Your Book
A book can be an amazing platform for your business if you do it right! – It’s got credibility, it’s got impact and, most importantly, you can market yourself and your business through it in a ‘whole bunch’ of ways. Because, to be honest, it doesn’t do you any good to write a book and then just put it on your shelf to collect dust. It only makes a huge difference when you use your book proactively to expand your circle of influence, build your reputation and impress current and prospective clients.
Look at the super-successful people who put out books on a regular basis – people like Sharon Lechter, Dr. Joe Vitale, Sheryl Sandberg, Tony Robbins, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Cuban, and many, many more.
Successful people who don’t need to write books to prove themselves anymore – they can make much more profit doing a couple of talks. No, they – and motivational stars like Dan Kennedy and Jack Canfield – create books for the above reasons. It’s not about getting paid for the book – it’s about growing their brands. In fact, Dan Kennedy once said he gets 50% of his new customers from books.
Just look at what happens when Tony Robbins writes a book. Suddenly you see him everywhere – Larry King, Fox News, even The View. It gives him a whole new set of talking points and a reason to put himself out there. He knows that the ROI on a book is unlimited – as long as you realize it’s not just a book, it’s a massive marketing tool. That’s why it’s a proven method that really works and something I advise all my clients to do.
I’m going to detail in this article just how you can make your book go to work for you in a bunch of ways. First, let’s talk about the book itself.
MAKE YOUR BOOK HAPPEN NOW!
LOOK. You’re probably not creating a New York Times Bestseller here – that’s not even that important. You make money from having a book – not from book sales. This is meant as a marketing tool to sell yourself and your business. Put your book together with that in mind.
As with any marketing tool, you want your book to be an attention-getter. That starts with the title – finding a way to put the concept of the book in a short, ‘punchy’ and powerful statement that taps into something people want to know.
Simple is very important. Has there ever been a better title than “The Secret?” Well, there haven’t been many better-selling titles, anyway. At the same time, it’s a gutsy title – because, without the multi-million ad campaign for the book, its generic title could have left it lost in the shuffle. Since you’re mostly going to be sharing this book with clients and prospects, and not trying to sell it to the general public to a great extent, you can get away with that kind of approach.
Of course, you’re thinking, the title is the easy part – what about the content? Well, that might be easier than you think as well. Do you give seminars or create instructional materials? Have you given speeches about your business? That’s content – content you had to think about and structure accordingly. By getting these materials transcribed, you could already have the bare bones of your book content.
What happens next depends on your available time and your level of confidence. Let’s start with time – most entrepreneurs and business people just don’t have enough hours in the day to run their businesses and their lives, let alone try to write a book. It’s time-consuming and requires a lot of thought. Many who try it simply give up and don’t finish.
Then there’s the confidence factor – you may be intimidated by the thought of even trying to write a book all by yourself, I know I was! Most people don’t even like to write a short blog – and then there are those who wouldn’t be ‘caught dead’ even trying to put together the 240 characters or less that go into a “tweet.”
Because the entire book process was so overwhelming I didn’t write my book. Then one day, after one of my marketing classes, a lady from the audience ask me if I wanted to participate in a book she was publishing. She said she and her team would handle all the heavy lifting, that I wouldn’t have to do anything except an interview and then approve the final draft of my chapter – go see> Ready, Aim, Inspire!
What’s really cool, it helped build my confidence, it gave me a unique marketing tool, and I had several authors asking me if I would write the “Forward” to their books, go see Choices to Change and Pick Me Up When You Feel Down.
Look, writing a book can be very hard that’s why most business people will use a ghostwriter to finish their book. Once you have the book written you have to design the cover. The total investment is about $7,500 – $10,000 and it can be as much as $35,000!
THE FOUR STAGES OF MARKETING YOUR BOOK
Once you have your book finished and published, it’s time to really go to work. You can maximize your marketing punch not only when your book is published, but also before and after. Again, authoring a book is impressive – so make the most of it!
1) MAKE PRE-LAUNCH A PRIORITY
You definitely want people to know your book is coming out in advance. Begin by creating a website about the book before it comes out – offer a free portion of the book (a “sneak peek”) through an ‘opt-in’ box that will allow you to capture leads. You can even feature a “countdown” to the publication date and time to generate more excitement.
When the website is up, put out a press release announcing you’ve got a publishing deal, making sure you have links back to your website. Syndicate the press release and post it on all the social media sites. Also, consider doing a podcast by having a friend interview you about the book and put it up for download on all the major platforms. We do this for all our clients.
2) GENERATE PUBLICATION PUBLICITY
Once your book is published, you can now use it to your advantage to get booked just like the big brands do. You probably won’t make it to “Larry King Live,” but you have a ‘good shot’ at some local air time at the very least.
Next, send out copies of your book to local radio and TV stations, as well as print publications, and offer to be interviewed. Also, put in a listing in Radio-TV Interview Report (find out more at RITR.com) to make yourself available for national interviews. You can also mail copies to your top clients, send them out to get yourself booked for speaking engagements at business and civic events, and host a book signing event at a local book store.
You can also continue to produce podcasts for distribution through the major podcasting platforms with a theme of something like …“Beyond the Book,” offering additional/updated information and conversation about topics you cover in the book.
REVERSE SHOPLIFTING
My friend, Patrick Snow, NYT best-selling author thought me about “reverse shoplifting.” Here’s how it works.
You simply take a copy of your book into a bookstore – and buy it there! As long as your book has a legitimate ISBN number and is available from a major distributor, two things we also do for our clients’ books, the bookstore clerk will simply scan the book’s barcode, a price will come up and you can purchase it, even though the store never stocked it in the first place. Best of all, the bookstore’s computer system will now register that somebody bought your book and that they’re out of stock . . . they just might order more copies of your book to sell on their own!
3) CREATE A COURSE/CLASS
You can take the contents of your book or chapter and create an online digital class that could make you money while you sleep.
4) CREATE A LONG AFTERLIFE
Now that you’re an author, it should become an important part of your professional profile. Make sure it’s added to your official bio and possibly even put the name of the book in your email signature for a limited time.
Use your book’s PDF version as a FREEBIE, available on your website through an ‘opt-in’ box. The bigger your email list the bigger your sales.
Not to mention you could repurpose the material into speeches or seminar material for your personal or recorded appearances.
Your office should also promote your author status. Put a framed copy of the cover of your book on the wall in your reception area or office – it’s easy to do through canvaspop.com. Also, leave copies of your book on the coffee table in your office with “Take Me” stickers on the front. You should also donate copies to the local libraries in your area. Make sure your contact information is contained in these copies – either put a business card in the book, or have your info stamped on the back page.
At Bert Martinez Communications, we take this process through another, very powerful step. We’ve created a foolproof way to make our authors’ books best-sellers in certain Amazon categories.
They say print is dead, but, thanks to Kindle, iPad and other electronic devices, it’s not really. It’s just migrated to our screens. The fact is that nothing conveys authority and credibility more than having a published book with your name on it. Publishing a book and marketing it correctly puts you and your business up more than ‘a few notches’ against the competition – and isn’t that what it’s all about?
