Your Step-By-Step Guide to
Creating & Launching a
Best-Selling Book
By JESSE KRIEGER
Bestseller
BluePrint
© 2017 Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press
www.LifestyleEntrepreneursPress.com
Table of Contents
Bestseller Blueprint Overview
4
Big IDEA Framework
4
Bestseller Blueprint Module #1- Ignite
5
Taking your book from a manuscript to a complete, finished,
5
and sellable product
5
Module 1.1- Structuring Your Book
5
Spectrum of Author Styles
5
Content Creation Jujitsu
5
Hiring and Managing Editorial Talent
7
Q&A
7
Next Steps
8
Module 1.2 - How to Position a Book as a Business Tool
Cover Design
9
9
Interior Layout Design Mastery
11
The Overlooked Audiobook
12
Q&A
14
Next Steps
16
Bestseller Blueprint Module #2 - Develop
17
Building your pre-launch marketing campaign
17
Module 2.1 - Importance of a Pre-Launch Campaign
17
Your Website
17
How do you get your book into new reader's hands?
Targeting new audiences to fill your own
20
Q&A
21
Next Steps
22
Module 2.2 - Your Pre-Launch Marketing Campaign, Building Your Launch List, and
Establishing Your Presence Online
23
Build your Book’s Social Media Presence
23
Q&A
25
Next Steps
25
Bestseller Blueprint Module #3 - Execute
26
Launch your Book to the World the Right Way
26
Module 3.1: Open the launch window to go live
26
Timing Your Launch
26
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Promotional Events
26
Strategizing Your Book Launch
28
Q&A
30
Next Steps
30
Module 3.2 - Expanding your launch through contests and promotional partners
31
Run a Contest to Maximize Engagement
31
Expand the launch with Promotional Partners
34
Q&A
35
Next Steps
36
Bestseller Blueprint Module #4 - Accelerate
37
Monetize and Expand the Reach of your Book
37
Module 4.1: Re-launch and build back-end products and training programs
37
Re-launching and Promotional Maintenance
37
Your Back-End Product or Service
40
Next Steps
43
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Bestseller Blueprint Overview
Your book is your BEST business development tool!
Big ​IDEA​ Framework
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I​gnite - ​How to complete your bestseller-worthy book
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D​evelop - ​How to develop your pre-launch marketing plan
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Importance of a pre-launch campaign
Building a list
Building your book’s social media presence
Establishing your online presence as a thought leader
Communicating the value of your book to readers
Engaging people leading up to and through your launch
E​xecute - ​Understanding the actual mechanics of a book launch
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Taking your manuscript to a complete, sellable product
Positioning your book as a business tool
Structuring your book
How to get a great cover design
Planning interior layout and formatting
Preparing for various editions (i.e. paperback, Kindle, audiobook, etc.)
Hiring and managing online talent
Launching your book the right way
Expanding a launch (i.e. contests, promotional partners, etc.)
Running Promotional Contests
Finding Promotional Partners
How to become an Amazon bestselling author
A​ccelerate - ​Monetize and expand the reach of your book
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Grow a 6-figure-plus book-based business and brand
Build and deliver back-end training programs
Leverage your book to do online trainings
Facilitate engaging live events
Form groups of clients for coaching
Work one-on-one with clients
Position your book for the long run
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Bestseller Blueprint Module #1- ​I​gnite
Taking your book from a manuscript to a complete, finished,
and sellable product
Module 1.1- Structuring Your Book
Spectrum of Author Styles
How are you most comfortable showing up as a writer, author, and—in a broader sense—as a
business owner and thought leader? Where do you fall on the spectrum?
Artisanal Author
Very involved with every aspect of creating your book and its presentation; heavily involved in
the decision-making process, if not doing it yourself.
● Potential benefit is being able to connect and resonate more with your readers for all the
personal touches
● Be careful to avoid endless revisions that prevent you from getting your book out into the
market!
Authoritative Author (aka Executive Author)
Existing business owner with many constraints on your time; perhaps you do not enjoy the
writing process or developing book content; executive author looks at a book as a task to be
accomplished and identifies the fastest, most streamlined way to create content.
● Potential benefits are efficiency and playing to one’s strengths in the development
process
● Be careful not to over-delegate; the finished product should be something that
accurately reflects you, your business, and your brand!
So, where do you fall on the author spectrum?
Content Creation Jujitsu
Even if you aren’t an author by trade, or if you are experiencing writer’s block, you can create
2,000 – 3,000 words of content per day, in under 30 minutes! Basically, what that entails is doing
some type of audio dictation or what I call an author interview. If you just prep somebody to ask
you a couple softball questions about a topic that you’re going to expound on or teach on or talk
on, then it’s very easy to do an audio dictation, just speak about the topic or the area of the book
that you want to write or create, and then get that transcribed. And then once you have a
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transcription, then you’ve got at least a big block of content in front of you. At that point, you or
an editor can go in and modify it and shape it so that it becomes close to, if not in a book-ready
form.
Personal Example :
“​I created a 20-part outline for my book. For each part of the outline, I created of a couple of
pertinent points and made bullet points under each topic. Each day, I teamed up with a friend
and we facilitated the process for each other. We “interviewed” each other, and my friend would
literally ask me questions I had provided to him in order to talk me through what I needed to talk
about for each chapter. At the end of each session, we had a chunk of audio we would get
transcribed. For that, I had developed a relationship with a transcriber where she was expecting
an audio file around a certain time each day there was about a 24-hour turnaround. And so, on
a rolling basis, I was recording 20 minutes of audio each day and then later on pulling down the
transcript from the previous day and folding that into the manuscript as it was unfolding and
developing. Each day, I’d have 2,000 words or so.
“My friend would ask me the scripted questions, and then he would just shut up; he wouldn’t talk,
and I would just talk, and talk, and talk. I wouldn’t stop talking, and I wouldn’t second guess
myself or hit pause or say, ‘Oh, wait. I’m going to redo that,’ because there was another person
involved in that process. This is a potential pitfall that people can encounter taking an
autonomous approach to content creation, which is trying to do it in a room by yourself with a
recording device. And maybe for some people that works, but quite frankly, I’ve found myself in
a situation many times where I’d speak for a minute or two and then I’d think, ‘Ah wait, maybe
that could’ve been said better.’ So then I’d stop and then I’d start again. But then I’d say, ‘But I
like what I was saying the first time more.’ And before you know it, I got into a self-editing
process while I was supposed to just be getting down the very base level of content.
“Do you see the conundrum in that? And perhaps do you identify with second-guessing yourself
in some aspect of your content creation, in a way that has prevented you from well, creating a
lot more content? If so, you’re not alone. But hopefully what I’m describing here can be of
assistance because what I’ve found is as long as there’s an audience, even if it’s one person—
which technically just makes it a conversation, but one that’s being recorded—then I don’t stop,
right? And I won’t start to second guess or edit myself; rather, I’ll just stay focused on delivering
as complete of a description or expounding as completely as possible on the topic at hand. And
then, after I have done so, I’ll stop and consider the merits of what I’ve just said.”
So, once I had the outline done and I knew where I wanted to go with the book content, I just
blocked out 20, 30 minutes a day with my friend in the morning and had the process in place.
And in the course of a month had a 150-page manuscript in hand. So, that’s powerful right? And
that’s what we want to help you accomplish and there are a number of different pathways to
get to the point, if that’s the approach that you want to take.
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Hiring and Managing Editorial Talent
Freelancer sites are great places to source talent for the book development process. From my
experience, Upwork is my top recommendation for finding freelancers to help you build your
book. It’s a great platform for hiring and managing teams of people online.
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Upwork allows you to post jobs and hire people for all kinds of tasks, and the site
facilitates the jobs and management, including payment, file transfers, timelines,
deliverables, anything around non-disclosure, etc. It’s easy to use, and it even tracks
what your freelancer is doing on his computer via screen captures and keystrokes, so
that you can do an occasional audit if you’d like.
Upwork has all kinds of job categories. For example, within writing there is: academic
writing, article/blog writing, copywriting, creative writing, other types of writing.
Alternately, there is a whole section here for transcription in the Admin Support.
Right now, we’re using this example on this initial training as an illustration of how to get
audio turned into text, for the specific purpose of creating your book content; but even
this technique, there’s so many variations, so many opportunities that exist. Say you
want to create a weekly blog post or a newsletter. If the actual writing of it is an obstacle
to you doing so, maybe you want to do audio transcriptions or create audios of the
content you want to share, get those transcribed and have somebody edit them into an
e-mail-ready or blog-ready format. And now you’re just starting to leverage more of your
strengths and delegating out the areas that are weaker, right?
