses. One day, Dave told Dustin he would have to fill in for him at a speaking engagement if they wanted to continue to work together. Dustin was terrified, but he really wanted to continue working with Dave. Very quickly, Dustin realized the audience didn’t care about him. They only cared about the specialized knowledge he had to share. That’s when a light bulb went off for him. In this interview, we dive deep on the topic of presentations. We talk about the five steps every presentation needs to have and about how to research the objections of your ideal customer. Finally, we discuss how to maximize your profit from every webinar you do. You Have Limitless Opportunities to Deliver a Presentation The first thing you have to realize is that every social media platform gives you the opportunity to make a presentation. There are a number of different channels where you can put your message out: Facebook Live Periscope YouTube Snapchat Podcasting All these different channels allow you to make a presentation to your audience. The Essential Five Steps to Every Presentation Every successful presentation, no matter the format or platform, has a few key steps in common. 1. The Introduction Celebrities, famous people, and influencers are always introduced by other people. The president of the United States is always introduced by someone. So is the queen of England. So are professional athletes at every professional sporting event in the world. Being introduced elevates your status with your audience—it says you’re important enough for someone to announce your presence. You can either have someone introduce you or leverage an introduction video. For an example of how an intro video works, check out Dustin’s here: www.speakingempire.com/introvideo. 2. The Story After you’re introduced, you need to have a transformational story. People engage with stories more deeply than with simple facts presented in a straightforward way—we remember stories and get emotionally attached to them. So it’s critical to present your information as part of a narrative. Every transformational story starts with a character in a dark place. Then they discover something in the darkness that turns their life around. You need to link your transformational story to the product you’re selling, or link to you as the solution to their problem. If you don’t link your transformational story to the product you’re selling, or you as the solution, the story will distract from the sale you’re trying to make. 3. The Offer In every presentation you do, you have to make people aware of the pain point you’re discussing. You have to show them statistics, or press clippings, or video of how life is really difficult. You have to make your audience realize the problem and the pain associated with it. Then you have to offer them the solution. Offering the solution doesn’t mean that you tell people to buy your products right then and there. This is not the time to sell to your audience. This is the point in the presentation where you describe the process, methodology, or secret that you’ve discovered that can help them solve the problem you’ve just made them aware of. Throughout your presentation, there’s going to be an ebb and flow between pain and pleasure. During the offer phase, you want to turn up the pain by making your audience acutely aware of the problem. At the end of the offer phase, you alleviate that pain somewhat by telling your audience you have the solution to the problem that they are now keenly aware of. 4. The Body This is where you explain your solution. The first thing you want to do is to break your solution into a process that takes 3 to 6 steps. People like processes. They like to check things off a list. And a list of 3 to 6 items is the easiest to remember. Next, you want to name your solution something memorable. People buy processes and systems with a memorable name. If you aren’t feeling particularly creative, use your last name in the title of your solution. That way, people will connect the solution to you. It’s fantastic for brand building. After you come up with the title of your process, the first thing you want to do is get it trademarked, so no one can steal it from you. When you deliver this part of your presentation, you want to explain each step in detail. In between each step, you want to have a story or case study that helps anchor the step you just laid out in the minds of your audience. The story or case study should involve a client or someone well known to the audience who is successful. Everyone you present to will have some degree of skepticism when presented with information. Sharing a case study or story helps break down that resistance. 5. The Close The close is simple. You briefly go over the stories and case studies you shared in the body of your presentation, then ask the audience if they’d like to have the same results. Then you ask the audience if it would be all right to share your product with them. If you’ve done your presentation correctly, most people will give you permission to sell them your product. You might have some audience members who are reluctant, but they usually don’t want your call to action anyway. The fact that you ask permission before selling to the audience makes them more comfortable with the process, even if they end up finally saying no. At the end of your presentation, you want to show your audience and irresistible offer. Dustin has a system with nine elements he calls Irresistible Offer Architecture. The most important element of Irresistible Offer Architecture is that you come up with a list of objections that people in your audience might have. Then put things in your offer to overcome those objections. How to Figure out the Objections of Your Ideal Customer When you’re developing a new product, you have to do your research. Dustin does research by talking to people at the live events where he speaks. If you don’t go to live events, there are several places online you can do research: Take a poll on Facebook or Twitter. Search for forums where your audience might hang out. Join the forums and ask questions there. Look at the questions around your topic that people are typing into Google. (If you search in Google, related searches and questions will show up at the bottom of the screen.) Go to Amazon and see what books are selling on your topic. Go to the websites of your competitors and see what they’re offering in their products. Test Your Product by Putting It out into the World Dustin studies the marketplace and puts together the best offer he can to solve the problem of his audience. Once he’s created the best product he can with the best bonuses he can think of, he puts it out on the market. The best way to see if something will sell is to put it up for sale. If his product doesn’t sell as much as he’d like it to, only then does he go back and do market research to see what would have made people buy. “Internet marketing people have sold us on the idea that you can just push a button and make money. But in the end, business is about people and relationships.” – Dustin Matthews If your business model is to develop a product and sell it to customers one time, that’s a really difficult business model to make a living from. It’s much easier to develop a relationship with a group of customers and continue to solve their problems. Dustin likes to develop one major selling presentation and give it multiple times, rather than develop a new keynote speech for every presentation. You can’t sell everyone in your audience at every presentation. But you should look for ways to get them to take action. If they take small actions now at the end of your speech, they may buy from you later. How to Troubleshoot a Presentation Dustin recommends doing all your webinars live. When you do a webinar live, you have more energy because you know people are actually there listening to you speak. Dustin uses a platform called Go-To Webinar. When he does a live webinar, there is a feature that allows him to track the attention of his audience. He can actually see where people drop off during his presentation. He and his team match up the timestamps for when people dropped off. Then they study those moments to improve future presentations. How to Make More Money from Your Webinar There are three moments in each webinar when you can potentially sell a customer something. 1. Opt-In When someone opts in for your webinar, you can take them to a special one-time offer page where you can sell them a no-brainer product. These products are inexpensive, usually no more than $20. When you get somebody to spend money with you, it changes the dynamic of the relationship. 2. During the Webinar Your next opportunity to convert an audience member is during your webinar. In this case, you sell them your offer during the webinar session. 3. After the Webinar Finally, for those people who bought on the webinar, you offer them an upsell right after they buy the product from the webinar. How Dustin Uses His Webinars to Make Money Dustin teaches people how to make money with their presentations. When they sign up to one of his webinars, he offers them a  PDF called Irresistible Offer Architecture for $7. The PDF is an infographic about Dustin’s nine keys to an irresistible offer, along with case studies of clients who have been successful using the nine keys. It includes an hour-long talk Dustin gave about his Irresistible Offer Architecture. The $7 offer is about giving people a piece of what they can get if they buy the bigger webinar offer. One more thing to consider is that not everybody who signs up to attend the webinar actually does. By offering a low-priced item when they’re giving you their email address, when you have their attention, you’re maximizing the amount of money you can make per customer. You’re also strengthening your relationship with that customer, because when they spend more money with you, they’re more invested in you as a person, teacher, and coach. Studies have shown the easiest sale you can make is to a satisfied customer. On the webinar, Dustin sells his One to Many System for $500. That system delves deep into how to create a presentation to help you sell your product. It also provides templates that allow you to plug in your information to create a presentation easily. The No B.S. Guide to Powerful Presentations Dustin wrote The No BS Guide to Powerful Presentations with Dan Kennedy. In the book, Dustin breaks down presentations in much more depth than he had time to in this interview. He also talks about things you can do before and after your speech to make it more likely that your audience will buy from you. Dustin brings his marketing experience to the book, teaching you how to choreograph a marketing sequence, from getting a stranger to sign up for your webinar through your final offer to maximize your chances of making a sale. In the book, Dustin and Dan also teach you how to set up an automated webinar.   Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://www.speakingempire.com/ – Dustin’s website http://www.speakingempire.com/introvideo – watch Dustin’s intro video Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! – the book that started Dustin’s journey http://nobspresentations.com/ — here you can get The No BS Presentations book along with resources to make your next presentation more effective https://www.facebook.com/SpeakingEmpire/ — connect with Dustin on Facebook http://amplifyexperience.com/ — the Amplify Experience is a live event that Dustin does four times a year. This is where he brings together affiliate partners, speakers, and promoters from around the world to share ideas and network with one another. The post 158: How To Create an Irresistible Offer: Presentation and Speaking Tips with Dustin Mathews appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Heath Armstrong is a serial creative entrepreneur. He is the author of The Sweet Ass Journal to Develop Your Happiness Muscle in 100 Days. By adopting the habits of 100+ creative entrepreneurs, he was able to pay off $20,000 in debt, quit his job, sell all of his belongings, travel the world, and scale his e-commerce startup to over $600,000 in revenue in 2016. In this stellar interview, we talk about Heath’s journey and what you can learn from his mistakes. We talk about the importance of meditation and gift-giving. We also talk about how to tackle large goals by choosing small daily “freedom actions.” Finally, we discuss how to develop lifelong success habits. Heath met the turning point in his life when he woke up in his garage with a bloody nose, a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and his car running on his lawn. He didn’t know how he got there. In that moment, Heath made a decision that he was going to transition to a better life. The first person Heath reached out to was Amber Ludwig-Vilhauer, founder of No Guts No Glory Enterprises. She introduced him to Paul Kemp and Hal Elrod. Hal helped Heath develop a morning routine. Shortly after that, Heath started a podcast where he interviewed successful people. Over the course of conducting 100 interviews, he began to slowly reframe his habits. Personal and Business Habits Are Connected In order to be successful in business, you have to create a personal foundation first. You have to be able to control the voices in your head telling you what you can and can’t do. You have to be able to set goals and work towards them. The key to success is to develop habits that lead to success. If you’re a writer, you want to write every single day. If you want to run an Amazon store, you have to work on that every single day and study the metrics that lead to success. Heath hired a financial coach to help him develop good money habits. That expense—and the expert’s insights—helped him pay off his debts in short order. In the process of developing those financial habits, Heath took a minimalist challenge and sold almost all of his possessions. Minimalism became an obsession for Heath. He sold his house and is location independent. Heath met a mentor who taught him how to open a store on Amazon. Heath saw the potential there and created an automated business that supports his lifestyle. Heath is planning a month of travels completely paid for by his automated Amazon store. None of it would’ve been possible without his focus on personal change and building a personal foundation. The Importance of Having a Personal Foundation for Success Heath tried several different things before focusing on his personal development and habits. Every business opportunity Heath jumped into before building a personal foundation of disipline didn’t work. You have to be disciplined, methodical, and committed to doing what it takes to succeed if you want to achieve success. You have to know what success means to you. You have to know what you’re aiming for, and you have to go after it every single day. That’s the only sure way to succeed. Learn from Heath’s Mistakes When Heath was younger, he started a WordPress website business with a friend from high school without putting too much thought into it. Heath and his friend were able to secure a website contract with a Holiday Inn location. The Holiday Inn paid them $8,000 for the website, half of which was Heath’s. He quit his 9-to-5 job after landing that first big contract and allowed his bank account to dwindle. Even though he knew he should try to find more clients, he spent his time going out and having fun. One day, he woke up to find the business bank account was empty. After talking with the banks, Heath found out that his partner had withdrawn all of the funds through ATM withdrawals for personal use. He realized he made a mistake in opening the business with a friend without considering the trust levels. Heath’s mistake was believing that his 9-to-5 job held him back from realizing his true potential. “When you have a job, it is your platform that allows you to support yourself while you create something that helps you shine a little brighter.” – Heath Armstrong Everything you do and learn in life is connected to everything else. If you sit down and make a list of everything you’ve learned or experienced in your life, you will quickly see that everything you thought of as negative is connected to something positive. Tom’s Timeline Exercise Another way to do this is to create a timeline of your life. Write down all the important events you’ve experienced. I have different timelines for different areas of my life. I have a timeline for: Health Relationships Finances Hobbies Social life When you do this exercise, it gives you perspective. You can look at the past and see how life is full of ups and downs. So if you’re at a low point right now, you can see that things are bound to shift to an upward trajectory based on your own past experience. Heath’s Favorite Habits Great habits are essential to your success, no matter what part of your life you’re focusing on. Let’s look at some of the habits that Health swears by. The Importance of Meditation as a Daily Practice “If you want to find God, find the space in between your thoughts.” – Heath Armstrong If you want to be successful, you have to be able to control your mindset and that’s what meditation allows you to do. Check out this article for ways to get started with mindfulness meditation today: https://www.tckpublishing.com/meditation-basics/ Heath’s Productivity Hack There are two reasons people fail to meet their productivity goals: either they aren’t motivated to actually do what they say they want to do, or their overwhelmed by the sheer amount of action they have to take. Heath began to find exponential success when he made a list of all the goals he wanted to achieve in the next 100 days. Then he resolved to do two things every day that led to achieving his goals. This established the habit of productivity and created a success loop where he felt like a success every single day just for doing small tasks. To create his system, Heath used 3 x 5 cards. On one side of each card he would write the end date for his 100-day vision every day. On the other side of the card he would write the two actions he wanted to accomplish before anything else on that day. He knew that if he accomplished two actions every single day that actually moved him towards his 100-day vision, at the very least he would be moving towards the person he wanted to be. The Importance of Affirmations and Celebrating Wins Heath writes down everything good that he does, and every win that he achieved during the day before he goes to sleep. Reminding yourself of what’s gone right and what you’ve accomplished is very important to maintaining a positive mental outlook and increasing your self-esteem. “Focus on who you are and who you’re becoming instead of the results. When you focus on results, you’re focusing on things that may not happen on your timeline. When you focus on becoming a better person, you can see those results every day.” – Tom Corson Knowles Gift-Giving Gives You the Greatest Feeling of Bliss Out of all the habits Heath has cultivated, the habit of giving gifts gives him the greatest feeling of bliss. Cami Walker has a book, 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life, in which she challenges the reader to give away one thing a day for 30 days. It doesn’t have to be money. It doesn’t have to be for other people. It can be a gift to yourself. You can take a day off from checking your email or going on social media. Some years ago, Heath was in the middle of his first gift-giving month when he sold his fridge on Craigslist to a father and son who drove from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Lexington, Kentucky, to get it. In the middle of helping them load the fridge into their car, Heath got a strange feeling that he should just give them their money back. So that’s what he did. At first the men were confused and thought he was crazy. He found out after talking to them that they decided to buy the fridge for somebody in need. They had decided to give a gift before Heath entered the picture. This is one example of how generosity and gift-giving can touch multiple people. When Heath started giving things away, he noticed odd things happening. One of the first things he gave away was all his alcohol. His mother-in-law offered to bring over a keg shortly after he’d gotten rid of the last of his alcohol. Heath politely declined the offer. Shortly thereafter, Heath decided to bring some old instruments over to a kids’ charity. The music teacher was happy with the guitar but her eyes lit up when she saw that Heath had brought a cello. It turns out there was one little girl there who only wanted to play the cello. The charity had at least two of most instruments so that the children could take their chosen instrument home and practice. But the charity only had one cello, so the girl wasn’t able to take it home and practice. Thanks to Heath’s gift, she would be able to take a cello home to practice with. It’s those types of experiences that give Heath a real high. Heath has also noticed that when he gives money to charity, he usually soon gets some sort of financial windfall. Make a habit of giving gifts whenever you can, and log what you give them and what comes back to you. You should never give a gift expecting something in return, but if you keep a record, you may be surprised at what you get from the universe for being generous. More doors will open to you…doors you didn’t even know were there. Giving gifts makes you happier, more productive, and more motivated. You’ll get where you want to go faster the more you’re willing to give of yourself and your resources. How To Use a Journal for Self-Improvement Heath used to have multiple journals that he used to track different things. He was encouraged by others to merge his journals into a system that anyone could use. The tipping point for Heath was when his dog peed on all of his journals and he had to start fresh with a simple spiral notebook. That’s when he merged all the things he was tracking into one system. There’s a few steps to using Heath’s journal system. Step 1: Define Three 100-Day Visions for Your Life Heath creates 100-day visions for his life because they are trackable. He borrowed the 100-day timeframe from Honorée Corder and her 100-day massive action planner. At the beginning of the journal, you set three visions. Heath likes to set one business vision, one personal vision, and one oddball vision, like a new skill you want to learn or hobby you want to take up. Some people do all business visions. Some people do all personal visions. If you are in a place where you do not have business or a personal foundation, like Heath was when he started, he recommends you set three personal goals to start building your foundation. That’s what he did. Step 2: Manage Your Daily Actions After you define your goals for the next hundred days, the meat of the journal is a daily planner. You start the day with gratitude. You end the day with reflection. So there’s a place in the journal to record things that make you smile every day. Step 3: Develop Lifelong Habits One Day at a Time There is a section in the journal for gratitude. The journal also has sections for habit-forming activities. There is a section for daily idea generation, for example. Every day you pick a theme for your ideas and generate ideas based on your theme. Because Heath is planning a trip to Uganda, his recent list of ideas was about things to do in Uganda. From there, you decide on two freedom actions per day. These freedom actions are designed to move you closer to one of your three visions for the next hundred days. After that, the journal gets into minimalism and gift-giving. Heath tries to get rid of one thing a day. It doesn’t have to be a physical item. It could be cleaning out your email or organizing your music collection. It can also be a physical thing, because our things tend to own us more than we own them. Step 4: Use the Nighttime Part of the Journal to Reflect on Your Day and Life The nighttime part of the journal is all about reflection. Here is where you’ll write down: Everything you accomplished that day. This can be as simple as brushing your teeth or getting out of bed. If it moves you forward in the pursuit of your goals, you should write it down. Your wins for the day. Your abundance list. This is a reminder to count your blessings. Your freedom actions for the next day. If you plan your freedom actions for tomorrow before you go to bed, you will sleep better and your subconscious will be working on how to get your freedom actions done efficiently while you sleep. The whole point of the nighttime section of the journal is to set your mind up for the next day. There’s a section within the nighttime part of the journal where you check in and grade yourself on how well you did on your important habits. You grade yourself by smiley faces so it’s not overly judgmental. The whole point of the journal is to try and make yourself just 1% better every day. If you can do that, there’s no telling how much you can achieve. The Journal Is Undated for a Reason Heath doesn’t journal for 100 sequential days. He feels like putting dates on the journal would put some people into a straitjacket and make them feel bad on those days when they inevitably miss recording their day. The system isn’t supposed to be a straitjacket. It’s supposed to help people facilitate their transformations. Don’t get too caught up in doing things “right” or every single minute of every day. Do what works for you and what moves you towards your goals. What’s right is what’s right for you, right now. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode http://heatharmstrong.com/sweetassjournal – this is where you can find the Sweet Ass Journal http://heatharmstrong.com/ – Heath’s website http://heatharmstrong.com/tck — sign up for Heath’s email list and get the audio version of the Sweet Ass Journal, as well as a checklist for creating your sacred space The Sweet Ass Journal to Develop Your Happiness Muscle in 100 Days – this book has a ton of free resources designed to help you change your life The Artsy Now Show: Creative Entrepreneurs – Artists – Musicians – Digital Nomads – Heath’s podcast. He interviews all kinds of creative people The Five Minute Journal: A Happier You in 5 Minutes a Day – one of the many journals Heath models in his approach 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker Become An Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are the Currency of the 21st Century by Claudia and James Altucher   For more on how to build and maintain great habits, read on: Schedule Your Success: The One Key Habit that Can Transform Every Area of Your Life 15 Inspiring Meditation Podcasts Bullet Journaling 101: Give Yourself the Ammo to Write Better     The post 157: How To Create Winning Habits in Just 100 Days with Heath Armstrong appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Charlie Gilkey is the author of The Small Business Lifecycle, a business book that helps creative people focus on the actions that will significantly grow their businesses. He’s also the founder of Productive Flourishing, a website that helps change makers finish the projects that really matter. In this great interview, we talk about how to build a platform organically as a nonfiction author. We also discuss how to finish the projects that matter, how to be successful as an author whether you write fiction or nonfiction, and what makes certain nonfiction book stand out. Charlie Gilkey got started as an author and ended up in the business world. He was pursuing a career as an Army Joint Forces military logistics coordinator while at the same time pursuing a PhD in philosophy. On top of that, he had just bought a house. He was spinning a lot of plates and he had to develop systems to be successful because no one had taught him those systems Charlie is a teacher at heart, so when he began learning about project management systems, he began writing and teaching about the subject as well. That writing turned into a business when people came to him asking for help with their specific situations. They asked for coaching, consulting, and training that you can only provide in a one-on-one environment. Charlie still considers himself a writer, but he’s a writer who loves teaching. How Charlie Gilkey Built His Platform Charlie began blogging in an effort to solve the problems of his students and junior sergeants. All of his early blog posts started as a result of conversations about somebody he knew having a problem. “Never solve a public problem in private.” —Chris Brogan Charlie built a fan base by writing about the problems of people he knew. His fans shared those problems and found a path forward in the solutions he suggested. If you can take real problems of real people and solve them in public, you can build a genuine platform and help people at the same time. “Whatever got the ‘aha’ yesterday will get the ‘aha’ today.” – Charlie Gilkey Using Emotion to Create Content for Your Nonfiction Audience Creating content for your nonfiction audience is not difficult at all. If you have clients or friends who have problems, and you help them solve their problem, that solution can be content for your brand. Granted, you may have to massage the content a little bit so that you anonymize the event, and turn it into “book style” written English rather than a conversation. But it’s not as hard as people like to believe. You don’t have to put on a “writer hat.” Just be yourself. Find something that frustrates you. Maybe look online and find a person who posts something that makes you angry. Look for your reasoned response to what upset you. That will get you far more traction than stewing on Facebook or just staying angry. When we think about writing as writers, we go into our knowledge base and we worry about the things that we’re told to worry about: I have to write a great headline. I have to be grammatically correct. My ideas have to have a logical flow. All these things are true. But those are concerns for the editing phase of the writing process. Another truth about writing is that it’s more art than science. The main purpose of writing is to move or affect your audience. The only way you can do that is if you’re writing about subjects that you have an emotional investment in. If you’re not writing with emotion, emotion won’t appear on the page and you won’t be able to reach your readers. They won’t pick up any spark from you. You’ll just be like every other writer on the topic, and easy to put down. Writing about the problems and situations that affect you emotionally can lead to transformational moments for people in your audience. The most successful people on the internet with the largest audiences are the people you can connect with emotionally. They don’t necessarily have the best information on the topic—they’re just the most relatable. In order to finish a project, you have to write something that moves you emotionally. That’s the only way you will get over the inevitable obstacles that will appear when you’re trying to finish your book. “It takes discipline and grit to finish a book. But if that’s all you have, it’s going to be a very tough slog.” – Charlie Gilkey “When you’re in the right space, there is a sense of creative pregnancy.” – Charlie Gilkey   Write what you’re passionate about. Write what won’t let you sleep at night. How to Finish Writing that Article, Blog Post, or Book When it comes to a writing project, whether it’s a blog post, article, or book, there are certain principles you can follow that will make it easier for you to finish that project. 1. Start with the end in mind. In the brainstorming outline/phase, start with the end in mind. What change do you want to see take place for the reader of your content? 2. Think about value and purpose. How would you like your book to be used? Charlie specifically designed his book The Small Business Lifecycle to be the kind of book that people refer to over and over. 3. Think about your competition. If you were walking through a bookstore, what three or four books would your book sit next to? Thinking about this question allows you to think about what’s already out there in terms of knowledge for the public. It gets you thinking about what’s known and what’s not known in your subject area. It also gets you thinking about the gaps that you can fill in for people. This question also gives the author constraints. Constraints are actually a good thing because they allow you to limit the scope of your project so that you know when it’s complete. 4. Think about your audience. Have a clear idea of who you’re writing the book for. Who is going to benefit from your knowledge? Choose an avatar—a specific person you actually know to write the book for. This will make writing the book easier, because it will help narrow down what you have to put into the book. 5. Be realistic. Get real about how much time it’s going to take you to write the book. Writing a book is not simply like writing 10 blog posts. You have to take the reader on a journey that ties those 10 things together (assuming there are 10 chapters in your book). Charlie thinks people underestimate the amount of time and mental bandwidth they need to finish a book. 6. Get focused. If you want to finish a project, you have to fuel it with focus. If you don’t schedule focused blocks of time to work on your project, it will never get done. To be successful, there has to be a balance between the analytical side of your brain that executes tasks and the creative side of your brain that enjoys having fun. In Charlie’s experience, the stories of people having an idea on Friday and having a finished book on Monday are outliers. Generally, when you look at the backstories of those people, they have been incubating projects for several years. If you write consistently every day, you are much more likely to be prolific and write for extended times in a flow state. Charlie believes that most of the stories of people who just sit down and write a story miss the part of the equation where the writer is doing a lot of ideation and thought work on the story before they begin writing. Writing is a skill. Any human skill can be learned. To learn writing takes repeated deliberate practice. That isn’t as exciting as the romantic notion of having a book idea on Friday and ending up with a finished book on Monday. But consistent, deliberate practice is a more stable predictor of success when it comes to your writing career. Fiction writers are capable of writing a book over a weekend, especially if you are a pantser, because the story evolves as you write it. But in Charlie’s experience, it’s almost impossible to replicate that kind of production for a nonfiction writer. To write a good book worth reading as a nonfiction writer, you have to put in the time it takes to think of, research, and organize a book worth reading. Writing Nonfiction Books Beyond the Self-Help Category Burning curiosity can be a problem. Maintaining a certain level of professional competency in a field can be a problem that you as an author solve. History books are often written to solve that kind of problem. You always want to approach the writing of a nonfiction book with the question: “What problem is this book solving for my reader?” In the case of a history book, you might be satisfying your readers’ curiosity, or preparing them to take a test on the subject, or helping them learn about history so they can connect to the events of today. Lack of delight can also be a problem. There are several categories where there are a lack of delightful reads—just boring slogs. If you write a delightful book about a subject where there aren’t many delightful books, you’ve filled a need. Another approach to developing an idea for a successful nonfiction book is to look at something that people have always seen one way, then come at it from a different perspective. Sapiens, Guns Germs and Steel, and The Animal Connection are all examples of books that ask unique questions about our world and present their answers from an unexplored perspective. The Mental Work of Writing “If I can’t think of an analogy, metaphor or visual to explain an idea, I don’t know it well enough.” – Charlie Gilkey The mental work of writing is often done away from your keyboard. Your brain cycles through the ideas you want to write about, connecting them and organizing them into a consistent whole. Scheduling time to do the mental work of writing is as important as scheduling the writing time itself. A Simple Approach to Producing Your First Draft Do some math: Figure out the average number of words you can produce an hour. Figure out how long you want the book to be. Divide the length of your book by your average words per hour, That will give you a rough estimate of how long it will take to write your book. Then schedule your writing time given your normal daily schedule. Be sure to schedule in some padding for unforeseen life events to occur.   Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview The Small Business Life Cycle: The No-Fluff Guide to Navigating the Five Stages of Small Business Growth by Charlie Gilkey http://www.productiveflourishing.com/ – Charlie Gilkey’s website designed to help creative entrepreneurs finish the projects they start. http://www.productiveflourishing.com/free-planners/ — Get all of Charlie’s free resources on this page. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert “10 Ridiculously Simple Steps for Writing a Book” — an article by Jeff Goins that talks about John Grisham. Turning Pro by Stephen Pressfield Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – an example of a book that solves the problem of curiosity for its readers. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies – a book by Jared Diamond that asks the interesting question, “why isn’t China dominant in the world today?” The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human – a book by Pat Shipman that asks the question, “why did we domesticate cats and dogs when they are our biggest competitors for the limited food source of protein?”   Want to learn more tips for getting things done? Read on! 9 Calendar Hacks to Maximize Your Productivity How to Get More Done in Less Time: Create Systems That Work for You How to Get Things Done in an ADHD World The post 156: How to Finish the Projects that Matter with Charlie Gilkey appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Gabriela Pereira is the founder of DIYMFA.com, the do-it-yourself alternative to a master’s degree in writing. She teaches at conferences and online, and she’s helped hundreds of writers get the MFA experience without having to go to an expensive school. In this fantastic interview, we talk about the value of an MFA degree, but we also talk about how to develop the skills that you get from an MFA program without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. Finally, we talk about how to iterate and optimize your writing process. Gabriela likes to say that she didn’t found DIYMFA.com, it found her. When she got her MFA degree, she expected to be granted some sort of special status, or at least feel like a “real writer.” That didn’t happen. Instead, she began thinking about all her writer friends who didn’t have the advantages she did. When Gabriela pursued her MFA in writing, she had the support of her husband, a practicing lawyer. She was able to go back to school for two years and devote herself to learning the craft of writing without having to worry about working a 9 to 5 job while getting her degree. The skills Gabriela learned in order to earn her MFA were incredibly important. But she realized that you don’t need a formal degree to learn those skills. Writing isn’t rocket science or brain surgery. That realization was the start of her journey. She wanted to repackage the concepts she learned in school so she could make them available to people who can’t afford the time and tuition fees it would take to get a formal degree. When Gabriela had this flash of inspiration, the first thing she did was blog about it. At the time, her blog had 12 followers. She expected it to go nowhere. Instead, she woke up to 25 comments on the blog post and several emails in her inbox. That’s when she realized the idea had legs. That germ of an idea started the journey that became DIYMFA.com. Is an MFA Degree Worth It? An MFA degree in writing costs about $100,000 when you factor in all the levels of schooling you need. Most people who get an MFA degree will not recoup their investment. The difference between and MFA degree and other advanced degrees such as a law degree, a medical degree, or even a PhD is that other advanced degrees have a professional career path that leads to recouping your investment. In contrast, an MFA in writing simply does not have any set professional path. If you want to have a career as a writer, there are no rules you have to follow in order to be successful, especially in the age of indie publishing. The truth is, most creative vocations don’t have set rules you absolutely have to follow to be successful. If you’re talented and persistent, you can find a way to make money with whatever art you pursue. You certainly don’t need a formal degree to pursue your artistic endeavors. What You Learn in the DIYMFA Program When Gabriela got serious about the idea of creating an online DIY MFA program, she studied the traditional MFA programs and what they offered. Quickly, she realized there are three major components: You write a lot. You learn the craft of writing by practicing writing. This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. You learn writing through writing. You read a lot. Most major MFA programs have a specific curriculum of books that they want their students to read. There’s a community aspect. In traditional schools, they invite writers to read their work for students to listen to. They also invite writers to lecture about certain aspects of craft. Sometimes they have panels of experts speak on the business of publishing. Gabriela replicated those three areas of a traditional MFA program on the DIYMFA website. There is a flagship course with modules in the areas of: Writing Reading Community She also has columnists that blog about those specific areas as well. How Reading Can Help You Improve Your Writing If you went to a traditional MFA program, the school would choose your reading list and assign it to you. Gabriela sees little value in that. She believes reading is important, but it should be project specific. You should read books that help you write your current project. There are four categories of books that can help authors improve the project they’re writing now. 1. Read Competitive Books Competitive books are known as “comps” in the publishing industry. These are the books that you might think of as your competitors in the marketplace. These are the books most similar to yours. Basically, these are the books that you might see in an Amazon “also bought” section. These books are important because you want to know how other people are tackling your subject or genre. You want to read competitive books so that you know you aren’t rehashing ground that has already been well tread. 2. Read Contextual Books Contextual books put your project in context. For instance, Gabriela was writing a middle-grade fantasy story based on Homer’s Odyssey. She read the Odyssey and a bunch of spinoff books that were based on the original epic. She also read a bunch of road trip novels like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Any research you have to do in order to write your book with verisimilitude goes in this category. 3. Read Contemporary Books A contemporary book is anything that’s been published in the last three years. If you go back too much further than three years, given the current state of publishing, that book is not going to give you an accurate assessment of what’s new or hot in the genre. Again, you’re looking for contemporary books in the category of books that you’re trying to write. These books will give you an idea of what’s trending in your category, and what readers like. They might also give you an idea of what you can do differently than other authors. 4. Read Classic Books Again, you’re looking for classic books in categories and genres related to the project that you’re currently working on. Classics can be as old as Homer and Virgil and as new as The Outsiders. That’s still a relatively new book, but it set the tone and a pattern for all the books that came after it in the YA genre. How to Read Books to Make Your Writing Better “If a book hasn’t grabbed me by the time I’ve read 10% of it, I put it away.” —Gabriela Pereira So you have a list of books you want to read to make your current project better. Now what do you do with that list? Gabriela has some suggestions. 1. Set a reading limit You don’t have to read every book to the end, contrary to what your English teacher told you. Gabriela sets a 10% limit for the books she reads. If a book doesn’t grab her in the first 10%, she puts it down. She uses 10% because she reads most of her books on her Kindle, which has a percentage bar. You can pick a number of chapters or pages to make up your mind. But don’t torture yourself with a book that’s not working for you. If you don’t like the book, chances are, it won’t help your creative voice. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still teach you to write better! When you do decide not to finish a book, think about why you made the choice. Why did you put the book down? What made you want to stop reading? You don’t want to replicate the type of book that makes you want to put it down, because you don’t want your readers to put down your book. No matter what book you read, you aren’t going to be able to deeply analyze the book paragraph by paragraph. Honestly, even if you took the time to do that, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Instead, Gabriela does what she calls a deep dive on specific sections of books. 2. Do a Deep Dive on a Section that Moves You First, read for enjoyment. Don’t read by analyzing every paragraph. It’s not worth your time. When you get to a section that really moves you, make note of it. (Gabriela suggests focusing on no more than two pages, because this type of deep dive demands intense concentration.) You want to ask yourself three questions: 1. What is the author doing? What is the author doing? What is going on in the story? Pay attention to the word picture being painted for the reader. 2. Why is the author doing this? Why is the author doing this specific thing? What are they trying to achieve with their words? How are they trying to affect the reader? 3. How is the author achieving the effect they want? How is the author achieving the effect they want to achieve in this passage? Look at the author’s word choice and see how it affects you as a reader. Why did the author choose the words they did? Could you achieve the same effect with different words? It’s when you analyze fiction at this level that you begin to understand why the author did what they did, and you can apply their techniques to your fiction to make it better. 3. Type the Words of the Masters If you want to become a better writer, find a passage in a book you like. Open up a word processing program and type that passage in as if you were writing. Use the exact same words as the writer who wrote them did. If you follow this practice with enough books, it will make you a better writer by helping you internalize pacing, plot, word choice, and more. “Your readers won’t like everything you write” – Gabriela Pereira Books Writers Should Read on the Craft of Writing DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community Save the Cat by Blake Snyder – a great book on three-act structure with a beat sheet that goes in depth on story structure and how to make it work. Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers, edited by Sherry Ellis – a book with a series of exercises from different teachers on the areas of craft that you need to be successful. 3 AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley – a book with a series of writing exercises created by the author. The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia and R. S. Gwynn – a book with 52 short stories and interviews or essays by their authors. Iterate and Optimize Your Writing Process Gabriela has found that constant improvement is the only way to really make a difference in your craft and career as a writer. She learned many of the principles of iteration she uses in her own writing from The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries. The major insight Gabriela got from The Lean Startup is that you have to periodically review your process, streamline it, and make it better. You have to evaluate what works for you in writing and what doesn’t. It’s also important to incrementally improve and realize that you’re never going to be perfect. This evaluation and iteration process is different from practice. Practice is about being in the moment and repeating specific techniques to get them tied into your subconscious and muscle memory. Evaluation and iteration is about looking at your process when you’re not doing it and evaluating the results you get from that process. When you evaluate and iterate, you evaluate your results and see if you can tweak your actions to get better results. You can’t practice the art of writing and observe and critique yourself at the same time. You have to write while you’re writing, then evaluate and iterate later. It’s important not to spend too much time in analysis land. If you want to be a writer, at some point, you have to write enough original words that you can put up a short story or novel for sale, or a nonfiction book if that’s your thing. Paralysis by analysis is a real thing. You should set up a system for yourself so that you can periodically check your results and tune up your writing process. