Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Seth Godin’s Secret to Selling Books

The video below has a quick interview with best selling author Seth Godin.

As usual, Seth has many great ideas about what it takes to be a success today.

The last question was important for any author. Seth was asked about the secret to marketing books. After reminding us that the best ideas come from “getting busy and doing it” and working past all the crappy ideas till only the good one is left. Seth gave specific advice about marketing your book.

The time to start is 18 months before your book comes out. If you wait till one week before, I have no advice for you

Do You Want MEGA Success?

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On July 21st, millions of readers will get an email about a book that can change their life forever.

We’ll ask them to order a copy from Amazon.com.. and maybe send another as a gift to a friend.

Ordering a book is easy, inexpensive and can bring a tremendous value on its own, but we know how busy people get.. so we want to make sure they have a reason to buy the book on this day and have assembled more life changing audio downloads, eBooks, courses and SUCCESS information we can from dozens of partners who have their own great content.

The result will be a best seller rank, allow author Barbara Hofmeister to publicize here work at a new level.. and thousands will get the opportunity to connect with new ideas from Barbara and our many partners.

The book is called To Be or Not To Be – The Choice is YOURS! .. More than a motivational book, it can be an action plan that will help you roadmap your life.

Mark your calendar for July 21st. It’s MEGA SUCCESS DAY.. better yet. Go to the MegaSuccessDay Facebook Page now and click the LIKE button to see more exclusive content there.

The Entrepreneurship of Writing A Book

image Both new businesses and new books often start with an idea that you just can’t shake.  I have spent a lot of time talking about how entrepreneurs should approach a new business and have found that there are a lot more parallels between starting a business and launching a new book than you might imagine.  Below are a few insights from my recently becoming acquainted with the book launching process and the similarities that exist with entrepreneurship.

What’s Your Purpose?

Deciding to start a business is different than deciding to start a successful business.  The plans to open one store vs. a goal of creating a massive nationwide retail chain vary significantly.  It is hard to know what steps to take if you don’t know your end goal.

The same goes for your book.  What’s your end game?  Are you using it as a calling card to get more clients?  Are you seeking a label of achievement (like “best seller status”) for your brand?  Are you hoping to make gobs of money from it or are you using it to spread a message (by the way, if your goal is make gobs of money, you might want to chat with a few industry professionals first)?  These goals will significantly impact the planning and strategy of not only your manuscript, but the launch and marketing of your book.

And while you are at it, you might as well set the biggest goal that you can.  Nothing happens if you don’t achieve your stretch goal, but as Wayne Gretzky says, “You miss 100% of shots that you never take!”

Know Your Customer

I am always preaching in business about how important it is to know your customer, but my first book manuscript go-round was somewhat lacking in this department (which got fixed in the second go-round, thanks to great feedback from industry folks!). 

To be successful in business, you have to know what pain point you are solving for your customer and how you are delivering value.  Plus, if “everyone” is your customer, you are going to have a hard time reaching anyone at all, so having a focus is critical.  The same goes for your book (particularly non-fiction books).  Ask yourself what tangible benefits your reader will take away from investing their time and money into your message.  Who is your specific reader and what quantitative and qualitative benefits are they seeking?  This will shape not only how you deliver your message in the book, but also how you plan to market your book. 

The Idea Isn’t Valuable; It’s The Execution

In an era where we have access to virtually everything we want and need, plus a whole bunch of crap we don’t care about, it is hard to have a truly novel idea (pun intended).  Having the idea for a business isn’t valuable; it is executing on the business plan every day.  The same goes for a book.  Once you have the idea, you have to write the manuscript and then market, market, market!  Most publishers care at least as much, if not more, about your marketing plan than the content of the book.  So, even if you have a great idea, if you can’t or don’t want to pound the pavement to meet your goals, there isn’t a lot of value there.

The Day You “Open For Business” Is Where The Hard Work Starts.