So, on a platform like this, it’s really helpful to be able to get people that are specializing
in different areas, different forms of delivery, different forms of support than it ever has
been before, you know, in the world. So, I’m a huge proponent of hiring and managing
people and teams through online talent platforms, a huge proponent of getting leverage
and playing to your own strengths and bringing in support to help you play even more to
your strengths and supplement the areas where you may be weaker. And I hope you can
take away from this that it doesn’t have to cost very much at all.
Q&A
Q:​ ​What is a good page count for my book?
A: Well, I think the more accurate representation is in word count. So, I like to recommend to
authors I’m working with, especially authors I’m publishing, to aim for a 40-50,000 word
manuscript. That ultimately becomes 165 to maybe 170 to 200-some page book, assuming that
that book is a 9” paperback.
Q: ​Is there a software program that can recognize my recorded voice and make it as text,
instead of sending it for transcription?
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A: There are many. One software is called Dragon, which is quite popular. But even if you just
Google something like “voice-to-text software” or “vocal dictation software,” there are so many
options out there. I don’t have a qualified opinion on which ones are better than others or which
ones are more accurate, but I think most Mac computers have a built-in voice-to-text
transcription service/software that’s even native to the computer. Now here’s why I’m not the
biggest proponent of that: it’s because if it’s not very accurate then it ends up adding a big
burden in the editing and clean-up phase that perhaps overshadows the benefit of doing just a
voice-to-text computerized transcription. And so, if I recorded 20 minutes of audio, paid
somebody $20, and the next day I had a transcript that an actual human had wrote and even
slightly modified and cleaned up so that it was more presentable than just a computerized
voice-to-text transcription, then that’s good.
Q:​ Let’s say there is a workbook at the end of my book, would that also be included?
A: It depends on how big the workbook is, but if it’s in the book itself then you would definitely
want to include those. If you’re giving prompts, you can leave a little bit of extra time in between
each question. You can also link your readers/listeners to PDFs from your audiobook.
Next Steps
❏ Collaborate with and introduce yourself to other authors
❏ Start hiring and managing people; think about how you can leverage online talent
❏ Identify and undertake some course of high-level action to accelerate your path
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Module 1.2 - How to Position a Book as a Business Tool
At the end of this section, combined with content from Module 1.1, you’ll have the information,
resources, support and strategy to take your book from a manuscript (words on a page) and
turn it into a complete, finished, salable product—your book (i.e electronic (Kindle), paperback,
audiobook, etc.)
It is important to know that your promotional material and campaign is based off your cover and
book design to a large extent. It is how your audience will recognize you and your brand.
In an ideal situation, your book should exist in multiple formats such as an e-book, a kindle or
paperback edition, and/or an audiobook. In this section we will cover why it’s important and
beneficial to have your book in different formats and the marketing implications around them.
Cover Design
What are the elements of a bestselling book cover?
Three main parts to optimize your design for​:
1. The title (position, color, style, font use, the title itself etc.)
2. An illustrative image that is representative of the book content.
3. The subtitle (how it’s phrased and positioned) and author name placement.
Note: Another consideration could also be a review, testimonial, or some notable praise about
the book that gives it more credibility in the eyes of a potential reader, either on the front or back
cover.
Implications of your book cover design​:
The cover design also creates the possibility of branding and incorporating your book into your
business in different ways by the cover design and general design aesthetic and the message
you convey through your title and subtitle.
Getting the pulse for your market:
One of the best places to find examples of the kind of cover aesthetics that are currently making
bestsellers are to look through airport bookstores. By looking through an airport bookstore
bestseller shelf (or online equivalent on Amazon Kindle and other platforms, as well as
newspapers) you can see the cover styles and variations used by current best-sellers in the
market. You can see what a best-selling book actually looks like.
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Not only will you be able to get a feel for the style of books in your genre, looking through
Amazon’s bestseller lists by category and sub-category can also give you a better idea about
how the ranking system works. This is also a page you will be visiting a lot before and during your
book launch.
The title should take up at least around one-third of the overall cover. Many self-published
authors make the mistake of keeping the title small and using a font that is hard to read from a
distance, which makes it hard for the book to stand out among the thousands of other books in
a bookstore. Your book title needs to stand out and be seen from a distance of 15 feet away to
attract people. Do not make the mistake of designing a book cover that looks great when you’re
holding it in your hand but isn’t legible in a bookshelf from a distance. The same applies for
digital books, because the book cover is shrunk to about 2 – 3 inches on a screen (such as on
Kindle, especially from mobile devices); the title should still be legible.
Another thing to remember is the contrast in your book cover. Covers with more contrast are
more attractive to the eyes, even from a distance, compared to covers with lesser amounts of
contrast. Using about 2-3 colors and staying consistent and balanced gives a cleaner look to
the title and helps the book stand out and convey all the information you want to convey to the
potential reader.
If the author is the brand (as is often the case with well-known celebrity authors), then the name
of the author is often the hook, and is usually almost as large, if not larger than, the title of the
book itself on the cover (such as books by Tony Robbins).
In some cases, you could also put the website address business website that you will build or
have built around the book. In any case, you should have plenty of references to the business
inside the book to tell the readers explicitly about the services, training, or coaching platforms
available for them.
When you have a high-quality book with a high-quality, attractive cover design that stands out,
you can also command and justify a higher price point for the book.
Getting your Cover Designed and Done:
As with transcription and other editorial services, freelance sites are a great way to source
high-quality cover designs for a very reasonable price.
Upwork.com
● Post a job with as much detail as possible
● Scrutinize portfolios of freelancer applicants
● Evaluate and converse with designers and decide to hire one or more people
● Design process begins after selecting a single designer and working with through
several stages of designing and reviewing through to the finished product.
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99Designs.com
(more of a contest platform than a talent recruitment platform)
● Post a prize amount for your cover design job along with a design brief for potential
designers to work with.
● People will post designs for you to see and select.
● The design process is public initially.
○ Once you have enough submissions of designs that you like, you can select up to
six finalists who will then make a subsequent design
○ You get to see this design through to the end and can select it for your book.
In whatever cover design you choose to use, make sure that it's relevant to the content of the
book and is in no way misleading. The cover design should also play into your interior design.
This makes the content and the cover consistent and will make the book appear much more
professional and appealing to the reader.
Interior Layout Design Mastery
Interior design the final stage of turning your manuscript into a finished book. During the course
of doing the interior layout design, you want to leverage your cover design. For example, the
cover of the book ​Strength from Within shows stick figures performing the six major exercises
that the book talks about. Inside the book, the illustrations used to demonstrate the exercises
and forms also use the same stick figures.
This makes the transition from cover to cover easier for the reader without them having to figure
out what you did for the interior design. If your interior design jars the reader's experience in any
way, shape, or form, then you’ve done something wrong. Think of it as the sound control in a
concert event. You only notice it when it’s not allowing you to fully enjoy the experience. If there
are no issues, you can fully immerse in the content. All the decisions you make about the interior
design process are around making the reading process streamlined and easy.
Pulled quotes are an important aspect of interior design and help to streamline the reading
process by breaking up the body of text. Interior design elements are also what people would
see if they pick up your book and just flip through it.
Formatting your book is the last step to making your book ready to publish. Usually the first
version of the book finished is a paperback edition with all the other formats being derived from
the paperback.
Note about hiring designers:
For interior and cover design, it is good to give the designers some creative leeway and allow
them to use their skills to design a cover with little guidance from the get-go. After the designer
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has presented their initial designs, you can pick the one you like and guide that one across the
finish line.
The Overlooked Audiobook
A book is a product that can exist in different formats:
● Electronic
● Paperback, Hardcover
● Audio Format
An audiobook can be a powerful way to engage with your audience and increase book sales.
There exists an entire cross-segment of people that primarily consume book content in an audio
format. Having your book available in an audio format gives you access to new potential
customers. Audiobooks also tend to sustain a higher price point than electronic or physical
editions.
Creating your Audiobook
In terms of creating your audiobook, you have two options:
● Narrate the book yourself
● Hire voice talent
Narrating the Audiobook Yourself
If you narrate the book yourself, you give your audience a chance to connect with you as the
author, creating a bond and brand loyalty.
You are best served by narrating the audiobook yourself: You’ve taken the time to write the
book, and assuming you’ve written a nonfiction piece, there are auto-biographical parts and
strategies that you’ve applied in your life. Who better than to narrate it yourself? Unless you
have reservations about using your voice, it’s preferable to do so.
Narrating the book can seem like a daunting task if you don’t have a strategy around creating it,
editing, mastering, and publishing, but all you really need is just a quiet environment, a
half-decent microphone, and you can usually use the software that comes with your computer.
What you’ll need to record:
● Opening credits – Name of Book, Author, Publisher
● A separate audio file for each chapter
● Closing credits
● A retail audio sample
○ Up to a 5 minute recording used to advertise the book—something people can
listen to without having to purchase. Publicly listenable segment of audio that’s
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displayed on Amazon, Audible, iTunes, etc people. The sample is usually just the
first few minutes of the first chapter.