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode https://diymfa.com/join — input your email address and get the free DIYMFA starter kit by email. You’ll also be invited to join their private Facebook group. https://diymfa.com/ – your one-stop shop for all things DIYMFA DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community – the book Gabriela wrote based on the principles she learned through getting her MFA The DIYMFA Podcast – a free podcast where you can listen to interviews with writers and other publishing experts. On the Road by Jack Kerouac – the classic road trip book. The Outsiders – this book set the pattern for the YA genre. The Story Of An Hour by Kate Chopin – a short story you can use to practice going deep when learning the craft of storytelling. How to write better fiction – a detailed blog post on some of our favorite resources, books, and courses for fiction writers. To learn more secrets of professional writers, read on! Starting a Writing Business: How to Structure Your Professional Author Career 15 Success Habits of Professional Writers and Authors How to Become a Professional Writer or Author         The post 155: How to Read to Become a Better Writer with Gabriela Pereira appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Nick Loper is an author, entrepreneur, and founder of sidehustlenation.com, a growing community and resource for aspiring and part-time entrepreneurs. As the host of the top-rated Side Hustle Show Podcast, Nick explores a different business idea every single week and helps listeners discover the path to new job-free income streams. Nick’s original side hustle was a footwear comparison shopping site. Back in the day before you could just go to Amazon and search for what you want to buy, you’d go a site like Pricegrabber or Nextag. These are comparison-shopping sites that allow you to search for a product and find the best price on the web. Nick’s idea was to create a comparison shopping site specifically for footwear. It was a good business for quite a while, but eventually Nick had to shut it down. However, this first side hustle allowed him to quit his job after working three years of nights and weekends to make that happen. Nick calls the experience his “trial by fire” initiation into online marketing and online business. The online footwear comparison-shopping engine that Nick designed played in the margins between the cost of traffic and the amount of commission that you could get from a sale on his site. He never got a lot of organic Google traffic. His primary traffic source was Google ads. By 2014, the amount of money that he could make per sale wasn’t enough to cover the cost of the traffic coming into his site. So he had to shut it down. However, by that point, Nick had two other successful side hustle ventures. He has failed much more than he has succeeded online, but his story shows the successes are all that matter. This is a great interview. We dive deep into online business and what it takes to succeed. We talk about how to manage online business failure. Finally, we discuss how to convert a potential audience member from a stranger to a true fan. How to Deal with a Failing Online Business The first thing Nick did to help keep his footwear comparison-shopping business afloat was to take a look at what products and activities got the best results using the 80/20 rule.  The 80/20 Rule Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who discovered that 20% of the people in Switzerland owned 80% of the land. This was later expanded into the Pareto principle, which states that roughly 80% of results come from 20% of actions. This is even true in nature, where 80% of a crop comes from 20% of the land being cultivated. With this in mind, Nick took a deep dive into his business and figured out which 20% of his actions led to 80% of his profits. He was able to cut his ad spend at Google significantly by focusing on the brands that people were searching for. He also focused on the brands people were buying the most. Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to save a business long-term. That’s when you have to look for other income streams to replace the one that you are losing. Fortunately for Nick, he had systems in place that allowed him to work on other projects before he had to close down his website. The main lesson from Nick’s experience is to always be looking for another income stream. If you have multiple income streams, losing one is not a problem. The day after Nick quit his traditional job, he got an email from Google saying his account no longer met their quality guidelines. It took them three months to reinstate his Google Adwords account. That really hammered home the point for Nick that he needed diversity of traffic sources and diversity of income streams. Nick thought he had solved that problem by having 40 advertisers on his shoe comparison shopping site. His problem was that 80% of its traffic came from Google, so when the cost of that traffic became too expensive, his business was no longer sustainable. How to Diversify Traffic So Your Online Business Is Sustainable in the Long Term Nick learned his lesson. His current primary side hustle, The Side Hustle Podcast Show, isn’t reliant on Google Adwords. It has several different traffic sources. About half the traffic comes through Google (although not Google Adwords). A lot of traffic comes through email. Some traffic comes through doing podcast interviews like this. He also gets traffic from social media channels. Sidehustlenation.com has become a brand itself, so there’s a small amount of people who type in the website directly without going through another channel. The podcast has a much more solid foundation then the shoe comparison shopping site ever did. Should You Focus on Your Strengths or Diversify Your Portfolio of Income Streams? As an entrepreneur, you should try to strike a balance between following your strengths and diversifying your income streams. It’s essential to have more than one income stream—although on the other hand, you don’t want to spread your efforts so thin that you don’t get anywhere. Nick has seen entrepreneurs become successful by diving deep and committing to one business. He has personally found success with sidehustlenation.com and indulging his creative spirit. The Importance of Thinking Time and Focusing on Your Next Project One of the secrets to Nick’s success is his commitment to thinking time and focusing only on the project that comes next. He makes an appointment on my calendar once a week to sit down with a notebook, ask himself questions, and write down the answers. He treats this like any other appointment he has with somebody else. When he puts it into his calendar, he’s committed to it. He also tries to maintain his focus on only the project that comes next.  It’s important to focus on future projects so that you can plan and execute. But you don’t want to focus so far in the future, or on so many projects, that you’re paralyzed because everything seems overwhelming. Something that’s worked for him is to only focus on the next project, and not worry about future projects until that one is complete. It’s important that once you put something on your calendar, you are committed to following through on spending the time you set aside. Lessons from Business Successes and Failures After the shoe comparison shopping site, Nick thought a sandal site might be good. It turned out not to work for a few reasons: Sandals cost less money. They’re a seasonal product. The content on a sandal site was duplicated from the shoe site. After the sandal website didn’t work out, Nick tried to create a luggage comparison-shopping site. That site cost $5,000 to develop and never broke even. The commission structure was already lower than shoes at that point. It was much harder to develop a program to scrape the Internet for luggage brands. The upfront cash investment was simply too much. After the luggage comparison shopping site failed, Nick decided to try a wine comparison-shopping site. This site failed for one reason: Nick doesn’t like wine and doesn’t know anything about it. The website he created could have been written by anyone. There was no reason for anyone to do business with him instead of somebody else. Use Your Passions and Personality to Succeed Nick has found that the successful people online aren’t anonymous. He has found the most success where he built a brand around himself and his experiences so that people want to do business with him. The more deeply you connect with your audience, the more they will want to see you succeed, and the more they will do to help you succeed in the marketplace. “Once you get going on something, even if it’s not something you see yourself doing for decades to come, all of a sudden all the opportunities and ideas start to pop into motion.” —Nick Loper “The best ideas don’t show up until you’re already in motion.” —Ryan Finlay  “Picking what’s next doesn’t necessarily mean picking what you’ll work on forever.” —Nick Loper You will get new ideas as you’re working on projects. The key is just to pick a project and try it. Monitor your results. Eventually you’ll find something that resonates with you and makes you the money you need if you keep at it. TCK Publishing grew from the idea to publish one ebook: Rules of the Rich: 28 Proven Strategies for Creating a Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy Life and Escaping the Rat Race Once and For All. That one book became the foundation for a much bigger side hustle, then a full business helping others achieve the same kind of publishing success. How Do You Know When It’s Time to Move on from a Side Hustle? For Nick, knowing when to stop one side hustle is simple. You should move on from the side hustle when you no longer enjoy the work, or it’s no longer exciting for you. The last thing you need is a second job that you don’t like to do. For Nick, this is different than when you’re in the pre-revenue stage of just starting something up. However, he believes that the faster you can get into making money on your side hustle, the more motivated you will be. If you can see that your project is on a downward slide, then it might be time to pull the ripcord and move on. What Has Made the Side Hustle Podcast Show Successful The Side Hustle Podcast Show audience has grown slowly over time. Nick attributes its success to two major factors: Nick has put out an episode every week for years. There are currently 244 episodes. Nick likes putting on his marketing hat and trying to think of titles that are clickable. He’s seen podcasts that explode faster than the Side Hustle Nation Podcast has. He has also seen podcasts where the episode titles aren’t enticing at all. Podcasting allows you to really build a loyal fan base. It’s a much more personal connection than just reading something on a blog or even in your email client. Nick’s podcast has gotten better over time. When you practice something, you get better at it. Nick would prefer you don’t listen to the first 50 episodes because “they are really rough.” As Nick has continued to do episodes and the audience for the podcast has gotten bigger, he has really tried to focus on giving the listeners the best experience he can. How to Give Your Podcast Listeners the Best Experience Possible One major thing Nick has done to improve his listeners’ experience is to cut out the empty space in his podcast episodes. He also eliminates any stammering or stuttering. And he tries to create a podcast episode where he gets to the meat of what the guest is saying faster. He’s made a point of eliminating all of the long, rambling intros. And he will ask a guest to summarize something if their first attempt is a rambling explanation. It takes him longer to produce episodes, but he feels like he gets that investment in time back because he’s making the listening experience better for thousands of audience members. The Podcast Audience Journey The journey of a podcast listener goes like this: Stranger to listener Listener to subscriber Subscriber to fan Stranger to Listener Part of starting people on that journey is discoverability. How are people going to find you? Through Google Through Facebook groups Through other social media Through iTunes Turning a Listener into a Subscriber To turn listeners into subscribers, Nick has found it effective to create episode-specific lead magnet offers. A lead magnet is something you give somebody so they’ll give you their email address. The most effective lead magnet that Nick has found is to only send people the show notes if they sign up to his email list. That tripled the size of his email list from 1,000 to 3,000 subscribers. Turning Subscribers into Fans Turning subscribers into fans is all about creating a community around shared points of commonality. Nick makes sure to have similar segments on his show every week. He also uses similar language every week to start the show and to sign off. He also makes use of email as a way to connect personally with his fans.  “You have to have some kind of quality control on the Internet.” —Tom Corson Knowles You shouldn’t let the fear of failure prevent you from trying. Failures are what you learn from. “Sometimes it’s worth it to swallow your pride and ask for honest feedback.” —Nick Loper Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://www.sidehustlenation.com/ – Nick’s website, where he’s built a community of people dedicated to finding freedom through side hustles. http://www.sidehustlenation.com/side-hustle-show/ – the Side Hustle Nation Podcast show, where Nick interviews a new entrepreneur every week and they talk about a single business idea in depth to help his listeners find a side hustle that might work for them. http://www.pricegrabber.com/ – a comparison-shopping site. http://www.nextag.com/ – another comparison-shopping site. Rules of the Rich: 28 Proven Strategies for Creating a Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy Life and Escaping the Rat Race Once and For All  – a book to help you uncover the strategies needed to succeed by stepping outside the regular 9-5 world. https://fizzle.co/show – a show known for its inside jokes.   The post 154: How To Build a Successful Side Hustle with Nick Loper appeared first on TCK Publishing.

A few bloggers have cracked the code to making money from blogging, and Crystal Paine is one of them. She is a New York Times bestselling author, and she’s the founder of the incredibly successful blog MoneySavingMom.com, where she teaches moms how to save and earn more. In this interview, we talk about how Crystal became a professional blogger, how to make a profit from your blog in 2017, and the importance of building real, genuine relationships with your audience. How to Make Money With a Blog Crystal never thought she was going to be a blogger full-time. Her journey began because she and her husband wanted to remain debt-free while he went to law school. She was doing fine working a number of part-time jobs until she got sick one day and found out she was pregnant. She eventually had to quit her jobs because of her pregnancy. That’s when she began to research making money online from home. She tried a lot of different things and discovered blogging. In 20014, she took the plunge and started a blog about being a mom. One day, she wrote a blog post about how she bought a week’s worth of groceries for her family for $17. That post went viral and got a lot of attention. She decided to launch MoneySavingMom.com in 2007 to focus exclusively on money matters. Within a year, she was making a full-time income from her blog. The key to making money online is paying attention to what resonates with your audience. With all the social media channels we have these days, it’s really easy to figure out what people are engaging with. Once you learn how to create your blog, it’s time to start learning how to monetize it. Making Money from Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog When Crystal started MoneySavingMom.com, she had two years of blogging experience to draw upon. She understood different ways she could monetize her blog and she was hopeful that she could make a part-time income from it. One of the first things she did was to look at what affiliate marketing opportunities would work for the blog that she was writing. Very quickly, she found coupon sites that would pay her for each coupon printed from her website. When she started MoneySavingMom.com, very few people were using coupon printing as an affiliate marketing income source, so she was able to make quite a good living by giving people coupons they could print from their computers. With the advent of so many social media channels, the landscape of blogging has dramatically changed in the last five years. It’s still possible to make a living blogging, but you have to use different strategies than worked in the past. For instance, Crystal writes a lot more about online deals then she used to because people are shopping online a lot more than they did 10 years ago. What Is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work? To become an affiliate marketer, you have to: Go to a site that offers an affiliate program. (Amazon is a great place to start.) Sign up for their affiliate program. Get approved to be an affiliate by the company that runs the program. Once you’re approved as an affiliate, you get a special link for people to buy something from that online retailer. When people buy through your special link, you get a percentage of that sale. Amazon has a particularly good affiliate marketing program because it pays you a percentage of anything that people buy for a certain period of time on Amazon after they’ve clicked your affiliate link. Adding Value with Affiliate Links If you decide you want to make money through affiliate marketing, one of the most important things you need to consider before you make a post on your blog is, “Is this going to be a win for my readers?” As long as you put your readers first and only promote things that will actually benefit them, you will build an audience that appreciates and respects you. Your audience will grow organically because you’re actually adding value to their lives and the marketplace. Using Facebook Live to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Beyond writing blog posts, you can use Facebook Live to demonstrate for your audience what they will receive when they buy something you’re an affiliate for. Consider recording short videos explaining products that you like, demonstrating how they work or what value they’ll add to your readers’ lives. Unboxing videos, product demos, and tips and tricks are great ways to engage readers while also getting new affiliate marketing sales. How to Get Traffic to Your Blog in 2017 If you want to get traffic to your blog in 2017, the first thing you have to consider is your content. You shouldn’t create a blog just to make money. If making money is the primary motivation for building a blog, you’re going to burn out very quickly. Building a quality blog that adds value to the community is a lot of work. If you create a blog based on your passion, you are much more likely to be successful because you’ll be willing to do the work necessary to be successful. Let Your Personality Shine Bloggers today have to bring their personality and passion to their subject matter. What about your life experience is unique and makes you unique in the marketplace? With so many bloggers out there today, you really have to make an effort to carve out a special niche for yourself that differentiates you from your competition. You need to understand that not everyone’s going to like you when you bring your personality to your blogging. That’s okay! You can’t please everyone. But you will be able to please your audience, and you’ll discover your audience by creating content, putting it out there, and seeing what people react to. Write Great Content The number one way to attract traffic to your blog is to have great content. Great content does one of two things. It either: Satisfies a need, or Solves a problem.   If you are satisfying in need or solving a problem, people who need your help will find you over time. Experiment with Blogging When you think about building an audience for your blog, focus on building it one person at a time. In order to know what blog posts are going to resonate with your audience, you have to be willing to go through the process of trial and error. It’s going to take you some time to figure out who your audience is and what they engage with the most. If you’re passionate about the audience you’re serving and the information you’re sharing, it won’t matter how many people are engaging with your blog post at the start. Another thing to consider is you never know when people will find your blog posts. You never know what events in someone’s life, or in the world in general, could make your blog post popular in the future. Focus on writing blog posts that help your audience and eventually your blog will be successful. Apply the Ideas You Talk About People really like to see the practical application of intellectual principles. On her blog, Crystal talks about how she saves money shopping for her family. Then she posts pictures of her grocery shopping trip, as well as pictures of her receipts. She also posts pictures of her family’s meal plan for the week, and she does regular broadcasts on Facebook Live after her weekly grocery shopping trip. Crystal has found that her audience really engages with blog posts about people solving problems. This works especially well when the problem being solved is a problem her audience can relate to. You can emulate this strategy. What problems in your life have you solved and how did you solve them? Can your solution help other people in your position? Maybe you should blog about it. Creating a Multi-Platform Blogging Brand With Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, you can really connect with the people who follow you on a personal level. To future-proof your blogging efforts, you should do everything you can to make sure that people in your audience are following you, and not just your blog. Blogging has changed so much in the last 10 years, and we have no idea where it’s going to go in the next decade. The one thing you can do to make sure that you can continue to earn an income from your blog is to connect with your audience personally by being vulnerable. That’s how you give your audience permission to follow you, rather than just the platform you are currently using to communicate with them. Build a Relationship with Your Audience Crystal has people in her audience who have been following her online since she started her MoneySavingMom.com blog 10 years ago. She recently went on an East Coast road trip with her family, blogged about it, and posted on social media about it as it was happening. During that road trip, she asked her followers where she should go. One follower responded, “I almost told you, of course you should come to my house, but then I realized you don’t know who I am. But I feel like you’re a close friend.” That’s what we should all aim for! If the people following us feel like we’re their next-door neighbor or close friend, they will follow us wherever we go, and they are much more likely to buy based on a recommendation that we’ve made because we’ve built a foundation of friendship and trust with them. While privacy is as important as it’s ever been today, the people who follow you want to know that you’re a real person. The more you’re comfortable sharing about what’s actually going on in your life, the better off your personal brand will be in the future. The more vulnerable and genuine you can be with your audience, the more connected they will feel with you. Make sure the things you share on your blog are consistent with your brand. Try Connecting via Video If you can incorporate video into your blog, it allows for a deeper level of connection than just text. This is because video engages more of your audience’s senses than just text on the screen. You become more of a real person when people can see you and hear you speaking. Video allows your audience to see you as a person just like them. Expand Your Comfort Zone by Doing What Scares You It can be scary to be vulnerable and personal with your audience, especially when nothing on the internet ever really goes away. But the truth is, the more you give of yourself to your audience, the more value you’re creating for them, and the more likely they are to be converted into true fans who will follow you forever. In Crystal’s experience, the fear of being vulnerable is always there. But the more you do the things that scare you, the larger your comfort zone expands. The larger your comfort zone expands, the more you will be able to serve your audience. Having an outline for what you’re going to say on live video or in front of a live audience can help you push through the fear of presenting. It also helps to make a commitment to your audience that you’re going to do something you are afraid of. The commitment itself can push you to do that which scares you. Words of Advice for Bloggers Be brave. Be vulnerable with your audience. Network with other bloggers. Be a champion and cheerleader for others. The more you can promote other bloggers the more they will want to help you build your platform. Reciprocity is natural to human nature. If you contact a blogger or celebrity and the first thing you ask is for them to promote your blog post, that’s going to be a turnoff for most people. If you email the same blogger and approach them with the question, “How can I support/encourage you today?” it will lead to profitable long-term relationships. Build a Platform by Building Relationships with Influencers and Fans Crystal is always looking for people who are doing amazing things that aren’t widely recognized. These aren’t people asking for recognition. They are people doing work every day who deserve recognition. One way to get noticed by the influencers in your space is to interact with them on a regular basis. On Crystal’s new site YourBloggingMentor.com, she looks for people who engage with her by commenting frequently. She loves to find new blogs with good information that she can share with her audience. Crystal has a friend who is writing a book. She’s really excited to be able to share that with her followers when the book goes live. Crystal really tries to answer all of her Instagram direct messages—connecting with her fans is a top priority. Building a solid platform online is all about building real relationships with your audience so that they become friends and true fans of you. You should be building relationships with influencers and with members of your audience. The way you build a relationship is by interacting with people in positive ways so that when they see your username or email address, they have a positive association with it. “The more you live with your hands open, the more blessings there are in your life.” —Crystal Paine   Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://moneysavingmom.com/– Crystal’s blog, where she teaches moms how to make money and save more money. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ – learn about Amazon’s affiliate program. https://www.surpriseride.com/ — a company that Crystal is an affiliate for. Surprise Ride sends monthly activity boxes to kids. http://yourbloggingmentor.com/ – Crystal’s website, where she teaches beginners how to make a part-time to full-time income online. Your Blogging University — a series of courses designed to help beginning and intermediate bloggers to build their platform and make a part-time to full-time income from their blog.   For more on how to grow your platform online, check out these articles: 6 Reasons Authors Should Be Guest Blogging (and 3 Ways to Find Host Sites) How To Turn Your Blog Into a Business How to Write an Outreach Email (plus a bonus email template) The post 153: How to Make Money Blogging with Crystal Paine appeared first on TCK Publishing.

The results of Rachel’s latest book marketing experiments will surprise you. Rachel Aaron is a bestselling traditionally published novelist and author of several books including the Eli Monpress series, as well as one of my absolute favorite nonfiction books on writing: 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. We talk about how her writing has changed since our last interview, and her latest experiments with book marketing. We also talk about the importance of writing quality books and what types of marketing work (and don’t work) when you’re just starting to build an author platform. Note: Rachel’s been on the show before: in Episode 36, we talked about how to write faster, better, and love what you do. We talked a lot about plotting, as well as Rachel’s writing process. It’s worth going back for a listen just so you can get the full scope of what Rachel’s talking about—and how it might work for you! Writing is Marketing Since our last interview, Rachel has studied a lot about story structure and what really goes into a good story. She focuses a lot more on characters than she used to. Characters are what drive the story forward, and your audience only experiences your story through the five senses, thoughts, and opinions of your characters. That means you have to write great characters if you want readers to love your story and share it with others. Tips for Populating Your Story with Great Characters A novel is going to have more than one antagonist, and every antagonist is the hero of his or her own story. Don’t forget to make your antagonists people, too! Give your character a motivation, something they want. Then give them something they need. Put what they want and what they need in conflict. This is how you create a character arc and write a really interesting story. When you’re just starting out as a fiction writer, focus on giving your characters one major motivation. When you focus on just one motivation, it helps clearly define your character for your audience and makes your job as a writer simpler.If you think about characters, their motivations, and how the decisions they make will bring them into conflict with other characters, you will end up with a much better story. You should give your character a flaw that needs to be overcome in order to get what they need. Human beings are flawed and we can more easily identify with a protagonist who isn’t perfect. You should be willing to beat up on your characters. How a person reacts to hardship reveals their true character. The same thing is true of fictional people: the more you beat up on them the more they reveal their true selves.Beating up on your characters works especially well if their reactions change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story. Showing your character reacting differently at the end of the story than they did at the beginning illustrates their character arc and really brings home for your reader how they have changed. More on Character Motivation The clearer you can be about your characters’ motivation, the more impact you can have as a storyteller. That’s why Rachel likes to focus on one motivation per character. When you limit yourself to one character motivation, that motivation serves to define the character and it really helps make everything clear to the reader so that they can truly identify with where the character is coming from. When introducing characters, you want to tell your readers who that character is, what they want, and why the reader should care about them. Being unclear is the kiss of death in many stories. Make Every Book the Best Do everything you can to make the story you’re writing right now the best story it can be. If you’re writing a series, don’t hold back something cool in Book 1 just so you can put it in Book 2 or 3. Use the cool stuff now! There will be more cool stuff later. Besides, if you save the good stuff for later, your readers may leave—and then they’ll never read all that cool stuff you were holding back. Your reader is coming into your story blank. It’s your job to fill in the blank in the most beautiful and interesting way possible. —Rachel Aaron Book Marketing Experiments Rachel admits that, after trying every social media marketing strategy she could find, she just doesn’t like to use social media to promote her books. She doesn’t like Facebook at all. She enjoys Twitter, but just as a citizen—not as a “platform author.” She has just over 4,000 followers, and she might mention when a new release comes out, but she doesn’t use her Twitter feed to push her books on anyone. Everything I have to say about my books is in my books. If you want to know what I think, read my books. —Rachel Aaron Rachel knows authors who are very successful at using Facebook ads and other paid advertising. It’s just not her thing. Rachel has done three things to build her author platform online: 1. Write More Books If you want to build an author platform online and make a living with your writing, the number one thing you should do is write as many books as you can. Each book you write becomes an entry point for a reader to join your audience. The easiest sale you will ever make is to a reader who likes what you’ve written before. If the reader buys your new book and likes it, they’re very likely to buy other books you’ve written. You want to: Write a book that has an engaging story. Give your book a title that catches the reader’s eye, and intrigues or excites them. Give your book a good-looking cover. Give your book a blurb that is going to make people want to read the book. Readers don’t care whether your book was published in New York or not. If you do your job right, they won’t even notice what imprint might be stamped on it. 2. Have a Professional Website Give your readers plenty of ways to connect with you, even if you don’t like social media. When you build your author website, it becomes a hub for all the ways readers can interact with you, get news, and get your books. Rachel’s professional website is www.RachelAaron.net. Her doesn’t bring in new readers, but it is a way for people who are interested in her to see everything she’s written. This makes it easier for casual fans to become superfans who read everything she’s ever written, no matter what series or world it’s written in. 3. Build an Email List Rachel has an email list of subscribers and she sends them updates when she’s about to release a book. She actually sends them three emails per book: The first email goes out when the book is available for preorder. The second email goes out when Rachel releases sample chapters. The third email goes out on launch day. The number one thing you can do to build your email list is to write a short story that’s only available to your email subscribers. The short story Rachel wrote for her email list tripled her subscribe rate. Beware of Using Free Giveaways to Build Your Email List But while giving away short stories is a great way to build your list, other giveaways may be less helpful. A lot of indie authors will bloat their email list by attracting subscribers through free giveaways. The problem with this strategy is a lot of people will sign up just for the giveaway, and if you’re using an autoresponder service like aWeber or Mailchimp, you have to pay for everyone who subscribes to your email list. If your list swells up with people who don’t actually care about what you’re writing and who just wanted a free book download, you’ll end up paying a lot per month for a list that isn’t very engaged. In the end, it’s just not a smart business decision. The Book Advertising Experiment Last year, Rachel and her husband did an experiment where they paid a marketing firm quite a bit of money to do all kinds of paid advertising over multiple platforms. They paid for Facebook ads. They paid for Amazon ads. They paid for BookBub ads. Rachel’s big takeaway: There was no measurable uptick in sales due to the advertising. Rachel got her biggest uptick in sales when she wrote a new book in a series. This is because each new book in a series advertises all the other books. If a reader looks at a cover and blurb and decides they like a book, but it’s Book Four in the series, that reader is likely to buy the first three books in the series to know what came before. Book Marketing Rule of Thumb Want to know Rachel’s biggest secret to marketing? Look at your own buying behavior as a reader. Rachel never buys books from Facebook ads or Google ads. She ignores them. And her marketing experiment confirmed that her readers share her buying behavior. Instead, Rachel does three things to market her books to readers: She makes sure she has a good cover. She makes sure she has a good blurb. She sends her book to book reviewers and bloggers. She also lets her email list know when a new book is coming out…and pretty much only then. She only sends three emails per launch. Because Rachel emails so infrequently, her audience knows that each email is valuable. When people subscribe to your email list, they are asking to be marketed to. They are inviting you into their inbox and allowing you to have a window into their world. That is a precious gift and you shouldn’t squander it by spamming them or betray it by selling their email address. Writing a Series to Build Your Author Platform One of the most effective ways to build your author platform is to write a series. Series work well because if a reader likes the series, they’ll buy every book in the series. Your first book sells your second book. The second book sells the series. The real trick is to create a follow-up series that appeals to at least a segment of your target audience. Using Permafree as a Marketing Tool and Other Marketing Advice A lot of authors use permafree books to attract readers into their sales funnel. But you should only use the permafree strategy when you have a completed series. Using the permafree strategy too early is a mistake Rachel has seen a lot of authors make. If you’ve written two books and you make the first book permafree to attract readers, you’re losing half of your potential income. Setting the first book in a series to permafree after the series is completed is a much more sound business strategy. Permafree books are advertising. And if you have no product to sell beyond your permafree book, there is no point to advertising yet. Writers will often turn to marketing as a substitute for doing the hard writing work they don’t want to do. The truth is, no amount of marketing can sell a book that is fundamentally flawed and bad. Focus on writing a good book and any marketing efforts you do later will have much better results. Marketing makes a good product succeed faster and a bad product fail faster. —Rachel Aaron As a writer, the number one thing you want to be doing is writing more books. Creating more inventory is the fastest, surest way to build an author platform. If you want to make a living as a writer, writing new words should be your top priority. There is no objective way to tell whether or not a book is good before you put it on the market. Every reader is different. Every reader has a favorite book. And for every reader who loves a book, you’re going to find a reader who hates that book. Heck, one of Rachel’s favorite books is The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. As of this post, it has 723 Amazon reviews, and 21 of them are one-star reviews. You can’t predict the opinions of a wide audience. All you can do is entertain yourself while you’re writing. If you do that, you will find readers who like what you like, and you will begin to build an audience. It’s important to know your audience and what they like in your fiction. That’s why it’s easiest to write to entertain yourself and people like you. Another approach is to write for somebody you know well, like a family member, friend, or spouse. By narrowing your target audience to one person, you can begin to get a handle on writing a book that will entertain them and make them want to buy more books from you. That is true success in the writing business. The worst thing you can do as a writer is write a poor imitation of a story people have already read. When you write a story, you should always try to write something new, interesting, and entertaining to you. Be sure to take the time you need to make your story good. A book can be late for six months, but once it’s published, it can be bad forever. —Rachel Aaron Last Words of Advice Use your time wisely. Writing new book should be your number one priority. If you want to do marketing, limit the time you spend on it. Write it into your schedule. You should never spend more time on marketing than you do on writing the next book. If you are going to spend time on marketing, do your writing first. Marketing has a way of eating up your time, and for marketing to have any value, you need to create products to sell. If you’re not done writing your first book, forget about marketing. Marketing is the endgame in writing. It’s something you do after you’ve written your books, not before. When it comes to marketing and promotion, do what feels comfortable to you— don’t compare yourself to other authors. Every successful author has his or her own unique success story. Focus on writing yours rather than worrying that you don’t have somebody else’s. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller – Rachel learned a lot about the art of storytelling and character development from this book Rachel Aaron’s Amazon author page http://www.RachelAaron.net– Rachel Aaron’s author website http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ — a blog for romance readers. http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com – Rachel Aaron’s business blog https://twitter.com/Rachel_Aaron — connect with Rachel on Twitter The Let’s Talk numbers section of Rachel’s blog — where she goes behind the scenes to talk about the sales numbers in her self-publishing business. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle — This book has a 4.5 star average and more than 20 one-star reviews, proving you can’t please everyone For more on improving your writing skills, read on: How to Write a Fiction Book Blurb That Sells (Not Just Another Boring Synopsis) Found Dialogue: Using the Art of Eavesdropping for Better Fiction The post 152: Market Less and Sell More with Rachel Aaron appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. This was a great interview. We talk about what makes things go viral and how authors can create a word-of-mouth campaign to sell more books. Jonah’s undergraduate research focus was in human decision-making. He went on to earn a PhD in marketing. He’s always been interested in why people do what they do and what influences the decisions they make. His academic career allows him to study these questions deeply. He wrote his first book Contagious: Why Things Catch On after he taught a course on the subject. A lot of people sent requests for the course materials even though they were unable to actually attend the class. That’s when he came up with the idea of bringing together academic research on the subject of why things go viral, then collecting that research into a book accessible to a mass audience. Jonah’s Publishing Journey Jonah went the traditional publishing route when he decided to write his first book. He got an agent by connecting with friends who had already published popular academic books like his. After he got an agent, he wrote a proposal that was submitted to publishing houses. He estimates it took him about three years from coming up with the idea to having a published book available in stores. Most of that time was taken up in the back-and-forth of the editing process. The 2 Things You Need to Know If You Want Your Book to Sell Well Who is your audience? Why are you writing this book for them? If you have a good handle on these two questions, it can really help focus your writing efforts. Thinking of your audience during the planning, writing, and marketing phases helps to ensure you’re going to provide them with massive value—which is key to gaining traction, building a fan base, and selling lots of copies. The STEPS You Can Take to Start a Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Campaign for Your Book The secret to creating a word-of-mouth marketing campaign is to identify your audience and convert them from consumers to advocates for your work. There are six reasons people will share content on the internet. Any one of these factors can make something shareable. The more factors you can stack, the more likely it is that your idea/book will go viral. Remember: Only 7–10% of word-of-mouth communication happens online. The majority of word-of-mouth communication happens face-to-face. Social media can be a powerful tool to get your message out there, but the channel the information comes through is far less important than the psychology behind what makes people share things. Take these STEPS to ensure that you’re creating sharable, potentially viral content: Social Currency The better something makes you look—the better it reflects on you—the more likely you are to share it. How can you make your reader look smart, special, and in the know for sharing your book with others? If you’re a nonfiction author, what piece of information is going to make your reader look smart or clever at a cocktail party? If you’re writing a fiction book, what are the snippets that are going to make your reader look smart, sophisticated, and well read if they pass them on? Triggers The more something is “top of mind,” the more likely it is to be on the tip of your tongue. In other words, if it’s the first thing someone thinks of when asked a given question or in a given situation, they’re likely to share it. People often talk about the weather to fill conversational space. They don’t usually talk about it because the weather is particularly interesting, but because weather is a topic we all experience frequently. It’s something we all have in common. What are the hooks in your book that relate to things going on in popular culture? What are the things in your book that are time of year-specific? (Think holidays. How many stories about Christmas come out around Christmastime?) Crafting triggers is about finding links to things in the environment that can remind people of your book. When considering triggers for your book, try to find ones that happen regularly. The more often a trigger occurs in the environment, the better it’s going to be for your word-of-mouth campaign. The Four Key Elements of Triggers Who do you want to be triggered? Who is your target audience? When do you want them triggered? What time should you trigger them so they’re most likely to take action appropriately? If your book is a summer read, you want your audience to buy your book in the summer. If your book is a gifting book, you want your audience to take action around gift-giving holidays like Christmas. What is around that time? After you’ve identified the time that you want your trigger to take place, you have to think about situations and events that occur around that time that you can link your book to. How can you create a link to that thing? After you’ve identified the trigger, you should brainstorm ways that you can connect your book to that trigger. Emotion The more emotional something is, the more likely it is that people will share it. Surprisingly, content that elicits a positive emotional response is shared more often than content that elicits a negative emotional response. This is because the content we share is a reflection of who we are—remember that first step, social currency. People want to be seen as positive in general. Sharing isn’t just about positive versus negative, though. The other factor to consider is whether your content elicits an “arousal emotion” such as anger, anxiety, inspiration, or humor. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Just think about how people act when they feel certain emotions. Think about how you act when you feel certain emotions. Ask yourself, when I feel [choose your emotion], am I more likely or less likely to share content? Practical value How does your content impact your audience on a practical level? Can it help them achieve some desired outcome? Can it help them move through their lives in a more efficient and effective way? Will it impart knowledge that can help them deal with their circumstances or environment? These are the kind of questions you want to ask to find the practical value that will encourage your audience to share your content. Stories A story becomes more shareable when it contains a moral or a grander idea. Often, the moral or theme isn’t actually spelled out in the text of the story. When you create stories as a storyteller, you want to create valuable virality. You want to create stories that carry you as the storyteller along with them. That is, you want to create an author brand that helps your audience instantly recognize that you are the author of your stories.   Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Contagious: Why Things Catch On — Jonah’s popular academic-based book looking at why things go viral Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior — Jonah’s follow-up explores the subtle influences that affect human decisions http://jonahberger.com/ — Jonah’s website https://twitter.com/j1berger — Connect with Jonah on Twitter   For more on unique marketing ideas, read on: How We Sold 50,000+ Books without a Marketing Budget 10 Great Book Trailers and Why They’re So Effective The Best Way To Market Ebooks With a Limited Budget The post 151: How To Make Your Book Go Viral with Word-of-Mouth Campaigns with Jonah Berger appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Mike Rohde is the bestselling author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook. He presents sketchnoting workshops around the world that encourage people to use visual thinking skills to generate, capture, and share ideas more effectively. In this awesome interview, we talk about sketchnoting, including what it is and how to do it. And we talk about Mike’s traditional publishing journey and how he was able to make his book a success. Visual Thinking Benefits Visual thinking isn’t just a skill that’s important for right-brain, ultra-creative designers. In fact, visualization and visual thinking evolved to help our ancestors better survive, and it’s a key aspect of human intelligence. Even if you tend to be a very poor visual thinker, practicing with sketchnoting and drawing can make a big difference in your creative output and ability to solve problems. There are huge benefits to using visual and spatial thinking. It can boost your creativity, activate differents parts of your brain, and help you come up with new and unique ideas that you never would have come up with otherwise. So don’t worry if you can’t draw, find it almost impossible to visualize, or scored poorly on visual or IQ tests. You don’t need to be a genius to benefit from the fun and creative insights that can come from a little visual thinking. And one of the best and easiest ways to get started is with sketchnoting. What Is Sketchnoting? Sketchnoting is a visual way of taking notes. Normally, notes are text-based. But there’s a problem with that: text-based notetaking limits the type and amount of information that you can record and remember. Text-based notetaking relies on just that one mode of taking notes. The human brain processes text-based notes one way and image-based notes in a different way. Sketchnoting allows us to capture more data and use more areas of our brain, increasing the likelihood that we’re going to remember that data. Using the sketchnoting technique allows you to process information visually. Human beings are very visual people, and we’re becoming more so in the Internet Age, especially now that smartphones are everywhere. Just think about how you react to image posts on Facebook or Instagram, in contrast to long text posts. Pictures get your attention! The Four Components of Sketchnoting There are four main things elements involved in sketchnoting: 1. Drawing This is exactly what it sounds like. You’re drawing images related to what you’re taking notes on. 2. Lettering Here, you draw the letter rather than print it—you’re using your visual brain and your drawing and handwriting skills to process information differently so you remember it better. 3. Writing Your drawn and hand-lettered notes aren’t the only way to remember things. In sketchnoting, you also add text-based notes to accompany your drawings, giving you multiple ways to process, record, and remember information so that you use all parts of your brain. 4. Selection You don’t have to write down every word you hear. Record the really important stuff, whatever jumps out at you about the topic you’re taking notes on. You’ll remember more if you don’t try to remember everything, but pick out the important bits. Handwritten Notes vs. Notes Typed on a Computer Scientific studies have shown that people who write handwritten notes recall the subject matter much better than people who use a laptop to type what they’re hearing word for word. When the scientists looked into the results more deeply, they discovered that actually using pen and paper to record notes forced the people who were doing it to analyze what they were hearing and condense it. Writing by hand means you have to think about the subject matter actively in order to take notes. In contrast, the people who were typing acted like stenographers and were unable to recall the material as well because they didn’t actively engage with the material when they took notes—the words flowed onto the page without actually getting processed, so they lost out on a valuable part of the learning and memory process. How to Use Sketchnoting You can use sketchnoting to: Take notes in a meeting Capture processes Capture experiences Check out Mike’s sketchnote about a latte art competition at a café! Sketchnoting Is for Everyone You might feel like sketchnoting is something you can’t do because you aren’t good at drawing. But that’s not true! Sketchnoting is for everyone in the same way that writing and typing are for everyone. Sketchnoting is about capturing ideas visually. You’re taking notes for yourself. If you draw something that captures the idea that you want to remember, that’s all you need to do. It doesn’t have to be a museum-worthy art piece. It just has to capture the idea you want to recall and use later, in whatever way works for you. And by adding a little extra visual element to your notes, you can boost your creativity and improve your memory. What’s not to like? The Five Basic Elements of Drawing In his efforts to make sketchnoting accessible to everyone, Mike hit on the five basic elements of drawing: A square A circle A triangle A line A dot In The Sketchnote Handbook, Mike teaches you how to combine these elements to be able to sketchnote the idea that you want to communicate, no matter whether you think you’re good at drawing or not. Sketchnoting incorporates sketches and text to communicate ideas. So if you’re not really good at sketching when you start, you can lean more heavily on text. The ratio of sketches to text will also change depending upon what you’re taking notes on. If you’re taking notes for a meeting and need to record details, you’re probably going to rely more heavily on text. But if you’re sketchnoting a TED Talk, you might be more inspired to sketch most of your notes. Mike Rohde’s Traditional Publishing Journey Mike got his book deal because a published author friend of his encouraged him to write a book about sketchnoting, then recommended him to the acquisitions editor at Peachpit press. From there, he created a book proposal, drafted the book, and came up with graphic art for the project. Mike attributes his success to developing friendships with people without a motive. His approach to networking is to be friends with as many people as possible, and to be nice to everyone. Mike’s Marketing Plan Mike did two things to market his first book on sketchnoting: He blogged regularly about the process of creating the book. He used social media to identify influencers in his market space to send review copies to. Mike believes that regular blog updates coupled with sending review copies to influencers allowed his book to be a success faster than it otherwise would have been. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://rohdesign.com/ — Mike’s website https://twitter.com/rohdesign — Connect with Mike on Twitter https://www.instagram.com/rohdesign/ — Connect with Mike on Instagram http://sketchnotearmy.com/ — See other people’s sketchnotes on this blog and get inspired The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking — Mike’s book on sketchnoting The Sketchnote Workbook — Mike’s second book on sketchnoting, which teaches sketchnoting techniques   Have you tried sketchnoting? Share in the comments!   For more creative note-taking ideas, read on: Bullet Journaling 101: Give Yourself the Ammo to Write Better Bullet Journal Layouts for Writers: 8 Ideas for Creative Organization (and some bonus examples) 7 Steps to Improve Your Handwriting (and Productivity)   The post 150: How Visual Thinking Helps You Remember More and Be More Creative with Mike Rohde appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Dave Kusek is the author of The Future of Music, which has sold more than 50,000 copies. He’s a pioneer in the music industry, and he teaches artists how to thrive and prosper in our high-tech digital society. This is a great interview. We talk about how to have a music career in the digital age. But it’s not just about music: we talk about setting career goals, the paths you need to consider based on what your goals are, and how to attract an audience with your web presence. Authors can use the same strategies we talk about for musicians to build an audience online. Dave grew up as a musician. He was a member of several bands in high school. When he went to college, he began working at one of the first synthesizer companies. He was fortunate to meet many musicians who worked with the company he worked for. While he was working for the synthesizer company, he decided that he would prefer a role on the business side of the music industry. He spent a lot of time developing software for musicians to record, play back, and edit music. Dave got involved in creating MIDI files, which allow computers to recreate the sounds of many instruments. MIDI files set the stage for digital music to take off, and laid the foundation for the digital music revolution. Dave has spent the last 14 years developing an online school for the Berklee College of Music. Throughout that time, he’s helped hundreds of independent musicians build their careers and navigate the changes in the music marketplace. What Is Your Definition of Success? Being able to be successful depends on being able to define what success means for you. If you want to play gigs a few weekends a month as a supplement to your day job, that type of career is very easy to create. If you want a music career that earns you $200,000 a year, where music is your full-time job, it’s possible in today’s world—but much harder to achieve. Once you understand what your personal goals are, then you can put a plan in place to achieve them. Major Industry Shifts The major shift in the music industry over the last 15 years is a shift away from the mega-superstars that used to drive the industry to a larger number of people who perform music semi-professionally. The same is true of the book industry—there are still mega-stars who sell millions of copies of every book, but now there are more and more people who earn a good living writing a couple books and enjoy steady, sustainable (but not blockbuster) success. Three Major Career Paths for Musicians If you’re willing to travel and work hard on the road, you can make a decent living touring around the world. If you plan to make music for movies or commercials, you can make a decent living licensing your music for the use of others. If you are a really good songwriter and you’re willing to network your way into Nashville, New York, and LA, you can also make good money that way.   Build a Team As you grow your career, focus on building a team that’s aligned with your vision. The first thing you have to do as an independent artist is launch your own career. Almost everyone has to do this as an independent artist, because when you’re just starting out, nobody knows who you are and you don’t have the resources to build a team around you. When you start on your own, you become very efficient in how you use money because you have to be. This skill will pay dividends later in life. The next step is when you realize you can’t do it all on your own. That’s when you have to attract a team to help you achieve your goals. The major challenge of building a team at this point in your career is that you’re probably not able to pay them. That’s when you have to find ways to motivate people to help you. One way you can motivate people is if you’re very clear about your goals and can get other people excited about them, too. Infecting your team with passion for your vision of the future is an effective motivational tool. As you’re building your team, consider a few key points: What types of things need to be done to advance your career? What are you good at? Delegate tasks that you aren’t good at or don’t like to do to people on your team. Go Where the Market Is It’s much easier to be successful as a musician if you go where the market is. That means you have to move to LA, New York, or Nashville, depending on what you want to do and what market your music appeals to. You can achieve a moderate level of success without living in these places, but in order to do that, you have to be really good at building a web presence and social media to attract an audience to you. It’s also easier to grow your brand and business if you live in the community you want to be a part of.     How to Attract an Audience Online The best way to attract an audience online is to leverage your social networks. YouTube is a big part of any online music success. Facebook is another major social network a lot of artists use. Instagram can also be a place to find an audience. Many musicians are using SoundCloud to gather an audience. Choose one or two of these platforms and become an expert on how they work. Use these channels to help build your audience. If you’re not sure which channels to focus on, look at your goals and what kind of artist you are. Being clear about where you are and where you want to go will give you more clarity about the best way for you to get there. Build a Website to Attract and Engage an Audience Make sure that your social network profiles are leading back to your own personal website. It’s very important that you create a website that you control (as opposed to something like Facebook, which others control) where people can let you know that they’re part of your audience. On this website, you want to have a place where you can collect your audience’s email addresses. It’s best if you trade something of value, like a freebie download, to get their email address. For instance, you could trade a song or some sort of exclusive access for people to get on your email list. On your website, you can: Promote your music Promote your tours Promote your merchandise Start a dialogue with fans Set up a point of contact for people interested in working with you As an author, you can promote your books, stories, articles, webinars, courses, and more. You can also sell tie-in merchandise related to your books. How to Get Your YouTube Video Noticed When you create a YouTube video, the first thing you should do is think about your content. How is it going to be unique? What about your video will make people want to share it? How can you make your video funny or provocative? Using Titles, Tags, and Keywords on YouTube The title of your video is just like the title of a book or website. It’s one of the first things that gets searched when a user types a keyword phrase into the YouTube search engine. You want to use keyword phrases in the title so people can find your video. You also want to use keywords in the video description. This gives the search engine on YouTube another way to find what the user is looking for. You can use YouTube’s suggested search feature to find keywords that would be good to include in your description. All you have to do is type in keywords related to the subject your video is about and then see what YouTube’s search feature auto-populates with. The search phrases that come up are phrases people have used before. It’s a good idea to create a call to action (CTA) at the end of your videos to help you let your audience know what you want them to do, like “buy my album” or “subscribe to my newsletter.” The key to success in today’s world is to build a relationship with your audience—provide something of value and ask them to take another step to cement the relationship. Time Management for Artists It takes about 2 to 3 years of consistent effort to go from an unknown aspiring artist to a somewhat known commodity on the internet with a decent-sized fan base. The three components of business for any successful working artist are: Craft Marketing Networking In the beginning of your career, the majority of your time should be spent on learning your craft. You have to become really good at what you do in order to get noticed by anyone who matters. Parallel to that, you want to set up your website and your social networks. You want to have a framework and a system in place so that when you break out, you can begin to build an audience. The final piece of your puzzle is networking. At the beginning of your career, when you’re just starting to learn your craft, you want to spend 50% of your time learning your craft, 25% of your time marketing, and 25% of your time networking. When you’re secure in your craft, the amount of time you spend marketing and networking increases to capitalize on the effort you put into learning your craft. At the end of this stage of your journey, you’re going to spend a lot more time networking than anything else. Networking will catapult your reach more than anything else you’ve done so far. But you have to have a foundation of talent and skill before your networking can pay off. Your Team Will Change over Time Your team will grow and change over time as you move into different phases of your career. Understand that will happen. Be open to adding to your team when it makes sense, and make sure all of your team is in alignment with each other, and with your goals. Links and Resources Mentioned in this Interview The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution — Dave’s book about the digital music industry. New Artist Model — Dave’s online business school for musicians. CreateBiz — Dave’s new website, where he helps authors, visual artists, and photographers create a content engine around their art so they can start building an audience to sell their work. Dave’s Amazon Author Page Social Networks: Use these to Build Your Fan Base Youtube — A social network built around videos Facebook — A general-purpose social network built around sharing various content, including videos, images, and text posts Instagram — A social network based on pictures Soundcloud.com — An online audio distribution platform   The post 149: Build a Successful Creative Career and Use YouTube to Grow Your Audience with Dave Kusek appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Farnoosh Brock is the bestselling author of several books, including the Healthy Smoothie Bible, which has more than 450 reviews on Amazon. She works with professionals who are in a mid-career crisis to help them navigate the corporate landscape or start their own profitable businesses. In this fantastic interview, we dive deep into what it means to be successful. We talk about how to run a successful coaching business. Finally, we talk about the attributes of a calm leader and why it’s so important to develop the skills of calm leadership. Hint: Whether you work for yourself or in a larger company, practicing calm leadership adds to your bottom line. Farnoosh worked at a corporate job for 13 years. She’d always wanted to do something different and stumbled into blogging. She found that she really enjoyed blogging as a hobby because she loved writing. That’s when she decided to start her own business. She began self-publishing books because she enjoyed the process of writing them and putting them on the market. From there, a publisher found her work and contacted her about working with her to put more content out. That’s how her juicing and smoothie books came to be. Farnoosh decided to switch gears and become a coach after her smoothie books became a success. She likes coaching because she feels it utilizes more of her gifts and allows her to create the greatest impact in someone’s life. If You Want to Be Truly Successful, Follow Your Passion There are many paths to creating a six-figure business. What you have to do is figure out what you’re willing to do day in and day out that doesn’t feel like work for you. That’s the only way you can be sure of creating a business that consistently gives you the success you deserve. In order to be successful, you need a consistent commitment to doing the things necessary in order to succeed. Doing something you’re passionate about will make that commitment effortless. How to Build an Audience with Your Blog “You have to learn the rules and then break them.” — unknown When Farnoosh started her blog, she began following the best blogging practices. She observed other blogs in her market and emulated them. She never liked following templates, though. She began finding more success when she just wrote what she wanted to write. Farnoosh writes in a way that is natural for her. She uses her own unique writing voice to convey what she has to say, and she says that’s the key to her success. Being authentic gives you the best chance of being able to move your audience to take the action that you want them to take. Writing about what moves you, inspires you, or makes you feel something is the best way to stay true to your authentic self. Find the Passion in Your Marketing Farnoosh runs a coaching business that she doesn’t do any marketing for. All of her clients come from relationships and referrals. When she wrote her smoothie book, she did all the marketing for it. She was passionate about the content and the message of her book. So marketing did not seem like a chore to her, because she was focused on helping her audience. The Secret to Success: Be Really Good at What You Do It seems simple, but the only way to give yourself the best chance to be successful is being really good at what you do. That takes practice, experience, and study. What is it you do? Who do you help in the marketplace? How can you be the best at what you do? You have to invest in yourself and do the work. That’s the only way you’re going to get good enough to justify charging the prices you deserve to receive. How to Ask for Referrals Sometimes your clients won’t know that you work with referrals, so it’s a matter of educating them. The best time to ask for a referral is after you’ve massively helped someone. You want to ask them when you know they’re going to be receptive to giving you a referral. How to Find out If a Coaching Client Is Right for You The only way to figure out if someone would make a good client for you is to have a conversation. In this conversation, you need to figure out what they expect from you and what results they are looking for. From there, you can decide whether or not you’re going to be able to help them (or if you want to help them.) When Farnoosh decides that a potential client isn’t the best fit right now, she does one of the following things: Refers them to someone in her network she thinks can help them Refers them to one of her products Refers them to a resource that she thinks can move them forward How to Stay Focused in Client Conversations When coaching clients, you have to lead the conversation. You have to be personable enough to allow your clients to go on a little bit and allow them to get stuff off their chest, but you have to move the conversation forward. One phrase that works well for Farnoosh is: “I want to hear what you have to say but I also want to respect your time. Do you mind if I ask a follow-up question, and then maybe we can circle back to what you are telling me?” It’s important that you lead the conversation by keeping it on track. When you keep the conversation on track, you’re acting more professional, and you’re serving your client better than if you let them ramble with no direction. Invest in Yourself Take classes. Get coaching. Attend conferences and webinars. You’re good at what you do, so invest the resources in getting even better. You’ll deliver more value to your clients and grow your business and your bottom line that way. Be Clear about What You Want to Achieve It’s important to be clear about the result you want in your life. When you’re clear about the results you want, it allows you to find the right person to help you achieve success. When you are not clear about the results you want, you can end up spending a lot of money chasing the wrong result—and when you achieve it, you figure out it’s not what you wanted in the first place. Find a Coach Who Can Help When you’re clear about the result you want, your next step is to find a coach who can take you from where you are now to where you want to be. Look for a coach who: Has traveled your path Has gotten the results with other clients that you want for yourself Hiring the right coach—and spending more money than you’re currently comfortable spending on yourself—will pay big dividends in the future. The real benefit to having a coach is that you’re able to think differently about the same problems you’ve had in the past. Thinking differently about your problems is what’s going to help you evolve into a more successful person. Success Is about the Journey In order to be successful, you really have to develop patience. Very few people gain success overnight, and even fewer of those are able to keep that once they have it. You’ll often need to change your mindset in order to reach the next level on your journey to success. Be confident that you’re the right person at the right time for this business. Confidence can be a challenge. It helps to have a track record of success when you’re building confidence. If you can give yourself evidence of success in the past, it will help you build confidence. Calm Leadership Is Valuable Oftentimes, high-powered people tend to give off a frantic energy. If you can slow down and present an attitude of calm leadership, people will follow you more readily, and you will be more valuable in the marketplace. “Being in a hurry never got me there any faster.” — T. Harv Eker Tips on Calm Leadership Be really self-aware of your energy and how it affects others. Slow down your excitement and enthusiasm. Allow others to take you in. Use deep breathing to force yourself to slow down. Breathe in through your nose for a slow count of five. Then breathe out through your mouth for another slow count of five. Match the pace at which you speak to that of the person you’re speaking with. Sometimes that might mean speeding up a little bit. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less calm. Matching the pace at which you speak to the other person will help you relate better to them. It’s more important than the words you choose. It can help to choose a role model so that you can better imagine yourself reacting the way they would. You can choose someone from the past like Gandhi, or you can choose someone in your current circle whom you know personally. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://www.prolificliving.com/ — Farnoosh’s website The Healthy Smoothie Bible: Lose Weight, Detoxify, Fight Disease, and Live Long — Farnoosh’s best-selling book on smoothies Farnoosh’s Amazon author page   For more on achieving success as an author, read on: 15 Success Habits of Professional Writers and Authors A Self Publishing Plan for Success: How to Achieve Your Dreams as an Author by Planning Ahead Developing Success Mindset Mastery for Authors, Artists and Entrepreneurs The post 148: How to Use Your Passion to Find Success—and Why Calm Leadership Is Key with Farnoosh Brock appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Chris Brogan is a New York Times bestselling author. He has written nine books, including Find Your Writing Voice—which is, naturally, about how to find your unique writing voice. He’s also the CEO of Owner Media Group, where he teaches strategy and skills for modern businesses. This is a great interview. We talked about how to find your writing voice and what it means to be an entrepreneur. Chris has a unique take you’ve never heard before. Chris started blogging in 1998 when it was called journaling and nobody was on the internet looking for blogs. It took him eight years to get his first 100 readers. What Chris likes about blogging is that there are no gatekeepers. You can write whatever you want, and that’s exactly what he did. He says, “I wrote garbage for a long time until I learned to write something that might be appealing to humans who have interests and needs.” How to Find Your Author Voice In order to find your author voice, you have to do two things: You have to write a lot. You have to read a lot. In Chris’s experience, people do either one or the other—but you need to do both. People who read a lot and never write usually end up mimicking other writers that they read. When most of what you are doing is copying other writers’ catchphrases, you become a poor clone of work that’s already out there. Beginning writers often write from their feeling of being afraid of what people are going to think about them. So they use words that aren’t normally in their vocabulary to impress some imaginary brilliant professor or CEO who’s reading their work. If you write in a style and with a vocabulary that isn’t comfortable to you, it will show. Be authentic! Let your personality shine through and you’ll start to find your place as a writer. Why Entrepreneurs Should Be Writers We live in a world where everyone is using their phone to look stuff up all the time. Good content will get you more attention. If you have a bunch of good content on your website about your industry while your competitor has a bunch of ads, you’re going to look better by comparison. You want to write about how your customers can best use your product. You want to make it easier for the customer to understand what your product does—and specifically how they can use your product to solve their problem. Creating content allows you to create a channel where people can find you. The more content you create on your website, the more likely it is that people will find you in a Google search. Creating content also allows you to introduce yourself to people and let them know what you think about things. Consumers are more likely to buy from people they like. Your content allows you to develop a deeper relationship with your audience. How to Make Your Blog Stand Out There are several reasons a business or a blog would stand out in our minds. It stands out because: We like it more. We have an experience with it. We have a personal experience that it was the right product or the right service to solve our problem. Everyone has restaurants they love and hate. A lot of people hate McDonald’s. But McDonald’s has a very specific brand strategy. You know that if you go to McDonald’s: The restaurant will be clean. The restaurant will serve your food fast. The taste of the food will be the same everywhere. A Big Mac in Indiana will taste the same as a Big Mac in Tokyo. It’s those kinds of things that you build a brand on. Building a brand is about finding the specific details you want your business to be known for. When it comes to writing, the key is to find what makes your writing different. You need to make your writing different in order to make it clear to your audience how you see the world. What Makes Your Business Different? If you think your business isn’t different, you simply haven’t figured out how you solve your customers’ problems in a unique way. In order to figure out what makes your business different, think of your ideal customer and the problem they are trying to solve: what are you going to help them with? Then think of a solution that is interesting to you. Make that product and put it on the market. Market Research Is a Way to Procrastinate Chris doesn’t believe in traditional market research. He says it’s simply a way to procrastinate on releasing your product. Chris believes the best market research involves releasing your product and then looking at your results. If people aren’t buying your product, try to figure out why. If a lot of people are buying your product…try to figure out why! To Chris, traditional market research is just studying other people’s results and their unique circumstances, then trying to copy those results—but your circumstances are completely different than their circumstances. Chris succeeds because he’ll take 100 shots at creating a product. Out of those 100 attempts, two will usually be successful. That gives him two more successes than people who never try because they’re afraid of failing. The antidote to fear is taking action. — Tom Corson Knowles The Cure for Analysis Paralysis Create a product and put it out there. It’s much better to know how bad you are than to worry about how bad you are. When you know how bad you are, you can take steps to improve. Chris has published nine books. Two of those books have been commercial successes. The other seven haven’t sold many copies at all. He’s working on his 10th book. There is no way to know how well your book is going to do until you release it into the world. It’s all about where you want to spend your energy. Do you want to spend your energy worrying about success, or do you want to spend your energy creating? The cure for any entrepreneurial challenge is work. — Chris Brogan What It Means to Be an Entrepreneur If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you need to understand that success is not a straight line. There are going to be times when you have a lot of money and times when you don’t. There is no such thing as job security. If you work for somebody else, that means somebody else has complete control over your income and your time. And they can let you go for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Successful people who are comfortable in their own skin never brag about their wealth. They always talk about what they can do with what they have, not their material possessions. If you’re worried about being a failure, you’re already a failure. What if you could figure out how to be a success? — Chris Brogan Richard Branson started more than 400 businesses to get where he is today. Have an idea? Just try it! You don’t know where it might lead. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://chrisbrogan.com/ — Chris Brogan’s website http://owner.media/ — Another place to connect with Chris Find Your Writing Voice: How to write more like your amazing self, for books, blog posts, and email — Chris’s book on how to find your writing voice. Chris Brogan’s Amazon Author Page For more writing tips, read on: How to Write a Book in 60 Days Writing Prompts: How to Boost Your Creative Writing Skills with Fiction and Non-Fiction Book Ideas How to Write a Book – 7 Steps to Writing a Book That’s Ready to Be Professionally Published The post 147: How to Find Your Unique Writing Voice and Stand out from the Crowd with Chris Brogan appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Ashley Scott Meyers is a screenplay writer, producer, and director. He’s also the creator of SellingYourScreenplay.com, where he teaches screenwriters how to sell their screenplay and get a great deal. This was an interesting interview. We talked about how to sell your screenplay and the importance of building relationships in Hollywood. Ashley grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. He didn’t know any writers or artists and had no connections in the entertainment industry. But he loved movies. He started writing in college and wrote a few scripts. He wasn’t a particularly good student and didn’t have any job prospects coming out of college, but he kept thinking about working in film. After he graduated college, Ashley and a friend drove across the country and settled in Los Angeles to start making their way as filmmakers. He tried everything he could think of to break in to Hollywood. He submitted to script writing contests and wrote a lot of scripts. When Ashley arrived in Hollywood in the 1990s, small-budget movie producers would put ads into trade magazines looking for screenwriters. He wrote scripts and submitted to the producers who put out these ads. Eventually, Ashley and his friend wrote a script called Dish Dogs about two guys who worked as dishwashers. That script was optioned and became Ashley’s first screen credit. It took about two years for Ashley to see any tangible result as he pursued his dream of becoming a screenwriter. Dogged persistence is what paid off for him. Dish Dogs was drastically rewritten after it was optioned and the movie didn’t turn out very good. In fact, Ashley found it harder to sell his second script than it was to sell his first, probably because that first screen credit seemed like it was for an iffy movie that wasn’t even the script he really wrote. All the business that Ashley has done in Hollywood has come without having an agent or manager. The idea that you need an agent and manager to do business in Hollywood as a screenwriter is a huge misconception. You can find many producers willing to read scripts from new writers. Producers of low-budget movies are especially happy to work with new writers who aren’t represented by agents because it removes a layer of complexity for low-budget productions. Two Pathways to Becoming a Successful Screenwriter in Hollywood In general, there are two pathways to success for a Hollywood screenwriter: 1. Write your first screenplay, submit it to contests, and get on the Hollywood radar that way. Winning one of these contests will help you gain industry attention. A minority of screenwriters become studio screenwriters this way. 2. Write for low-budget independent genre production companies that produce low-budget genre films. This is what Ashley is doing right now. It is comparatively easier to sell a low-budget genre script than it is to get the green light at a major movie studio. There are many writers who started out writing these low-budget genre movies and worked their way up the Hollywood ranks to become major studio players. James Gunn, who wrote the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, is one example; James Cameron is another. Christopher Nolan also got his start doing low-budget genre films. Market Research in Hollywood: Why It’s Important and How to Do It Market research is as important in Hollywood as any other place you’re trying to sell your story. It’s much easier to sell a story when you know what your audience wants—that way, you can give it to them. Market research is about understanding what your customer wants. In this case, your customer is a Hollywood producer. When you’re just starting out in Hollywood, you’re most likely going to sell your script to a low-budget Hollywood producer of genre films. The first step of your market research needs to involve finding these low-budget films and their scripts. Study them. See what the producers of the film want for stories. Then take the common elements and write your own script. Making It in Hollywood Is All about Building Relationships There will be many times in your career, especially in the beginning, when you query producers and they don’t buy your script. Selling your script is only one outcome. More often than not, querying producers is not about selling: it’s about beginning to build relationships with the people who can turn your scripts into movies on the big screen. There will be times when a producer that you’ve begun to build a relationship with will come back to you and ask you to write for them. Sometimes it will be a paid gig; sometimes they’ll ask you to do it for free. Sometimes it’s worth doing the free gig to build the relationship and get experience. It’s a truism in Hollywood that “becoming an overnight success takes 10 years.” Success in Hollywood is about taking the long-term view. Luck is not a business plan. You never know what relationships will bear fruit in the future. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide — Get Ashley’s free guide on how to sell your screenplay. IMDB Pro — Use this site to begin your market research and find producers of low-budget genre films. Buried — This one-location thriller film starred Ryan Reynolds. Because one-location movies are cheap and thrillers are popular, there are lots of producers looking for this kind of script. Screenwriting Contests — A list of screenwriting contest on Ashley’s website. https://www.stage32.com/— Facebook for screenwriters. A free networking service. Start your market research with the IMDB pages of actors in low-budget films: Eric Roberts’s IMDB page Danny Trejo’s IMDB page Nicolas Cage’s IMDB page Script Submission Services InkTip.com — This service has a lot of producers who produce low-budget genre films. https://blcklst.com/ — Another marketplace for screenwriters to submit their scripts.   The post 146: How to Write a Great Script, Build Relationships, and Succeed in Hollywood appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Yaro Starak is a professional blogger and serial Internet entrepreneur. As the founder of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, he teaches others how to build a sustainable online business through blogging, selling digital products, and more. Yaro began blogging in 2004 in an effort to get traffic to his essay editing business. At the time, he didn’t know anything about blogging—and he isn’t even an editor himself. These two factors made those early days challenging. He remembers those early days of blogging being like school: he had to write blog posts about things he didn’t really care about. Yaro soon realized he preferred to write about entrepreneurship and so he began to pivot the original blog. He wrote more about how the business was going and less about the subject of editing itself. Soon he realized that this wasn’t the best way to use his editing business blog. That’s when Yaro decided to start www.entrepreneurs-journey.com as a place to tell stories and explore blogging. He never intended for it to be his primary business; Entrepreneur’s Journey was supposed to be a hobby and a way for him to discuss what he was doing with his business. Even back in 2004, Yaro had years of experience selling different things online. Before his essay editing business, he had an online store selling collectible cards. So he had a wealth of stories to draw from when blogging at Entrepreneur’s Journey. In 2007, after a few years of blogging and talking about entrepreneurship, Yaro produced a membership site that was really a course on blogging. He was one of the first people to actually use a blog to sell his own product. Today, his business focuses on helping people learn the art of blogging and build an email list to sell digital products. How to Turn Your Hobby Blog into a Business Yaro has a lot of experience with blogging, both for business and for fun. The best thing you can do, of course, is to make sure that you love your topic, even if you’re blogging for business—that passion shows through. If you started a blog for fun and now want to make money from it, there’s a few things you can do to make the switch. Phase 1: Get Clear on Your Topic and Your Strategy Be very clear on what your topic is. What strategy are you going to use to cover that topic? What problem are you helping to solve for your audience? And how are you helping them solve it? Phase 2: Gather Your Audience and Give Them Value In order to succeed online, you have to build an audience. You have to get visitors to your content and you have to give them reasons to keep coming back. Use case studies related to your topic to gain traffic and credibility. Success stories are some of the most shared stories on the internet. Show people how someone else was successful at solving a problem they are having—a lot of people will be interested in that, as it shows them that success is possible. Use real-life stories and objective verifiable data. This will set your blog apart in the marketplace in terms of quality. If you’re going to start a blog and be the main content creator, you have to figure out where you’re going to pull value from. Where will you get your ideas? How will you develop stories? If you don’t have a success story of your own to tell, you can report the success stories of others. You can also do research and gather statistics and data to help your audience. Phase 3: Get Your Audience into a Funnel Once you’ve gathered an audience, the next step is to build an email list to help you connect with that audience outside of the blog itself. Every new subscriber should be taken through a sequence of emails that leads them to an opportunity to buy something from you. Remember: You want to sell solutions to problems your readers are having. Simple Questions You Need to Answer to Have a Successful Blogging Business Who is my target audience? What problems do they need help solving? What emotions do they have surrounding those problems? Can you solve their problems with your stories and case studies? What products could you promote and sell to help them solve their problems? A Simple Product Funnel System Once you’re clear on who your target audience is and what their problems are, you can set up a simple funnel system that will allow them to give you money for the value you provide. Here are the steps to set up your funnel: Decide on your target audience and the problem you are going to help them solve. Decide how you are going to help them solve their problem. Are you going to use personal stories? Case studies? Well-researched articles? Once you’ve identified a target audience and a problem you can help them solve, think about your first 10 blog posts. These blog posts will go into your first autoresponder sequence. The end of that autoresponder sequence will lead to a product you are promoting or selling yourself, so that you make money when they buy it. Evergreen Funnels and Passive Income When you’re starting to build your business, you may have to do everything yourself. Creating content and products as well as email sequences and sales messages takes a lot of time and energy. As your business develops, you should create evergreen content to populate an email sequence that sells an evergreen information resource you’ve written. This is your true end goal: to create an automatic money machine that provides value to your audience and makes money for you, whether you’re actively working or not. Using Your Own Experience as a Case Study on Your Blog You can use your own experiences as case studies on your blog. Yaro had an online essay editing business when he started his Entrepreneur’s Journey blog. One of his earliest case studies was about how he changed the way he did pricing for his essay editing business. When he started his essay editing business, the process went like this: A customer requests that their essay be edited. Yaro takes the request to an editor. The editor gives Yaro a quote. Yaro takes the quote and adds a profit margin for himself, then emails the client a proposal. The client accepts the proposal and emails Yaro the document they need edited. Yaro emails the document to the editor. The editor edits the document and sends it back to Yaro. Yaro emails the client the edited document. This was a very cumbersome process, so Yaro implemented a standardized pricing structure based on the length of the document and how quickly the editing needed to be done. He blogged about this experience on entrepreneurs-journey.com, using it to show readers how they could simplify their businesses. Case studies are basically success stories. The best case studies start with someone who has the same problem as your target audience; they talk about how that person dealt with the problem. Case studies are good at converting your target audience into customers because they show how somebody facing the same problem they have solved that problem. It’s easy to pivot from a case study to selling the solution presented in the case study. The Power of Intentional Blogging The secret to being successful as a blogger in today’s world is intentional blogging. Intentional blogging happens when you ask yourself, “What do I want my target audience to do after reading this blog post?” Do I want them to: Buy a product? Join my email list? Comment on my blog post? Share my blog post? Do something else? By starting with your end in mind, you can craft a blog post that communicates your point better and serves your audience better. It’s important to differentiate between traffic and traffic that leads to customers. — Yaro Starak How to Launch a Product Using Your Blog Decide on the topic of your product. What problem are you helping your customer solve? Yaro is able to figure this out because he works with his audience all the time. He coaches them and talks regularly to them via email and his free communities. Set a launch date for your product. This creates a deadline for customers. Create 3 to 5 blog posts that deal exclusively with the topic of your info product. Send those blog posts to your email list and post them on your blog. Usually Yaro sends the first blog post to his entire email list. In that first email, he allows his audience to express interest through clicking a special link. He creates a list segment based on whether they click the link or not. For the people who express interest, Yaro make sure that they receive all of the blog posts and all of the promotional emails related to that product. If they’re not interested, they don’t get the additional content. Creating the product depends on its size. If it’s a small product like an ebook, Yaro creates it before he starts his product launch sequence. If it’s a larger product like a complicated course, he creates it after he starts the launch. In the case of a larger course, Yaro will only finish the first module of the course before beginning the autoresponder sales sequence. He’ll do the rest once the work of setting up the sales sequence has finished. Keep in mind that every product you create can be an evergreen product. So you want to create blog posts and follow-up sequences that can sell your products on autopilot as new prospects discover them. Partner Smart When you’re launching your first product, joint venture partners can help, because they take some of the work out of creating new material and let you gain exposure to new audiences. Later, you may have different needs. Yaro got out of the habit of doing joint venture partnerships because he didn’t want his email list to become overwhelmed with pitches for other people’s products. What Makes for a Good Blog Post in 2017 There are two metrics that matter when it comes to blog posts in 2017: How long is the blog post? How is your audience engaging with your blog post? Engagement is key. That is why longer blog posts usually end up performing better. Remember, your blog posts are there to convert readers into customers. The longer your blog post is, the more time you have to engage your audience. The Way You Deliver Your Message Doesn’t Matter When deciding on what type of blog posts you should create, deliver them in whatever way is most comfortable for you. As long as you provide an opportunity for your audience to engage with your content, it doesn’t matter how you deliver that content. You can: Blog Post on YouTube Podcast your content The One Thing You Have To Understand about Building a Platform Platforms are forever. You build a platform one time and it continues to deliver value forever. You work hard once and you get paid over and over again into the future. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to build your platform. The internet isn’t going anywhere. However long it takes you it is time well spent. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview https://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/ — Yaro’s blog. Platform Launch Plan — Watch Yaro’s webinar on how to build a platform.   The post 145: How To Turn Your Blog Into a Profitable Business appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. Her expertise is in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. She is the founder of the award-winning blog JaneFriedman.com and cofounder of the industry-leading newsletter The Hot Sheet with Porter Anderson. We covered a ton of ground in this interview. We talked about the history of the publishing industry, as well as what traditional publishers and indie publishers can learn from one another. We also talked about how to be successful in today’s marketplace, and about how to market cross-genre books as an indie publisher. Jane has always had a passion for reading and writing. She was editor of her middle school newspaper, and the trend continued through college. She got an internship with a publishing company in her junior year of college, and after she graduated, she was hired to work there full time. She worked in the corporate publishing industry until 2010. How the Publishing Industry Has Changed Over the Last 20 Years The internet has transformed the publishing industry in the last 20 years. People go online to buy books and get information. The fact that the internet has given customers a more direct line to the producers of the content they’re reading has shaken up the industry. Add to that social media and its power to magnify word-of-mouth, and the publishing landscape in the 21st century is drastically different from what it was even just a few decades ago. Changes in the Nonfiction Marketplace from 2006 to 2010 When Jane started her career in publishing, book clubs were a big deal. The publishing company she worked at operated several of them. They used their book clubs as distribution channels, and to help build up buzz for their books. By 2010, every single one of those book clubs had shut down. People weren’t using book clubs as a way to find new books anymore. Instead, they were using online communities and social media to figure out what books they should be buying next. The Monthly Subscription Model Survives in the 21st Century Even though fewer people are members of a Book-of-the-Month type of service, there are several clubs that bill you monthly for various goods. There are: Shaving clubs where you get razors on a monthly basis Loot Crate, where you can get collectibles and merchandise on a monthly basis Clothing clubs that send you coordinated outfits on a regular basis Cooking clubs that send you pre-portioned ingredients and recipes Book clubs associated with local bookstores are succeeding in this new world. Many people want to feel like they’re supporting their local community and these book clubs have really helped foster a connection between the community and the independent bookstores themselves. Book clubs have also been successful in the children’s market because parents are always looking for new books for their children to read. Although a few of these specialty book clubs still remain, there just isn’t the demand in the marketplace for these kinds of clubs anymore. Kindle Unlimited vs. the Mass-Market Paperback Kindle Unlimited is filling a need for avid readers. Twenty years ago, these readers would go to the library and/or used bookstores to buy tons of mass-market paperbacks. Today, Kindle Unlimited allows eager readers to read as many books as they want for one low price. Libraries Aren’t Just about Books Anymore Libraries provide many services that aren’t related to books: Services for children Services for families Space for communities to get together Free Internet for their community Often, you find the least privileged members of society relying on libraries for their needs. Libraries are just as relevant and important today as they’ve ever been, but their focus has shifted with the times. The Future of Publishing There has been a conflict between traditional publishers and indie publishers for many years, ever since the internet (and Amazon in particular) made it so much easier for authors to distribute their work directly to readers. The truth is, both sides can learn from each other and it doesn’t make any sense to pit authors against each other. Jane doesn’t think print books are going to die anytime soon. The type of book you should provide to your customer depends on the market you are in, and on what you’re trying to accomplish. There are times when a print book makes sense and there are times when an electronic version makes sense. It’s not a matter of one being better than the other, it’s a matter of which version of your book best serves the customer. What Traditional Publishers Can Learn from Indie Publishers Indie authors can teach a lot of tricks to traditional publishers, who may be set in their ways after decades of doing it the same old way every time: Flexibility in how to promote new titles. Traditional publishing companies aren’t good at targeting specific groups of readers. They tend to use one approach to market every book they publish. In today’s world, that’s not a good idea (assuming it ever was). Flexibility in how they work with authors. Ideally, publishing companies should be teaching authors how to best help themselves. Many authors with traditional publishing contracts expect publishers to promote and sell their book for them. As we’ve seen before on the podcast, this almost never happens. Faster speed to market. Smarter pricing strategies (especially for first-time authors). Studies have shown that having a high price point for a first-time author is the surest way to kill sales. How to promote a new author who has no following in the marketplace. What Indie Publishers Can Learn From Traditional Publishers But indies, too, can learn from traditional presses—they have done things a certain way for years because, often, these systems work! Establish systems and and processes. Indie authors would benefit from systematizing the process of writing and producing a book so they’re not flailing after the writing is done. Improved production quality. Indie authors might benefit from adopting some standards in terms of editing and production of the finished manuscript. Modeling Success First-time authors, in particular, should model success: find authors who are doing well and copy their approach. CJ Lyons is an example of an author worth emulating. She has a systematized approach to publishing that would benefit many indie authors. If you are a new author, study other successful authors in the genre. You should start by modeling their approach. You can customize your approach after you have launched a couple books and have some data to go by. Some Parts of the Process Can’t Be Replicated It takes time to build an audience. If you’re just publishing your first book, you can’t rely on social media to launch your book into the stratosphere overnight. You can begin the process of building your social media platform with your first novel, but you have to allow time for it to grow before you can really look to your social media channels as a way to sell more books. Patience and Persistence are the Keys to Success Patience and persistence are the keys to success for new authors. These days, everyone is in a hurry to be successful. As a new indie author, no one is going to know who you are. Repetition helps build your brand. The more books you publish, the more entry points you have for someone to find your body of work. With more ways for readers to discover you, the larger your audience grows. Don’t compare your author journey to anyone else’s. Everyone is different. The only sure path to success is to continue to write and publish; don’t worry about results in the short term. Authors often undercut their efforts by switching marketing tactics without giving their strategy time to be successful. Jane didn’t see any positive results from her blogging for almost 18 months. If she had stopped before that point, she would never have realized her true potential. Success comes from persistent effort over time. Indie authors often have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they should—or can—become a massive success. Blogging in 2017 Blogging can be a powerful tool, especially for nonfiction authors. In order for blogging to be successful, though, you have to do it on a regular basis. Often, people decide to start a blog as a promotional scheme. Those almost never work. When you only blog as a means to an end, you’re not going to do it long enough to get the results you want. When you’re new to blogging, just like with anything, it can take a long time to build a significant audience. You have to be prepared to blog without the promise of any sort of tangible reward. Writing a Blog vs. Writing a Book Writing a blog is very different than writing a narrative book. When writing a blog, you have to consider: Search engine optimization (SEO) Attention-grabbing headlines What types of posts people are likely to share You also have to have a lot of quality writing to do well with a blog. And you have to package that writing in such a way that it will find its audience. Many authors just don’t want to have to deal with that kind of marketing effort. Blogging for Fiction Writers If you are a fiction writer, blogging becomes much more difficult because you don’t have a clear set of subjects to blog about. Still, there’s plenty you can write about. You can blog about: Your production process Your personal life as an author Subjects related to your fiction When you have a new book available The problem with all of these approaches is without a fan base, none of them particularly matter. No one cares about your production process, your personal life, or when you have a new book available if you don’t have a fan base yet. Nobody knows who you are, so unless you’re blogging for yourself, there’s no real point. The Literary Citizen Approach to Blogging In this technique, the blogger champions the work of other creators in their space. So you blog about other people’s work and what you like about it. This is a good approach for new authors—and for fiction authors who are building their platform—because it helps you build your network. So when you need to promote your own work, you have friends willing to help you. Jane hasn’t found an approach to blogging that leads to fast results. Still, if you are persistent and consistent, blogging is a low-cost way to help develop your voice and find an audience. Focus on long-term strategy and doing what you love. I’ve seen indie authors be successful on every social media platform. Whatever you do consistently over time is what gets the best results. How to Find Your Marketing Strategy as a New Author As a new author, you have to find new innovative ways to promote your work. For instance, you should seek out influencers in your marketplace and get them talking about your work. There are other ways to bring attention to your work, though: Follow your passion. What have you always been interested in regardless of pressures you felt career-wise? If you can’t think of anything, ask your friends and family what they think you’re passionate about. Sometimes it helps to get a different perspective. Almost everybody has things in their lives that they’re drawn to: topics, mediums, styles of expression; search for those. Take a look at your habits. What do you already do on a daily basis that can be modified into a marketing activity? Take a look at the tools around you and find the ones you can use that don’t feel like work. Where can you add the most value for your audience? It’s probably where your passion is. Don’t just do something because “everyone else is doing it.” If that’s your only reason for engaging in an activity, you won’t have the energy it takes to sustain the long-term effort you need to be successful. Today’s Publishing Landscape There are a few things that authors should pay attention to in the publishing industry as of right now, in July 2017. Amazon keeps growing and shows no sign of slowing down or stopping. Kindle Unlimited is important to watch. Be aware of its growth and power. Keep updated on any subscription system that allows people to read without purchasing individual books. Pay attention to how Amazon markets the books they’re publishing under their imprints. The Importance of Audiobooks in 2017 Digital audiobooks are a growing market. Traditional publishers still have the most success with audiobooks because they have the budget to make an investment in producing them. Indie authors aren’t yet seeing the sales they need to make audiobooks profitable. The number of digital audiobooks being produced has increased 20% to 30% every year for the last three years. It’s not going to continue like this forever, but audiobooks aren’t slowing down anytime soon. It’s hard for indie authors to be successful with audiobooks. Jane thinks it’s because of the way algorithms work on Amazon and Audible. Books that sell well in paperback and electronic format seem to be easier to find on Audible. A new author is unlikely to have the sales needed to compete with more established and traditionally published authors. The Best Way To Be Successful as a New Author in 2017 Find a targeted category of readers that is underserved. Focus on that niche. Write as many books as you can targeting the same audience. It’s much easier to make a sale to someone who’s already bought from you. How to Be Successful Selling Cross-Genre Books Indie publishing makes it possible to do things that we couldn’t do otherwise. One of those things is to market cross-genre books. The secret to marketing cross-genre books is to find books similar enough to yours that you can develop a reader profile from Amazon and Goodreads reviews. You have to figure out what parts of your cross-genre book are going to appeal to your ideal reader. And then you need to develop a marketing plan based on that research. If you can’t find a comparable novel, you want to try and find comparable entertainment. That might even be a video game or a TV show. What you’re looking for is entertainment that has a defined dedicated community of fans. You shouldn’t choose a wildly popular TV show like The Big Bang Theory or a blockbuster like Wonder Woman. Wildly popular movies and TV shows have too broad an audience for you to do effective market research. Instead, look for fan favorites that appeal to a specific audience. You want to try to limit the scope of your marketing efforts. This gives you a better chance of being successful. When defining your ideal audience, you want to start out as narrow as possible and then build out from there. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview https://janefriedman.com/ — Jane’s website, where you can find out everything she’s up to http://hotsheetpub.com/ — Jane’s email newsletter for authors Publishers Lunch by Michael Cader — An insider publishing newsletter with great insights about the entire industry http://cjlyons.net/— CJ Lyons’s website. Go here, join her mailing list, and see what she’s doing to market her books. What can you do to emulate what she’s doing?   The post 144: What Traditional and Indie Publishers Can Teach Each Other appeared first on TCK Publishing.

This is an information-packed interview. We talk about the 4P’s of Author Success, and we dive deep into how to promote your book offline. There’s also a lot of information on pricing and selling paperback versions of your book. Alinka Rutkowska is a multi-award-winning, internationally bestselling author and coach. She is also the founder and CEO of LibraryBub, which connects librarians with award-winning and bestselling books from independent authors and publishers. Alinka published Read Me: I Am Magical; Open Me and I Will Reveal 12 Secrets to Love, Happiness, and Personal Power, As You Leaf through Me and See How Remarkable You Feel in 2010, while she was working at her corporate job. She wrote the book because she felt that she had something to contribute to the world. She then decided to quit her job when the sales of the book were double her corporate salary. Alinka’s first book was massively successful in part because she crafted a keyword-rich subtitle. The 4P’s of Author Success 1. Product Your product is your book. Alinka divides your book-as-product into two parts: the manuscript itself, and the book packaging. The packaging includes the cover (whether print or ebook) and the product description. 2. Place This is wherever your book is sold. Examples include: Amazon Barnes & Noble iTunes store Your local independent bookstore 3. Price Pretty self-explanatory: this is the price you charge for your product. 4. Promotion The final “P” is everything you do to let people know that you have a book out. Each of these elements work together to make a successful book launch. If you neglect any one of these areas, you won’t achieve the success that you want. The Two Types of Books Authors Write Broadly speaking, authors write two types of books. 1. A heart book This is a passion project. Authors write this book because they have a story inside them that needs to get out. 2. A commercial book This is a book written for a market. Authors write this type of book because they have an audience in mind that they want to please. Alinka recommends you write a commercial book. Find an audience of readers that want a certain type of product that you can deliver. Write the best book you can, then publish it. This is the fastest way to be a successful author. The key to writing a successful commercial book is to find a market of books that excite you. If you’re passionate about the material, writing the book will be easier and your passion will come through in the writing. Book Market Research Advice The best way to give yourself a chance to be successful is to do market research. If you have an idea of the type of book you want to write: Go to Amazon and look for the five titles you aspire to compete with. You could also think of the titles as the titles you would like to see in your “also bought” section on your product page.If those titles are selling well, that’s a good sign that your idea has a chance to do well in the marketplace. Next, look at the reviews of these titles. The reviews will give you valuable insight into what the readers of these books liked and didn’t like about them. Pay special attention to what reviewers said was missing in the books that you’re researching. If you can identify a gap in the market that you can fill, that is one of the quickest ways to become successful. Creating a Book Readers Want to Read After you’ve identified the type of book that your readers want to read, it’s time to create and refine that book. Once you’ve written the best first draft you can based on the preferences of your audience, the next step you might want to consider is a critique group. Critique groups give you valuable feedback because you’re getting input from people who actually read your work. Members of critique groups have a different perspective on your work and they can see things that you, as the creator, are blind to because you’ve been working so closely with your manuscript. The next stage in Alinka’s creation process is to find a small group of beta readers. Beta readers are just another set of eyes on your material. If you’re a fiction author, you might want to hire a developmental editor to help you, particularly if the feedback you get from your critique group and beta readers is something you don’t know how to fix. Both fiction and nonfiction authors need a copy editor to catch typos and grammatical errors, as well as places where your book is unclear. Set Up a Landing Page before Your Book Is Published To get ready for your book’s release, you should: Set up a landing page before you publish a book. Include a place for people to give you their email address. Have a link to your landing page in the front and back of your book. Give people something when they sign up for your email list. If you have a second book in the series, that can be a good thing to give away. A lot of authors have had success writing a short story in the world of the novel they are releasing. It’s best if the lead magnet you give away for your list is only available to people who sign up for your list. This makes the lead magnet exclusive and gives it value it wouldn’t otherwise have. A landing page with an opt-in form is a free marketing channel to build your author platform. It’s a way to market passively without having to spend any more money. Pay Attention to Your Title You want to have a title with keywords in it. The title of your book is like the domain name of your website; it’s one of the first places Amazon looks for keywords when users type words into the search box. How to Use Keywords in Your Subtitle to Sell More Books There are times when it doesn’t make sense to have your title stuffed with keywords. This is where a subtitle comes in handy. Nonfiction Authors If you are a nonfiction author, your subtitle should describe the benefit your reader will get from reading your book. What problem are you going to help them solve? Fiction Authors Fiction authors should use the subtitle of their book to tell Amazon and their readers what genre the book is. This is especially effective if you’ve written a book that crosses genres, because it tells readers right up front what they can expect. Where and How to Distribute Your Self-Published Book There’s tons of places where you can make your book available, even as an indie author. Choosing where to distribute can change how you’ll market and sell your book. Considerations for ebooks Consider the pros and cons of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited If at all possible, you should try to sell your book directly on your website. If you sell your book directly to readers, you keep all the sale price. Considerations for Paperback Books You should create a paperback version of your book. It’s another way for people to buy something from you, and creating paperback copies of your book doesn’t cost very much with current technology. There are a lot of places that you can sell your paperback book that people don’t usually think of. Alinka has had great success selling her paperbacks in bulk. If you produce a paperback, it’s much easier to sell foreign rights. Sometimes a book is better received worldwide than where it was published. Think outside the box: Alinka has a book series about children on a cruise ship. She has had a lot of luck selling that book directly to cruise lines and bookstores in cruise destination cities. The cruise ships and bookstores sell the book to passengers on the ship as a souvenir. Nontraditional Places to Sell Your Paperback Consider the subject of your book. Where would readers interested in that type of material be likely to show up? If you’ve written a book on health topics, consider talking to doctors’ offices. If you’ve written a self-improvement book, you might consider talking to psychologists to see if they’d be interested in buying your book for their waiting room. Use your personal network to sell your book. Everybody knows somebody. Alinka wrote a series about cruise ships because she travels on cruise ships a lot. If you can’t think of a community of people you belong to, it can be helpful to ask your family and friends. Consider your passions, your social network and your professional network before you write your book. Positioning your book before you write is much easier than trying to find a spot for it in the market after it’s written. If you live in a small town, consider writing a book about that town and selling it through the historical society or local bookshops. The Biggest Pricing Mistake People Make Pricing a low-quality book at $9.99 is the biggest pricing mistake people make. You should always make the best quality book you can. And you should price the book according to what the market expects. Go to Amazon.com and look at your category. Study the books in your category and look at their price. You should price within market expectations to the best of your ability. The Permafree Marketing Strategy Of course, you don’t have to charge for your book at all; you can make your book permanently free. It seems a little strange, but this can actually help you build a full-time author income in the end. You don’t have to use an Amazon deal or Kindle exclusive to do this, either! You can offer your book for free by distributing it in multiple online bookstores for free. Then you put it on Amazon and give it a price. As soon as your book goes live on Amazon, you email Amazon customer support and ask them to price-match your book. As long as your book is free everywhere, Amazon will continue to distribute your book for free. A free book will be downloaded about 100 times more often than the book that costs $0.99. This is a great way to build an audience, especially if your free book has a link to a landing page where people can sign up for your mailing list for another free gift. If you’re going to use the Permafree strategy, it’s important to have links to other offers that you can sell people via your Permafree book. Fiction authors should sell other books and merchandise related to their stories. Nonfiction authors should sell courses, consulting, and more detailed information related to their message. The Permafree strategy can be used to build a massive audience. When you have a massive audience, it’s much easier to make money. Think of the Permafree book as a massive marketing campaign! How to Price Your Self-Published Paperback Book If you sell your paperback in bulk, understand that the distributor is going to want a 55% to 60% discount off your cover price. So take that into consideration when setting the price for your print book. If you’re only interested in selling your paperback on Amazon and other online bookstores, you can afford to set your price a little bit lower. Consider your goals and do the math before you set a paperback list price. How to Promote Your Book in 2017 There are several different ways to promote your book in 2017. A good way to make the promotion manageable is to consider two variables: where you’re promoting your book, and when you’re promoting your book. Three Places to Promote Your Books Inside the Book If you can get an award sticker on the book, it can really help sell copies, especially if you’re looking at selling bulk to offline distributors. So submit your book for awards whenever you can. One award is all you need to convey to the world that your book is valuable. If you are publishing a series, when you publish your second book, you can say “part of the award-winning series.” Have a link to a landing page where people can sign up for your mailing list. If your book is part of a series, have links to other books in the series. Also include links to other books you’ve written, especially in the same genre. Have a professional picture and an exciting bio, because people want to know who their new favorite author is. Online You need an author website that has links to all of your books and where people can buy them. You should always have an opt-in page related to your current project where people can sign up for your mailing list and find out when that book will be published. Another very powerful way to promote your book is through guest posting. This is where you post on someone else’s blog. It’s a way for you to tap into an audience that has already formed. As a new author, it sometimes works best to approach smaller blogs and use those guest blog posts to get larger opportunities. Offline There are many opportunities to market offline, because everyone is focused on marketing to online communities. Have a professional business card always handy to give out. You never know when you’re going to strike up a conversation with somebody who might become a fan or help you sell your books somewhere else. You can also do book signings or readings. And you don’t have to limit yourself to libraries and bookstores for these sorts of things. You can do a book signing or reading anywhere, not just at the local library or bookstore. Alinka has even done a book signing event at her hairdresser’s! If you can show business owners that you can bring traffic to their venue, they will usually agree to let you have a book signing/reading. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Read Me: I Am Magical; Open Me and I Will Reveal 12 Secrets to Love, Happiness and Personal Power, As You Leaf through Me and See How Remarkable You Feel — Alinka’s first self-published book. Notice the long, keyword-rich subtitle. http://librarybub.com/ — A free service that helps thousands of librarians discover bestselling and award-winning indie and small press books Authorremake.com/book — Sign up for Alinka’s email list and get a free copy of her book, How I Sold 80,000 Books, which goes into even greater detail about her book marketing strategies than we did in the interview. The post 143: How to Sell More Books Offline appeared first on TCK Publishing.

TCK Publishing has published more than 400 books, and many of them have become #1 international bestsellers. In this podcast and blog post, I’m going to share what I’ve learned about book market research that can help you achieve your goals of becoming a bestselling author and making a serious impact with your message and story. 3 Keys to Book Market Research There are three crucial things you must do in order to create a book that readers will buy and recommend to their friends. Understand who your ideal reader is. Understand what your ideal reader wants. Give your readers what they want. Market research is about creating a product that serves your customers better. If you know who they are and what they want, you can make better decisions about what to put in your book and how you position your market in the marketplace. You can use this market research process to help you make better decisions when it comes to writing the book, branding the book, choosing the book title, designing the book cover, writing the book description and marketing copy, and marketing the book. The reason you’re doing market research is because you want to provide more value to your readers.—Tom Corson Knowles As an author, you want to serve your readers better than anyone else. That’s how you become a #1 bestselling author and stay at number one year after year. Six Steps to Book Market Research Follow these 6 steps for effective book market analysis and research. 1. Find Comparable Bestselling Titles Finding comparable titles, or “comps,” means you want to find similar books that are already published and selling well in your market. You want to find the bestselling books in your market so you can learn from them. After you find comparable books in your market, you’re going to want to make a list in a program like Excel or Google Sheets that includes the book title and a link to that book’s Amazon page so you can easily keep track and do further research in the future. Two Ways to Find Your Comparable Titles You can go to Amazon and search keywords related to the book you’re writing. So if you’re writing a vampire romance, you would go to Amazon.com and type in the keywords “vampire romance.” You’ll then find comparable books in the search results. You can use Amazon’s bestseller lists. Simply go to Amazon’s Kindle Store Categories, find your genre, and drill down until you get to the most specific category you can. The more specifically you can identify your niche or subgenre, the more likely you are to be successful, because specific categories have less competition and more targeted readers. If you want to save time, you can sign up for Bestseller Ranking Pro, the proprietary web-based software we developed that can help you search Amazon’s 42,000+ bestseller categories in just a few minutes. An Amazon category is simply a virtual bookshelf in Amazon’s store. All you’re doing when you choose a category is telling Amazon what bookshelf to put your book on. So which bookshelf should your book appear on? And how will your book stand out from your competitors on that bookshelf? 2. Analyze Bestselling Book Covers Your book cover is a crucial piece of branding for your book. The more you can make your book cover look similar to other books in your category, the more likely your target readers are to click on your book and read your product page. This gets you one step closer to the sale. This is where your list of comparable book titles comes in handy. You’re going to look at the covers of the books on your list of comps. What you’ll notice is that a lot of these books have similar covers. That’s not an accident. Book covers should be designed to get your readers to click on your book and buy it. The best book covers speak to your readers on an emotional or subconscious level. For example, romance book covers often feature sexy images of male or female models while books about business success often feature images of money or successful lifestyles. When you look at the book covers in your market, pay special attention to: The colors The fonts The images The size and placement of text on the book cover The emotion(s) that the cover makes you feel You want your book to look like it belongs in the category you put it in. If your romance book cover makes it look like a business book, or your self help cover looks depressing, you’re not going to attract your ideal readers. People buy books primarily based on emotion, so you have to make sure you understand who your readers are and which emotion(s) your cover should elicit in order to get them to pay attention and click on your book. Book Market Research Tip: Never miss an opportunity to have an actual conversation with readers of your genre. You can learn so much from just talking to people about why they read the books they do. 3. Analyze Bestselling Book Titles The title of your book is another crucial piece of the puzzle when it comes to marketing and selling your book. The number one reason people buy books today is still word of mouth. In order for a word-of-mouth sale to occur, a book title needs three things: The book title has to be memorable. The book title has to be easy for people to remember so they can easily recall it to tell their friends to buy it. The book title has to be repeatable. The book title should be understandable and easy to repeat in a conversation. You want to avoid confusing book titles as much as possible—being too clever can actually backfire because it can confuse potential readers. You want a book title that is easy to communicate. The book title has to be searchable. After you’ve created a book title that is memorable and repeatable, you need to make sure it is unique enough that it will rank in the search engines online. If you wrote a romance book and titled it Sexy, that would be a really bad choice. That’s because there is no way that your book would rank on the first page of Google with that title, unless you spend an enormous amount of money and time to optimize your Amazon product page for that keyword. Even then, it would probably be a waste of money and time because the title is simply too vague. The ideal book title is easy to remember, easy to understand when spoken, and easy to find online in search engines. Using Keywords in the Subtitle of Your Book Another thing you’re going to learn when you study the titles of your competitors is the keywords and key phrases they are using to attract the attention of your audience. This is especially true for nonfiction books. A subtitle that clearly describes the benefit that your audience will receive from reading your book will help you sell a lot more books. You can also use your subtitle to stand out. If you’re writing a book on investing and every book in your comparable list uses the words “low risk” in their subtitles, you don’t want to use the exact same words in yours. You want to stand out and be different. If you look just like every other book in your genre, people who don’t know you aren’t going to want to take a chance on your book. Studying the book titles in your target market and conducting Amazon keyword research will give you an idea of where the gaps are so that you can craft a title that sets you apart from the crowd. 4. Study the Book Descriptions of Your Competition When you read the book descriptions of your competition, you’re looking for the keywords and key phrases they’re using to sell their book to your potential customers. You want to look at the keywords, key phrases, and concepts that jump out at you as you’re reading book descriptions. After you read the book descriptions, model what works and avoid what doesn’t work as you write the draft for your book description. This is actually a great exercise to do before you write your book. Your book description needs to be short (less than 700 words) and yet must include enough information to get your reader to actually want to buy your book and start reading it right away. If you can’t clearly summarize your book in a well-written book description, you need to spend more time understanding who your audience is and what makes your book different from everything else out there. 5. Study Book Reviews in Your Market Read every single book review of your comparable books. This is how you’re going to find out what people like about books in your genre, as well as what they don’t like. This is the most important step in the market research process. If you don’t listen to your readers to find out what they love and don’t love about your competitors’ books, you’re likely to make the same old mistakes others have made, and your book will flop. Have a notebook with you so you can jot down notes. It’s important that you read every review of the comparable books in the market. The more reviews you read, the more data you will have and the better you will understand your ideal readers. If you half-ass this market research process, you’ll miss out on important information that could make a huge difference in your sales. As you read these reviews, you’re going to find there are patterns to what people like and don’t like. Pay attention to those patterns. If one reader out of 20,000 mentions an issue, it may just be a fluke. But if dozens of readers mention the same issue or problem, you know there’s a theme there. Pay attention to the key themes your readers are mentioning in book reviews. Your readers pay your bills. Pay attention to what they have to say about your work and the work of others, of they won’t pay any attention to you when you launch your book. Knowing what your readers want allows you to edit your story based on what will serve your readers best. Most smart authors will end up making rewrites and edits to their book after going through this market research process. Reading reviews can help you identify gaps in the market that you can fill, allowing you to position your book uniquely in the marketplace. The more unique your book is while still delivering a compelling message to readers, the more likely readers will be to actually buy your book. Doing market research allows you to see the world through the eyes of your readers. By understanding what your readers want and need, you will be able to serve them better than other authors who don’t do this type of research. If you deliver more value and give your readers more of what they want, you will sell more books. 6. Research Author Websites After you have done the market research on Amazon, go and look at the websites of the authors you’ve been researching. What are they doing on their author website to market to their audience? Do they have: A blog? A podcast? A YouTube channel? An email list? Basically, is their website a part of why they’re successful? Some authors have websites but they clearly don’t maintain them. If that’s the case, you won’t learn much from their website since it’s clearly not very active. However, if you find an author with a very active website with tons of traffic, you should study their top blog posts and pages to see what kind of information they’re posting resonates most with their audience (because their audience could very well be YOUR audience once you launch your book). As with all market research, consider modeling what works and avoid what isn’t working. Look for Additional Revenue Streams Both fiction and nonfiction authors have opportunities to create additional revenue streams by selling related products and services to your audience. So if you’re a nonfiction author in the health space, you might sell health supplements, an exercise plan, or other health-related products to your audience. If you’re a fiction author who writes about dragons, you might find some of the authors in your market sell dragon figurines or T-shirts. By offering additional products and services to your fan base, you can increase and diversify your income, turn casual readers into lifelong fans, and turn a hobby into a serious business. Network with Your Peers The next step you can take if you want is to connect with other authors in your genre or category. You should do this after you’ve done your market research and published at least one book in your category. When you connect with these successful authors, try and find a way for the two of you to collaborate. If you can build a relationship with someone who is successful in your genre, it can go a long way to building your audience faster. It’s important that you do your research and publish your work first so that you have credibility when you contact other authors. Try Market Research Courses If you want to learn more about book market research, check out our courses on market research for nonfiction and fiction, part of our complete Kindle Publishing Course. Questions to Ask Yourself as You Go through the Market Research Process As you go through your research process, you’ll want to pay attention to some specific elements. 1. In which market or subgenre does your book fit? Get really clear on which market you’re in. The more specifically you can define your market, the easier it will be to serve the needs of your audience and market to them. 2. Who is my ideal reader? Have this question in the back of your mind as you’re reading reviews. Get as much information as you can about who these reviewers are. Do they seem old or young? Are they mostly men or women? What kinds of careers do they have? What do they value? What are they afraid of? What are they passionate about? 3. What do my readers love? What do your readers love about life in general? What do your readers love about books in your market? 4. What do my readers hate? What do your readers hate about the issues or problems they’re facing? What do your readers hate about books in your market? By understanding what your readers love and hate, you can better craft a book that meets their needs. Now that you’ve gone through this market research process, start applying it and you should see how you can make your book and your message more appealing to your audience. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Podcast http://tckpublishing.com/best-seller-webinar — My free webinar, which goes through the process I use when doing market research. http://bestsellerrankingpro.com — The software I use when doing market research. http://tckpublishing.com/amazoncategories — This link will take you directly to Amazon’s bestseller ebook categories so that you can start doing market research. Rules of the Rich: 28 Proven Strategies for Creating a Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy Life and Escaping the Rat Race Once and For All — My bestselling book on how to create success and financial independence. Did you find this post helpful? Let us known in the comments below! If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like: List of 100+ Author Tools: The Best Tools for Writing, Publishing, and Marketing Your BookAmazon Keyword Research: Your Guide to Higher Book Sales10 Best Marketing Books: Strategies to Up Your Marketing GameHow to Get Publicity for Your Book: Tips, Tools, and Successful Strategies The post 142: Six Simple Steps to Effective Book Market Research appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Larry Becht has been a digital marketing expert for the last decade and is a Click Funnels certified partner. His company, the Expert Media Group, helps you turn your products and ideas into profit. Today, Larry is going to share with us how authors can use Click Funnels to build an e-mail list, establish a deeper connection with your audience, and create multiple ways to promote your books automatically. Larry has been an entrepreneur for the last 25 years. He started studying internet marketing with Dan Kennedy 10 years ago. It was through Dan that Larry was exposed to Russell Brunson and Click Funnels. When Larry saw the amazing potential of the Click Funnels technology, he became one of the first people in the world to register and become certified as a Click Funnels partner. Larry has also studied with and become certified by Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer. His company, Expert Media Group, has helped hundreds of clients promote their books and ideas. How to Use Click Funnels to Start Making Money Online In the past, if you wanted to set up a sales funnel online, you needed a whole team of people, including website designers, copywriters, graphic artists, and specialists on the different platforms you were using to set up your sales funnel. Now with Click Funnels, you can set up everything in your sales funnel through one hub. Click Funnels can handle: Your website Your autoresponder system Your CRM autoresponder system Your entire sales funnel process You can use your own graphics, write your own copy, and design your own pages easily. Finding Your Purpose The first thing you have to know in order to get the most out of Click Funnels is what you’re going to use the system for. Click Funnels has several different funnel templates you can use depending on what you want to do. You can: Create an opt-in page funnel where you collect people’s email addresses. This is a simple process involving two pages and can be set up in as little as 24 hours. Create a sales funnel to sell your product. Create a webinar funnel. Create a membership website Click Funnels offers a range of options to cover whatever kind of flow you want to create. What you need to know in the beginning is what you want your end result to be. Click Funnels Is a Self-Contained Service Click Funnels is a self-contained service. That means that when you subscribe to Click Funnels, you don’t need to have an autoresponder. However, if you already have an autoresponder that works well for you, Click Funnels can integrate with them and be a backup in case your autoresponder loses data. Click Funnels for Authors Several of Click Funnels’ features are particularly useful for authors looking to grow their audience or make more sales. Collecting Email Addresses The most important thing you can do as an indie author is to build an email list. The standard way of collecting someone’s email address is by using a squeeze page. A squeeze page is a simple page where visitors have two choices. They can either: Give you their email address and get whatever list incentive you’ve set up to build your list. Leave your page. In general, there are two windows of opportunity to collect someone’s email address: You can collect someone’s email after they buy your book by creating bonus content and putting a link in the book. The link to your bonus content would drive people to a squeeze page where they have to give you their email address to receive their bonus content. You can also get someone’s email before they buy your book if you’re using Facebook Ads or some other ad platform. The ad would link to a squeeze page with bonus content that promotes your book. The bonus you offer when somebody signs up for your list before they buy your book should be inexpensive to produce and offer high value, because there’s a chance someone might sign up for your list and not buy your book. One tactic that has been particularly successful for nonfiction authors is to have a short video series around the content of your nonfiction book that primes your audience for the content of the book. You want to set up two separate email lists depending on whether a person joins your list before they purchase the book or after. This allows you to communicate more specifically to different segments of your audience. You’ll also want to have different bonus content in case people want to join both lists. It’s important to separate or segment your list based on the traffic sources for sign-up. This way, you can tailor future email campaigns based on your audience and where they came from. In the internet age, personal connection is a premium value. The more you can connect with specific segments of your audience, the more value they will get from you—and the more money you will eventually make. Using Click Funnels to Segment Your Email Lists Click Funnels has some very robust emerging technology that allows you to segment your email list in powerful ways. There is a version of Click Funnels that allows you to track your audience’s social media activity so you can create a list of social media influencers. You can also segment by: Geographical area Age Gender Interests/hobbies Purchase history (this is especially helpful if they make purchases similar to your product) Whether people have opened their emails Whether people have clicked on the links in your emails Click Funnels stands out as a service because it allows you to know more about your audience than other list-building solutions. What to Do with Your Audience after They’re on Your Email List You can do any number of things with the people on your email list. When you segment your lists appropriately, you can have individual email campaigns such as announcements about Facebook Live for people who came to your Facebook ad campaign. You can deliver further bonuses in the future, as well as updated content related to your book. You can tell people who buy your book that you’re offering a course on the subject. The Product Launch Formula Jeff Walker popularized the product launch formula many years ago and it has worked for many entrepreneurs. It also works to launch a book. The basic structure goes something like this: You set up a squeeze page that allows people to access a video training series of three to four videos over a two-week period. These videos cover the three or four most important points in your book. Or they could train people on one particular element in your book. So if you’ve written a book on how to build a blog with WordPress, you could do a video series on The Three Essential Elements of Any Good Blog Post if you wanted to go this route. After people have signed up to your list, they get access to a video in the series every few days. The point of this is that by the end of the video series, your audience has a really good idea of what’s in the book and they’re excited about the content. You generally want to plan this sort of thing one month before the launch of your book. That gives people time to sign up on your list before your book launches, and to go through the video series. It’s possible to set it up so that people can pre-order your book directly from your video series so they don’t have to wait for the launch date. Multiple Buying Options One powerful reason to use Click Funnels to implement the product launch formula is that Click Funnels allows you to easily offer multiple buying options so you can bundle other products with your book to increase the amount you make from your customer base beyond just book royalties. Click Funnels gives you the option of creating multiple buy buttons for different products and product suites related to your book. So at the end of your video series, you tell people your book is live on Amazon and then offer your book plus additional training courses or one-on-one coaching for a much higher price point. Following Up with Your Subscribers You want to give your email subscribers as many opportunities to buy as you possibly can. The best thing you can do is study other successful authors in your market and see what they’re offering in terms of services in their business. Then you offer a similar type of product that you deliver in your own unique way and make sure your audience knows about it. A certain percentage of your customers are going to want to learn from you on a deeper level. By creating products and services and putting buy buttons on your website, you are maximizing the number of people you can help achieve their goals. The thank you page that people go to after they sign up for your list is another good place to let people know about other products and services you offer. If you want to make more money in your business, add more buy buttons to your website. If you want more email subscribers, add more opportunities for people to subscribe to your list on your website — Tom Corson Knowles Click Funnels and Split Testing Click Funnels makes it easy to split-test various elements of your selling funnel. Split testing allows you to tweak your webpage and sales funnel to maximize the money you make and the value to your audience. The number one thing that sets super-successful internet entrepreneurs apart is that they just try more things. — Tom Corson Knowles Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview The Expert Media Group — Click the link to get two free guides on how to use Click Funnels as an author to engage with your audience and get more sales. Click Funnels — Sign up for a 14-day trial of ClickFunnels http://www.digitalmarketer.com/ — Ryan Deiss’s website with more courses and programs on marketing   The post 141: Using Click Funnels to Grow Your Audience and Sell More Books appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Sarah Barbour is a book coach and editor who helps entrepreneurs write books they can brag about. She can help you craft your content, plan a manuscript you can be proud of, and navigate the world of self-publishing so that you can put your book in the hands of people who need it. She recognizes that her clients have businesses to run, so Sarah’s goal as a book coach is to save you tons of time and frustration by making the publishing process as painless and efficient as possible. Sarah began her self-publishing journey as an editor. Her first major editing job came when she was living in Japan. She edited books written by Japanese scientists that were going to be sold in English-language markets. When she moved back to the United States, Sarah got a part-time job as an editor for the University of Illinois Press. Later on, she got a full-time job managing a library of documentary films about Asia. Managing the library came with the responsibility of editing a website and newsletter. Eventually she quit that job to be a stay-at-home mom. In 2011, she decided to put her skills on the market as a freelance editor. She was able to get quite a few clients because of the explosion of self-publishing around that time. Sarah has worked in the industry ever since. She noticed that there’s quite a bit of information for people who want to become full-time authors…as long as they produce books on a regular basis. There isn’t a lot of information out there for people who just want to write one book to support their clients and help build their business. Sarah stepped in to fill that gap. How to Be a Successful Author The most important step to achieving success as an author is defining what success means for you. Everyone is different. We all have a different vision for what success as an author looks like. The clearer you can be about your vision and your end goal, the more likely you are to achieve it. Put another way: What do you want your book to do for you? Knowing the answer to that question in advance will help you plan strategies to achieve your goal. How to Write Consistently The key to writing consistently is to make writing part of the routine of your life. It’s not something special that you’re doing; it’s something you do every day as part of a daily routine. The first step is to get some sort of writing tracker. The easiest thing to do here is to print off a calendar for the month if you don’t already have one. Then you simply mark off in some way every day that you write. It’s important that you put this writing tracker somewhere that’s easily visible in your daily life. As you see the chain of writing days mount up, it will be added motivation for you to continue. When you’re just starting to develop your writing habit, it’s important that you not be too concerned with how much you’re writing every day. The important thing is to write something every day so that you establish the habit. How to Install Your Writing Habit: CARP To build your writing habit successfully, use the CARP method: Cues, Action, Rewards, Preparation. Cues Establish a set of habits that lead into your writing. The best thing to do is to establish a time and place to write. It’s easiest if you can write at the same time in the same place every day. Action Set up as many positive associations with your writing as you can. You want to put yourself in as pleasant a situation as you can and still be writing. You should do things that set your writing time apart as something special. Maybe you can wear comfortable clothing, drink tea or coffee, and turn the heat up or down (depending on what makes you comfortable). You want writing to be something you can train yourself to look forward to. —Sarah Barbour Rewards One of the most important elements of establishing a writing habit is to acknowledge the completion of the session. You can decide what triggers the completion of the session. You can write for a certain amount of time. You can write until you make your daily word count. You can write until you’ve hit a predetermined time trigger (like your kids have gotten up for the day.) Whatever causes your session to end, you have to acknowledge successful completion so your writing habit can be hardwired into your mental programming. It’s also important to celebrate milestones in the process. You might want to share your streak on Facebook or other social media. You can also set up a series of rewards for the entire process. You should make your rewards proportional to the size of the goal you achieved. So if you’ve been writing for a week straight, you might go out for coffee with a friend. If you hit publish on your book, you might get a massage or go out to dinner. Do whatever feels like a reward to you. So often, people make the progress they say they want to make, yet subconsciously they don’t feel like it’s enough…so they beat themselves up for not living up to their potential. The truth is, progress is important. Be kind to yourself. Make accomplishing your goals a positive experience. Preparation In the preparation phase, you want to set up the cues for your next writing session. You want to make it as effortless as possible for you to begin the process of writing each time. You might also want to plan your session a little bit. For instance, you might plan to write a section or a scene in your story. If you can plan this sort of thing in advance, it makes your writing sessions much more efficient and effective in terms of completing the manuscript. Research has shown that if you prepare to be creative the night before, you are far more likely to be successful than if you just demand instant creativity from yourself. In some sense, preparation should come first. But the important thing to realize is that writing is a process. While you may finish a step in the process or a project, in order to be successful as a writer long-term, you also have to start the next project. (And if you are only writing one book, you have to signal to yourself that you’re starting the next phase of your project: promotion.) Recharge Your Creative Mind It’s important to recharge your creative mind with new ideas and experiences as much as possible so that you have something to draw on when you’re creating content. Taking a break from writing, as long as it’s intentional, can really help you reset your creative batteries. Having a balanced life is the shortest path to becoming a consistent, productive, and happy writer. People who just try to crank out words without resting eventually burn out. It’s also important to give yourself permission to not write. You’re allowed to go on vacation! You’re allowed to have life events intervene. As long as your breaks are intentional and you have a plan to return to your writing, it’s okay to schedule time off. A Trick to Help Up Your Word Count Make a spreadsheet to track your total number of words this month. As you track your daily word counts and you see that monthly word count increase, it will motivate you to write more consistently, and to write more words per day. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Word Count Spreadsheets — This website offers two spreadsheets: a basic spreadsheet, and a complex spreadsheet. The spreadsheets were designed specifically for NaNoWriMo, but can be used for any project and any month. Sarah Barbour’s Facebook page — Sarah’s Facebook page, where you can post about your writing journey. http://www.adventure.ink/ — Sarah’s professional website, where you can learn about her coaching services and sign up for her free mini course on starting your writing habit.   The post 140: Building Daily Writing Habits with Sarah Barbour appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Jen Berson is the founder of Jeneration PR, a boutique public relations firm that specializes in beauty, baby, and lifestyle brands. She’s a regularly featured PR and social media expert on the American Express OPEN forum for small business. She’s also been featured in the New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and PR Week, among many others. Jen’s first career was as a civil litigation attorney. She practiced law for four years before deciding that she wanted to go in a different direction. She started promoting a brand on the side, and her business grew from there. What Jen loves about the PR industry is that the results of her work are tangible and immediate. You can quickly see the benefit that a proper public relations strategy has for business and in people’s lives. This was a great interview. We talked about how to develop a PR strategy from scratch. We also talked about how to leverage social media, the benefit of creating a content release schedule, and the benefit of batching your social media content creation. How to Develop a PR Strategy for Your Brand In order to come up with a good PR plan, you have to ask yourself some key questions: Who are you planning to help? What problem are you planning to help them solve? What is your message? What is your point of differentiation in the marketplace? What about your solution is unique? What do you want to be known for? Once you have your audience and message clear in your mind, it’s time to mine your past for stories, nuggets, and gems of wisdom you can share with the media. Mining Your Experience for Pitch Angles Jen gets media exposure for her business using several different stories from her past. Her first media angle was her career transition story. She was able to use that story to get featured on Business Insider and Yahoo! Finance and to get interviewed on the CEO on Fire podcast. For those initial media stories, she focused on how she was able to transition from lawyer to PR expert and why the transition was so important to her. The interesting thing about PR is that there’s a kind of snowball effect. Being featured in those places led to other opportunities. Another angle Jen has used is the fact that she is a mom and an active entrepreneur. Balancing business and family for entrepreneur mothers is a very hot topic these days. So Jen has been able to get media attention by sharing her opinions on that subject. Recently, Jen had to part ways with her first paying client. But since then, her sales have tripled and she’s brought in two billion-dollar clients. She’s learned a lot that has changed her business because of this situation. And now she uses this learning experience as another angle to gain media attention. The secret to finding stories to share with the media is search your history for moments when you learned something, or moments where you’ve been through a journey that other people want to go on. How to Find Your Stories A simple way to pinpoint the stories you can use to get media attention is to have somebody you know interview you. Having other people ask you questions in a conversational way is a great method for discovering the kinds of stories that make good pitch angles for the media. Some questions to get your interview going: How did you get started? How did you come up with the idea for your book? Where did the idea for your book initially hit you? What do you have to share from your process? What lessons have you learned from your journey? What do you do for fun? What do you do on the weekends? Tell me about your personal life. Start thinking about how your personal interests and passions informed the creation of your book, product, or business. It’s in connecting your personal and business lives that you begin to find your own story that positions you as unique in the marketplace. How to Develop a PR Plan for Beginners When developing a PR plan, you should focus on three things: What media sites do I like to read? What podcasts do I like to listen to? Where would my content be a good fit? If you’re just starting out, understand that you’re not going to be able to get booked on a national television show like Good Morning America overnight. You have to start where you are and find media channels that will listen to you. Every media placement will help you gain credibility and exposure so that you can get more media placements that reach larger audiences. One successful path Jen has used is to start with Facebook Live and podcasts. From there, you pitch local TV and radio segments. This begins to build up your reel, so that shows with larger audiences have something to look at so they can get comfortable with you. How to Maximize Your Impact from Media and PR Exposure Leveraging your PR wins is a very important step in the process. When you have an article published somewhere or get an interview on a podcast, radio show, or television show, tell your community about it. Tell your friends and clients. Tell your mentors who have a bigger reach than you. Tell your social media communities. If you want people to tweet about it, compose the tweet for them. Give them a couple of versions of the tweet to choose between. You should invest your time in a few Facebook groups and/or forums. Don’t just spam these groups—become a member of the community and when it’s relevant, share your PR success. When you share your article in communities that you have become a part of, approach it like you’re telling a group of friends your great news…because that’s exactly what you’re doing! Share it very conversationally. Ask for their feedback. Tell them they’ll learn a lot about you and what you have to say. Use your personal network. You can use the alumni association of your college and/or your connections on LinkedIn. Whenever you get a media placement in a major newspaper or on a major website or television show, put that logo on your website and at every point of purchase. It adds credibility. If you got an article that’s been picked up by a major website, you should break the article down into as many tips as you can. Then you can share those individual tips on social media with links back to the article. Social Media Content Creation Tips You can judge the success of social media content on two factors: How many people share it. How many people like it. In order to get your audience to like and share your social media post, you want to create content that: Adds value for the person reading it. Provides support to your community. Inspires your community. Engages with your audience. Ask open-ended questions. Share your expertise. The goal of social media is to help you build a relationship with your audience. You want to take people in your audience from customer to friend and fan. After you’ve built a relationship with the people in your audience, asking them to buy from you isn’t a hard sell. It helps to have a content calendar so that you are clear and consistent in your social media messaging. Think about the type of audience you want to connect with. Track the results of your social media posts. See which posts get the most engagement. It often helps to have a weekly social media plan where you post similar content on a weekly basis. Build a Social Media Content Plan Jen plans out her week so that she does similar social media posts on a weekly basis. Sunday: Jen gives social media tips. Monday: She posts a motivational quote to inspire her audience for the week ahead. Then she gives a tip related to that quote that will help her audience manage their business. Tuesday: Jen gives tips on how to promote your business. Wednesday: Jen gives a specific PR strategy designed to help you promote your business. Thursday: Jen posts about her client work in a way that showcases her expertise. It’s a good idea to batch produce your social media content so that you can be sure your message remains consistent and on brand. It also saves time because you’re able to focus on that one activity, and you don’t have to worry about consistently producing it because it’s already been created. It’s also important, especially when creating posts for visual social media channels such as Instagram and Pinterest, that all of your content has a similar visual style. Batching your content creation helps here, too. Two Sources for Social Media Content Repurpose your own content. Repurpose third-party content. When you repurpose third-party content, always remember to give proper attribution. It’s important when you create social media content to be authentic and genuine. Remember that the purpose of social media is to build a relationship with your audience. Influencer Seeding One way you can quickly grow your audience is to align yourself with influencers in your market. You want to find people with large audiences who engage on their social media pages. You also want to find people who have an audience that engages with them. If you can connect with a few genuine influencers, it can drastically increase the size of your audience quickly. You want to find influencers who have a consistent message and brand. There are some people with a large social media following who will promote anything they’re paid to promote. You want to stay away from these people for the most part because their social media following isn’t specific enough. Others who have a large following who will ask you to pay to promote your stuff. Make sure that they have a consistent message, and that their audience contains people who would be interested in what you have to say. Paying for someone to promote your content can be worth it. But it’s important that you find someone who’s genuinely interested in your message. Authenticity matters. The best way to build a relationship with an influencer is to follow them, share their content, and comment on their content. You should do this in a very genuine way. People can tell if you’re being disingenuous. You want to find a way to capture the interest that you generate through connecting with influencers. Set up a way to capture people’s email addresses and/or make the sale that you want to make. You don’t just want people talking about you without them having the option of joining your audience. Connect with Jen Learn more about Jen’s brand new public relations course here. https://www.jenerationpr.com/ — Jen’s website https://www.facebook.com/JenerationBuzz/ — Jen’s Facebook page https://www.instagram.com/jenerationpr/ — Jen’s Instagram https://au.pinterest.com/jeneration/ — Jen’s Pinterest https://twitter.com/jenerationpr — Jen’s Twitter   The post 139: Crafting Personal Stories for PR Success with Jen Berson appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Rob is the best-selling author of Life after Debt and the founder of Bestseller Publishing. He’s been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and in the Wall Street Journal and on many other media sites. Rob teaches entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants how to stop hunting for clients and instead position yourself as the hunted. Rob got started in real estate at 18. He owned three very successful real estate companies that made more than $100 million a year—right up until the real estate market collapsed in 2008. He shut down those companies in 2008 and searched for a different way to generate income. He decided he wanted to pivot to financial services. He was a member of two mastermind groups at the time and he asked them what they would do in his position. Two different people told him he should write a book. This made a lot of sense to Rob because everybody he considered an expert had a book out on their area of expertise. That’s when he decided to write Life after Debt. He used the book to position himself as an expert in the personal finance field. Within just a year, he was making seven figures from his business, and one year after, that he was making multiple seven figures. After he became a success in the financial services market, people kept asking him how he was able to be successful during the economic downturn. He explained that he built his business by establishing his expertise through a book. When people heard that, they asked for his help in launching their own books. He started Bestseller Publishing and the rest is history. How to Build a Business around Your Book With traditional publishing, the book is the end of the story. But if you are using a book to build a business based on your expertise, the book is the beginning of your story. You should be using your book to: Establish your credibility Establish your expertise Grow your authority Grow your PR Track audience needs Do speaking engagements Publish, Promote, Profit: The Three Phases of Building Your Expert Business 1. Publish In this phase, you write and publish the best book you can, focusing on your area of expertise. This establishes you as an expert in the field and allows potential clients to find you going forward. 2. Promote This is where you promote the book to let people in your audience know that you exist and that you can help them with their problem. 3. Profit This is the last and longest phase of building your expert business. In this phase, you use your book to get interviews, build media exposure, and generate leads for your other revenue streams. Once you position yourself as the expert, you can use your book to attract high-paying clients. Build Revenue Streams around Your Strengths When considering what additional revenue streams to build into your expert business, it’s important to consider your financial goals and what you like to do. Rob has clients who really love speaking. While speaking can be very profitable, it’s also a time-intensive thing—you have to be there to give the speech. That’s why for people who love speaking, Rob suggests adding in coaching or consulting because it allows for more flexibility, and you might be able to charge more for your services. It’s also possible that you already have high-end clients in your business, and all you need to do is find more prospects. A book is great for that! So when figuring out how to structure your expert business, look at: Your current situation Your vision for what you want the book to do for you How much money you want to make Use Your Book to Get Leads for Your Business Your book is the entry point for your client. It gives them the information they need to decide whether or not you’re the type of person they want to help them solve their problems. When Rob was first getting started, he would send copies of his book to local radio stations along with a brief letter explaining his expertise and offering to do a short segment on the radio show. But the giveaways didn’t end there. Give Away Free Books to Build Your Business On the radio show, he would offer a free copy of his book to anyone who wanted one. They could order one either by calling the radio show or ordering through his website. Generally speaking, a book funnel for an expert business works like this: First, you give away the book for free to anybody who might be interested in your topic. In the book, you have a low-cost item that people can buy to get more information, or the same information delivered a different way. For instance, Russell Brunson gives away his book Expert Secrets in a free-plus-shipping offer. Then he offers the audiobook on CD, delivered to his customer for around $30. From there, the products get more and more expensive. He even has a $997 offer. One of the best ways to learn the book funnel process is to actually go through one as a customer and observe the different upsells that you get exposed to as you move up product level. Rob suggests that you join Russell Brunson’s free-plus-shipping book funnel, then take screenshots as you go through it and make notes about how it works. This way, you can reverse-engineer his book funnel and modify it to serve your own needs. A Different Way to Approach Book Funnels You don’t necessarily have to have multiple products to upsell to your audience. The book funnel system also works well if you have one very high-ticket item that you sell. When Rob started doing this with his own book, he had one upsell, a $10,000 consulting product. Rob was able to convert one $10,000 customer for every 16 books he gave away. Just think about the ROI on that! The Fastest Way to Success The fastest way to be successful is to find people who already have the success that you want, join their mailing lists, connect with them on social media, study what they’re doing, and imitate it. It’s important to realize that as you try to imitate successful people, you aren’t going to be successful yourself 100% of the time, especially when you’re first starting out. The best way to implement this process is to find somebody who’s as successful as you want to be. Imitate what they’re doing to the best of your ability. Track your results and see what works for you. Every person is different. Every niche audience has its own characteristics. In order to be successful, you have to be willing to try and fail so you can adjust your approach and get better. If you don’t have the level of success that you want right now, that means you’re going to have to do something different in order to get different results. How to Build Relationships that Take Your Business to the Next Level Before you start building relationships, it’s important to figure out who to build relationships with. If you want to grow your business, you need to find people who are further along in their business journey than you are in yours. The only way you’re going to build relationships that grow your business is if you build relationships with people who have larger audiences than you do right now and who have a proven track record of success with their audience. In order to build relationships that will explode the size of your audience and level up your business, you have two resources to invest. Money Rob recently signed up to be a sponsor of a speaking event. It cost him $25,000. For that price, he gets to be a speaker on the main stage, in front of an audience of 700 people who are willing to spend money on the type of thing he’s selling. He’s confident that he will make at least $200,000 from that $25,000 investment. Time If you don’t have money to invest right now, it can be just as profitable to invest your personal time and resources to develop a relationship with someone. For instance, Rob developed a relationship with Todd Herman, creator of The 90-Day Year program, by offering to help him promote his book and get PR for free. Rob and Todd are close personal friends, a relationship they’ve built over time. Rob recently spoke at Todd’s 90-Day Year conference. That didn’t cost him any money because of the relationship he has built with Todd over the years. When you decide to build that type of relationship, it’s important to build it through the lens of friendship and service. Rob helped Todd as a friend, not as a client. He wasn’t worried about the bottom line…it just happened to help get him new audience exposure as a happy side effect. If you want to build a relationship with someone, it’s important to look at the relationship from that perspective. Ron gets about 100 messages a day from people who want help. 99 of those people ask him to help them. 1 out of 100 offers to help him with his business. If you want to build a relationship, be that one. The 3-Step Networking Plan to Connect with Influencers “Lead with a giving hand” — Rob Kosberg Make a list of 100 influencers who, if they promoted your stuff, would really change your life and expand their Think of ways that you can serve them. What is your particular brand of expertise? How can you help them be successful in their business? Start reaching out to these influencers. This could also work for fiction authors. If you’re a fiction author and you want to grow your audience, find the top podcasts for your genre. Contact the podcast hosts and see if there’s anything that you can do for them. Maybe you can write show notes, or do some book reviews. Be helpful and engaged and you’ll see the benefits start to mount! Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Life after Debt: Practical Solutions To Get Out of Debt, Build Wealth, and Radically Transform Your Finances Forever! — Rob’s book on how to get out of debt. https://expertsecrets.com/freebook — Join Russell’s book funnel. Take screenshots at every step and you’ll be able to reverse-engineer how he makes his business work. The 90-Day Year Program — Learn about Todd’s business and management system that teaches you how to compress a year’s worth of results into a 90-day window. http://bestsellerpublishing.org/— This is the best place to learn about Rob’s services. Rob has a team of seven writers who will help you write your book. He also has a team to help you promote your book, and his company has two full-time publicists whose only job is to get you on television. The post 138: How to Build a Business with a Book with Rob Kosberg appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Kylie Stewart is the author of Set in Stone, the first book in the Legend series, a contemporary romance story based on the legends of King Arthur and published by TCK Publishing. She is also an audiobook narrator and has produced more than 50 audiobooks. Kylie got a master’s degree in equine industry and worked with race horses for a short time fresh out of college. It didn’t take very long for her to realize that wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life. That’s when she decided to move from Kentucky to Tennessee and give writing a try. Kylie has always loved to read, write, and read stories out loud. Her nickname growing up was Belle, because like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, she always had a book in her hands. The legend of King Arthur has always fascinated her. So when Kylie decided to write a book, Set in Stone was her natural first choice. Kylie got started in audiobook narration when one of her mentors Eric Stewart recommended that she look into it because she liked reading so much. She had always preferred reading paperbacks, so she had no idea there was a high demand for audiobooks and that she could make a living from reading! After working on her commercial CD with Eric Stewart, she investigated Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), an audiobook production site with a lot of resources for audio creators, authors, and others. Within two weeks of signing up for ACX, she had been accepted to work on seven audiobooks. Recently, Kylie had her first $10,000 month from narrating audiobooks. She dual-narrates a number of audiobooks with her husband Eric Rolon. They are currently working on creating a production company for dual narration. Changes in the Audiobook Industry In the past, narrators usually read audiobooks in a staccato fashion, reading to the listener rather than allowing the listener to experience the story through their performance, more like an actor. Kylie has seen major success because she reads audiobooks smoothly and really tries to evoke the emotion she sees on the page. By enabling more people to become involved in the industry, ACX has opened up the world of audiobooks and allowed audiobook consumers to have many more choices of narrator than they did in the past. How to Get Started as an Audiobook Narrator If you want to get into audiobook narrating, you have to love to read. This may seem obvious, but if you don’t love reading, it’s going to show up in your performances, and you’re going to burn out on the profession pretty fast. Beyond that, there are some technical considerations to think about. Get the Right Equipment If you want to get started narrating audiobooks, it’s important that you buy a good microphone. Kylie recommends either the Blue Yeti or Blue Yeti Pro. Listen to Audiobooks One of the best things you can do as you start your narrating career is to listen to a lot of audiobooks. Listen to a wide variety of people: listen to the top-selling narrators and to the poorly reviewed narrators. Figure out the style of narration that works best for you. The cool thing about the world of narration right now is there’s room for every type of voice that you can imagine. Remember to Slow Down If you’re a fast talker, you’re going to have to learn to slow down when you narrate audiobooks. This is important for two reasons: The audience listening to your audiobook probably can’t see the words on the page. They’re only experiencing the story through your voice, so you have to read slowly enough so that they can visualize the story in their mind as you’re reading. If you’re getting paid per finished hour, the slower you read, the more money you make. This isn’t to say that you should read so slowly that it’s uncomfortable to listen to. But the best audiobook narration speed is somewhat slower than spoken conversation. Buy an audiobook and the Kindle version of the book and read along. Notice the pace at which the narrator reads the words on your screen. Choose the Right Location When you narrate audiobooks, it’s important to read in an acoustically clear environment. Most places in your house (or anywhere else you go) have ambient sounds that our brains naturally filter out—but microphones pick up everything. You want as much dead air around you as possible when narrating audiobooks. Dead air is simply air that isn’t carrying any ambient sound. To help dampen sound while recording, Kylie built a “portabooth” with her husband using a plastic tub from Wal-Mart and mattress foam. Read on a Tablet Kylie has found it’s easier to read on a tablet. You just download the book and read aloud naturally, remembering to slow down for your audience. Three Ways to Get Paid as an Audiobook Narrator There are three ways to get paid for your audio performance through ACX. Royalty split: This is where you split the royalties 50/50 with the author. That means every time the audiobook gets sold, you get half of the royalties. Flat rate per finished hour: In this model, the narrator gets paid based on how long their narration is. So if you are the only narrator on the book, you get paid based on the length of the book, because you narrated the whole thing. If you’re part of a dual narration team or a cast, you get paid based on the proportion of the book you narrated. Royalty split plus per finished hour: Here, the narrator gets paid a flat fee per finished hour for producing the book, and also gets a percentage of royalties every time the book is sold. ACX has several tiers of payment for narrators. The rate per finished hour ranges widely from $50 per hour to whatever the market will bear. When you’re first starting out, it’s okay to offer your services for less money, or just a royalty split. This allows you to get experience, and as you gain experience, you will get better at narrating and start finding more and better opportunities. As you gain experience, don’t be afraid to raise your rates. It’s also important to understand that if you’re acting as your own audio engineer, a book can take two to four times as long to produce as the actual length of the finished audiobook. So keep that in mind when you determine your per finished hour rate! SAG Rates and Audiobooks If you are a member of the Screen Actors Guild, you can command higher per finished hour rates. Hot Audiobook Markets of 2017 Romance Unsurprisingly, the biggest selling genre is also hot for audiobooks. By far the largest customer base for romance is women of any age. Women enjoy falling in love, especially if they can do it with a man out of their fantasies. This is why there are so many billionaire series, as well as so many alpha male series. Both men and women are being cast as narrators for romance and erotica books. Science Fiction and Fantasy These books are selling well because fans enjoy listening to them as they commute to and from work. Science fiction and fantasy books can also be very dense. The audiobook versions are often easier to digest. Audiobook Listening Habits People often listen to audiobooks while they’re doing something else, whether at work, while commuting, or when doing chores around the house. This allows people to consume the fiction they crave while they’re doing something productive with their day. Audiobook Marketing Audiobooks for Authors Audiobook marketing isn’t that much different from marketing traditional books. You’re still trying to attract fans who want to buy your content and promote it through word of mouth. The best way to do this is actually to promote the traditional book and tell your audience that an audiobook is coming out. You’ll also want to release samples of your audiobook if you can, so your audience can hear what their favorite characters are going to sound like. As an author, Kylie says that one of the best marketing practices is to coordinate your releases so that the print book/ebook comes out at about the same time as the audiobook. As of now, ACX runs about a week behind the Kindle release. If you can coordinate your release dates so that the audiobook is available a week after the regular book becomes available on Amazon, you will get significantly more sales for the audiobook because fans are excited and there is more buzz surrounding the audiobook. The traditional online marketing channels for books work for audiobooks too. Kylie says that Facebook ads and Amazon ads work really well because you’re able to specifically target an audience who will be interested in your audiobook. Marketing for Narrators On the narrator side, you want to have your own website. Post when new audiobooks that you’ve narrated are going to become available. People often search for their favorite narrator just like they search for their favorite author. As a narrator, having your own website makes you look more professional and allows the people you’re auditioning for to review your catalog of work. For books where you are paid through a royalty split, narrators are typically given a certain number of free audiobook codes that they can give to fans to help build buzz. If you’re getting paid per finished hour, you don’t often get free audiobook codes, but you can still produce audiobook trailers and create audiobook snippets to help entice customers. How to Hire a Good Audiobook Narrator Listen to narrators narrating audiobooks in your genre. When you find a narrator you like, contact the author of that book and ask them about the narrator’s work ethic. You want to make sure the narrator can produce an audiobook on time and make any changes needed. After you’ve done your due diligence, approach the narrator and ask them how much they’d charge to narrate your book. It may make sense to pay a premium for someone with a track record of getting the audiobook done quickly, especially if you’re a best-selling author. Your print book sales will drive your audiobook sales. The sooner your audiobook is available to your fans, the more books you will sell. Realize that more established narrators are going to cost more money. The narrators newer to the landscape will be cheaper because they have to build up their portfolios. Producing an audiobook is not going to be cheap, but it is worth it. The audiobook industry is growing and audiobooks provide an additional income stream with very little extra work on the part of the author. About the Legend Series The Legend series is a modern spin on the classic tale of King Arthur. It asks the question: What if King Arthur never died, but instead was cursed? The series centers on the character of Alexandra York, an artist who is commissioned to create a statue of the Duke of Avalon (really, King Arthur.) There’s a great deal of chemistry between Alexandra York and the Duke. Kylie has incorporated all of the key characters from the King Arthur myth into the story. She’s also taken a very unique spin on the legend, bringing it into the modern era and weaving together magic and technology. Even though Legend is a contemporary romance series, the reader will still get a Regency feel—it’s the best of all worlds! Connect with Kylie https://www.facebook.com/KylieStewartAuthor/ — connect with Kylie on Facebook https://twitter.com/kyliecstewart — connect with Kylie on Twitter http://www.kyliestewartauthor.com/ — connect with Kylie on her website ACX Narration — Kylie’s narrator page on ACX Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Set in Stone: A Contemporary Adventure Romance Novel (Legend Book 1) — Kylie’s first fiction novel. Blue Yeti USB Microphone — a good starter microphone if you want to get into narrating audiobooks Blue Yeti Pro USB microphone — a more expensive option for those who want to get started in audiobook narration Audacity — a free open-source program for recording and editing audio files   The post 137: Audiobook Narration Tips with Kylie Stewart appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Ryan Stewman is the best-selling author of several books including Elevator to the Top. He’s also the founder of Hardcore Closer, a company that teaches sales skills to people who are ready and willing to tear up their list of excuses and close more sales. Ryan started working at eight years old, mowing lawns for a carwash chain that his stepfather owned. As he got older, he transitioned to washing cars and vacuuming them out. He hated washing cars. So at 13, Ryan convinced his stepfather to let him sell car washes to people instead of actually washing the cars. Over the next seven years, Ryan became an expert at pitching through massive repetition. Some Saturdays, the carwash would wash as many as 1,500 cars. That’s 1,500 customers that he was pitching in one day! The experience taught him to keep things short and simple. Ryan took a job selling mortgages when a customer at the carwash noticed his sales skills. Within a year of taking that job, he was a mortgage sales manager with his own branch office. Ryan transitioned out of mortgage sales in 2010 after the economy’s real estate sector collapsed. Drawing on all his experience, he began selling his services as a social media manager. Just setting up this business gave him a new wealth of experience to draw from, because back in 2010, you had to convince somebody they needed a social media manager. How to Overcome Your Fear of Selling If you’re scared to sell things, your problem is you’re not confident in what you’re selling. You don’t need self-confidence to be a good salesperson—you just need to be confident in the product you’re selling. You need to be confident that your product will help your customer solve their problem. Confidence in your product removes the fear from selling. If you have a product you know will help your audience, why wouldn’t you want to sell it and make their lives better? Selling and Breaking through Customer Resistance Most people live a life of bad decisions. So when they make a bad decision, they feel comfortable with it because that’s what they’re familiar with. When you give somebody the opportunity to make a good decision, it doesn’t feel right to them because it’s not what they’re used to. Also, in general, human beings have a lot of baggage. We have a lot of excuses and negative beliefs surrounding what we believe we deserve. So when you give somebody the opportunity to make their life better, more often than not, you’re going to get resistance. They’re scared to make a change from what they know and they’re held back by ingrained beliefs about what they’re worth or what they need. The way to break through that resistance is to keep asking your customer questions that will help them understand the proper way to look at the situation. Questions that Help You Sell More “What are you going to do if this doesn’t happen?” “What are you going to do if you wake up tomorrow and this same problem still exists?” “Who are you going to get to help you with this problem?” “How is this affecting your life?” “How’s that working for you?” “Why did you decide to reach out to me?” When you ask these questions and they answer, you get a real picture of what’s going on in the life of your customer. This will help you understand what kind of solutions they’re looking for, and what kind of solutions will be best for them. When people feel like you understand what they’re experiencing, they are far more likely to buy your solution to their problem. Using questions allows your customer to open up to you. It also builds a bond of trust and friendship with your customer. Everybody loves when somebody listens to them, especially when they’re talking about their problems. How to Build Your Personal Brand Matthew Motil has been working with Ryan for the last nine months. Two months ago, he published his book, Man on Fire: Confessions of a Perpetual Burnout, about how to use low-cost rental property to retire early from your career. Matthew is a real estate agent who isn’t particularly passionate about real estate. He has a PhD and he went to Ryan to learn how to build a brand that he could be excited about. The first thing Ryan told him to do was to emphasize his PhD. After that, they came up with the concept for helping people achieve financial independence through rental income. Next, Ryan and his team helped Matthew’s book become an Amazon bestseller. Last month, because of the service Matthew offers on the back end, he had his first six-figure month. The book functions as a business card for Matthew. It establishes him as an expert in his industry and provides a way for him to build an email list of potential customers. Once people figure out that they want to buy low-cost rental real estate to create additional income streams, Matthew is able to help them find real estate in their area that meets the criteria he has laid out in his book. The number one thing you can do as a nonfiction author to build a successful online business is to write a book that points people in the direction of your higher ticket offers. As in Matthew’s case, the book establishes you as an expert. It helps people to get to know, like, and trust you. The book also helps you build an email list of potential customers. Two Things You Must Do to Build Your Brand Write a book with good content that establishes you as an expert in your marketplace. Make sure that in that book, there are ways for your audience to connect with you and pay you more money. Following up with the audience that finds your book is the most important thing you can do to ensure your personal and financial success. The Power of Sales Funnels The secret to Ryan’s success is constantly prospecting through his books, then driving his prospects to the next level, where they get more access to him. The first step in Ryan’s process is very low-cost for the prospect. They get a free book. All they have to do is pay the shipping. By reading that book, Ryan’s customers are made aware of more expensive products that will help them accomplish their sales goals. Ryan has two higher-ticket training opportunities for his prospects in that sales funnel: a $47 option and the $297 mastermind program. Understanding the Sales Cycle One thing you need to understand if you want to build a brand is the idea of the sales cycle. If you have good material, a certain percentage of your customers will convert to higher ticket offers. Every customer has a different conversion point. Your job as a salesperson is to continually follow up until the customer either unsubscribes from your list or buys a higher ticket item. Remember, your products and services are designed to help your customers solve their problems. You’re in this world to make it a better place. If your products solve your customers’ problems, you have every reason in the world to be persistent in selling them. The Key to Success in Life: Consistency The key to Ryan’s marketing success is consistency. He posts on his blog five times a week. He posts on YouTube twice a week. He posts on Facebook consistently. Consistency is the key to success in anything that you try to do. If you’re more consistent than your competitors and you’re consistent for longer, you will eventually succeed where they fail or give up. Another reason consistency is so important is that people have a short attention span in the internet age. With people constantly checking the internet for content, if you’re not consistent in providing value to your community, your customers will search elsewhere for what they need. The Universal Sales Equation There’s a myth that selling online is somehow different than selling offline. That’s not true. No matter where they’re shopping, people buy from salespeople that they know, like, and trust. The simple sales equation is this: Interest + Desire + Bonding + Trust = Familiarity Approach your prospect like they are someone you want to become friends with or date. Show them that you’re interested in their problems. Show them that you have things in common. If you show them that you have had the same problems they are now having, and/or you have the solutions to those problems, they will be much more likely to buy from you. They will want to buy from you because they identify with you as someone who understands where they’re coming from. Knowing the Kind of Customer that You Want to Work With Ryan is a very direct and painfully honest person at times. He tells the truth in a very blunt fashion. He doesn’t have time to deal with the people who can’t handle his personality. He only wants to deal with people who can handle him, because in his experience, those are the only people who are willing to do what it takes to be successful. It’s important to know who you are and what you expect from your customers. It’s also important to know what kind of people you want to surround yourself with. It’s better if you’re authentic, and you should only go after the customers who are worth your time. Time is a finite resource and it’s better to only work with people who are compatible with you and your message. Stop trying to please everyone. It won’t work anyway. 