Conceiving a business idea and writing your plan is a cakewalk compared to what you have to endure day in and day out to make your business successful.  The same thing goes for a book.  The common misconception is that you are done when you finish writing- not so!  Writing the manuscript, as daunting as it may seem, is easy compared to everything that comes next.  Prepare to devote a lot of time, effort (and depending on your goals, money too) AFTER the book is written!

The takeaway: Make sure you evaluate and prepare for launching a book, just like you would a business, if you want to be successful with it.

Please share any other similarities you have found between starting a business and launching a book.

Carol Roth writes Unsolicited Business Advice (TM) for aspiring entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and other small business owners at CarolRoth.com You can find her on Twitter as @caroljsroth  Carol helps businesses grow and make more money. An investment banker, business strategist and deal maker, she has helped her clients, ranging from solopreneurs to multinational corporations, raise more than $1 billion in capital, complete hundreds of millions of dollars in M&A transactions, secure high-profile licensing and partnership deals and more.

What Authors Can Learn From the World Cup

Guest post from Joanna Penn, from TheCreativePenn.com:

clip_image002You might not think soccer has much to do with writing, but authors can learn a lot from the World Cup about marketing, branding and creating multiple streams of income.

  • The brand stands even though the players change over time. Each of the national teams in the World Cup have a following from their country, but they also have a character of their own. People debate Brazil, Germany or England as if they are the same team every competition. The brand of the country’s team is what persists. This is key for authors who are concerned about whether to build websites around themselves or their individual books. Think about it. Each of your books will be hyped for a short time and then will fade away and it will become part of your backlist. You do not have the time and energy to build sites around each of the books.Build yourself as the brand and you will persist over time. You do need to market each book but this should feed into your overall author brand.
  • Build merchandise around the key product to create multiple streams of income. Soccer fans don’t just pay to watch games. They also buy millions of dollars worth of merchandise to support their team and show their dedication. Let’s face it, unless you sell a blockbuster, authors don’t make a huge income from book sales. What you need is multiple streams of income that sit around your book and provide extra income. Think online courses teaching people valuable information about writing, genre specific tips for fiction writers, or giving additional information about your niche for non-fiction writers. Think speaking and running seminars, live or on the internet. Think audio products, either straight audio versions of your books, or additional information that people are interested in. This is not selling out to commercialism, this is paying the bills!
  • Create loyal and fanatical followers. Soccer fans are some of the most loyal and crazy fans in the world. They wear the badge of their team, they travel round the world and they are passionate and even violent in support. You want to create loyal fans for your author brand and your books. These are the people that will buy your book on preorder as soon as it is announced, or will buy the whole backlist to make sure they have read every word you have written. How can you encourage followers like this? Firstly, it is a given that you need to write great books that create a marvelous experience or are packed with information. You also need to create relationships by giving people more than they expect. You can blog and reveal some of your writing practices, create audio interviews so people can find out more about you, do live events, be accessible on social media. The new crop of successful authors are out there connecting with people, selling books by creating fans, one person at a time.

So, keep an eye on the World Cup and learn what you can about marketing, brand building and fanatical followers as you do.

Joanna Penn is the author of 3 books, a speaker and blogger at The Creative Penn.com : Writing, Publishing Options, Internet Sales and Marketing…For Your Book. Click on the following links to get your free article on Author Branding, plus an audio on Book Marketing and theAuthor 2.0 Blueprint: Using Web 2.0 Tools to build your author platform online. Joanna is also on Twitter @thecreativepenn

Engage Readers Before They Buy

You want a best seller. That’s for sure.

Selling a large number of books is great, but engaging the readers will build a long term relationship that will sell the next book, create leads for your other products and services and give you the basis for an army of friends who will spread your message.

A just watched a fabulous spoof on a TV show.. I will leave off the title of the show and the book. If you don’t know the show, it’s still entertaining.. and by the end of the video, you’ll know the book.