Though you can absolutely record the audio yourself, it is recommended to hire an audio
engineer to clean up and master audio files, editing out sounds, breath, ensuring volume levels
are consistent, etc.
Hiring a Voice Talent to Narrate the Book
Using the ACX platform (part of Audible) to find voice talent:
● Create a profile
● Review auditions
● Make an offer
● Get started
● Approve the final product
● Complete publication process for audio book
Finalizing the Audiobook and Marketing
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●
Editing and Mastering Your Audio Book
Using Your Audio Book for Lead Generation
You have spent a lot of time writing the book, releasing it in electronic and physical format, but
this little bit of planning that incorporates an audio edition is usually time well spent. You have a
new, unique product with its own identifier and, in turn, you open up a new channel: an audience
that may only be looking for audio content.
Editing and Mastering Your Audio
Upwork and Publishing through Audible
● Using Upwork to find voice talent or experienced audio editors.
● Audible can be used to manage voice talent and the published files are available directly
within the system.
Using Your Audio Book for Lead Generation
● Easily use text messaging services that let you set up, via text, a way that people can
opt-in and get your audiobook.
● Facilitating the opt-in option.
Example:
● Author gave away audiobook as a bonus to people who purchased the paperback or
electronic editions of your book. In this case, it wasn’t offered as a standalone audiobook
but existed in a folder and there was a link available to download the audiobook.
● Information on download can be included on cover or in marketing materials as an
incentive to readers.
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●
People gave their name and email in order to access the audio file, thus growing an
email list.
Offering the audiobook to people at a seminar, class you’re teaching, webinar, podcast,
conferences etc. allows you to builds a connection with listener. Giving away the audiobook link
doesn’t necessarily cannibalize your electronic or physical book sales. The audiobook will still be
on sale while you give away the opt-in for free in private environments, but avoid paid
advertising to give away audiobook if your book is published and being sold through audiobook
sales channels. This is a potential conflict of interest and you’re undercutting the value of the
book.
Q&A
Q:​ ​What is the template cover size?
A: ​In terms of the size of your book, that is a subjective decision, but generally in terms of a
paperback book, you’re looking at a 6-inch-by-9-inch paperback book (called a trade
paperback in the industry). There are some instances where you would want a different size or
dimensions, such as a cookbook, children’s book, or any book with lots of tables, graphs, or
illustrations; these would typically be larger. Another scenario for larger books would be books
where the reader is expected to write down answers, etc.
Q: ​In terms of cover design and book layout, how much do you want your book to look like what
others are doing in your marketspace vs. trying to stand out and doing something different?
A: In my opinion, it is better to design your cover, knowing what is in the market space and what
readers are perhaps accustomed to, and then making a conscious decision to do something
different, rather than designing the cover in a vacuum. If you see something that is happening a
lot, over a long period of time, then people are probably making money from it. (For example,
gardening books always having green as the primary color of focus.) If you do decide to have a
design contrary to the other designs in the genre, then you will stand out, but you run the risk of
not being immediately recognized as a part of your genre by readers. You would be much better
served by really understanding what is happening in the genre and categories that you want to
rank for, and then making a conscious decision about what you will design differently and what
you choose to take creative liberties on.
Q: ​What’s a reasonable budget to get a good cover design? How does it compare between
Upwork and 99Designs?
A: ​A good prize to set on 99Designs is about $300 – $350, which usually gets you around 70 – 80
submissions for cover designs. For higher end work, there are companies such as The Book
Designers who design book covers for major publishers and have some of the best cover
designs I have seen. They have an entire process of asking about the book, the context,
references, and design preferences and charge about $1,500 per book. This is the ideal option if
you have a large budget for the book. On the lower end of the market, platforms like Fiverr can
get you a cover design for $15 – $20. I personally do not like going that route and would not
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recommend cutting corners on the graphical representation of your book that will represent
your book for months and years to come.
Q:​ ​I have a designer buddy who owes me a favor. Can I just use my friend?
A: Be careful with asking a friend to do it. One, they may not put in the work and effort that a
professional designer may put into a design on 99Designs. Two, if you do go the route of a friend,
make sure you get the rights to the design on paper, something that is built into platforms like
99Designs. Not having this taken care of can cause larger problems once the book is published
and in the market.
Q: ​How much does interior design cost?
A: ​If you go through Upwork, expect to pay anywhere around $100-$300 on the low to medium
end. The reason for outsourcing this job to a professional is that the deliverable is a publish
ready books that you simply have to upload, rather than trying to learn how to work the different
formats for books.
Q: ​Where do I find the requirements for Kindle?
A: ​The Kindle Bookstore is powered by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) at kdp.amazon.com. You
publish and manage Kindle books through this platform. There are tutorials available on the
platform. However,ss I recommend telling your interior designer about the book size and
template so that you never have to mess with the formatting.
Q: ​What about adding music in audiobooks?
A: ​This is best done by hiring someone with audio production experience and either having a
conversation with them, about the mood/theme of the music, or if you really have a strong
opinion about what you want to use, to provide them with the audio samples that you’d like to
use. You can certainly have music in an audiobook and can play to your advantage, but it can
also be a distraction.
Q: ​If I choose to narrate the book myself, all I need is the external microphone, software, send it
to an engineer, and then upload it to Amazon?
A:​ Yes, that’s basically it. All Apple computers come with GarageBand, which serves your
purposes fine; no need for anything fancier. I personally use Adobe Audition. You’ll want to use
an external microphone for better quality. Making sure everything is in accordance with
Amazon/Audible audio submission requirements.
Q:​ Let’s say there is a workbook at the end of my book, would that also be included?
A:​ It depends on how big the workbook is, but if it’s in the book itself, then you would definitely
want to include those. If you’re giving prompts, you can leave a little bit of extra time in between
each question. You can also link your readers/listeners to PDFs from your audiobook.
Next Steps
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❏ Choose the way you will get your book cover designed, either through a talent platform
or a contest platform.
❏ Make a declaration on Facebook on when your book will be done in finished
publish-ready form
❏ Decide whether you want to narrate your audio book or hire voice talent
❏ Post a job for your Audio Book voice talent and/or editor and audio mastering engineer
❏ Use #BSB on Facebook and Twitter
❏ Use the Facebook group or your wider social circle to set a date and create public
accountability for yourself.
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Bestseller Blueprint Module #2 - ​D​evelop
Building your pre-launch marketing campaign
Module 2.1 - Importance of a Pre-Launch Campaign
This is the stage where you look at how you build a pre-launch campaign and set up the
strategic process that takes you from having a finished book to actually launching it. It is the
second step in the Big Idea Framework.
Think of this as a visual of a rocket. You're at a standstill on a solid foundation and ready to start
to propel yourself upward into the sky or onto the bestseller charts. In this visualization of the
rocket, think about how much energy it takes to start the process. How much fuel is used in a
rocket to begin that upwards motion into the sky? It's very much the same with a book launch
campaign and strategic marketing efforts. These things take a lot of energy to start and a lot of
resources to get the ball rolling. But once you gain some momentum, it becomes a lot easier.
Once you’re in orbit, navigating doesn't take nearly as much energy as it did to get the process
started.
I think this is a relevant analogy because it can seem overwhelming, and perhaps this is one of
the reasons why you joined this program. Maybe you got to a point where you started to think,
"Okay well now that I am pretty clear on what my book is," but you've realized there's a lot of
moving parts that go into a book launch. This is an opportunity to ​understand ​what all of those
parts are.
Your Website
The simplicity of building your list and your pre-launch audience is straightforward. You only
need two pages for your website and simple emailing software to put you and your book out
there, specifically geared to building your list. What we are talking about is sharing a sample
chapter of your book or some associated resource. It's not about building a whole website but
rather creating a clear, focused offer and then sending qualified traffic to that offer. When
people arrive, they have an option to get a sample chapter of your book or some
complementary resource of value to them. This will provide value to your audience and enables
you to capture their name & email to fulfill the promise that you are making. The required pages
are:
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Landing Page
When someone comes to this page it would say, “Download this free report on the five steps to
quit your job and begin doing what you love,” or something to that effect. When someone enters
their name and email and selects "get instant access," two things happen:
1. Their name and email is entered into your database via your email software
client.
2. The user gets redirected to a thank you page, which turns out to be an ​extremely
important page​.
● Your landing page doesn't need to be a science project or something dramatic. Rather,
identify the most attention-grabbing headline, representative of what people are going
to learn if they get the sample chapters.
● Underneath the headline, I included the words "plus get free enrollment in the lifestyle
entrepreneurs email academy training series". This is important because it sets the
expectation that there's more value on offer than just the sample chapters, you are also
going to get an email training series which complements the content in the book.
● By offering a testimonial you show that someone else has read the book and has good
things to say about it.
Thank You Page
● 100% of the people who clicked this button will see this thank you page. As it turns out,
this is the only time where that is ever going to happen. Therefore, the thank you page is
an intrinsically valuable page.