5 Steps to Success in Online Business Be who you are. Solve a problem in your own life, and then sell the solution to others who have the same problem. Be consistent in your marketing efforts. Provide your customers multiple opportunities to give you money. Don’t try to please everyone. Surround yourself only with the type of people that you want to work with. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview https://elevatortothetop.com/book-offer — join Ryan’s email list and get a paperback version of his Amazon best-selling book just for the cost of shipping. http://hardcorecloser.com/ ­— Ryan’s business website and another opportunity to get in/study his sales funnel Elevator to the Top — Ryan’s book on sales and your entry point into his sales funnel. Man on Fire: Lessons From a Perpetual Burnout on Creating Alignment for Success — a book by one of Ryan’s students on how to retire using low-cost rental property   The post 136: Selling with Confidence with Ryan Stewman appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Jim Heskett is the author of the new book The Juggling Author: How To Write Four Books a Year While Balancing Family, Friends, and a Full-Time Job. He fell in love with writing at the age of fourteen thanks to a copy of Stephen King’s The Shining. Poetry became his first outlet for teen angst, then later some screenplays, and eventually, short fiction and long fiction (12 novels to date); he also writes in the video game industry. Jim started writing poetry to woo women. In his 20s, he wrote screenplays because he wanted to tell stories. For a while, he thought he wanted to break into Hollywood. After he realized what a difficult proposition that would be, he changed course and decided to try to become a traditionally published novelist. He abandoned that plan when he realized how much easier it would be to publish as a indie author. Jim has been publishing his own books for about two years now. For him, the greatest benefit of indie publishing is the ability to control everything from content to packaging. He also likes the control he has over when he publishes his work. In 2016, Jim published 325,000 words while working a 40 hour per week day job and helping to raise his child, who was 1 1/2 at the beginning of that year. To manage this heavy load, he developed a method for writing, editing, and publishing a book in under three months. Because he’s a father with a full-time day job, he has only one to two hours a day he can focus on his publishing business. He relies heavily on deadlines and benchmarks to help him be his most productive. Jim’s Method For Writing Stories Quickly Outlining Jim writes his book in three drafts. The first draft functions as an outline and is written completely in creative voice without any editing. This is where he makes the story up. He doesn’t make any effort to differentiate between the characters other than by giving them different names. In this draft, he keeps most character details in his head. The first draft is usually about half the size of the finished manuscript. Second Draft The second draft is usually the longest part of the process for Jim. This is where he’ll go back and make the outline more like the story he really wants to tell. In the second draft, he makes sure to differentiate the characters, making them unique and memorable. He’ll try to make sure the story doesn’t have any plot holes. Basically, he makes the best minimum viable product he can so that he can send it to beta readers. After he finishes his second draft, Jim makes contact with beta readers. He finds these beta readers using social media. Jim is a big believer in using social media to be social. So he’ll contact potential beta readers and ask them if they are interested in helping him with his project. If he’s built enough space in his schedule, he’ll often let the project rest for a month between second draft and third draft. This allows him to “get fresh eyes on it” when he returns to the product later. During that month, Jim writes the first draft of another project. That month is also when beta readers are reading the book. Third Draft After the beta readers return their feedback, he’ll write a third draft. When that’s done to his liking, the final thing he does before sending it to an editor is to have his computer read the book back to him. He uses a Mac, which can read his books back to him using built-in text-to-speech software. He has it set at the slowest speed he can stand, so he’s forced to pay attention to every word on the page. After he fixes any errors or awkward phrases, he sends it to a copy editor (Jim doesn’t use a developmental editor). While the editor is working on this project, Jim’s working on writing another project. Tracking for Productivity Jim tracks his writing sessions over time. He’ll start a timer and then write for a specific, limited amount of time. When he’s done with that session, he makes note of: How long it was. How many words he typed and how many words per minute he typed. What time of day he’s working. He keeps track of his averages over time so that he can observe patterns and figure out when he’s most productive. Jim relies heavily on deadlines and benchmarks in his work. He knows what he wants his final outcome to be and then works backwards from where he wants to be to where he is now. Thinking about timing in advance allows you to save time because you can contact people such as editors and cover designers who will help you get your book to a professional quality. For Jim, deadlines are motivational. If he doesn’t have a deadline and there’s no urgency to get any part of the project done, then it doesn’t get done. Deadlines are like checkpoints for him. They allow him to celebrate when he’s met them. And they also indicate when he’s off track, letting him see if he hasn’t done what he set out to do. For some people, deadlines just add stress to a situation. But Jim is most productive when he makes use of them to motivate him. Timing is Everything Jim generally has some time in the morning right before work, some time to write during his lunch hour, and some time to write after he puts his son to bed in the evening. One thing he does to make the most of his time is to read the beat for the next scene that he’s going to write before he ends his writing session. Then he thinks about that next scene while he’s working on other things. He develops a plan for the scene before he sits down to write it during his next writing session. Jim writes 365 days a year because he doesn’t feel like he needs a break. He suggests that if you’re going to take a break from your writing, you should make a plan about when you’re going to return to it. Put it on your calendar. Make a commitment, because if you leave the date undefined, there’s a chance you may never come back at all. Writer’s Block and the Myth of the Muse Jim doesn’t believe in writer’s block. His advice for people who think they have writer’s block is that they may not be writing in the right genre and/or they haven’t found a story that speaks to them yet. The flip side of the writer’s block coin involves the people who write when they feel inspired, then go back and read over their work afterwards and find that it’s no good and insist they’re going to start over. In Jim’s experience, that’s something that stops a lot of writers from finishing work. The important thing to remember is that first drafts aren’t supposed to be good. You write the first draft to get it out of your head, and then you go back and fix it later. Jim believes the muse is a story writers tell themselves that gets in the way of their own creativity. Plotting Versus Pantsing Jim used to be a very heavy plotter. Now he falls somewhere in the middle. He writes loose beats that give him an idea of where he wants the story to go, and he allows himself to discover what happens in between the beats. Many people say they can’t find the joy in writing unless they are pantsing. Jim understands that, because pantsing is more fun. But he warns against pantsing if you’re a new author and want to build an inventory of products quickly. “Wanderers aren’t known for being prompt. If you want to write quickly, find the joy in outlining.” Another important thing to realize when you write an outline is that things may change as you’re writing the draft. When that happens, it’s important not to edit the draft but instead rework your outline to incorporate what happened when you were writing the draft. This allows your creative voice to take control. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview The Juggling Author: How To Write Four Books a Year While Balancing Family, Friends, and a Full-Time Job — Jim’s nonfiction book about his writing process. http://www.thejugglingauthor.com/ — the website for Jim’s nonfiction book, The Juggling Author. http://www.jimheskett.com/books — Jim’s author website Deep Work by Cal Newport — a book on how to be your most productive 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron — a book that gives you techniques about how to write faster using outlines Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker — another book on how to use outlines to greatly increase your writing speed. Natural Reader— a text-to-speech program for windows and Mac with a free version that reads Word documents, PDFs, and webpages Vellum — vellum is Jim’s is go-to software for formatting e-books   The post 135: Using Deadlines to Accelerate Your Writing with Jim Heskett appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Monica Leonelle is a best-selling author and entrepreneur empowering writers to take charge of their careers through efficient and inspired marketing. Her recent release, Prosperous Creation, focuses on making art and money while overcoming the mental blocks that hold us back from reaching our goals. Monica‘s expertise comes from authoring and marketing more than 20 books of fiction across multiple pen names. She writes about indie publishing at ProseOnFire.com. Engineering Artistic Success This interview yielded so many great insights for authors. We talked about the difference between fiction and nonfiction in the marketplace and dove deep into marketing. Monica’s first career was as a software engineer. She published her first book on social media marketing back in 2009, before Amazon sold eBooks. She published that first book via print-on-demand and used it to change careers from software engineer to a social media marketer. The book established her as an authority and allowed her to get two marketing management positions. Monica has led digital marketing efforts at Inc. 100 companies like Hansen’s Natural and Braintree, written copy for A-list bloggers, and trained with some of the world’s foremost thought leaders on the topics of virality and word-of-mouth marketing. Monica has always loved fiction. With the success of her first nonfiction book, she decided to write fiction shortly after Amazon made eBook publishing available. Fiction vs. Nonfiction Nonfiction is easier to market because you have an audience who is searching for a solution to their problem. That makes it really easy to reverse-engineer a product that meets their needs. Nonfiction allows you to identify a niche of customers that you can really focus on quickly. Focusing on nonfiction also allows you to create products and courses that you can sell to your audience on the back end, expanding on what you’ve built with your books. Fiction is an exciting market because it’s a larger marketplace with readers who like to read more books. So it gives you the ability to build an audience based on a genre or a series of books. Because the markets are so different, it’s good to have both types of books in your inventory. Marketing Your Art Good art always has a larger message behind it. Marketing your art is about finding the audience who wants or needs to hear that message. Most people who create a work of art are trying to express something and connect with the world around them. Marketing is about getting that unique expression in front of the right people. Three Categories of Buying Triggers 1. The X factors: These are things that position you above your audience as a thought leader in your industry. Examples include: Being a thought leader Being consistent in anything you do Having a celebrity factor (for example, being featured on respected mainstream news sites). Being featured in big-name magazines or on high-traffic blogs like Forbes, Inc., or Huffington Post can give you authority and position you as someone your audience should listen to. 2. Connection deepeners: These triggers put you on the same level as your audience. Examples include: Telling good stories (like the rags to riches story) Reciprocity: if you give your audience something of value, they are going to want to reward you by giving you something in return Interacting with customers and building a community Demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability 3. The button pushers: These things help you connect with your audience on a subconscious level. Examples include: Scarcity Social proof Exclusivity Having a deadline Controversy Common enemy Mystery Secret Surprise These triggers get people to take action more consistently. The more triggers you can stack in your marketing efforts, the more people you will get to take action. Three Ways to Make Your Marketing Efforts More Manageable 1. If you don’t have a lot of money, Monica has found that it’s easier to have one promotion that you put a lot of energy into, rather than having smaller promotions throughout the year. 2. Another thing you can do to make your marketing efforts more efficient and effective is to focus on creating evergreen content that you can repurpose over many marketing channels. 3. Finally, if you want to simplify the marketing process, get as specific as possible about your audience and find one or two triggers that really move that audience to action. Marketing for Fiction Authors 1. Use emotional language to get your audience invested in your story. 2. Give your viewpoint character a familiar arc that people can identify with and connect to (i.e. the rags to riches story) 3. Build a community around your stories. You can use Facebook, your personal blog, forum software, and wherever people gather online to build communities around the stories you’re telling. Communities are powerful because when your fans connect with each other about something they like, it increases the value of the thing they connect with other people about. Harry Potter has more value to its fan base because there is a large community of people who like Harry Potter. There are in-jokes that you can share with other Harry Potter fans; you can make friends because you like Harry Potter. The fan community adds a dimension of value to the series it wouldn’t have otherwise. 4. Another good marketing tactic is to create a list bribe that fills in extra details about the story that you’ve written. For instance, Monica has a free short story that answers questions about a mystery in her series. Readers of that series are going to want that freebie. It adds value to her current customers and creates a reciprocity loop. They want to reward her with loyalty because she has given them something that makes them special and sets them apart from the larger audience. They’re part of a select group of people who have more pieces to the mystery. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Prosperous Creation: Make Art and Make Money at the Same Time (Growth Hacking For Storytellers #5) — Monica’s book on how to make money while creating art you’re passionate about. http://proseonfire.com/ — Monica’s business site http://proseonfire.com/breakout — Monica’s free audio course on how to be successful in a new author. It goes into much greater detail about the psychological triggers that help people take action to buy your books. http://proseonfire.com/ghfs — Monica’s nonfiction series designed to help authors become more productive and sell more books   The post 134: Marketing Made Easy with Monica Leonelle appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Mark Lefebvre is an author and editor; he serves as the director of self-publishing and author relations at Kobo, one of the top eBook retailers in the world. This fantastic interview covers a wide range of topics. We talked about traditional publishing and self-publishing and the true value of both. We also discussed emerging global markets for eBooks and how to take advantage of them, plus the difference between Amazon and other online retailers. Finally, we talked about the steps any author can take to sell more books. Mark’s first love was his mother’s Underwood typewriter. He found it in her closet when he was 13 and made his first attempt at writing a novel that summer. That was when he caught the writing bug. From that first attempt, Mark continued working on his craft, going on to publish short stories published in science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazines.These limited-edition magazines were hard to find and they limited his audience-building efforts. In 1992, Mark decided to change that. His first self-published book was One Hand Screaming, a collection of short stories he self-published through Ingram Spark so that he could do book signings and have his work distributed worldwide. Mark is a hybrid author. He is traditionally published through some small publishing houses, but has self-published other books. Kobo hired him in 2011 to come up with a solution for self-published authors who wanted to put their work on Kobo’s platform. Mark launched Kobo Writing Life, Kobo’s answer to Amazon’s KDP Select program without the exclusivity clauses. Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: The Stigmas Mark’s job (and his writing career) puts him in between the worlds of traditional publishing and self-publishing. There are two damaging stigmas he sees coming from both sides, and they both deal with not recognizing the value of the different marketplaces. Traditional publishing views indie-published works in the same sort of “vanity press” light they have for the last 60 to 70 years. Indie publishers fail to recognize that traditional publishers still offer tremendous value propositions, especially when it comes to the print market. Benefits and Drawbacks of Publishing with KDP Select If you sign up with KDP Select, you are guaranteed to have access to Amazon’s customers. You aren’t guaranteed to make any money, but you’ll have special access to Amazon’s customer base in several ways. 1. Á la carte customers These are people who just browse Amazon and buy your book. 2. Kindle Unlimited These are the customers who have signed up for Kindle Unlimited and want to read books for free. The major drawback if you sign up for KDP Select is that you are guaranteed to have no visibility beyond Amazon’s ecosystem. If you’re an American author, you may not even realize that there are other stores where eBooks are sold. The Benefits of Dealing with Kobo Kobo is the number one seller of eBooks and e-readers in Canada. But its reach doesn’t stop there: Kobo is partnered with the American Booksellers Association, an organization of 600 independent booksellers in the United States. You can buy eBooks on those booksellers’ websites and Kobo handles the distribution and delivery. If a customer decides to buy directly from Kobo, the independent bookseller that sent them the customer in the first place will continue to get payments based on the customer’s purchases. Kobo is not as well known in the US, but it is known very well around the world. Kobo has partners in quite a few countries and is often the first stop when customers globally are looking for eBooks. The major benefit to publishing with Kobo is that you can find audiences that would never have read your work if it was only on Amazon. Some Kobo Stats 51% of all indie-published sales on Kobo come from Canada. This makes sense: Kobo was founded in Canada and it’s partners with Canada’s largest book retailer, Chapters Indigo. The next biggest markets for indie-published eBooks on Kobo are Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States. These countries all speak English, and eBooks gained popularity in America first. So it’s no surprise that these are some of the biggest markets for indie-published books on Kobo. Non-English Markets for Kobo France is the biggest non-English market for Kobo right now. It just recently overtook New Zealand in total eBook sales. Italy is another big market for Kobo. The Netherlands, Germany, and Spain are where Mark expects to see the largest growth in the next year. Kobo just launched Kobo Plus for the Netherlands, which is a program similar to Kindle Unlimited, except that you don’t have to be exclusive to Kobo to take part in it. The company realized that in the Netherlands, there is a large market of people who want an all-you-can-read model. If the program does well, it could expand to other markets, helping bring your Kobo-distributed books to even more readers worldwide. Kobo recently acquired Tolino, a company that has about the same market share in Germany as Amazon does in the US. Tolino was started because a group of booksellers wanted to have the same competitive ability to sell eBooks as some of the bigger online booksellers. Kobo vs. Amazon Market Strategy When Amazon enters a market, its goal is to dominate that market. When Kobo enters a market, its goal is to partner with local print book retailers and help print stores sell eBooks. Some Historical Perspective If you’re publishing eBooks today, you’re among the pioneers of the eBook industry. Today, print books still make up the majority of sales worldwide. The invention of eBooks is the greatest innovation in the publishing industry since the invention of the Gutenberg press. The only other event that comes close for booksellers was the invention of the mass-market paperback 70 years ago. How to Sell More Books 1. After you publish your first book, start working on your second. The vast majority of successfully indie published authors are people who have multiple books available for sale. That’s because readers are voracious, and if they really like you, they want to read the next book of yours as soon as possible. 2. Authors who have series do better on average than authors who don’t. A series acts like a funnel and each previous book sells the next book. 3. “Your book cover is a billboard.” Jim Bean, a US science fiction publisher, made that astute observation. Be sure your cover is genre-specific and appeals to the type of reader you want for your book. You’re not always going to get it right, but have that guiding principle in mind. One thing to keep in mind about your cover is that different audiences in different territories expect different things from book covers. So if you’re going to market your book internationally, it might be worth looking at the covers in the online store where you plan to sell your book to see what kinds of covers are selling well in your category. With Kobo, you can see all the different storefronts in different territories at kobo.com. 4. Offer multiple links. If you’re going wide with your distribution, you’ll want to have an individual link for every online retailer where your book is available. To make this a little easier, you can use a service like books2read.com from Draft2digital, which will create a universal landing page for your book. 5. Pay attention to price points in different territories. One major difference between Amazon and the rest of the world is that where Amazon operates primarily by algorithm, other online retailers have many more human touch points when it comes to selling books. That means humans are deciding what books go on the front pages of those online retailers, not an automated formula. If you price something at $2.99 on Amazon, chances are that in foreign markets, you’ll need to tweak those prices so that your books look like they belong and aren’t over- or underpriced for the market. The 3P’s of Publishing In order to succeed in indie publishing, you need three things: 1. Patience. It may take you a while to gain traction and build an audience, especially if you’re an unknown author. 2. Practice. Write more books. This is the number one thing you can do to get better as a writer and to build an audience. 3. Persistence. Don’t give up. It can take a long time, but in the end, it’s worth it. What a lot of new authors don’t understand is that the publishing industry runs in cycles. There will be times when your genre is hot and times when it’s not. Vampire books are just one example of this. In the last 20 years, there have been two or three major spikes in demand for vampire literature. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Kobo.com: Canada’s largest retailer of eBooks and e-readers One Hand Screaming: Mark’s first self-published book Kobo Writing Life Support: Here you can access technical FAQs, as well as a community forum to help you with any issue you might have publishing on Kobo. Kobo Writing Life Resources: Kobo’s writing life podcast and blog Books2Read: A website that allows you to easily make a landing page for your book that has all the places your book can be downloaded Ways to Advertise Your Book 1. Amazon Marketing Services 2. Bookbub 3. eReader News Today 4. Bargain Booksy 5. Free Booksy Contact Mark Get in touch with Mark on his website, http://markleslie.ca/, on Twitter, or through the Kobo Writing Life Twitter feed. There are two easy ways to email Mark: write directly to [email protected] or email [email protected] and ask for Mark. Like this post? Click below to share to your favorite social media network, like Pinterest! The post 133: Kobo Writing Life and International eBook Sales with Mark Lefebvre appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Bryan Cohen is the author of Ted Saves the World, the first book in a new YA sci-fi/fantasy series, and a collection of creative writing prompts books. His books have been downloaded over 400,000 times. Bryan has always been interested in writing. He started his indie publishing journey by writing a blog about writing inspiration. Google kept sending him traffic from “writing prompts” keywords. That’s when he decided to release books filled with writing prompts on Amazon, starting in 2010. After five years of success inspiring others to write, Bryan decided to start publishing his own fiction. Fiction had always been Bryan’s real passion. But writing nonfiction comes more easily to him. He wrote five or six fiction projects, none of which he published, before he decided to release his books of writing prompts. He credits his nonfiction work with helping complete his fiction work. Even though writing fiction and writing nonfiction are very distinct art forms, studying and practicing both are complementary to one another. Productivity habits and routines that writers get into can translate between these art forms. Here are several ways you can cross over between types of writing to improve both. Copywriting for Fiction Authors Copywriting encompasses all the words that go outside your book. So it includes anything on your back cover, anything on your Amazon product page, the words that go in any advertisements you use (Facebook, BookBub, Amazon ads, etc.), and so on. When you’re trying to get people who don’t know you to trust you enough to buy your book or to sign up for your email list, you need the words outside your book to be convincing. The most important piece of copywriting for authors is the first line of your book description. 80% of customers stop reading after the first line. So you need a first line that is clear and that entices them to keep reading. The second most important thing for authors to remember about copywriting is the importance of a call to action. At the end of every piece of sales copy you write, you should have a call to action that tells your audience exactly what you want them to do. On your Amazon product page, you should tell people to click and buy your book. If you’re asking people to subscribe to your mailing list or something else, you should clearly state that at the end of your copy. In today’s world, people have information attacking them every second. A call to action makes it as clear as possible what you want someone reading your copy to do. If you communicate clearly and succinctly, you’ll get much better results. Writing a Good Headline for Your Book Description A good headline needs to have four key qualities: 1. It’s short. Bryan had a situation where he didn’t realize the headline he was using on Amazon was getting cut off because it was too long. If your headlines are too long, you run the risk of losing people. 2. It’s interesting. Headlines should be compelling. Your headline’s primary job is to make people want to read the next line. You should write a headline that intrigues them and makes them want to read further. 3. It’s genre-specific. If you’re writing a thriller, you shouldn’t emphasize the romance part of your story in your headline. The headline should be crafted to emphasize those parts of your story that your target readers want to hear about. 4. It makes sense. The best way to think about this is to ask yourself, “Will most people who read this headline understand what I’m talking about?” How to Come up with a Headline After you’ve written your book, sit down with a pad of paper or an open word processing document and write down at least 20 different ideas for your headline. The goal here is not to come up with a good headline but to simply write down as many ideas as you can think of. After you’ve come up with at least 20 ideas for your headline, share them with your beta readers, with any author groups you’re a part of, and with friends and family. Get as many different opinions about these headlines as you can. From the list of 20 headlines, you should narrow it down to four or five that might work, then edit those headlines. Pro Tip: Sometimes the best ideas will come to you after you’ve done your initial brainstorming session. So don’t just think that your work is done after a single brainstorming session! How to Write a Book Description for a Nonfiction Book A good book description has several sections: 1. The headline The purpose of the headline is to make the audience read further into your book description. You want it to be short, eye-catching and interesting. 2. Expertise In this section, you want to explain to people why they should listen to you. 3. Benefits In this section, you want to clearly explain the benefits your audience will receive from reading this book. 4. The selling paragraph In this paragraph, you use emotional adjectives to connect with your reader. People buy based on emotion. 5. The call to action The call to action is where you actually ask people to buy your book by clicking on the buy button. This sounds simple, but it definitely increases conversions. How to Write a Book Description for a Fiction Book Fiction book descriptions also tend to follow a pattern: 1. The headline Think of this as the tag line from a movie poster. The point of the headline is to get people interested and wanting to read more. 2. The synopsis The most important thing that authors miss about the synopsis is that your book is about a character, so you have to tell us who the book is about in your synopsis and give us an idea of the problem the character is facing. 3. The selling paragraph In this paragraph, you identify the genre for the reader and let them know if the book is part of a series. 4. The call to action Again, this is where you tell the reader to buy your book by pressing the buy button. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron — Rachel Aaron’s book on how to write faster Adweek copywriting handbook — How to write powerful advertising copy Sizzling Synopsis — Bryan’s book on how to write a book description that sells more books   The post 132: How to Write Book Descriptions for Fiction and Non-Fiction with Bryan Cohen appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Kevin Tumlinson is a thriller and speculative fiction author. He’s also the Director of Marketing at Draft2Digital, one of the leading automated self-publishing services companies. Kevin wrote his first book at the age of five. The reaction he got for it sparked a lifelong interest in writing. By age 12 he was writing professionally for local papers. He published his first book in 2008 and has been working in the self-publishing industry ever since. Indie Publishing Strategies for Long-Term Success This was a great interview. We talked about the benefits of indie publishing, indie publishing strategy, how to use indie publishing to get a traditional book contract (if you want), and the importance of changing your strategy if it’s not achieving your goals. Kevin got into self-publishing after realizing that his traditional publishing contract would cause him to lose money. So he pulled back from that situation, lost the rights to that book for four years, and decided to publish another one instead. He looked at self-publishing options because he wanted more control over his work. The sales for his first book were pretty low because people hadn’t yet adopted the ebook as something they could read. Kevin actually got more print sales for his book then ebook sales. When Kevin first explored self-publishing he was working in television, and his dream was to create a book that could be turned into a movie or TV show. Because he lost the rights to the first book he worked on, he didn’t want to put himself in a position where he could lose those rights again, especially if what he was writing got sold to Hollywood. The Benefits of Self-Publishing Kevin really liked the idea that once he created his book and self published it, he would have complete control over what he did with the book itself. In particular, he liked the idea that he could control the price, and distribute the book in any way that made sense to him. One of the benefits of self-publishing is that 100% of the book’s success rests on your shoulders. Once you accept that 100% of your success is up to you, you’re much more likely to succeed because you understand the level of commitment you need, and you’re mentally prepared to take the right actions in the right quantities to assure your success. Another benefit of indie publishing is that you come to understand the value of what the publishing company is truly offering. Understanding the value of the different elements that a publishing company brings to the table gives you a better negotiating position because you’re more informed. Indie publishing also teaches authors the value of marketing. Marketing is a very valuable skill. It separates successful authors from unsuccessful ones. When you go the indie publishing route you learn more faster. You’re also able to adjust marketing strategies more easily because you don’t have to check with anyone. Traditional Publishing Vs. Indie Publishing When you sign a traditional publishing contract you give away the rights to your story in order to get the book distributed. That means the publishing company has at least some say in what you do with the content you’ve written in the future. It also means that the publisher is most likely entitled to some sort of cut if your story is made into a TV show or movie. The theory behind getting traditionally published is that the publishing company will help you with some overhead in terms of creating and marketing of the book once it’s done. The truth is that a publishing company will help you with some initial overhead and might help you with the marketing, but in the end the author is responsible for most of the marketing activity anyway. And as an author’s career goes on, the publishing company takes less and less responsibility for helping the author with promoting the book. So if you’re going to be doing the majority of work anyway it makes sense that you get the majority of the profit and keep your rights intact. How to Use Indie Publishing to Get a Traditional Publishing Contract If you really want a traditional publishing contract you can still pursue that in this new world. It’s often easier for someone to get a traditional book contract if they’ve built an author platform by indie publishing their work and getting readers, before they approach agents and publishers. Publishers really only care about the bottom line. If you can prove to them that you already have an audience to sell to they’ll be much more interested in buying your book because you’ve proven that you have an audience to sell to. Indie Publishing and the Power of the Minimum Viable Product When self-publishing, what you want to do is create your minimum viable product. A Minimum viable product means you get your book to your audience as quickly as possible while making it the highest quality product you can using the resources you have. There are some people who are resistant to the idea of publishing a book before it’s pristine and perfect. The truth is you’re never going to have a perfect book. Every run of the traditionally published book has at least one copy with at least one typo or some other kind of error. When you indie publish you’re getting your product to the audience faster. This means you get feedback from the audience faster. It also means you can adjust what you’re doing faster if you need to. Knowledge is your most important asset when it comes to any business you are in. With indie publishing you get educated much quicker than if you were to get a traditional publishing contract and start your career that way. Indie Publishing and the Power of Community Another huge benefit of indie publishing is the community of authors that exists. The business of selling books is unlike any other. Despite what some would have you believe selling books is not a competitive business, especially on the indie publishing side. When you go to the grocery store and buy a particular brand of additional you’re more likely to stick with that brand than to try a new brand. The fact that you like John Grisham doesn’t mean that you’re only going to buy John Grisham books. When you’re publishing and marketing a new indie book, your best resources are going to be the authors who have come before you in the indie publishing space. Indie authors for the most part are approachable and they want to help new people. You can often contact them directly from their website. If you ask them a polite question often you will get a polite response with information that will help you be successful. Be Willing to Change Course If Necessary It’s important to realize that every author is different. What works for one author may not work for another. If you’ve released a few books and you’re not getting the sales that you’d like, look at what you’re doing and see if changing your approach might lead to different results. If you’re not selling many books you’re not losing much by changing the way you do things. Some people are very successful using KDP select. Others are more successful by choosing to build a wide author platform. The great thing about being an indie author is that almost nothing you do has to be permanent. Kevin once uploaded the wrong content file for a book that he published. He was able to fix that problem within 24 hours and contact the people who have downloaded the wrong version to help them update it. He was stressed the day it took to fix it but there were no lasting affects on his career. Amazon Exclusive vs. Publishing Wide Kevin suggests that new authors publish exclusively on Amazon for their first three books or so. Right now (April 2017) when you make your books exclusive to Amazon you have to do it 90 days at a time. When you go exclusive to Amazon you have a built-in group of readers for your book. You can give away the book for five days free, you can also put your book in Kindle Unlimited which allows subscribers to download your book for free while paying you more money than you would get for selling your book in many cases (as long as the person who downloads your book reads your book). This strategy gives you visibility you would not otherwise have as a new indie author. Kevin suggests that while you’re book is exclusive to Amazon you market beyond your Amazon readership so that you can build up anticipation in other markets. Once you have an established readership and you have a backlist of several books consider releasing your early books to other markets. This allows you to get the benefit of being exclusive to Amazon while at the same time getting the most readers for your work over time. The Importance of Thinking Long-Term and Writing More Than One Book There are some authors who are successful just by publishing one book. In those cases it’s usually because they’re an expert in some field and the book is a sort of business card to get them booked as a speaker or consultant. If you want to be a professional author the most important thing you can do after you write your first book is to write your second. Having a large backlist is a marketing tool in and of itself. Just think about it. If you’re a fan of romance are you more likely to buy the book from the author who has published their first book or the author who has 40 books published? Chances are unless you know the one book author you’re more likely to buy a book from the romance author who has 40 books out. The 40 book author has more points of entry for a reader. That means it’s more likely that you will pick up their book on your own and it’s more likely that the book will be recommended to you by someone you know who’s read it. The more content you have out in the world the easier it is to be discovered. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview http://www.draft2digital.com — and automated publishing platform that helps you distribute your books to many online booksellers. If you use draft to digital they take 10% of your royalties. http://kevintumlinson.com — The website for all things Kevin Tumlison   The post 131: Indie Publishing Strategy with Kevin Tumlinson appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Gregory has lived and worked in 50 countries and continues to help others along the path of self-fulfillment through exploration. Gregory’s books, Brand Identity Breakthrough and Travel As Transformation, are Amazon bestsellers, and his company Identity Publications helps authors grow their business with books, videos, and courses. Gregory published Brand Identity Breakthrough 10 months ago. Initially, he paid someone $5,000 to help him create the book and market it on Amazon. She took his money and did very little of what she promised him she would. That’s when he decided to approach as if someone hired him to create and promote his book. That mindset shift allowed him to come up with a marketing plan as he created the book. Gregory’s Marketing Strategy For Brand Identity Breakthrough When Gregory Published Brand Identity Breakthrough he was an unknown author. The first thing he did to market the book was recruit a team of beta readers. He realized he needed beta readers because he has a unique writing style that readers either love or hate, and he didn’t want any bad reviews as a new author to negatively impact his success. He built his team by going to people he already knew and by recruiting from business forums. He gave his beta readers credit in his book as well as sharing with them the process he went through to create and publish the book His beta readers really helped him clarify and organize his message so that it would be better understood by his target audience. “A finished book is more than the ingredients that go into it, it’s the way things are arranged as well.” — Gregory Diehl Gregory got the book to #1 in Amazon’s Public Relations category by putting it on preorder on Amazon and pricing it at 99 cents. He used his beta readers as his street team and got them to order and review the book. Then he sent a link to his preorder page to any blogger or podcaster who might like the book. Being ranked #1 in Public Relations on Amazon on the day of launch really helped the book find a bigger audience. Things to Consider When Designing a Book Cover 1. Who is your target audience? What are they looking for? People interested in business and nonfiction how- to books are going to expect a very different type of cover than say a romance or sciencn fiction reader. 2. Are there any common elements in the book covers of the top selling books in your category? How can you emulate them? 3. What images might provoke a reader to click on a book cover when browsing amazon? How to Split Test Your Book Cover Over the last 10 months Gregory has done a lot of tweaking to make sure his book packaging was optimized for sales. When he first published Brand Identity Breakthrough Gregory went with the cover provided by the woman he spent $5,000 on. The cover wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. After two months selling on Amazon he paid a team of graphic designers to come up with 6 different color schemes for the cover. And he manually uploaded a different cover every week. He left everything else the same and found that the red book cover he designed far outperformed his other options. Things to Remember When Split Testing for Sales Conversion 1. Start with a good product. Gregory did everything he could to be sure he was releasing a good product on the market. He recruited beta readers, clarified his message, and reorganized his material so that it made sense. Producing a quality product is the most important thing you can do as an author. A good product is your best marketing tool. 2. Establish a baseline. Gregory waited two months after his book went on sale before changing anything. This allowed him to develop a decent baseline to measure against. 3. Change one thing about your sales page and book packaging. If you try to change more than one thing, you won’t understand which change you made affected your sales. How to Use Beta Readers Get the Most Book Sales If you want to become a best selling author you really do need to pay attention to the marketing and sales strategy for your book. The most important person when it comes to marketing and sales is the customer. If customers who buy your book don’t like it, it’s impossible to get your book to stay a best seller because you’ll be lacking crucial word of mouth sales. The best way to prevent that from happening is to use beta readers. Beta readers are people who you think are like your target audience. You give them a copy of your book to read and they give you honest feedback about what they thought of the book. It’s best to use several beta readers so you can look for consensus viewpoints. If you use 10 beta readers and they all think something is confusing it might be worth revising. If they all like a particular point or section of the book, you might want to consider emphasizing that section in your book. If only one or two out of ten people don’t like something about your book then use your judgement in regards to how to respond to that feedback. If you ignore it entirely you should still try to understand why that person didn’t like whatever they didn’t like so you can exclude that type of person from your target audience when you publish and market the book. In order to use Beta Readers effectively, there are a few things you have to do as the author: 1. Ask for honest feedback. If you’re getting family and friends to be your beta readers then it’s important they give you honest feedback. If these people are just telling you what they think you want to hear, they’re not going to be valuable to you. 2. Ask for constructive feedback. If the person giving you negative feedback doesn’t give you constructive ways to improve the book or at least clear reasons why they didn’t like what you wrote, there’s really nothing you can do with that feedback. 3. Try not to take anything personally. It’s important to realize that you are not your audience, your beta readers are. So as much as possible listen to what they have to say without getting defensive. 4. Be willing to adjust based on feedback. It’s important that your willing to make adjustments to your book and/or how it’s positioned or marketed based on the constructive feedback you receive. If you aren’t, it defeats the purpose of using beta readers in the first place. 5 Essential Mindsets For the Creative Entrepreneur 1. Don’t take things personally. People make decisions and have opinions for all kinds of reasons. If someone has a negative opinion of you or your work, try to understand specifically why that is with the goal of improving. If you can’t get specific information move on and try to do better next time. 2. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Remember business and selling is about the consumer. Your job as an entrepreneur is to serve your audience. If you remember that your creation is about the customer and not you, you will go far. 3. Be open to new ideas. Things are constantly changing and evolving in the internet age. When you come across an idea that seems counter to your way of thinking, don’t dismiss it out of hand. Think about it from different angles. See if you find any truth in it. 4. Be creative. In the world we live in we are constantly dealing with new circumstances, obstacles and challenges. It’s important that we practice creative problem solving whenever possible. 5. Test everything. The only way you’re ever going to know if something works is to try it and measure the results. If you test everything and keep track of the data you’ll be able to make intelligent decisions that will move you closer to the success you want. A Final Thought “No matter what you produce not everyone is going to like it. You question then becomes do you change it so more people will like it, or do you just learn how to avoid the people who won’t?” Links and Resources Mentioned in The Interview Identity Publications — Gregory’s publishing company. They focus on messages of deep substance and complex value that take a lot of work to be presented as a book. Brand Identity Breakthrough — Gregory’s bestselling book on how to brand your business — Travel as Transformation — Gregory’s personal memoir about how traveling the world can help you grow as a person Intimacy On The Plate: 200+ Aphrodisiac Recipes to Spice Up Your Love Life at Home Tonight — A book of recipes. Look and see how the cover was designed to appeal to people interested in the subject matter   The post 130: Amazon Marketing Strategy and Beta Readers with Gregory Diehl appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Derek Doepker is the first guest to come back on the show for a third visit. In Episode 24 we talked about creating a great book marketing strategy for long-term success and some awesome tips on saving money when you self publish, and in Episode 94 we talked about developing a success mindset and some powerful personal development advice for authors and entrepreneurs. Today, Derek’s going to talk about the new Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) ads platform, and how you can use Amazon ads to skyrocket your book sales and earn a great ROI. Derek first experimented with Product Display Ads around 2014 when Amazon first rolled them out. He rarely made a profit with them. After two months of experimentation, he forgot about them. Product Display Ads appear on the right-hand side of the screen after the Also Bought section of book listings on Amazon book pages. In 2016 Amazon Released Sponsored Product Ads. Derek started experimenting with these ads immediately and his first experiments yielded additional book sales for his own books of $3,505 in just under eight weeks. The difference between Product Display Ads and Sponsored Product Ads is Sponsored Product Ads allow an author to target keywords for their book. Product Display Ads require you to target individual books. After his first experiments, Derek tried using Product Display Ads with books in other categories and got his students to experiment with them as well. What he found was Product Display Ads have the potential to be extremely profitable as long as the book you’re advertising converts well already. Amazon Ads Budget: How Much to Spend/Bid on a Campaign When setting up an Amazon Ads Campaign you want to consider two things. The first is your ROI and the second is your total sales. Your ROI is certainly important. You want to be profitable with any ad campaign you start. In the end though, total sales end up being more important. The more sales you have the larger your audience and the larger your reach is. The more sales you have the better you do in Amazon’s rankings, and the more sales you have the more money you make. If you want to bid conservatively you can bid $0.05 – $0.10 a word and you’ll be more likely to have a positive ROI. Bidding conservatively may lead to fewer impressions (displays of your ad) and fewer overall sales. If you bid $0.25 or more per click you will get more impressions and you’ll likely find more profitable keywords to use in your ad campaign over time because Amazon will show your ads to more readers. These keywords may be more expensive but they will often lead to more overall sales. Amazon will tell you the minimum budget for a campaign is $1/day. Derek thinks it’s best to budget between $3 to $5 per day for the first week. Derek likes a week of data to really tell how a campaign is going. So for around $20 you can test a campaign and see how it’s going to go. Setting up an Amazon Ads Campaign You can setup a campaign from your KDP dashboard. What you want to do is start an ad campaign and choose a “Sponsored Product” campaign. From there choose the book in your dashboard you want to advertise. At this point you can choose between “automatic targeting” and “manual targeting.” Manual targeting allows you tell amazon which keywords you want to advertise for. Amazon will allow you to have up to 1,000 keywords in a campaign. It’s best to cast a wide net when choosing keywords for your campaign. In general, more keywords lead to more profitable campaigns because you never really know which keywords will convert browsers into buyers until you test it. Amazon only charges you when people click on your ad. So if you have keywords that aren’t getting any clicks on your ads they won’t cost you anything. Pro Tip: If you don’t have a paperback version of your book, get one, especially if you’re running an Amazon Ads Campaign. It’s true that Amazon ads will take you to the kindle book page, but Derek and I have seen significant increases in paperback sales as well as ebook sales when running Amazon ad campaigns. If you don’t have a paperback version of your book you’re just leaving money on the table (Here’s a free guide to get your book published in paperback). Keyword Research for Amazon Ad Campaigns There are several different ways to approach keyword research when it comes to Amazon ads campaigns. 1. Look for popular authors and books in your genre. These will be good keywords to use in your campaign. Search across genres. Think about your audience. Who might be interested in your book? 2. Use amazon suggested searches. These are the searches that pop up as you’re searching in amazon’s search bar. Suggested searches are used a lot because they are what amazon has found people type in a lot to the search bar. 3. Use paid keyword research software. There are several software tools that give you information about what people are searching for on Amazon. There are links to some software in the links section below. 4. When you find a profitable keyword see if there are keywords related to that keyword that might also be profitable. 5. In general test out as many keywords as possible. You never know which keywords will be the best for you until you try them and find out. Ways to Minimize Your Risk in an Amazon Ads Campaign There are three ways to Minimize your financial risk when running an Amazon Ads 1. Bid conservatively – The first thing you need to realize is Amazon has built its ad platform so it’s really hard to spend a lot of money quickly, unless you bid high on your keywords. A reasonable bid for most categories if you’re just starting out is between $0.05 and $0.10 a click. This won’t be competitive for some keywords. But it’s a good starting point if you’re on a tight budget. 2. Cap your daily budget – You can cap your daily budget on an Amazon Ads Campaign so that no matter what, you’ll only spend a certain amount each day. 3. Set your campaign to run for a limited time – You can also set your campaign to only run for a certain length of time. This way you don’t have to worry about remembering to turn it off. This can be particularly effective if you set a daily cap on the amount you spend as well as setting an end date. If you set your budget to $3/day, and you set the campaign to end in a week, you know that you won’t spend more than $21 for your campaign. 4. Get educated – The best way to mitigate your risk is knowledge. The reason most people lose money when trying a new advertising strategy is they dive in without knowing how anything works. Get educated before you start, and you will save yourself time, money and frustration. How to Troubleshoot a Book that Isn’t Performing Well There are two areas to consider if your book isn’t performing well with Amazon Ads. 1. The book page – Does the book have a cover and description that converts well? If the book page itself doesn’t convert well to start with, you’re going to end up paying for traffic that doesn’t give you the results you want. 2. The Keywords You’re Targeting – If you know a book page converts well the next place you want to look for problems is in the ad campaign itself. You want to make sure the words you’ve chosen are relevant to the book you’re advertising. You also want to make sure the keywords you’re targeting aren’t too broad. If you choose a keyword like “book” you might get a lot of impressions and clicks but there’s no way of knowing where those people are coming from. It defeats the purpose of trying to define a target audience. 3. Change Your Bid – You may want to consider tweaking your bids. There are times when bidding less for keywords will actually lead to more sales. One of the factors Amazon uses when determining where and when to display ads is individual buyer preferences. Increasing your bids on keywords may help you get seen by people who Amazon would exclude because of their preferences. How to Track Your Amazon Ads Campaign Once it’s Going One major problem right now with Amazon Ads is the sales reporting is very poor. As of March, 2017, the Amazon Ads dashboard only gives you stats for your whole campaign on the day you check it. This means within Amazon’s dashboard it’s impossible to compare results over time. This is why it’s important to take screenshots of your Amazon Ads dashboard on a regular basis so you can see if a previously profitable campaign has become unprofitable. Derek suggests taking screenshots at least twice a week and as often as once a day. You should screenshot your overall campaign and keywords that are performing particularly well. There are going to be ups and downs with book sales. You shouldn’t worry too much about daily fluctuations. You should look for trends over time. When it comes to Ad Campaigns you really need at least a week of data, thousands of impressions and 100 clicks to come to any meaningful conclusions. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Recorded Q&A Training on Amazon Ads with in-depth tutorial on how to set up your Amazon book ads. ebookbestsellersecrets.com/innercircletom — Join Derek’s Inner Circle where he’ll give you one-on-one advice and help you tweak your marketing plan for your book. Publisher Rocket — An amazing keyword research tool for books on Amazon built by Dave Chesson. www.merchantwords.com — A website that helps you find keywords people are searching for on Amazon. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 129: Amazon Book Ads and Amazon Marketing Services with Derek Doepker appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Michelle Paisley Reed is an author, inspirational speaker, and spiritual channel. She’s written four screenplays and five books, including a bestseller we recently published together called Manifesting Miracles and Money: How to Achieve Peace, Purpose, and Plenty Without Getting in Your Own Way. Michelle is working on a new reality TV show called “Don’t Change The Channel.” Michelle has been a writer her whole life. Her love affair with writing began after she got a poem published in a literary magazine in the eighth grade. She became an instant celebrity at her school and has been a writer in one form or another ever since. Her love of reading and writing led her to become an English major in college. After college, she became a reporter because she needed a job to pay the bills. She rose through the ranks at her job very quickly and became a feature editor in short order. Her work allowed her to develop a strong writing habit. But it was very stressful so she took up yoga as a hobby. Eventually, she opened her own yoga studio. The first book she published was on yoga. How Meditation Can Boost Creativity This was a great interview packed with information. We talked about meditation and how it can help you become more creative. We also talked about mindfulness and how to develop intuition. This is a must listen for anyone who wants to achieve success more smoothly while enjoying the journey. Michelle has a process she calls channeling books. She meditates in the morning before writing, and then writes for as long as she’s moved to. When she was younger she used to try to hit targets. When she wrote like that she didn’t produce anything publishable. The greatest success comes to people who aren’t concerned about making money. They’d write books even if they weren’t paid a dime. It’s your passion and dedication to your work and your message that will drive you to write great books that readers will love. Everyone deserves a creative outlet. Your writing is your legacy. A good writer is always changing and growing. You’re going to write different books and evolve as a writer through time. Getting Your Ego Out of The Way We all have wants, needs, and desires. They have their place and can be useful. The problem is your wants, needs, and desires can also block you from a higher form of expression. If you practice meditation it can lead to a deeper wisdom and allow you to tap into a higher form of expression. The next step is to realize that you aren’t creating the book yourself, you’re merely the channel it’s coming through. Meditation can also help silence the constant inner monologue we all play in our heads, and allow us to be open to flashes of insight and intuition that allow us to move in the direction we’re supposed to go in this life. It’s also important to understand that our ego is something we all carry with us as long as we’re alive. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you learn how to function outside your ego through meditation and reflection, you will be more successful, productive, and happier. Developing a meditation practice can take time. Don’t give up if it doesn’t seem to work at first. There are many different meditation practices. Tips for Starting a Meditation Practice If you’re just starting out or haven’t gotten into the habit of meditating on a regular basis, try starting with a guided meditation. Using guided meditation is easy because all you have to do is listen to the meditation and relax. You can meditate doing almost anything. You don’t have to sit in the lotus position to meditate. The primary aims of meditation are to quiet the mind, help you become fully present in the moment, and help you find inner peace. Meditation is a learned skill. Start easy. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Find a meditation practice that fits who you naturally are. If you like to walk, walk around your neighborhood. If you work all day take a couple minutes during your lunch break, go outside and appreciate the beauty of the world around you. Meditation is all about paying attention to the present moment and quieting the constant inner mind chatter and thoughts about your future and your past. If you’re fully present in the moment, that’s the place where you can access insights and intuition that will help you live a happy, productive, successful life. When trying to create a meditation practice for yourself, look towards activities that you enjoy. Those will most likely be your shortest route to success in figuring out what works for you. The real power of meditation is its ability to open you up and allow you to be your best, happiest self. When you’re happy and energetic you attract other people into your world and they will want to be around you. Meditation Made Simple 1. Focus on your breath. 2. When you have a thought, imagine it’s a cloud in the sky and let it drift away. 3. Repeat as necessary until the end of your meditation session. Meditation as a Way of Life Meditation isn’t an act you do. It’s just a way of being in the world. Meditation and Mindfulness help remove your fears and doubts so you can access your creativity more easily. It’s important to understand nobody is perfect and nobody is going to be successful at maintaining a meditative mindset 100% of the time. Don’t impose the tyranny of perfection on yourself. Just do the best you can every day, recognize your imperfections, and try to do better next time. Laugh when you mess up—don’t take yourself too seriously. Some days are always going to be harder than other days. Sometimes you’re just tired. The mind will often go to a place of fear and anxiety when the body is tired. Give yourself the time and space you need to rest and recover. The more you meditate and experience the effects it will have on your life and relationships, the more you will hunger for that kind of being in the world. You’ll also spread positive energy in the world and people will be drawn to you. People sense inner peace on an unconscious level and they want to be around that energy. Meditation in all its forms can help you along the path to inner peace. When you empty yourself of fear and anxiety you raise your vibrational level and you’ll find you make connections easily with people on the same level as you. The Problem with Goals Goals are important. People are far more successful with goals than without them.The problem with goals is when you become so focused on the destination that you give no thought to the actions you can take in the moment to get you where you want to go. Every moment is an opportunity for you to take action and improve your life in whatever way it needs improving. The future will take care of itself if you concentrate on moving forward from where you are right now. The problem with goals is when you become so focused on the destination that you give no thought to the actions you can take in the moment to get you where you want to go. Every moment is an opportunity for you to take action and improve your life in whatever way it needs improving. The future will take care of itself if you concentrate on moving forward from where you are right now. The Power of Inspired Action Inspired action comes from a place of following your intuition. If you practice meditation and follow your intuitive insights life isn’t hard anymore. You simply connect with people who are on the same wavelength as you, and together you amplify each other’s energy. It’s important to not try forcing outcomes to happen. When you have a goal that you’re laser-focused on, it can cause tunnel vision which doesn’t leave room for the bigger picture to emerge. Working With People Who Have the Same Values Values  are beliefs that you have. Beliefs are thoughts you have over and over again. Thoughts can originate within you or they can come from your family, friends and society. We are all beings of light. There are times when people may hurt us because they don’t understand this truth or they’re too focused on themselves to see they’re causing us pain. There are times when you’re going to want to distance yourself from those people. Other times, you can’t distance yourself from those people because they’re family. In cases where you can’t distance yourself from someone who is negative or hurting you, Michelle has found a powerful solution is to visualize shining healing light on the situation. Understand as you distance yourself from other people, it’s not necessarily forever. People are constantly growing and changing. People often fall in and out of each other’s lives. Go with the flow and stay present. Above all just try not to force situations or relationships. Things have a way of working themselves out if you just get out of the way and seek out people who are like-minded (functioning on your vibrational level). It’s also important to realize you aren’t here to change anybody. Everyone is here for a purpose and to learn their own lessons. They’ll change if and when they’re ready to change. The best thing for you to do is keep seeking out people who are going in the direction you want to be going in. Intuition is a Sense Like Any Other Intuition is sometimes called the sixth sense. Everybody is born with the power of intuition to varying degrees. Intuition manifests in different ways for everyone. Some people hear messages. Some people have dreams that come true. Some people get a gut feeling. These messages can come from higher spiritual beings. They can come from your higher self. They can also come from older or younger versions of you. Quantum Mechanics tells us that time is a human construct. How to Develop Intuition You develop your intuition by using it and honoring the messages you receive when you receive them. As you use your intuition more, it will develop and you’ll begin to understand it and yourself better. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Manifesting Miracles and Money: How to Achieve Peace, Purpose, and Plenty Without Getting in Your Own Way https://michellepaisleyreed.com/ — Michelle’s Website https://www.wearethepowerof10.com/ — Information on Group readings and a free audio file of a group reading A youtube channel featuring Michelle Paisley Reed Michelle Paisley Reed’s Amazon Page Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 128: How Meditation, Mindfulness, and Intuition Can Boost Creativity with Michelle Paisley Reed appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Chris Fox is the best selling author of several books on Amazon including No Such Thing As Werewolves. He used to be an iPhone and iPad app developer before transitioning to be a full-time author. He’s written several sci-fi/fantasy books as well as several helpful nonfiction books for authors. In episode 52 week talk about Chris’s journey and how to find your target audience. If you haven’t listened to that episode I strongly recommend it. Today Chris and I talked about how to get Amazon to sell more of your books by understanding how their data science and marketing systems work. This was a great interview with a lot of information on marketing your books on Amazon. Using Data Science to Sell More Books on Amazon Data science is being used everywhere in the world today, especially on the Internet. Websites gather two types of data: anonymous data, and personal data. Anonymous data is collected through the use of tracking pixels that track what websites you visit from the various links you click on. Personal data is collected any time you set up an account at a store, website or a social networking site. When websites collect personal data they’re not going to know you as a person, but they will be able to make guesses about your tastes and preferences as well as your buying behavior based on the information you give them when you set up your account. Every website you visit, everything you purchase, and every interaction you have online is monitored and recorded. Using this information, data scientists can make informed decisions about who you are and what you like to buy. The cool thing for authors is you can use data science to help you sell more books on Amazon—and the results can be huge! The Martian: A Book Marketing Case Study Andy Weir first wrote The Martian as serialized fiction on his blog. As he wrote it, he released the book one chapter at a time for free. By writing the book and interacting with his readers he amassed an e-mail list of about 10,000 people. When he finished the book his audience asked him to put it up on Amazon. After he put his book on Amazon he e-mailed his list of 10,000 hardcore sci-fi fans that the book was available for $0.99. Very quickly Amazon sold thousands of copies of The Martian. When Amazon’s data science algorithms kicked in, Amazon showed the book to more sci fi fans, and a lot of hardcore science-fiction fans bought and really liked the book. So Amazon began promoting it to other hardcore science fiction fans, and more people bought the book. This caused Amazon to promote it to more people which caused more sales, and the cycle continued. Amazon’s data science algorithms have the potential to make a good or great book that is loved by a certain type of reader “go viral” and sell thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of copies. The key to Andy’s success was he sent targeted traffic to Amazon (and he had a great book that readers loved). The reason that’s important is because the people who bought Andy’s book also bought other science fiction stories, and that caused The Martian to show up in the also bought section for people who bought other popular science fiction novels. It’s important to promote your book to targeted readers who read books in your niche or genre. The first 100 to 500 sales of your book are very important because they train Amazon’s algorithm to find your ideal readers. You want to make sure Amazon is showing your book to the right audience—and if you send untargeted folks (like friends and family) to buy your book on Amazon, you could be shooting yourself in the foot. If you tell your friends and family that your publishing a book on Amazon and they don’t normally buy books in your genre, that will lead to a poor conversion rate when it comes to people who click on your book from the also bought section. That will tell Amazon that your book isn’t profitable for them to promote so Amazon won’t promote your book. How to Find Your Target Market 1. Start by making a list of the genres you’re interested in writing in. 2. Browse those categories on Amazon. Look to see how crowded that market is. The more competitive a category is, the harder it will be for a new author to break into that category. 3. Once you’ve satisfied yourself that you can break into that market, and that market has a large enough audience to be worth your time, buy 3 – 5 books in the genre and read them. 4. Make notes on genre conventions. See if there are similarities between the books. 5. Read the reviews of the books that you buy. Make notes of what people liked and didn’t like about the different stories. Keep those elements in mind as you design your story. This article on how to become a bestselling author on Amazon talks more about the process of finding your ideal readers, with step-by-step instructions and examples. Using Paid Ads To Market to Your Target Audience Chris uses Facebook ads and Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) ads to help get his book in front of targeted readers. He doesn’t have a budget for the first 30 days after he publishes on Amazon. During the first 30 days he wants to sell as many copies as he possibly can to help boost visibility on Amazon’s algorithm going forward. He doesn’t recommend this approach to new authors, because it’s very easy to lose a lot of money when you don’t know what you’re doing. Chris spends $2,000 a month on Facebook and Amazon ads when he’s not launching a book, and averages $3,000 on every month long book launch. He makes the money back on increased visability over the long term. Chris’s approach to Amazon ads is to use every keyword he can think of. He often finds the best performing keywords are ones he doesn’t expect. Here’s a tip: sign-up for an Amazon Associates account. That will allow you to create custom links so you can track sales and which ad campaigns they come from. One important thing to remember about Facebook ads is the more that you can narrow down your audience, the better your conversions will be, and the lower your cost per click will be. Another important thing to consider when using Facebook and Amazon ads is whether you’re marketing the first book in a series or a standalone book. When you’re marketing the first book in a series you can afford to spend more money because some of your audience will buy the next book in the series. Writing to Market vs Writing Your Passion Project Chris believes it’s possible to make a living writing stories without necessarily writing to market. He points out that however you create your stories, you have to find an audience for them. Amazon already has an audience of readers who you know will buy books. Because of the way Amazon has structured its store, this audience of readers is easy to study. You simply read reviews and look at the “customers also bought” lists. If you’re going to write a story without studying Amazon’s marketplace first, you have to find your customers in different places. Chris has found it’s much easier to study Amazon’s marketplace and find readers who are looking for a certain type of book. A lot of people want to write stories that cross genres or break genre conventions. Cross-genre books are much harder to market and sell because people who browse on Amazon don’t have anything to compare them to, and a confused customer is a customer who will not buy. The Importance of Segmenting Your Audience Chris writes for several audiences. He writes nonfiction books about how to sell more books as an indie author. He writes military science-fiction. He also writes urban fantasy. He currently has nine different email lists. Having nine different lists allows him to make sure he is sending the right messages to the right audience. He does do some cross promotion when it makes sense. For instance, he is currently doing a series of videos for his nonfiction readers about how to write a trilogy in 12 weeks. He’s doing that series about a new sci-fi military trilogy he is writing. This will get the word out among the people who like his nonfiction on selling books that he has military science-fiction available. People who really like science fiction will probably go and check it out. Networking with Successful Authors Chris attributes some of his success to the fact that he’s been able to network with several authors more successful than he is. Chris has a simple networking technique. He searches for authors in his genre, finds their e-mail address, and then e-mails them with a question he wants answered. The key to networking is to approach it like you’re building an important relationship—because you are. You should never e-mail an author and simply ask them to promote your book to their list. Always be thinking “how can I had value to this person?” Approach your interactions with a willingness to learn and you will go far. LinkedIn can be a great resource to help you find, connect, and build relationships with other authors and experts in your field. Here’s a free guide on how to use LinkedIn to build your network. Links and Resources Mentioned in The Interview Chris Fox’s YouTube channel. Here is where you can find the 12 weeks to a trilogy series of videos chrisfoxwrites.com — Chris’s author website. Write to market — Chris’s book about how to write to market Six-Figure Author — Chris’s book on how to make six figures a year as an indie author. No Such Thing As Werewolves — Chris’s sci-fi thriller containing werewolves. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 127: How Amazon Data Science Can Help You Sell More Books with Chris Fox appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Joel Kessel is the founder of Kessel Communications, a strategic communications agency that helps businesses communicate better. Joel specializes in media relations and PR Strategy for business owners and thought leaders. During his sophomore year in college, Joel got into a small talk with a news reporter while waiting for his shift. The news reporter gave him a very bleak picture of how his life would be in the radio industry and he persuaded Joel to work in public relations. In the fall, Joel went back to school and he ended up majoring in journalism with a focus on Public Relations (PR). After he graduated in Ohio, he went to Chicago to start his career in PR and he has been doing it for 24 years. This is an awesome interview where Joel talks about how to make journalists more receptive to your message, how to use his PESO model for public relations, how to build relationships with top influencers, and how to be the leader in your niche. Public Relations Strategy Today anyone can call themselves a reporter or media person if they have a laptop or a cellphone. But when Joel talks about media, he’s talking about journalists—professionally trained people from a reputable company. So how do you get journalists and key influencers in the media to be more receptive of your message? Put yourself in a journalist’s shoes. Today, we are bombarded with messages, stories, and “news” constantly. Because of challenges like fake news, social media algorithms, and what’s trending, a journalist’s job has changed in the past decade from a nine-to-five job to a 24/7 search for new and important stories. The first thing a journalist looks at is the source. Where did the information come from? A lot of people look at Facebook for their news and that’s okay. But if you want to find out what’s true, you still have to look at the source and determine how reputable and credible the source is. You want to become that kind of source that journalists can trust. To become the source of news and leader in your market, there are four areas to look at, and it’s called the PESO model. PESO Model of Media Strategy Paid Media – This is where you pay someone to say something nice about you or get your message out. Earned Media – An example is the podcast show you are listening to right now. Tom allowed Joel to talk about his expertise in his platform. Joel didn’t pay Tom to get on this platform; he earned his media placement because of his expertise. Shared Media – These are the sharing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and the like. Owned Media – These are your books, website, blogs, and other content platforms that you own. This includes all the content you make to educate and add value to readers and people you are looking to connect and engage with. If you start with an integrated approach in these four areas, it’s going to help elevate the likelihood of getting your message out there in a big way. Joel said, “don’t look at these four areas as separate buckets.” Use the PESO model to get the same message across in variety of ways because some people today are consuming information in different ways. Craft your story and get it out there. Develop a Media Marketing Plan Even before you start looking into the PESO model, you need to have a media plan and this is how Joel does it. 1. Start with your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? What would success look like a year from now? Is it selling x amount of books? Is it to have x amount of people connected on Facebook? 2. Talk about your audience. Who are your ideal readers and ideal customers? Where do they hang out? How do they get their information? More importantly, what are their pain points? What frustrates them? How do you insert yourself to share your message in way that they will appreciate the most? 3. Create a message map. This means listing problems, challenges, and frustrations, and then providing solutions to help alleviate some of those problems and some of those results. You don’t have to hire a full-blown agency to do this for you because you are going to spend a lot of money ($5,000 a month and up) and expectations may not be met. You can do great public relations work on your own, but you have to get a guidance, get a coach, get an advisor or a consultant that will lead you down the right path. Connect with Top Influencers or Media People in your Industry When it comes to media relations, it’s really about how you build relationships with the media. 1. PR Should be Done Online and Offline Relationships are the backbone of any successful engagement in life. Most people fail to build great relationships and that’s why they fail to get great PR results. Joel said he is doing social media, conversing with people through Twitter, but he also attends conferences to meet people face-to-face and these turn into long-term relationships. He is now part of a mastermind group based on a group of people he met on conferences. This group is throughout the country and he’s getting a lot of benefits from it. Don’t lose sight of the importance of relationships—and make sure to build them online and offline. 2. Lead With a Servant’s Mindset If you want to connect with top influencers or people you feel are going to help you get your message across, first you have to give and not expect anything in return. Here’s what you can do to engage the top influencers or media people in your market. Identify them in Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest Connect with them by offering value first Follow them, retweet their information or call them out Share their content Invest in them by going to their program or live event If you do this thinking, “I’m going to do this because I’m going to get x results,” you’ll be really frustrated. Think about how you can help them and how you can spread their message. The media are spread thin—reduced budget, reduced staff—so the easier you can make it for them to write stories and produce stories and do their job, the more they would want to appreciate you and the more they are going to come back to you in the future. 3. Don’t Focus on the Money Joel said don’t ask yourself how you can get more money. You have to ask yourself “how can I help more people?” People lead with income and that’s where frustration starts because they are not making the money they need. If all you’re interested in is money, people will see right through that. Mind mentoring coach Kary Oberbrunner talks about the Deeper Path Pay Off and that there’s six steps to create any dream. It starts with clarity, where you’re going, why you’re doing it and what you’re doing. Clarity leads to competence which leads to more confidence in what you are doing which leads to impact or influence among the people you are serving, and then it leads to income. 4. Make Preparations Before going to the point of developing your media influencer lists, you need to prepare to show how serious you are. Joel worked with an author a few months ago and this author worked hard on his press kit. He had cold feet and almost backed out but Joel was able to persuade him to continue. This author sent emails to five people within a week and he got four replies in return. The first email he sent, the person responded and wrote, “Great press kit, you got it all together. It’s concise. It’s clear. I really appreciate that. Let’s go through it and schedule a time to talk.” 5. Don’t be Afraid of Niching Joel shared that sometimes, when he has strategy sessions with his clients, they end up with 27 audiences. And you can’t really focus your energy on 27 audiences. Take the top two or three that are really going to benefit from your book or services and that’s where you are going to focus. This is essentially niching. About a year and half ago, Joel realized that he has to practice what he preaches about niching. He worked with non-profits all his life and he worked with authors because he loves stories. He said that there are a lot of good stories by authors out there that was never heard of because they don’t know the right steps or the right process to get their story out there. Once he got the clarity that what he wants is to help authors to get their stories out in a meaningful way and continue to help non-profit, he got super focused and work become so much more fun. This doesn’t mean you are going to forget about everybody else, it just means that that’s where your marketing communication focus is. Get your system in place and if you have a spill over from other audience, serve them the way you serve your top two and three. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview www.joelkessel.com – Go to Joel’s blog site for free resource, offerings, free advice and tips on how to get publicity for your book Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 126: Public Relations Strategy and Building Better Relationships with Media and Influencers appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Adam is a preacher, teacher, novelist and #1 international bestselling author of over 100 books on the Christian faith. With over 2 million books distributed, his titles range from devotionals, to prayer books, to Christian inspiration, and inspirational fiction. This was a quick interview loaded with information. In this podcast we talk about Amazon’s algorithm, the right way to launch a book, and the right way to do book promotion. Three years ago Adam retired for medical reasons. He was buried in medical bills and his wife was the only source of income his family had. As a stay-at-home dad with time on his hands, he decided to write a book. He had an idea that had been rattling around in his head for years. He wrote it and published it. The book The Power and the Passion didn’t do very well and isn’t available anymore on Amazon. Fortunately, Adam wrote a second book at the same time. It was much shorter and with very little work on Adam’s part the book stuck in Amazon’s algorithm. It made about $10 a day without Adam promoting it. That’s when a lightbulb went off for Adam and he realized that if he learned how the system worked he could find an audience and make a living selling books on Amazon. Understanding Amazon’s Algorithm Amazon is more than a store. Amazon is a search engine. When you go to the Amazon search bar to search for something Amazon is going to try and find the things most related to your search that it can to serve your interests as a customer. You will find that certain customers will search for certain keywords, and if you can create a product that aligns with those customers needs and your product ends up converting for Amazon, Amazon will give you greater visibility so you have more of a chance of converting for them. This is a win-win situation. You get more customers because of more visibility, Amazon gets more sales and more money, and customers are happy. Why Book Launches Are Important It’s important to have a book launch plan to attract the attention of Amazon’s algorithm so that you can have greater visibility over the long-term. To understand how to best implement a book launch plan you have to understand what behavior Amazon is trying to reward. Amazon wants to promote entrepreneurs who are continuously marketing their work. If an entrepreneur is continuously marketing their work available on Amazon, that means Amazon gets more traffic, more customers and more money. So it’s in their vested interest to give visibility to those people who are marketing their work themselves. Think of it this way. Amazon is partnering with you and recognizes that you are the type of person that will promote your own work. So Amazon gives you a bigger platform to promote your work which in turn gives you a bigger platform to drive traffic back to Amazon. Before you launch your book you need to: 1. Choose the right categories for your book. They need to be categories that get enough traffic so that you can get a decent number of sales and they need to be relevant to the book you’re selling. 