Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Your Words Can Change Lives

We talk about book marketing, Internet promotion and the packing of you content to profit as an author and business. In today’s competitive market, the author platform is the key determining factor to the success of your book. Yes, your words can change lives

But never underestimate the power of the written word.

Words Can Change Lives

A kind word, an expression of gratitude, or an honest compliment can make someone’s day, turn a life around and become the inception of a world changing enterprise.

Whether you are writing your book, your blog, or just passing someone on the street today, use your words to make the world better.

As we wrote Profitable Social Media: Business Results Without Playing Games, we put some of the memes into the simplest phrases possible, using these word in tweets and social media postings. Honing the message to make certain that it caught attention, was repeatable and had meaning for the reader made our message easier to talk about, and easier to share.

If you get the message from this powerful video. Please share it with others today. You never know which simple messages will be the words that can change lives.

The Illusion of Patronage

The following is an excerpt from Seth Godin’s The Domino Project If you are not subscribed, I suggest you do so right away. This is the future of publishing.

Here, Seth answers the question of what a publisher will do to help you

Many successful, serious authors are in love with the notion that they get to be serious and successful merely by writing.

There was a brief interlude, perhaps 50 years in all post-Gutenberg, in which it was possible for a talented writer to be chosen, anointed, edited, promoted and paid for her work. Where the ‘work’ refers to the writing.

This idea that JD Salinger could hide out in his cabin, write, and periodically cash royalty checks is now dying.

Authors of the future are small enterprises, just one person or perhaps two or three. But they include fan engagement specialists, licensors, new media development managers, public speakers, endorsement and biz dev VPs, and more.

No one has your back.

Sad but true. The author of today (and tomorrow) is either going to build and maintain and work with his tribe or someone is going to take it away.

Seth Godin is the founder of The Domino Project and has written twelve books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.

Authors: Share Your Expert Knowledge To Be Seen as an Expert Author

imageI teach authors to create content for their readers beyond their book. Most of us spend much more time online, watching video, or listening to audio than we ever spend with a book.

Go where your audience lives

I almost always suggest an author have their own radio show. Easy to set up, and adaptable to talk about any subject with any guests. I also suggest every author of a blog and social media pages about their subject.

And since you are the expert, you can guest post on other blogs, and share links to relevant content from anywhere on the web. Read and share the top blogs and sites in your field and you’ll get ideas for your own content, and a reputation for being a great source on your expertise.

Where do you find the time?

Well, fist off, it’s much faster than writing a book Smile  And there tools cropping up that make it very ease to find and share with your readers on your blog, in social media and in your own media products.

Take a look at Scoop.it, one of the rapidly developing tools to filter out the noise and then easily share what you find: (video)

Some Curation  Ideas for Authors

  1. Subscribe to the top blogs in industry. Be sure to comment on relevant posts. You are the expert. Your opinion matters.
  2. Subscribe to active readers who comment on those blogs. Make sure you reach out them on their favorite social media sites. They may have their own blog, Facebook page, Twitter account.. you’ll find out by clicking on the link they use on their blog comments and then searching for where they are most active
  3. Join the Facebook groups and pages in your niche. Connect with the top contributors and offer comments of value (not just a pitch for your own blog)
  4. Do a search on Amazon for the top book in your category. Many of those authors will have a blog or active social media profile
  5. Join your industry group on LinkedIn. Contribute and connect
  6. Search for videos on your topic. If you find someone who is doing a good job posting, connect with them. If now (still likely in some niches) make plans to produce some videos on the basics

Once you have feeds from the blogs in your RSS reader (I user Google Reader, it’s just like reading email). Scan on a regular basis for posts and articles to share.

When you find an author, writer, or contributor you respect. Ask them to be on your radio show, or write a guest post for  your blog.

Each of these steps is easy. New tools like Scoop.it can really speed things up, but most of the time you spend on this activity will be the reading you do (which you would do as an expert in your field) and connect and having conversations with the other experts. Neither need any special skills, budget or cutting edge tools. The commitment from you is the key ingredient.

When I released Twitter Revolution, I didn’t do any of the book marketing and promotion campaigns we’d run before. Instead, I just used Twitter to reach out to other social media authors and speakers. It wasn’t long till I became known as and expert who added value to their goals and they were happy to review and share my book.

Who have you met by networking and sharing. Please add your success story to the comments below.

Will Your Next Book Use Pinch Technology?

Interactive Books Are Getting Better all the time.

Sales of eBooks, and book delivered to an e-reader like the Amazon Kindle are skyrocketing, and there is more video uploaded in the time it takes to read this short post than you could watch in a week.

Text or mostly text books will be a around for a long time to come, but why not present your information in a way that is more engaging to the reader.

Mike Matas shows off one new title for the Apple ipad in this TED Talk video.

How will you use this in your next book?

My First Best Seller Book

I’m preparing to present to a webinar program to show how you can go from an idea to best seller book in 90 days and so I got thinking about my first best #1 best seller.

I will be sharing this on the webinar because I think there is a model here that can followed by anyone with an idea to share.

We Knew Our Book Would Be a Best Seller

My first book was compilation of stories from the co-authors. When I was asked to write my part to add to the book, I asked “Where are you going to sell the book?”

I figured that if I was going to write, people ought to read, and there was no reason to settle for anything less than BEST SELLER.

From the moment I decided to write, I started marketing. We put together a low cost, fast action plan to get promote the book before we wrote it.

The book was printed with a start burst graphic on the front cover proclaiming that it was a best seller. A bold move (and not recommended) that worked. We debuted at #1 within 2 hours of release.

That day was exactly 14 weeks from day I first decided to be part of the project. Since then, I’ve used the same process several more times, discovered some new systems that save time and get faster results, and helped produce hundreds of best selling books.

3 Takeaways For Your Best Seller

The compilation process from that first book is actually more work than writing a book with one author. We’ve also learned that the topic or niche of your book does not have to be a broad based book for everyone.

The key to producing a best seller lies outside the book. You do need to have quality…  your book represents you and must be good… However, the marketing secret is that your book will be purchased by people who have not yet read the contents. That’s who you sell to.

1. Start your marketing now. The most common mistake authors make is to put off marketing themselves and their book. This puts you behind before the book is published. If put a marketing plan in motion now, it will speed up your writing. It’s the best motivator I’ve found.

2. Focus on Being the Author. Most of the training I see for authors spends a lot of time explaining the publishing models and business of writing books the traditional ways. Successful authors understand that their unique contribution is their expertise.

3. Use Systems and Delegation. Our culture loves the story of the lonely writer taking a blank pad of paper and pen to his hideaway and slaving to write. Potential authors get this stuck in their head and then put off writing for years because they don’t have the time. Today, this is totally unnecessary. There are systems, methods and automation that will help you market yourself, produce a book that readers will love and create a best seller fast.

One of the systems I use for rapid creation is webinars. I put my ideas on slides and then invite my audience to watch as I explain systems and plans to create the outcome you are looking for.

Join me Tuesday March 8th for Idea to Best Seller in 90 days. I’ll elaborate on the points here, and show you the blueprint we use to produce a best seller fast.

There are a limited number of seats for the webinar. Make sure you reserve yours now so you can get on.