● I have created my Thank You Page with software called Leadpages. Once you register
your name and email a page pops up - thanking the audience and informing them that in
a couple of days they will receive the training series. Also included is a link to the Lifestyle
Entrepreneur book launch page. There are only three sentences in this page - so the
entirety of the web presence you need to start building a community exists in under ten
sentences!
Book Launch Page
● The book launch page is more comprehensive; it's a page I put together to build
pre-orders and try to get people to buy more than one book at a time by offering
bonuses if they buy multiple books. For example, if you buy 20 copies of my book then
you get a ticket to "Business in a Weekend" – an online training course that really flushed
out all the ideas in Lifestyle Entrepreneur and made them applicable. I had a simple
three-step process:
1. Get people to the landing page where I offer sample chapters and email training
2. Once they accept that, take them to a thank you page with an option to check
the book launch page
3. Once they get to the book launch page, present all of these offers for a deeper
experience priced in terms of books
● After purchasing, people forward their receipts on the book launch page to activate their
bonus offers. I set up emails for each of the bonus offers to make it easy to sort the
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●
bonuses that needed to be fulfilled. I included a preview of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur in
PDF format and embedded it into a frame that looked like a computer. The final two
things on this page included a video "Let's make a Deal" where I ask the audience to
make alternative offers to buy my book. Then finally a description of myself.
The book launch page is just a one page website. Now we are at a total of three pages.
With these three pages, together with the landing page and the thank you page, you
have the potential to sell more than one book at a time. Then you have a situation where
you can focus all your attention driving people to the landing page just by doing
marketing, paid advertising, social media, guest blogs etc. The landing page contains
low pressure offers and shifts the emphasis to giving away as many sample chapters of
your book as possible, and with the thank you page you can convert it to something
more.
Example:
The Legendary Life by Dan Munro - Here the headline is "Learn the Secret to an Authentic and
Meaningful Lifestyle" and then "Get Your Free Sneak-Peek Into The Legendary Life".
Dan chose to go with a bullet list with three key points about what you're going to get from The
Legendary Life. Followed by an option to get a free sample and two testimonials. This page is
just a template from Leadpages - you don't need to design it yourself.
● Once you select the option to get a free sample and enter your details, you are
forwarded to a thank you page. This page contains an offer that if you buy a copy of the
book you will receive some training for free. Underneath the offer there is a list of
directive steps: one is a like button for Facebook - this shows the book's popularity. The
next step emphasizes the one-time offer, contains the link to Amazon where you can buy
the book and explains what to do next to receive the free training.
● This thank you page contains an offer that can drive you to buy the book. With this
strategy then you're going from sample chapter to full copy of the book without even
reading the sample chapter. You are making a compelling enough offer where the
person can buy the book for under $10 and get some free training as well.
That's the psychology behind this approach! It is delivered using the only two web pages you
need:
1. A landing page with an opt in form.
2. A thank you page that proposes good value for a small amount of money.
On the thank you page you are shifting from "Hey, have something for free" to "Hey, here's a
really valuable opportunity that you can take advantage of that has a price." This is the only
page that 100% of people who opt-in see and you want to take advantage of that with some
kind of offer.
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The biggest mistake people make is when they spend too much time crafting the landing page,
the headline, the book image and the reviews - only to show a thank you page that leads to
nowhere once the person is actually interested. It's a wasted opportunity.
There should never be a time when someone is engaging with you online and there's an end,
there's nowhere else to go. You want to keep them in your ecosystem for as long as possible.
You don't get a second chance to make a first impression but you do get a chance to turn that
first impression into a comprehensive, more detailed impression.
How do you get your book into new reader's hands?
Targeting new audiences to fill your own
●
Facebook ads - One example is with the book launch ad for Strength From Within, a
book about gym training. We targeted people of a particular age and with particular
interest in P90X training - so if you were on Facebook and you've liked the P90X page or
you've been in discussions on Facebook using the word P90X then they would see the
ad. We targeted audiences that we thought have a chance of liking the book. It's worth
allocating a few hundred dollars to drive traffic to an offer about your book so you can
build an audience of people interested in what you're doing. On the Facebook ad set you
can select any audience, narrow it down to specific demographics in order to reach out
to as many relevant people as possible.
●
Your personal network - ​Your network of friends across different platforms can help
leverage your book. You can craft a message to your community, such as offering to
share sample chapters and receive feedback. You can even invite people you know to
visit your landing page and thereby get the sample chapters of your book and be
entered into your email database. This puts them in the pre-launch list.
●
Outreach letter - ​The next steps are to choose 5 – 7 audiences who could be ideal for
your pre-launch campaign and prepare an outreach letter to your network. The letter
can just be a few sentences can contain an invitation for people to download it.
●
List Building 101: Strategy and Software - ​Don't let software scare you; you don't need to
learn code. You don't need any extra skills to put together webpages and publish them.
○ Leadpages - powers a landing page and a thank you page. Gives information
about the total number of visits, number of people that opt-in and the conversion
rate. A high performing landing page would have a conversion rate of around 60
percent. The higher the page converts, the higher the clarity of your offer and the
willingness of people to take you up on it - coupled with the qualification of the
traffic you're sending there. Leadpages is simple to use and doesn't require you
to use code.
○ WordPress - I recommend you install WordPress on any domain you use.
WordPress is free, user friendly and powers your domain. You can download a
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WordPress plugin to sync your Leadpages account with your domain.
Leadpages seamlessly integrates with it.
○
Choose an email solution - ​You have a couple of options:
■ Beginner solutions - ​AWeber and MailChimp. Both of these are easy to
use and inexpensive. You could grow your business for well over a year,
and you're not going to strain their capacity. Leadpages connects to your
mail account so once somebody clicks "Get My Book Now" and enters an
email, that triggers your email client to send an email to them that
contains the chapters of your book, or a letter etc. AWeber and
MailChimp can also be configured to send timed emails.
■ Intermediate/advanced - ​Ontraport and Infusionsoft. These are more
expensive options. With Infusionsoft you can create comprehensive
marketing campaigns. Infusionsoft also processes payments and
everything that's required to complete a transaction online. However, this
is not required if you are publishing through Amazon or online through
book retailers.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the way I do planning for my business on a high level, as well as for
something more project specific, like launching a book. It's very simple to do; you need to identify
your current situation is, then define this period of time and your desired situation in the future
(your desired situation should be written in the present tense). Identify some key indicators that
you want to track to let you know if you are making progress. For example, I chose a revenue
indicator and a catalogue size indicator. My goal was to have 50 books in the market by the end
of this year. I also chose an audience size metric - I had 12,000 subscribers at the beginning of
the year and my goal is to have 25,000. Once you have identified these indicators, then you work
out what specific things you need to do in order to hit the metrics and actualize your desired
situations. It doesn't need to be complicated; inside a simple structure lies a sophisticated
approach to being more strategic with your business.
Q&A
Q: ​Of all of the web pages and sites that you may build, what is the only page that you can
predict 100% of people who opt in for one of your offers will see?
A: Thank you Page
Next Steps
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❏ Write out the headline, sub-headline, and call to action for landing page. Think about
how you can capture someone's attention and name a primary benefit they will receive
as a reader, and that's enough to start this process. Post them into the Facebook group
and solicit feedback.
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Module 2.2 - Your Pre-Launch Marketing Campaign, Building Your Launch
List, and Establishing Your Presence Online
Begin to build an audience of people that will be interested in your launch, with the goal of
enrolling new clients, gaining new customers, and actualizing the earning potential of the book.
Build your Book’s Social Media Presence
Whether you have a pre-existing presence and thinking of rebranding or you’re creating brand
new channels, in this section we will explore choosing the right social media platforms for your
work and developing your social media presence. Social media helps to create that feeling of
community around your book and your brand.
Which platforms should you use?
Pick one or two channels and focus your energy developing those to their full potential and
gaining an initial follow ship on 1 or 2. In the beginning, do not try to manage and grow 3+
channels, as the content-creation requirements will become too much.
There are 4 main types of social media platforms:
● Image-based
● Professional
● Video-based
● Text-based
Criteria to help you determine which platforms to use:
● Image-Based Social Networks
○ Instagram (owned by Facebook)
■ Usually a more personal approach, building a bond and loyalty with your
audience who can see what you’re doing in your day-to-day life.
○ Pinterest
■ Created boards and pin images you find around the web. You can also
create a board that links back to articles and blogs you’ve published on
other sites so there is a collection of all of them in one place.
■ Create a “lookbook” – pinning a bunch of different images onto a board
that visually represents how you think about your brand. This can be sent
to designers so they can gain inspiration for the general look and
aesthetic of your brand.
■ If you’re a chef, if you have a book about plants, if you have something
that’s best described through visual presentations, an image-based
social network platform will best showcase this.