2. Choose the right keywords for your book. Like categories featured the keyword terms that people search for that are relevant to your book. How to Do a Book Launch To Gain Visibility and Get Noticed by Amazon’s Algorithm Amazon is constantly updating their algorithm. Amazon’s goal is to have as many happy customers of possible. That’s why they reward long-term sales. As of February 2017 this is the best way to launch your book. 1. Optimize your Amazon product page by getting the best cover you can, choosing the best keywords and writing the best product description possible. 2. Search for book blogs that will promote your books. There’s a list of good book blogs below. You pay these book blogs to drive traffic to your book. 3. After the book blogs have even knew a steady source of traffic for about a week, that’s when you use your big e-mail list if you have one or Facebook ads to scale up your visibility. Caution the only way to get the best results is to do all of these things together. If you don’t follow every step you aren’t going to get the results you want.   Advice for New and Aspiring Authors If you are a new author book blogs will help you build a fan base more quickly than you can by yourself. It’s important to realize long-lasting success on Amazon takes time. If you’re promoting your first book do as much if you can within reason. Don’t spend money you can’t afford to try and strike it rich. Use book blogs to build up your mailing list and readership. If you keep producing good work and satisfying your audience sooner or later you will be able to launch a book big enough to get the kind of visibility you want. Start where you’re at. It’s possible to create and market your books very expensively at the beginning. As you publish more books you’ll become better at the process and grow your audience. Every book you publish will be a learning process whether it’s a commercial success or not. If you publish a book and don’t get results you want don’t give up. Analyze your results in figure out why and do better the next time. Book Promotion Resources Promote your Free Book freebooksy.com bknights on fiverr http://fkbt.com/for-authors/ Promote your Kindle Book for sale http://kindlenationdaily.com/ — Adam has only ever used option 6 http://www.bookgorilla.com/ http://ereadernewstoday.com/ — scroll down to the bottom of the page to submit your book. http://ohfb.com — Offers listings for free and deeply discounted books Other Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview http://www.adamhouge.org/ — Adam’s homepage http://www.thefanbaseformula.com/ — sign up here to get free video training on Amazon’s algorithm and how to build your fanbase. Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 125: How to do a Book Launch that Will Get Your Book Noticed by Amazon with Adam Houge appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Derek Murphy is the bestselling author of several books including his new novel Shearwater. Derek has a wealth of experience in the publishing industry as a professional editor, cover designer, consultant, keynote speaker, and as a bestselling nonfiction and fiction author. This is our second time interviewing Derek. In episode 37 we talked about how to make book covers that sell books. This time we talk about book marketing strategies and how to use the book giveaways alongside Facebook ads to quickly build your e-mail list. Derek also had some interesting things to say about the difference between marketing for nonfiction and marketing for fiction books. Fiction vs. Nonfiction: How the Markets Are Different Fiction readers tend to read 10x more books than nonfiction readers. Fiction readers are more loyal. It’s much easier to convince a fiction reader to buy more of your books. If they like your writing they will want more of that experience. The secret to making money in Kindle Unlimited is to keep your audience reading longer. The longer they read the more page reads you have and the more money you make. If you put a book out permafree and it gets a high rank, Derek has found that if you switch the book over to paid the rank tends to be sticky. He switched over one of his books from free to paid and it has been consistently ranking in the top 2,000 books of the Kindle store for over a month. He’s making about $2,000 a month with that book right now—a book that started as permafree. Not bad for a free book! Readers tend to get even more excited about fiction than nonfiction—your loyal fans will go out of their way to support you if you communicate with them and ask them for help. Writing fiction requires different skill sets than writing nonfiction. Building An Author Platform: Book Marketing for Authors While writing fiction is different than writing nonfiction, the skills required to market your work are universal. It’s important to take the long view if you want to be a professional writer. It takes time to write stories and build the type of loyal audience that will buy every book you write. Giving away some of your books for free is a powerful way to market your work, especially if you’ve optimized your Amazon product page for keywords so that people can find you. A lot of authors say they refuse to give away their books for free because they don’t want to train their audience to expect free books. But many successful businesses give away free samples all the time. When was the last time you tried a free sample at the grocery store? You may not buy the product right then and there, but you’ll be more likely to buy it the next time you see it, if you liked it, because the product is more familiar to you. The food company allowed you to try their product with zero risk. When you offer your book for free, you allow a customer to try your book without risk. It’s much easier for you to find an audience when there is no barrier of entry to the world to create. The key to building a platform without doing a lot of book promotion is to make sure that you put your books on the right “bookshelf.” This means choosing the right category and subcategory for your book and optimizing your product page so that people find your book when they search for keywords. Once you have your book published on Amazon, experiment with tweaking your book description every so often by using different keywords in it. Your book description stays with your book forever. The return on investment of writing a better description is way better than advertising because as soon as you stop advertising there is a danger that your book will sink again. Kindle Unlimited and Pricing Derek has found that if you price a fiction book at $0.99 and offer it through Kindle Unlimited the rank will stick higher because more people will buy who aren’t in Kindle Unlimited. The higher rank translates into greater visibility so that people who do use Kindle Unlimited will see your book more and borrow it. If the book is good they’ll read to the end and you can get much more money for that customer then you would if you price the book at $5 Because of the way the Kindle Unlimited works where authors get paid per page reads, fiction books tend to be more profitable than nonfiction books in Kindle Unlimited because fiction books are longer. Book Giveaways and Facebook Ads: A Simple E-Mail Marketing Strategy to Build a Massive List. Here’s an easy way to build a massive list of responsive followers. 1. Find 10 best-selling books in your genre. 2. Buy them with the intention of giving them away. 3. Setup a giveaway on one of the sites mentioned below in the links and resources section. 4. Start a Facebook ad campaign and target people who liked the books you bought. Tell them about the giveaway that you’re doing. 5. Make sure that in order to enter the giveaway your prospect has to enter their e-mail address. 5. At the end of the giveaway is randomly select a winner and send them their prize. When doing a giveaway it’s best to keep it simple. Sometimes authors will do a joint giveaway and share the list. More often than not it’s more work for less benefit, because people end up unsubscribing from the majority of e-mail lists they subscribe to to enter the giveaway. It’s best to do it yourself and use the list for your own benefit. It’s simpler and you will get a much better return on investment if you do it that way. Derek will set up the giveaway on gleam, King sumo, or rafflecopter. Then he spends about $100 in targeted Facebook ads finding people who liked the books that are in his giveaway bundle. If the price is good enough people will share to get a better chance at winning. If you are an expert that offers a service you might consider offering your service as the prize. This will get a group of people who are interested in what you have to offer, and it’s a way of offering value without having to spend money. Write to Market Derek says a lot of writers are afraid of writing to market because they want their writing to be “good.” If you consciously choose to write books for yourself rather than for a larger audience, recognize that’s a choice. It’s important to write books people want to read. The best way to know what people want to read is to study the market. Read reviews of books in your category. Get a handle on reader expectation. If you give a reader the experience they expect from your book they will buy your next book and every book that follows, until you don’t give them the type of story they expect. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Publishing Proffits Podcast 37: Designing Beautiful ebook Covers that Sell http://www.creativindie.com/ — Derek’s blog where he talks about indie publishing and marketing Shearwater— Derek’s best-selling mermaid romance Derek’s Amazon author Central page Three Sites Derek Recommends for Setting up Giveaways https://www.rafflecopter.com https://gleam.io/app/competitions http://kingsumo.com/ Like this post? Click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest!). The post 124: Author Derek Murphy Shares Marketing Advice appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Craig Ballantyne has been the Editor of the personal development newsletter, Early To Rise, since 2011. His daily essays reach over 150,000 readers and teach people how to build their wealth, improve their health, and become the best version of themselves. He now coaches entrepreneurs around the world how to turn their ideas into money and to help people all over the world. Craig is also a fitness expert and the author of the groundbreaking fat loss workout systems, Turbulence Training, and Home Workout Revolution. He has been a contributing author to Men’s Health magazine since 2000. He created the Turbulence Training Certification program to show personal trainers how to help men and women lose weight without equipment or cardio exercise. There are hundreds of TT Trainers around the world dedicated to his 10 Million Mission of helping ten million men and women transform their lives before 2020. Craig has an advanced research background, completing a Master of Science Degree in Exercise Physiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He continues to study the latest in health and performance and to help his readers improve their lives. This is a great interview. We talk about time management, how to be your most productive, book marketing, and how to create a sales funnel from a nonfiction book. If you’re a nonfiction author Craig gives you a model you can use to create a six- or seven-figure business with your expertise. Time Management The Three C’s of Time Management 1. Control what you can. Craig chooses to control his morning because it’s the easiest time of day for him to control. 2. Cope with what you can’t control. 3. Concentrate on What Counts. Figure out your highest value activities. As much as you can, focus on the activities that will move you toward your goals. Craig attributes his success as a blogger and author to dedicating the first hour of the day when he wakes up to writing content. The 1% Solution If you don’t have an hour a day, just wake up 15 minutes before anyone else and spend 15 minutes a day on your highest priority task. Arnold Schwarzenegger did the math and 15 minutes a day is 1% of your time. If you spend 1% of your time every day on your most important task you will achieve your goals far faster than you ever thought possible. If you commit 15 minutes a day to writing your book, you could have a manuscript ready to publish in as little as 10 to 12 weeks. The secret is to outline what you’re going to write the night before. Go to sleep and let your subconscious work on how to craft the words. If you have a rough outline done, writing on a blank page will be much easier. Alice Monroe once said “Write in the slivers of time.” Craig says that everyone has Magic Time where they are three times more effective than the rest of the day. The best way to increase productivity is to figure out what time of the day that is for you and then protect that time from distractions. For many people it is the morning when they first wake up. For some people it’s early in the afternoon, and others are night owls. If you’re not sure when you’re Magic Time is, just pay attention to how you feel throughout the day for a a few days It may help to write down what you do with your time. When do you feel most alert and awake? When you feel like you have the most energy? Once you’ve discovered when you’re Magic Time is, it’s important to protect it from distractions so that you can be your most productive self. It’s important to have separate blocks of time scheduled for creative activities and business activities. The creative mind and the business mind can’t peacefully work together during the same blocks of time. It’s best if you set aside certain blocks of time for different types of activity. If you want to be more successful than you currently are, one of the most important things you can do is hang out with people who are more successful than you. Your level of success can be measured by the five people you spend the most time with. Choose to spend your time with people who will make you strive to get to their level. Book Marketing Craig does two things to market his book. First, he does as many podcasts as he can to get his message out there. He came up with this strategy after talking to his mentor Dan Kennedy who said that every time he does a teleseminar call he sells 100 books. Craig thought if teleseminars can do that for Dan Kennedy, each podcast interview might be worth 20 sales of his book. In 2016 alone, Craig has done over 100 podcast interviews. The benefits of these interviews go well beyond direct sales. Podcast interviews have made Craig a better communicator and have allowed him to tighten up the sales pitch for his book. The other thing that Craig has done to promote his book is create The Perfect Day Formula Kit. This is a $200 info product full of worksheets and exercises to help you become your most productive self. The most powerful thing that Craig has done from a business standpoint is to create a sales funnel. How to Create a Sales Funnel A sales funnel is simply a line of products that get your customers to buy more than one thing from you. Most sales funnels have a mix of low-end entry-level products and big-ticket items in them. The sales funnels generally follow a progression from the least expensive item to the highest priced item. For example, Craig sales funnel goes like this: 1. You buy Craig’s book for $20 on Amazon 2. From there you find out about his Perfect Day Formula Kit priced at $200 3. From there he offers webinar coaching at $500 4. From there he offers small group coaching (up to five people) for $5000 a person. 5. If you want one-on-one coaching from Craig he offers a day-long intensive for $25,000 This model can be replicated for just about any sort of information product you can think of. 1. A book at the entry-level 2. A more in-depth info product for around $200 3. More personalized coaching for around $500 4. More in-depth and personalized coaching for $5000 5. One-on-one coaching for $25,000 -$50,000 If you want to increase your sales and income, create a better sales funnel and make sure you are providing as much value as you possibly can to your audience. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview freeperfectdaybook.com — Get a free copy of Craig’s book Perfect Day Formula Kit — Have the benefit of Craig’s personal coaching with this Kit www.EarlytoRise.com — A daily newsletter that publishes on the topics of Health, Wealth, Self – Improvement and lifestyle www.TTFatLoss.com — Get Craig’s advice on exercise and weightloss Books Craig Recommends Daily Rituals: How Artists Work Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat Seven Years to Seven Figures: The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft Liked this post? Please click on the image below and share this on your favorite Social Media Platform (like Pinterest)!   The post 123: Time Management for Writers and Sales Funnels with Craig Ballantyne appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Kathy Meis is the founder and CEO of Bublish, the world’s first complete publishing solution with integrated brand-building, marketing and discoverability features. Kathy’s career began when she graduated Indiana State. As a reporter she worked for Forbes building the editorial brand from scratch. When the Internet emerged as the new way to communicate and connect with one another Kathy witnessed respected editorial brands in the print media become fractured. As a freelance writer and ghostwriter of business books she began to think about the problem and how to fix it. She realized that the container of content was very important to the brand itself. She created bublish as a sort of “online container” to help authors maintain a consistent brand on the web, and to re-create the experience of browsing a bookshelf online. Book Metadata Metadata is data about your book. Before the Internet metadata was a backend product publishers used to help books navigate the distribution process. It was a way for publishers, bookstore owners, and librarians to organize the books they had to help consumers find what they want. Today, metadata is a consumer facing process. That is, consumers are using the search engine algorithms to comb through metadata and find what they’re looking for. This makes it more important than ever that content creators create appropriate metadata to make their content discoverable by their ideal reader. The world is so reliant on search algorithms today that if you don’t make your metadata relevant and computer friendly, you will quite simply get lost in the crowd. There are two types of metadata: 1. Simple metadata — that is metadata created by the author directly. Examples include: Cover, product description, and title. 2. Enriched metadata — includes metadata created by customers, as well as metadata that doesn’t necessarily relate to one particular book. Examples include: reviews, excerpts, hashtags, blog tags, awards you’ve received, and author bios. Metadata is vitally important because it creates your online brand. It’s how people find you online. Digital Branding The key to Digital Branding is to be indexed in as many ways as possible and to be consistent about your author message with everything you post online. Rich Snippets are a powerful way to differentiate yourself from your competition. They are tools offered by Google which allow you to give the search engine more specific information about who you are and what you sell. If you use Rich snippets in the right way on your website, people will be able to find you more easily. Whenever possible the things you post online should be keyword rich. You should choose keywords that clue your potential audience into who you are and what your brand’s about. Search and Discoverability on Amazon The best Amazon marketing starts with your manuscript and positioning. We have to start with the product figure out who your audience is, and what genre you’ve written. This will help us position your book in front of readers who want to buy it. The most important piece of metadata that you will ever show the world as an author is your cover. It’s the first thing potential customers see. It has your title, your subtitle, and your name on it. If it’s done right, the cover also conveys a sense of the genre your book is in. This is just as true for nonfiction as for fiction. Beyond the image, covers can also contain metadata searchable by search engines that tell them what the book is about. Nielsen did a study that showed book covers that were properly optimized with appropriate metadata sold 432% more copies than covers without appropriate metadata. The next piece of metadata you show the world is your title. You want to carefully research titles in your genre. You want a title that isn’t used too much but still feels like a title from your genre. If your book has a subtitle that’s another piece of metadata that search engines use to help consumers find your book. With nonfiction books it’s common to put the benefit that your audience will receive from reading the book in the subtitle. With fiction books it can be helpful to use a keyword that describes the genre to the reader, i.e. dystopian technothriller or Vampire Romance If you’re writing a series, you can also have a series title. This is another place you can have keywords to make your work more discoverable. Now we come to the second most important piece of metadata after your cover. That is, your category pathway (a.k.a. Categories on Amazon) Your category pathway is how Amazon consumers find you when browsing through Amazon for a book. It’s important that you place your books in an appropriate category so when someone sees your book they have a basic idea of the reading experience they’re going to get when they buy your book. If someone’s looking for a military sci-fi adventure and they see a Romance book in that category they’re just going to skip it automatically because that’s not the kind of reading experience they’re looking for. You want to place your book in categories it’s relevant to and you want to get as specific as possible. The more specific subcategory you can place your book into, the more likely it is that you will find your ideal reader. Sometimes you can’t find the exact category pathway you want. In those cases it pays to contact Amazon and see what they can do for you. If you see a category string on Amazon it can be replicated for your book provided Amazon agrees that the category string is relevant to your book. One powerful way to make sure you’re getting your metadata right is to create a “virtual bookshelf” of the books that you want to be associated with. Look at 10 best-selling books like your book. Study their metadata. Look at their covers and search for common elements. Look at their also boughts, study their metadata. Replicate what you can. Amazon Author Central is a magnificent place where you can control in rich metadata including pictures, your bio, content and editorial reviews. It’s important that if you have more than one book all of your books are on your author Central page. This is a really easy way to introduce a new fan to your entire catalog. In your author bio you should make an effort to include keywords related to your genre so that people using search engines can find you more easily if they’re looking for a genre book. If you have any editorial reviews, be sure to put them on your Author Central page because those reviews will show up on all of your books. Using Goodreads As a Marketing Tool Goodreads is an online community devoted to reading. It’s powerful for two reasons. 1. It’s a community driven independently by readers. 2. It’s owned by Amazon, which means there is significant integration between the two sites. Goodreads is a powerful way to get discovered by new readers because it provides social proof that makes it easier for someone to decide to buy your book. How to Get Your Book on a GoodReads List 1. Create a Goodreads author bio. 2. Tell your audience that you’re on Goodreads 3. Have someone from your audience nominate you for a list. Social Media Marketing Strategy The most important thing to remember when formulating a social media marketing strategy is to be consistent in your message and brand. Social networks like twitter and Facebook are fantastic places to tell the Internet about yourself because they are frequently indexed by Google, and depending upon how often you post, you can have a lot of metadata that tells the casual browser who you are and conveys your message. Consistency is important, because the average person spends about 7 seconds deciding whether or not they’re on the right page on the Internet. If your twitter, Facebook, other social networks, and website are consistent with one another then you are far more likely to get a customer. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview Bublish — a website where you can write, promote, and use tools to sell your book. They also have marketing tutorials. https://www.goodreads.com/ — an online social network of readers owned by Amazon.com. https://www.facebook.com/bublishme/ — Bublish’s Facebook page https://twitter.com/bublishme — Bublish on twitter metadata is your brand one sheet — The reference sheet Kathy Spoke about https://authorcentral.amazon.com/ — create a profile on Author Central to make your work more discoverable. A Beginner’s Guide to Rich Snippets Google’s Guide to rich snippets Liked this post? Please click on the image below and share on your favorite Social Media Platform! The post 122: Book Metadata, Search Engines, and Discoverability with Kathy Meis appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Ben Krueger is the founder of Cashflow Podcasting, a done-for-you podcasting and marketing service for entrepreneurs and thought leaders. This interview was great. It contains everything you might want to know about the business of podcasting. We talk about how to start a podcast, the history of podcasting, the different podcasting platforms, the different types of podcasts you can do, and so much more. If you’ve ever thought about starting a podcast, listen to this interview and take notes, then listen again. Ben began working in the podcast industry during a business internship in the Philippines. His internship was ending, and he needed to figure out how he was going to make a living. He was talking with Dan Andrews host of the Tropical MBA Podcast one night around this time. Dan complained about what was involved in the postproduction side of podcasting, and they came up with an agreement whereby Ben would handle postproduction for him. Ben’s business has expanded from there. The History of Podcasting The podcasting industry has gone through two major waves of interest. Around six years ago, the first wave of podcast were created by people interested in getting their message out there. These podcasts were in the categories of self-help, and learning. There was a decline in the podcast marketplace in 2011. Between 2011 and 2013 the technology caught up to the platform. Everything became screens and smartphones, and you could access podcasts wherever you were instead of relying on the iTunes. In 2014 iTunes had its billionth download and it’s only grown from there. Now they even have cars with built in podcasting capability so you don’t have to bring another device with you. Podcast Platforms As the podcast industry has grown several platforms have been created to meet the demands of the marketplace. Itunes: as of right now 60% to 75% of all podcasts are downloaded through iTunes. There hasn’t been a major update to the iTunes platform for podcasts since 2013. The new and noteworthy section of the iTunes platform is noticeably glitchy. Ben has a hunch that iTunes will overhaul its podcast platform in the next one to two years. Google Play is another channel where you can access podcasts. It’s Google’s answer to iTunes. Stitcher is iTunes for android devices. As of right now, (January 2017) it runs smoother and is easier to use than iTunes. Sound Cloud is basically YouTube for audio files. There are other podcast channels on the web as well. Google Play, Stitcher, and Sound Loud, along with other podcast delivery channels account for between 25% and 40% of all podcasts downloads. So it’s quite possible to build a following as a podcaster outside of iTunes. How to Monetize Podcasts There are two ways to make money with your podcast. 1. You can create a podcast with the aim of drawing a big audience to get sponsorships and make money that way. In order to make a good living with sponsorships you have to have at least 30,000 downloads a month, or you have to podcast for an audience that sponsors want to get in front of. OR 2. You can create a podcast with the aim of building a community of listeners that you sell your own products to. This is usually the way that works best for authors. If you use your podcast to create a community of listeners, and leverage those listeners when you have a new book to release it can be very powerful. SEO Tips for Podcasts Use YouTube. YouTube is owned by Google and it’s much easier to rank for keyword terms by posting a video of your interview than trying to rank your show notes page on your blog. Two Ways to Use YouTube 1. Use screen capture software like Camtasia. Play your podcast audio, and have the image that accompanies it be either your iTunes artwork, or an image of you and the person you’re interviewing. 2. Make short 3 – 5 minute videos that are excerpts from your podcast interview. Post them on YouTube with a call to action to listen to the full interview and links about where to find you. Types of Podcasts In today’s marketplace there’s every kind of podcast imaginable. From traditional educational podcast, to conversational podcasts, to podcasts that are just one person and their thoughts. As a podcast producer you have to decide whether you’re creating the podcast for your audience, or for yourself. One type of podcast that has been successful is an interview style podcast where you make a list of all the people you want to interview, create a podcast around the topics you want to talk about and then use the podcast as an excuse to interview these people. It can be much easier to get business people and thought leaders to talk to you if you have a podcast because you’re offering them the opprotunity to get their message out to a new audience. Podcasting for Authors A few authors have distributed audio versions of their books through iTunes. These haven’t gotten massive numbers of downloads because people just don’t seem to look through podcasts for audio books. A more successful formula is to have a miniseries podcast with a finite number of episodes. Another thing you can do is record a speech or conference that you put on and release that as a resource for your community. Those types of things sit in the iTunes store and can bring leads for years. How to Start a Podcast Here are some questions you want to ask yourself as you consider creating a podcast: 1. What do I want? 2. What is my end goal? Do I want to build a community or find a mass audience so that I can get sponsors? 3. In two years where do I see my business and who is my audience? Too often people create podcasts for the audience they have now without thinking about the different audiences they might want to attract in the future. Podcasting is a tool you’ll want to use over the long term. It’s a media channel you can leverage with some great potential results. But, podcasts are not a one-size-fits-all solution. So take some time to figure out what your goals are and come up with a strategy to achieve them. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Interview Itunes Google Play — Google’s store where you can find podcasts, movies, books, and music https://soundcloud.com/ — Youtube for audio files YouTube — Use Youtube to boost your search engine rankings by posting your podcasts on youtube Cashflow Podcasting — Ben’s business. He’ll help you start a podcast and/or edit it. Tropical MBA — a podcast about business and location independence hosted by Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen   The post 121: How to Start a Podcast for Authors and Thought Leaders with Ben Krueger appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Joseph Clough is the best selling author of Be Your Potential published by Hay House. He is also the creator of over 200 hours of Hypnosis and Coaching MP3s and videos that are being downloaded over 3,000,000 times every year. He is an international Speaker, Celebrity Coach and Hypnotherapist. This was a great interview! In this podcast we talk about hypnosis, how to change your mindset, how to deal with anxiety, how to get a book published even if you failed high school English, and Transmedia messaging. There is a wealth of information here. You may want to listen more than once. Joseph’s journey to successful hypnotherapist started because, like many successful people, he had to work through his own issues. Joseph was a painfully shy child who had trouble learning things. When he was young his math teacher asked him a simple math question that he didn’t know the answer to. The teacher told him that if he didn’t know the answer to the question he would never go anywhere. That moment stuck with him for many years. It was the beginning of a path that led him to be a college dropout working at a job that he was unhappy in. That’s when Joseph’s father, a successful hypnotist himself, told Joseph to get out of his own way and study hypnosis. It was through the study of hypnosis that Joseph found his calling to help other people. Hypnosis helped Joseph let go of his own issues of shyness and fear of speaking in public. Success for Joseph came from understanding himself, dealing with his own issues, and helping other people with theirs. Everyone has the ability to achieve their dreams. We all have a book inside us. We all have the resources and abilities we need in order to be successful. All we need to do if we get stuck is change our mindset. Change Your Mindset If you want to achieve something and you feel like you’re stuck in a rut understand that only you can: Assume responsibility for your own life. Be the instigator of your own change. Choose right now to take different actions in your life that lead to the results you want. Resolve now that My life will be a product of what I create. How to Change Your Mindset In order to change your mindset, you have to understand where you are on your journey. You have to understand what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, and what your strategy is for achieving what you want. If your stuck or frustrated, realize somewhere in the world someone has gotten the results that you want. Figure out who they are and how you can model their results. This will make your journey to success much quicker and less painful. How to Deal with Anxiety Anxiety comes from our reptile brain. It comes from a time in human history when, in order to survive, humans had to be hypervigilant about all the dangers that surrounded us. While anxiety served the purpose back then, it can often be a roadblock to success today. Anxiety is what happens when you focus on everything that can go wrong in a situation. Usually what happens is there’s one thing that you’re worried about, like giving a presentation in front of a group of people, and your mind will come up with every conceivable thing that could go wrong. One way to handle anxiety is to focus on everything that can go right in this situation. Consciously ask yourself: What can go right in this situation? Another question that works well is: What can I do differently? Your mind attracts what you think about. So, when you’re anxious try to put your state of mind into a different perspective. You’re anxious about a moment in the present which is tied to expectations about your future. Try looking at the moment through someone else’s eyes. This can disassociate your emotions from your experience and give you a fresh perspective. Disassociation from your emotions gives clarity in the present moment. Quick Fixes for Anxiety Every person is different and every situation is different. None of these solutions works in every situation. But here are five ways to deal with anxiety in the moment. 1. Get away from the situation. Take a walk outside if you can. 2. Play awesome music. Play music that you find uplifting. 3. Write in a journal. Psychology studies have shown that people who write in a journal about their frustrations and anxieties have better relationships, are happier, and more successful in life. 4. Meditate. Meditation has been used for thousands of years to help clear the mind. 5. Hypnosis. Hypnosis is simply a different kind of meditative state where you’re training the subconscious mind. How to Get a Book Published: Be Your Potential — A Case Study There are many ways to get a book published today. Joseph is a prime example that even if you’re not good at writing, you can still write a book. After several years helping others through hypnosis Joseph decided that he wanted to write a book. He opted to speak his book and have it transcribed because he wasn’t a good writer. But he knew he had information that could help other people, and he thought if he spoke his book it would come out more conversational anyway. So Joseph spoke his book into his microphone and paid someone at Elance (now UpWork.com) to transcribe it for him. From there he asked his girlfriend and family members to help him edit it. Then he submitted to Hey House. His book was rejected when he first submitted it. Four months later, the company had a change of heart and bought Joseph’s book. So if you want to write a book but you’re afraid you’re not a good writer, try dictating your book. You can also have seminars, speeches, and podcasts transcribed. Transmedia Strategies The message you have is more important than how you convey that message. Books are only one way to put your message out into the world. Today you have more channels than ever before to get your message out. You can have a YouTube channel. You can do podcasts, and of course there is social media. Joseph’s Transmedia Process Joseph records a video on Facebook live. The video then goes on his YouTube channel and the audio from the video goes to his podcast. He records the information one time and uses it three different ways, reaching three different audiences in one effort. With the number of different channels you have available it’s important to play to your strengths. Also, don’t think you shouldn’t start a podcast or YouTube channel right now because you’re too late or not good enough. Any skill can be improved with consistent practice. The only way to get better at something is be willing to do something badly at first. Using Hypnosis to Change Your Mindset Every human being has two minds, the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind deals with everything you know you’re thinking about. The unconscious mind deals with everything else. The unconscious mind regulates the body. It controls everything automatic that you don’t have to think about including heartbeat, bloodflow, and healing. The unconscious mind also runs your belief system, your values and your memories. The thing is if you could consciously make a change in your life to get the results you want you would do it. So, if there is a result in your life you want, and you can’t seem to achieve it, there’s probably some routine running in the subconscious mind that’s preventing you from achieving success. Human beings are not born with negative mindsets. Negative mindsets are learned through personal experience. Let’s say for instance, that when you were little you were attacked by a dog. It’s natural for you to develop a fear of dogs because of that experience. That fear is a survival mechanism designed to protect you from the danger that your mind perceives from dogs. We are being influenced subconsciously every day in thousands of ways by our society, advertising, family and friends. Hypnosis is simply a way to influence our own mind so that we can get the resources, behaviors, and beliefs we need to be successful in life. Joseph deals with people all the time who have anxiety, low self-esteem, doubts and feel self-conscious. These are all symptoms of a negative belief system that prevents you from achieving the success you’re capable of. Many people fear both success and failure. They worry that there are no good and they’re not worthy of happiness or success. Hypnosis allows them to let go of that negative belief system. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview https://secretmindupgrade.com/ — Learn how to get a custom hypnosis from Joseph Be Your Potential by Joseph Clough https://www.upwork.com/ — Where you can find people to help you with just about anything, including transcribing your book Joseph Clough’s YouTube Channel Joseph Clough’s Facebook Page Like this post? Please click and share the image below!   The post 120: Change Your Mindset, Eliminate Anxiety and Overcome Your Fears with Joseph Clough appeared first on TCK Publishing.

Amy Newmark is publisher, editor-in-chief and coauthor of the book series Chicken Soup for the Soul. By curating and editing inspirational true stories from ordinary people who have had extraordinary experiences, Amy has kept the twenty-two-year-old Chicken Soup for the Soul brand fresh and relevant. Amy was always a writer. She started writing stories in kindergarten. Her first career was as a Wall Street analyst, where she hoaned her storytelling skills still more. Wall Street analysts find companies they think are good investments and then write stories about them. In 2007 Amy and her husband were looking for a new challenge. They both completed successful careers in business, and just sent their youngest child to college. Rather than retire, they opted to purchase the Chicken Soup for the Soul publishing company from founders Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Jack and Mark were looking for people who could bring the Chicken Soup for the Soul Brand into the Internet age. That’s just what they did. Chicken Soup for the Soul survived a recession that saw Borders fail, Barnes & Noble close a number of stores, and hundreds of independent bookstores closing. In this podcast interview we talk about the power of storytelling, brand strategy, and transmedia storytelling. We also discuss how Amy launches a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, and how to submit your writing to be featured in the next book in the series. This is a podcast packed with information. The Power and Importance of Storytelling Storytelling part of everything that human beings do. In business, it’s important to tell the story of your product in a compelling way that communicates its value. Telling stories is the way we pass down wisdom, culture and advice. The Chicken Soup for the Soul Brand Chicken Soup for the Soul was founded in 1993 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. They built the brand over 15 years, and began looking for a successor in 2007 to guard their legacy and bring it into the Internet age. Amy and her husband took over in April of 2008 and since then Chicken Soup for the Soul has put out 134 books. Now they average a book a month. Several people have tried to imitate the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand without success. Chicken Soup for the Soul has the integrity, longevity, good distribution channels, and reach in popular culture. It is because of all of these factors That Chicken Soup for the Soul can get thousands of submissions for every book they publish. Transmedia Storytelling It’s important today to find as many different ways to repackage and repurpose your products and brand in as many different ways as possible. Under Amy’s leadership Chicken Soup for the Soul has branched out in many different areas. In the publishing arena they have skinny books and guided journals. This Christmas Wal-Mart sold a gift basket with a box of soup, a mug and a skinny version of a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. Chicken Soup for the Soul started a nationwide bullying prevention program. The curriculum has been approved in Dallas and New York City. The focus is on teaching the values of tolerance, respect, compassion, and kindness to crowd out bullying behavior. The curriculum has already been rolled out for grades 1 through 8 in the high school curriculum will begin in 2017. This is a nonprofit venture supported by The Boniuk Foundation They work with other nonprofits such as the Alzheimer’s Association, The Humane Society, and The Boys and Girls Clubs of America They allow book contributors to buy books at a discount and sell them for fund-raising. Chicken Soup for the Soul has two shows on television. Project Dad which can be seen on the Discovery Channel and TLC, and Hidden Heroes a Saturday morning television show on CBS. A movie is also in development. Finally stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul can be read for free on chickensoup.com Curvy and Confident: A Book Launch Case Study Curvy And Confident has 101 stories about loving yourself and your body. It all started in 2015 when the Natasha Stoynoff introduced Amy Newmark to Emme. (Emme was the first plus size supermodel.) The three of them began talking about writing a Chicken Soup for the Soul book that address the issues plus size women have in this society. Amy agreed that it sounded like a good idea for a book. From there she asked everyone she knew if they would buy a book on the subject of body image. Everyone she asked said they would love to buy a book like that. From there, she e-mailed 6000 people on Chicken Soup for the Soul’s mailing list and asked for submissions on the website. Often, they will make a book idea if they don’t get enough stories to go through. In this case Amy got thousands of stories, it was evident this struck a chord. From there a team of editors chose about 300 finalists. Amy, Emme, and Natasha chose their 101 favorite stories. Natasha did the first round of editing, and Amy did the final round. Then they put together a coherent manuscript with an arc. Completing the manuscript was only the beginning. After that comes distribution and publicity. Because Chicken Soup for the Soul is an established brand that has sold millions of copies of the last 22 years, they have their distribution channels already. But publicity is as challenging for them as for anyone. The team is promoting the book through articles in the press, TV interviews, and radio interviews. Natasha Stoynoff is doing most of the press in Canada because Canadians prefer Canadian authors. Emme is doing television interviews, and Amy is doing radio interviews. Submit Your Work to Chicken Soup for the Soul If you want to submit your work to Chicken Soup for the Soul it’s a very simple process. First write your story in word. Go to their website (link below). On the story submission page they have a story guidelines, possible topics and deadlines, as well as a submission form. All you need to do is copy the text of your word doc directly into the submission field. The best thing to do if you’re thinking about submitting a story to Chicken Soup for the Soul is to pick up one of their books. That’s one sure way to get a feel for the kind of narrative nonfiction storytelling they want. If they want to use your story they will contact you. They don’t send out rejection letters because they don’t have the logistics to do that. Also, just because they don’t use your story right away doesn’t mean they won’t use your story in the future. They may like your story but it’s not an exact fit for the book is submitted for. Chicken Soup for the Soul pays $200 for every story they use. They also give contributors 10 free copies of the book their story appears in. Most importantly, every author in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book keeps the copyright to their story. Having a story printed in a Chicken Soup for the Soul is a real career boost for nonfiction authors. Several others have gotten book contracts, and recently one just got a contract to write a TV show. Links and Resources Mentioned in the Interview http://www.chickensoup.com/ — The chicken soup for the soul website Chicken soup for the soul submission guidelines. — Go here first before you write your chicken soup for the soul submission. http://www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/story-guidelines Possible book topics and deadlines The chicken soup for the soul submission form. — Fill out the form completely and follow the instructions. You can write you were submission in word and Copley directly from your word document into the submission field. Buy chicken soup for the soul guided journals Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Joy of Christmas: 101 Holiday Tales of Inspiration, Love and Wonder Chicken Soup for the Soul: Curvy & Confident: 101 Stories about Loving Yourself and Your Body  The Boniuk Foundation supports the nationwide program against bullying that Chicken Soup for the Soul put together for schools. Project dad — a show about celebrity dads reconnecting with their children Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hidden Heroes — A show that highlights Chicken Soup for the Soul’s anti bullying program The post 119: Transmedia Storytelling and Book Series Branding with Amy Newmark appeared first on TCK Publishing.