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●
Professional-Based Social Networks
○ Best for books for corporate managers, how to get your dream job,
entrepreneurship, etc.
○ You’d like to build a presence and network on more professionally-oriented social
media channels, using channels like ​LinkedIn​ can strengthen your brand.
○ You can proactively build your network by searching for people within certain
industries, with certain jobs, connecting with them through groups, build
relationships, and gain exposure.
●
Video-Based
○ YouTube
■ You can very easily create different playlists for different books which are
readily shareable through different channels.
○ Facebook
■ Facebook’s algorithm makes videos more visible if you create a post
using the original video instead of just posting a link from Vimeo or
Youtube.
■ This can greatly increase visibility and you can even pay a small amount
of money to “boost” your posts for more visibility.
■ You can sponsor your posts for a visibility boost.
●
Text-Based
○ Blogs (Wordpress, Tumblr, Blogger, etc.)
○ Accumulation of posts and comments creates a nice dynamic social
proof of your readership and community.
○ Through these channels, you can embed links to all your other social
media platforms and create direct traffic to purchase your book.
At the end of the day, you want to choose a social media platform that really leverages your
strengths. Pick a direction to go that is an interest and passion. If you like photography and
images, Instagram is the way to go. If you’re into videography, then Youtube is something you
should focus on building up. A more professional-focused work? Concentrate on building your
LinkedIn network.
Choose 1 or 2 platforms to start and build out each one. Focus on developing your channels to
their full potential. You can build your presence and link to all these different things that you
have going on, all while boosting your book sales. Social media is a great way to promote
content, building a following, get people onto your opt-in list for a pre-launch, or getting people
straight to your book.
Q&A
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Q: ​How long are social media video posts?
A: I aim for 3 – 8 minute videos to get my point across. Something in the 3 - 4 minute views will
get complete views. A lot is conveyed in a video and you can get a lot done in these videos.
Q: ​Is providing the free audiobook for list building in addition to the free first chapters of the text
version?
A: ​It can be, there’s nothing preventing you from setting up 2 parallel landing pages. One that
gives away the sample chapters of your book and one that gives away either the narrated
sample chapters of your book, or perhaps, the whole audio book. And that’s simply a choice you
need to make based on personal preference. Also taking into consideration that some people
may get the audio book as an opt-in incentive, but then still buy a paperback or Kindle copy. You
can either give away the audio-narrated sample chapters or give away the whole book in
addition to, or replace, giving away sample chapters in electronic edition.
Next Steps
❏ Commit to an initial Content Publishing Strategy and map out what you can publish
leading up to and throughout your launch
a. ​It’s as simple as pulling out a calendar and planning out posts, what to talk about,
etc.
b. ​Outlining themes of the content you’ll be publishing to social media, tying it into
the upcoming book launch
c.
​Create useful content, distribute it through a channel that highlights your
strengths and personality, having a content publishing calendar
❏ Create a variation of your sample chapter opt-in page for your audiobook download
page
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Bestseller Blueprint Module #3 - ​E​xecute
Launch your Book to the World the Right Way
Module 3.1: Open the launch window to go live
Timing Your Launch
The launch window basically describes the launch date, which is usually a Tuesday (the industry
standard)
●
Why Tuesday?
Research has shown that on Mondays, people are usually still recovering from the
weekend. By Tuesday, 10:30 a.m. local time, people are usually caught up with
everything from Monday and last week and are now turning their attention towards what
is new and what they want to accomplish this week. This is when you want to get in front
of people’s minds with your book launch. Tuesday is also a good strategic day because
the follow-up to the launch can take place on the following weekdays, without being
interrupted by the weekend.
Example of Launch Week:
● First major promotional event happens on a Tuesday, and falls through to the
Wednesday
● The second promotional event on the Thursday / Friday
● Maybe one follow-up during the weekend.
Promotional Events
Since your primary aim is to become a bestseller on Amazon, the examples focus on an Amazon
launch. (Other platforms are also available, but you want to focus all of your social media
attention, promotional events, joint venture partners’ mails, and existing audiences onto one
platform). Why?
● Focusing all of your promotional firepower on one platform gives you a much better
chance to move enough units on that platform to get a chart position, compared to
splitting your promotions on all the platforms when you launch on and expecting to get
into the charts on all of them.
● As an add-on, you can promote your presence on other platforms, but the initial focus
has to be on getting into the bestsellers list in the category at Amazon.
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Promotion Tactic 1
Free giveaway launch
Amazon lets you have a free promotion for up to five days per quarter, where your book is
available as a free download on Amazon. For example, if the launch date is next Tuesday, you’d
want to set the free promotion start date as Tuesday and end date as Wednesday or Thursday.
If you have a global audience. you should be looking to give at least 24 hours to every time-zone
to be able to purchase your book and share with their friends, to maximize your reach.
Promotion Tactic 2
Incentive Pricing​ ($0.99 Launch)
Note that the royalty at this price is about 35 cents, so you will be making significantly less
money at this point; however, note that this will still have your book on the paid books lists, as
opposed to also being on the free books list in a giveaway launch, which would give you 4 to 5
times more downloads, based on past experience. Consider how important it is to get your book
into as many hands as possible vs. making a meagre amount of money on book sales and
compromising the amount of exposure you could have had.
Promotion Tactic 3
Countdown Deal
Making your book available for a set price for the selected amount of time. For example, from
next Tuesday to Wednesday, your book could be available for $0.99, and then till Friday for
$1.99 and then back at its original list price. This would be an example of a time constraint
applied to your book launch, which creates an incentive for people viewing your book to buy the
book as soon as they can
Promotion Tactic 4
Pre-orders
This allows people to pay ahead of time for you book, even though they do not get it until the
launch date. This allows you to log sales even before the launch of the book, and helps with
rankings because it is still publicly visible (but not publicly available). To use Amazon’s free
launch, countdown deal and other tools, you must enroll in KDP Select (recommended if this is
your first book), which means that your book is going to be exclusively available on Amazon for
the first three months. In return, you will have access to all the tools Amazon has for driving
downloads among its reader base to a much larger degree.
How to get reviews before the launch
● The book has to be published and live at least a week before your promotional launch.
● Get your friends and fans to purchase the book at retail price and then leave a verified
purchase review from the same account they purchased it from. This happens before
you begin the promotions for your book.
● Having purchase-verified reviews also helps your rankings in Amazon’s algorithm.
Go live and announce it to your launch list
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Based on previous weeks, you should have a healthy pre-launch list of people who are
interested in your book; perhaps they are part of a Facebook group you are managing. Now is
the time to announce that they can now get your book. This does not have to be a huge
announcement if you have properly built anticipation among your launch list.
Morning of the launch day
By this point, you should have everything done and scheduled, whether that be emails,
Facebook ad campaigns, social media promotions, etc. Take this time to simply experience the
feeling of being a published author whose book is being promoted instead of running around
stressed, trying to put things into place that should have already been in place by this time.
The email you send to your list should not have any confusion about the big moment. Be very
clear about the launch (It’s GO time! (BOOK LAUNCH)). Mention the promotion and give them the
link to your book within the first three to four sentences of your email. You’d also want to include
a picture of your book, as well as a review, or a quote, or something that an advanced reader
said about the book. You can also include the backstory about the book and how you got to that
point, giving the readers a glimpse behind the scenes. Another thing to mention could be the
experience the reader would have by reading the book. The aim is to get the reader excited
about getting the book.
Always give some extra context in the email, rather than just telling the reader that your book is
out and a link for them to go get it.
Strategizing Your Book Launch
Your launch should focus on paid ad campaigns, paid traffic, and driving that traffic to Amazon.
Facebook Ads
You can have several ad sets containing the ads people will see. If you have more than one ad in
an ad set, Facebook will automatically track which ones perform better and relay the
information to you, so you can decide on how much to spend and what ads are working. This is
shown through number of clicks on your ads, cost per click, and the overall click through rate.
You can also set up various target markets to advertise to and budgets for each at an ad set
level. You can see the ads themselves in context of how your viewers will see it as well.
In terms of ad design, the simpler the better. If you have designed a good book cover, then it
should become the primary graphic in the ad. All this is done through the Ad Manager, except
for the designing of the actual ads, which takes place in the power editor tool.
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Once you are ready to launch the book, you can modify the ads or create new ones and
advertise to the same audiences you tested earlier, to get an even better response than when
you just sent your sample chapters.
Capturing and sharing your chart successes
People love to be part of something successful and exciting, and they love feeling like they
contributed to its success. So, to get the maximum amount of support at launch, it is necessary
to show people how their contributions are paying off. For example, capture a screenshot of
your chart position in a subcategory and share with your audience. As the launch goes on and
your book makes the charts in the entire category, share another screenshot of that with your
audience.
This is an important part of the launch and accomplishes two things: one, it validates the actions
of those who took action and supported the book launch in any way, and two, it serves as a call
to action for those who were passive, on the fence, and who haven’t become active as of yet to
get the book, giving you a second wave of support with your book launch.
This is also where the importance of pre-writing your initial launch emails and social media posts
comes in, so that on launch day you can focus on the progress of your book on the charts and
how the launch unfolds and act accordingly.
Keep sending emails and share successes during launch day.
Make the launch interactive
By preparing all the pre-launch stuff before launch day, you leave yourself available to interact
with fans in a live event on the launch day itself (even if it's online).
What you should do right now
Make a declaration to fully execute a best-selling book launch and not stop short right before
the finish line and not sell yourself short by failing to promote your book.
What happens all too often is that people write their book, go through the entire publication
process, and then fail to follow through to the end because of some element of fear or insecurity
that gets to them and prevents them from doing promotions and having a successful book
launch. An attitude of determination to see the task through is necessary to have a best-selling
book at launch.
Q&A
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Q:​ ​When does the launch window close?
A: ​The launch window refers to the amount of time you spend doing your book launch
promotion. The window closes when you raise the price of your book back to your normal price.
The window has closed and now you are in the next phase, which is ACCELERATE.
Q: ​How much time should be between the publication date and the launch date?
A: ​About 10 days to two weeks gives the readers enough time to comfortably read the book and
leave a review, and gets you some early sales. Any lesser would be very aggressive, and it’s
unreasonable to expect intelligible reviews in a shorter time frame.
Q: ​I would prefer to do a hangout the day after the launch because I’d be busy sharing charts
and sending emails the day of the launch, what do you think?
A: ​You should prepare the initial social media posts and emails before launch day so you do
have the time to do an interactive event on launch day. It’s not complicated to write a couple of
emails and posts beforehand and schedule them to go out during the day. You can also use the
email and social media posts to tell people about the live hangout that you are planning to do. It
is still okay to do the event the day after if your book is still at its promotional price, but the whole
idea is to have your book launch on one specific day and setting up everything accordingly to
take advantage of everything that day has to offer.
Q: ​Do you have an example of your launch calendar?
A: ​Every book and situation would have a different scenario and hence a different calendar;
however, in general, after the book is written, formatted and ready to be published, it would be
about six to eight weeks out from that day to the launch day. This gives you time to build your
social media presence, a sample chapter, build and test ads on audiences, and publish the
book to start getting initial reviews and a few advance sales.
Next Steps
❏ Create Launch Ads for Facebook and make sure the ads are approved so they run when
you want them to on launch day.
❏ Plan an interactive, fun way to amplify your book.
❏ Write your “It’s GO time email” and prepare 3 – 5 pieces of content to publish
❏ Send and post for your launch announcement
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Module 3.2 - Expanding your launch through contests and promotional
partners
Run a Contest to Maximize Engagement
The whole point of doing a contest—going through the effort to set up prizes and incentives and
to motivate people to promote—is to maximize the engagement and the mindshare for you as
an author and your book launch.
●
●
●
Engagement:
○ Is about having a place on somebody’s promotional calendar;
○ Allows you to get established if you are just starting in the space
■ The more established someone becomes—i.e., the bigger name,
audience, and business they have—the more structured and
pre-planned their promotional and editorial calendars are.
Mindshare
○ Engagement also allows for mindshare, where your audience is dedicating their
effort, talents, and expertise toward your benefit and gain
○ Specifically driving sales of your book, but also with promoting you in a general
sense. Contests are great ways to incentivize people.
Constitution of a Good Contest
○ You want a set up where you have good incentives, meaning high value to the
prizes but low to moderate cost to deliver.
○ When setting your prizes, you need to think about the people you are trying to
motivate and want to engage in your contest.
○ Prizes should have a high perceived value that people are willing to step up,
promote, and possibly even invest in promoting
○ Low cost to you, not more than your time and energy delivering it.
○ Bad prizes are time-consuming and costly to deliver.
Example:
Big real-time contest and launch being run for mentor and coach Marisa Murgatroyd. It’s not the
biggest launch, but there are about 25 – 30 promotional partners taking place.
● Prizes are:
○ 1​st​: $3,000, flights, hotel, two-day Mastermind event hosted by Marissa
○ 2​nd​: $1000, flights, hotel, Mastermind event
○ 3​rd​: $500, flights, hotel, Mastermind event
○ 4​-​5​th​: flights, hotel, Mastermind event
○ 6-10​th​: Mastermind event
● The group is filled with people that trade ideas, build relationships, and figure how they
can support and promote one another.
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●
●
●
High value, and the total cost of the prizes is under $10,000.
The high value is that there is incentive to be in the top 3, but there’s also high value for
everybody to make top 10 and get together at the Mastermind.
For $10,000, the promotion is incentivizing 25 – 30 people that are known in the industry
to promote the launch.
Lower the threshold to participation
Make it so easy for people to promote that they almost don’t have to do anything.
● Use pre-launch content, PLC for short, including Swipes or Swipe Copies, which are
pre-written emails you can modify and send.
● You get your own affiliate link and four different variations of an email that you can send
with different subject lines and proposed email copy. You then include your affiliate links
and send the email to your whole list.
● You want to make it so easy that somebody who is busy can literally copy, paste, and
send email, thereby reaching their whole audience which can be up to tens of thousands
of people.
● It may sound intuitive, but I’ve seen people run contests and it’s just wishy-washy or
unclear on what they want you to do to promote it.
○ Much easier to give people dates, content, links, and prize information
● A bad example is: “If you just might be willing to share my book launch with your
audience, I’d really appreciate it. Here’s the date. Oh, can you leave a review, too.”
They’re asking me to sit down and write an email or create some compelling copy to help
and support them.
Lowering the threshold to participation is taking out as much work and energy needing to be
exerted as possible from the promotional partner side and making it easy for them.
Contest Software & Best Practices
Inside Infusionsoft
Used to maintain our database, send email, and manage referral partners.
● For example, in Marissa’s referral partner portal, I can see the contest information
and schedule, percentage earned as a promoting partner, and link tracking stats
—automatically.
● You can track what’s going on and use these stats to craft the leaderboard if
you’re managing the contest. That’s how you communicate with people
throughout ​the contest.
Thunderclap
People commit to promoting something through social media channels
● Used for a number of different reasons, e.g., book launches.
● Shows book information, stats of the total reach of the promotion and social
media, and a way to help spread the word about a book launch
● By clicking a few buttons, people can support your contest like sending a
pre-written tweet.
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The best practices, regardless of software platform, are things like lowering the threshold for
participation to just a couple clicks of a button to reach people’s audience and networks, while
promoting the contest itself.
Different Types of Contests
There were 2 different types of contest at the Book, Business and Brand Building Summit:
● Opt-in contest
○ If you sent me 250 leads then you get either a Google Chromecast or $30, 500
leads gets an Amazon Fire tablet and $60, 1000 leads or more a Fitbit flex or
$120, and so on.
○ Structure of this contest is that you send a certain number of opt-ins to win
○ Very clear-cut
● Sales contest
○ There are different criteria for winning, because here if you contribute $1,000 in
sales, then you’ll get an Amazon Fire Tablet or $60.
○ In this case, we made a conscious decision to tie the sales contest prizes to the
actual amount of sales delivered.
○ You’re ensuring you don’t promise some huge prize to whoever just comes in the
top places, you might have offered a prize that cost 2 – 5 times as much as the
business value you got from the people promoting.
If you set a contest for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc., irrespective of how many sales that drives, then it
looks more like the contest Marissa is running. For my contest, the contest is tied to the number
of sales that are driven, price of the prizes and incentives accordingly, so that you factor in that
you’re not going to make a net-loss. Further contest information includes information on the
contest, the winning formula for promoting, when to promote. Basically, telling people what to do
so they can win.
A bad contest has low incentives and is easy to be gamed; e.g., how many clicks can you send
us, rather than opt-ins or sales. A contest based on the idea that you just send me a bunch of
traffic and it will all convert, is a bad contest. It sets the incentive as easy to be gamed, e.g., they
send low quality traffic that doesn’t convert at all.
With a good contest ​you ​pick the winner ​based on initiative​, so it’s subjective. You choose who
wins with bonus prizes like a private consultation or Mastermind session for somebody who
looks like they are really putting in the work. This fits in with the rule of a high value, low cost of
delivery prize. It’s also good to have objective criteria for winning the contest. In summary, you
want clear cut boundaries for what it takes to win but also some subjectivity to allow you to
recognize and reward initiative.
How will your contest be run?
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Do you now see the value of running a contest as part of your book launch? Instead of doing a
book launch with support from friends and family and maybe a few hundred people, you can
have hundreds or thousands of people participating on social media and have the option to
email their audience, all tracked with your software.
There’s flexibility, and you can be creative and do fun stuff with thrilling prizes as long as you’re
confident that it ties to sales, so that you’re definitely covering the cost of the prize and that you
have the incentives aligned so that you’re working in lock step.
Expand the launch with Promotional Partners
What makes a great promotional partner?
What, in your opinion, would your ideal promotional partner look like? Is it someone who runs live
events and would invite you to speak? Is it someone who has a large online audience and can
host you on a webinar? Is it a blogger who would feature you on their blog?.
●
●
●
●
●
There’s a complementarity to your focus; that you are complements to each other, like
two pieces of a puzzle that fit together.
For example, Jonathan Green has resources on writing books, and my work is all about
publishing and promoting books and growing personal brands. You can see we fit pretty
well together.
All it takes is a quick conversation to identify if there’s a good promotional partnership.
Another example is Marissa, her focus turning ideas into training and products. Her
audience has people looking to share their message, some who are thinking about doing
a book, and I can be the person of choice to help her audience with publishing a book.
When I was talking to John Aegon about a promotional partnership, he was asking me a
lot of questions about my audience, what exactly I train them on, and what products and
support I offer. He’s doing this to evaluate if we are overlapping, potentially competitive,
or if there’s a complementarity to some aspect of what he’s doing, which is the basis for
a good promotional partnership.
How to Structure Promotional Partnerships
● It starts with a natural relationship with the person.
● Most of your promotional partners are going to be with people you have an actual
relationship with, e.g, I was a student of Marissa’s first before becoming a promotional
partner of hers and featured in her marketing material. That’s a progression of our
relationship as well as a deepening structure to our promotional partnership. That’s the
ideal structure for a promotional partnership, somebody that you have:
○ a real relationship with
○ a complementarity in your audiences and focus
○ a healthy competitive spirit
● On the more technical side, the industry standard for example for an online training
program launch is to pay your promotional partner 40 – 50 percent of the sale.
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●
●
You’re giving away half the revenue of the sale, but you only made that sale because the
person promoted you, adding to your customer base.
As a practical example, somebody from Marissa’s audience came to my summit and we
ended up publishing together. In this case Marissa has already been compensated, so
moving forward no longer falls under the purview of the promotional partnership.
You want to be clear at the start with your promotional partner to how you share in the
revenue from what is being promoted.
To repeat, the industry standard is loosely a 50-50 split of the resulting sale, and you
should try to make it as easy as copy/paste/send for people to promote you. That does
require you doing a little more work to write communication and marketing materials for
others to use to promote. However, that is a high leverage activity and the material is
leveraged to thousands of people.
How to Find and Contact Promotional Partners?
● You should have an awareness of who some of the players are in your industry.
● If you are new, take some time to look around and see who’s doing what and get the
temperature of what’s going on in the industry.
● A great way to meet promotional partners is to take part in promotions, specifically with
people you want to be your promotional partners. Before Marissa ever promoted me, I
promoted her. I’m friends with many of the people listed in Marissa’s private promotional
partners Facebook Group and building relationships through the course of her launch.
● During the promotion and through the process of making the leaderboard and getting
some visibility, makes it much easier talking to to potential partners.
● If you already have industry relationships, try and solidify that personal relationship and
undertake a business relationship as well by collaborating or doing promotional
partnerships.
● Participating in launches and making your own launches compelling, you’ll eventually
get more and more promotional partners.
● Think in terms of the next year and then the next 3 to 5 years. You never know who’s
watching, paying attention and the opinions they are forming.
Q&A
Q​: ​Should prizes be physical objects or cash prizes?
A​: You want to think about what your audience would like. I’ve always used Apple products for
the upper end of the prize spectrum. I’d also put a cash equivalent; some people want the prize,
others the cash. For my sales contest, I anchored something really high, which was an open
prize of a set cash value. You can even put it over to them, ask them what they want.
Q​: ​ How do I get affiliate links with software?
A​: There are tons of options out there for CRM software in the upper-end of the email client
spectrum, like Ontraport and Infusionsoft, which I use. This is the software that generates the
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affiliate tracking links and allows you to run a referral partner or JV partner program, giving you
logins and stats. Mainly, you want to take into account the software and setup that you already
have and see if they include options or add-on options for JV or referral partner tracking for
contests. In turns of a launch where you have joint venture partners you either need Infusionsoft
or Ontraport, or you need 3rd party software that does referral partner tracking.
Q​: ​I’m offering an in person only program for $3,000. What should my promotional partner get?
A​: What would you be comfortable with, and what would still let you fulfill on that promise of the
$3,000 program while compensating somebody handsomely? 15 – 20% is realistic if it’s a lot of
one-on-one attention from you. 25 – 30% is more aggressive, or at 33% you can say, “You get
$1,000.” That becomes a pretty big incentive if you can still deliver the value and get a net
revenue of $2,000 for that client.
Next Steps
❏ Brainstorm what type of contest would best suit your book launch and spend 10 minutes
writing our what your contest would be and its prizes.
❏ Make a declaration to approach someone you admire to be your promotional partner on
your book launch. Even if you just approach one person you admire, talk about your book
launch and seek to enlist their support in some capacity, you’ve taken action. If it doesn’t
work out, you’re in the same place you were now. If it works, you’re in.
❏ Write email/swipe copy that a promotional partner could send for you and if you paste it
into the Facebook group for Bestseller Campaign Blueprint. I will personally review it and
give feedback. Consider me a potential promotional partner.
❏ Make a list of your top 10 ideal promotional partners and write a one-sentence angle to
collaborate with them on. Doesn’t have to be a complex angle.
Bestseller Blueprint Module #4 - ​A​ccelerate
Monetize and Expand the Reach of your Book
Module 4.1: Re-launch and build back-end products and training programs
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Accelerate the momentum you built in your launch to turn it into products, services, programs,
and experiences. ​This is where you take all of the work that you've put in to date and kick it into
overdrive. This doesn't mean you have to work 10 times harder; it means you finally get to reap
some of the rewards from all the front-end work it takes to write a book and launch a campaign.
Once you reach the stage where you book launch has taken place, it's important to take time to
celebrate. The book launch marks the finish line for everything you have done to date, but it also
marks the beginning for your life thereafter as a published (best-selling!) author. This is a
different role to step into.
The best part of being an author is being able to sign a book and give it to another person. This is
an act of giving them a distillation of a decade of work, and to put forth that philosophy, that
work.
Re-launching and Promotional Maintenance
Where one launch ends, another begins.
● Think of this as a sequence of events unfolding, a multi-stage process.
● Getting off the ground is the hardest part. The subsequent work is easier.
Sharing the Love
● Once the launch is done, take some time to celebrate, even if it didn’t go as well as you
wanted. Acknowledge the fact that you took action and crossed the necessary
thresholds. Celebrate the experience you went through.
New Creations
● Once your launch is done, then start thinking about what comes next.
● Conceive what you want to create and launch and map that out in an outline enough so
that you can explain the value to your potential clients and customers, and thereby sell
enrollment.
● Once you have people in, then start to design the program.
Online Sales
● Once the book launches, to start using promotional days (such as the Kindle 99 cent
day) online.
○ This way, the book can get a whole new amount of exposure. No additional
relationships need to be formed. This is a simple way of getting new
exposure.
○ Things like online sales are simple ways of ​re-launching​.
The 90-Day Launch Cycle
o Consider “seasons” in 90-day cycles (around 3 months).
o How do you want to engage with your audience dependent on that season?
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o
○
Shift your thinking to crafting an experience that adds value to the reader, to the
participant, the user. This was discussed in the context of a sale, too.
Submit your book to book promotion sites for free, where your book can be
added to lists for promotion. Some of these have certain requirements (such as
discounted prices or a certain number of reviews in order to be included), but
there is always an active market for books, and so there is a sub-industry of book
promotion, book swaps, etc. This provides continual ongoing exposure to your
market.
·
Bring copies of your book(s) wherever you go so that you are able to give those copies to
potential clients; this expands your reach and visibility. It is not expensive to get copies of your
own book printed. This creates a lasting impact on people, and keeps your name at the top of
their mind so that you become the first person that people think of when they think of book
publishing.
·
Where do you take people next? What type of experience do you want to provide them? Where
do they go after that?
·
​Starting with free content. ​Blogs, podcasts, interviews, videos, etc. will lead people to your book.
● Then, your book will lead people to what comes next, then leading up to the signature
offering or one-on-one client work with a small amount of people with whom you can
over-deliver, so that you get good case studies, referrals, and so that you can hone your
offering to expand it to a much larger audience.
Paying it Forward
● This is the concept of giving your book to someone for free or putting it on sale, or
meeting people and signing their book for them. This person will then go tell have two
conversations about meeting you and reading your book, and this expands your
audience even more.
● In the case of giving a talk to an audience, how can you coordinate with the person
managing this event so that everyone in the audience can get a copy?
● Build a lot of good will in this way simply by getting your book into other people's hands.
● Another tactic is to send a copy of your new book to your customers or clients for free.
This can be used to ​re-ignite their interest in your work, and this reminds them of your
events. Easy way to build goodwill and add value that could culminate in good
opportunities.
Good Will Hunting
● Media opportunities. Once the book is done, continuing to find ways to get that book into
people's’ hands or to be a part of big book promotions.
Promotional Partnerships
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●
Build relationships with people who can help promote your book, especially those who
are “up the food chain,” so that you can continue to learn as well as grow your business.
This is also a way that keeps the work fascinating and brings about new opportunities.
Look at your book objectively. Separate your own thoughts about the book. Spend your energy
on exposure opportunities and on re-launches.
Building Relationships with Your Mentors and Mentees
● You yourself can become the person that others look up to from afar, just as you may
have individuals that you look up to now. Maintain your relationships with those who
mentored you, and offer your services as a mentor.
Your Life as a Best-Selling Author
● If you have not yet established your​ home base​ online, this is the next step.
○ The home base could be oriented around the book (eg. yourbookname.com), or it
could be oriented around your name (eg. yourname.com). Ultimately, it’s best to
have both.
● Certain criteria for your online presence:
○ Media​: Making the rounds in your market. Doing a book tour, making a list of 20+
shows, or lists, or podcasts that you could be a part of. Proactively pursue the
option of getting on these. This is the outbound side of seeking media.
○ Making a one sheet. ​This has all your information including links so that a media
person knows how to contact you, how to introduce you, whether they want to
include you in their media program, and also how to promote you. Often for
podcasts, as an example, this sheet will be published online. If you can make
media people's lives easier for them to discuss you, this both makes them more
amenable to you and it also allows you to control the messaging because the
media people will often read verbatim what you’ve written about yourself.
● Invite people to contact you directly.
○ Simply by changing the word “contact” to “let’s talk,” can dramatically increase
the chances of people contacting you. Simply by being friendly, inviting, and
genuine, you will invite people to engage with you more and feel like they can
invite you on their media program.
● Collect your appearances onto a media page.
○ On your online home base, collect a list of your media appearances and put them
online, perhaps in an ascending order of importance, so that the more popular
and more known media outlets are the first ones that are visible.
● Use your best-selling superpowers for good.
○ Think about how you can provide other people with a little additional value. You
are, in some sense, the product.
○ Some media opportunities don’t have a direct compensation
correlation—meaning they are unpaid.
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○
○
Establish yourself as having an identity as the person to go to for training and
support, which will generate more referrals, more good will, and therefore more
opportunities.
Have a level of humility.
Your Back-End Product or Service
The entire basis for many people's decision to write a book revolves around the increased
authority, credibility, positioning, and overall self-awareness. It allows opportunities to be
featured to talk about the topics in your book. One aspect of accelerating is brand development
and media: getting in front of different audiences to share some aspect of your message,
training, and your book. That’s one part, but there’s also a whole different found of interest that
comes from getting coverage and being featured on podcasts that gives you a larger reach and
establishes you within the industry. Accelerate your book launch momentum towards your
back-end product or service.
Example:
● 1,000 people have a copy of your book on launch
● Use the momentum, which is invaluable and worth its weight in gold, and go 20 percent
beyond your book launch, and you’ll have a new opportunity
One of my business mentors, Jim Stark, gave me the following advice:
"The first time I launched an affiliate marketing campaign, it made $3000 in one day. I didn't
know what to do, and I took a vacation. That was the absolute last thing I should have done going the extra 10 - 20 percent beyond that could have accelerated that exponentially"
Delivering a value-to-sales sequence
This is a way of communicating with your audience either through video, text, or blog—adding
additional value to them. It expands on the book content and makes it applicable in their lives.
On the tail-end of that value-to-sales sequence is when you make the offer. After people have
got a copy of your book, you need to have a sequence in place that communicates with them in
a way that's additive, and not "salesy" at all. It's more about unpacking the contents of the book
and diving deeper into them. Once you have done that, then you make an offer.
The simplest way to do this is with ​three value-based emails and a sales offer. ​The three
value-based emails are timed in an auto-responder. For example, you've got a campaign set up
that delivers over the course of a week three emails that are of a valuable nature. On the tail-end
of that you make an offer.
Example:
Value-to-Sales Sequence: Business in a Weekend
● Opt-in form and simple landing page
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●
●
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“Business in a Weekend” value-video sequence
Registered for free opt-in, they get an email
○ Initial email: they receive a welcome along with a link to download sample
chapters from my book and a link for training
○ After a day, 2nd email; points to 2nd video
○ After another day, 3rd email
Points client back to all other trainings
○ Offer email
○ After a day, email sent linking to a webinar
This is a very simple sales sequence. You take them to the door and show them
inside. You show them the way that they want to work. At this point, I've shown
someone how they could build a business they could run online, allowing them to
have a lifestyle of travel, freedom, and opportunity. If they go through this whole
email sequence, they get two hours of video training. And the offer is “now you have
taken a few steps down this path, do you want to go the whole way?”
Creating a killer back-end product or service
What makes a great program? I believe an eight-week or eight-module course is a good way to
do training. In an eight-week span of time, you can accomplish a whole lot. You want to create a
way for people to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time.
A great program is something that:
● helps you shorten your learning curve.
● helps you get better results faster.
● enables you to do it easier than you first imagined.
My programs incorporate a live format which suits my personality well. These exist as a
self-paced learning program afterwards. The first time I launched Bestseller Campaign
Blueprint, I hadn't even built the training. But I knew there would be eight weeks, and I just wrote
a paragraph on what I wanted to cover on each of these weeks. I planned it out like this. You are
always better served to launch and make sales, before you create and deliver it. In this program,
on the different times I run it live, I usually use a two-week buffer between when I close the
registration and when we do the actual training. That gives me time to create the first couple of
trainings and enables me to be one to two weeks ahead in the program. This also enables me to
shape and adapt the training towards the group specifically as I know what they are looking for.
What makes a great program is a combination of the training itself, the exercises you provide,
and the interactivity inside that program. Having a Facebook group is a great way to allow the
participants to interact with each other. The final element of a great program is a bonus to the
experience.
In terms of the structure of my training I like to do the following:
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Create the training
Deliver it live
Record it
Use the created video in a number of ways
You can go from a 21-slide deck to producing four different videos comprising of different
training modules. For the Bestseller Campaign Blueprint, I created a two-page outline for each
of the training modules and then worked with a slide designer to look at the outlines and then
turn them into slides. I was creating these outlines two weeks ahead of time while interacting
with my audience.
Software solutions for your program
In terms of the software that goes into Bestseller Campaign Blueprint, I used a “GoToWebinar”
sequence. I created the sequence, and then there's the registration link to get the reminders for
the whole eight weeks. With Infusionsoft, once you are registered, it just punches you to the
“GoToWebinar,” you get the registration confirmation, and away you go. That's the primary
software solution.
You don't need to get tied up in what software you need to use. The real value is in the content,
the training, and helping people in your program achieve the outcomes they want.
Solutions for coaches
​The difference here is that you will want a scheduling software solution. I use one called Acuity,
but there are so many more. It's like a subscription service and you get a personalized link; you
can click the link and select a time-slot on somebody's calendar. For example, if you were going
to deliver a coaching program and somebody signed up for three months, once they have
enrolled in your program you would send them an email with a schedule so the coaching calls
can be booked. You can also use the software to ask questions and help with your preparation
before talking with the client. Having a schedule based solution for your coaching business is as
easy as picking one of these subscription services and configuring it in the way you want.
You are not alone in this
You don't need to figure out much of the software as long as you understand the strategy. I have
made extensive use of hiring experts through sites like Upwork and letting them do that work.
For example, I hire an assistant to do all my scheduling because I am not good at it. You can
ensure that you are focusing in your area of genius by hiring people to help you. If you are busy
doing tasks you do not enjoy then this may affect the quality your training programs. This not
only cheats your clients but also cheats yourself.
Make it real!
Make a declaration that the value you are providing does not stop at your book but extends to
training and resources to take your readers all the way. Make a promise that you are not just
going to complete your book and launch it and then call it a day. You need to do the extra 20
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percent effort it takes to communicate with your clients, deliver something of value to them, and
then offer them an opportunity to work with you in some shape or form. If you do that then you
have completed the entire Bestselling Campaign Blueprint and you are leveraging that
momentum to build new revenue channels. It is rewarding to work with someone to achieve a
result and having them acknowledge your role in making it happen. That's what's at the end of
the rainbow if you make that extra effort.
Next Steps
❏ Write out the subject line for each of your three value emails and give your back-end
product a name
❏ Decide how you will deliver the content (video, blog, 30-day challenge, etc.)
❏ Write an outline for your training program that builds on your book. If you're going to
provide coaching, write out the benefits people will receive from a coaching session with
you.
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