135 - Using Kajabi for Your Book’s Back End - A Platform to Grow From

First let me say Happy New Year! If a book is on the agenda for 2023 - we can help!

We talked about the back end business of your book in the last episode, but now I want to talk about a great tool that will not just build your website to sell your books from, but it will grow with you as you build out your platform.

When you are new to writing a book there is so much information out there for you to digest as a new author. Bridging all the functional elements together can be overwhelming. Every approach is unique. When you first think about writing a book and you begin a few random online searches you will likely first get hit with all the support for making a best-seller. As you start to weed through the information available you will probably learn that many systems make promises for high returns on sales, while others talk about speed and getting your book done quickly. But, in general you will find very few systems that are designed to support you by actually designing smart content for an author-preneur…I mean re-usable content that transitions into course material and the like.

Most systems lack the kind of business knowledge to enhance the experience of a smart entrepreneurial author looking to design a knowledge base of content to leverage for ongoing business activities. And I don’t know if you will find anyone that can guide a writer through merging your book’s content with an online web platform like Kajabi. But, is building an online platform important anyhow?

Building out a platform to support your book is a two-fold process. First, you have to develop a content rich manuscript that establishes a knowledge base to support your subject matter. Next, you want to build out an environment to house the information that gives you the desired tools to expand the content well beyond the book.

Sure, you can have a basic website to sell your book, but if you intend to teach, coach, train, or do any kind of workshop on the material in your book, then looking into a platform that can easily expand your content beyond the book will turn out to be extremely beneficial to take your 3D book into a 4D experience.

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself as an author is to get out from behind the book. And, when you build on a platform like Kajabi you begin to bring your book to life. You see, its a great tool to support the growth of your book from it’s launch and then into the business around your book.

It’s very likely you will need a place to sell your book once you’ve written it. But, if you ever intend to do anything beyond writing the book, you will find that that Kajabi is an environment that makes it very easy to add onto your offerings. You might start using Kajabi to have a place to sell your book because it’s super easy to do that, but once you learn the full scope of what Kajabi offers you will easily see that you can grow with it. Let me tell you a little bit about why and how I decided that Kajabii was the right tool for me to use as a foundation and how I’ve been expanding upon what I’ve built for years now.

I was the author of three books but I wanted to write the next book to be utilized as a training tool. I had been hearing about Kajabi for awhile and I had studied a bit about sales funnels and email lists but I didn’t have any experience and, quite honestly, my own lack of self worth made it hard for me to begin selling a service or tool from something I had written. I mean aren’t we all thinking - is it good enough? Will people buy it, etc. But, I was seeing so many challenges in the publishing world and I wanted to make the process more meaningful and valuable for my authors. I felt like so many of my authors were being so mis-lead. I hated seeing them spending so much money and I wanted to do better. I think the biggest issue we face in business, especially as entrepreneurs, is all the neigh-sayers telling us there are far too many people out there doing what you do and that you won’t stand out. I realized that what I was offer was different. I had decades of previous history around the publishing of many products and services from my many years in the advertising business and many years in executive management roles in the automotive industry. It was par for the course to do business with the largest brands and names in the industries I was working with. My career was so unique in that I excelled at a fast pace through many dream jobs well before I was 30 years old. I worked on many projects that had budgets of dreams. I watched the best of the best and what worked and what failed. The initiatives I was involved in were not at my expense nor were they at the expense of a single client. So much money was thrown at so many projects. We had endless dollars to spend and at the end of the day I watched what worked. I learned how to take the knowledge I gained and put it to work for my clients today. I mean, we had clients like JFK Jr coming into our office for his GEORGE Magazine and other big names and brands that required top attention. I’ve often wondered how all the knowledge I gained in the early days of my career would prove out to be beneficial in my own business. But, I digress.

I want to take a moment and toot my own horn as I want to make a special announcement that I have been really working hard over the holidays. I just updated my other website (www.NicoleKristinGabriel.com) and created a Substack under my name with a Let’s Get Your Book Published publication. I imported the feed from my podcasts and still am trying to figure out how to link my blog there as well, but honestly it’s just a duplication of what can already be found on my website. I just felt called to place my years of handwork in a more public location. Honestly, it’s really been hitting me lately that I am worthy of far more praise than I receive and certainly I know it’s because I’m not always great at promoting myself. I’ve struggled a great deal in 2022 to put myself up against people that I perceived as far more credible, but the fact is that I’ve just forgotten all my experience because I’m too busy promoting my clients. I mean really, I have so much more to tell you! I have so much more to offer! And, it’s time I step it up in 2023!

I have numerous goals I hope to achieve in 2023. How about you? First, with the updated name website, I hope to begin sharing more of the content within my books and expand out beyond the publishing industry. I have been toying with this for a few years but I have to admit, it’s not my primary income so it’s really been hard to justify all the effort. But, I can only expand my thinking so much on the Lets Get Your Book Published platform and I know I have so much more to offer. Of course, any time we venture into anything new we have to find ways to make ends meet financially. I’ll be the first to tell you that writing books and teaching others how to do it isn’t a very profitable profession. But, I’m doing my dream job at my own pace and I always say it’s never not worth all the effort! I adore what I do daily and every day God blesses me with a new client I am thankful I get to keep doing what I do. But, I also have many facets of self that have been locked in and need to get out in 2023.

I’m going to do my best to keep up with two blogs, two podcasts, and two websites in 2023. I also hope the new website and the blog I create wake up the sleeping author that has been dwelling in me for a few years now. I wrote my last book in 2017 and I just haven’t felt the passion and deep desire to birth another until recently. Honestly, life has thrown me so many curveballs that I just couldn’t find my footing.

I’ve been learning so many new things about setting up the Kajabi back end over on the new website and it’s been years since I set up the Let’s Get Your Book Published website. I have always wanted to re-work my Nicole Kristin Gabriel site because even with websites I’ve been locked in to just book publishing. I find that the Kajabi environment has given me the ability to have the kind of freedom I want to create and manage all my own content. Every time I go through the effort of setting up a new business around an initiative I think to myself - why am I not consulting on this? So, I signed up to be an Expert with Kajabi and in the new year they are rolling out a new expert area on their website. Building out content for your book is even more important than writing it. Since I already have all the creative elements for the book and all the fonts and colors and author photo and other assets I find that it’s far easier for me to stick with a client from the inception of their book project into the behind the scenes build out of the functional platform and front end marketing pieces.

In my past I was this person in the advertising business I worked in. I built the very first websites for many of the automotive brands and their partners when websites and eBusiness began. I built the very first Buick, Delphi Automotive, GMC Truck, and Detroit Edison websites for my clients with just a small team. I know I’m dating myself, as this was back in the early 90’s. I know that makes me far older than I sound! I guess no one believes me that I just celebrated my 51st birthday on 12/12. Yes, I know I have a much younger voice. And trust me, I have to work 100 times harder than most because of it! Honestly, I don’t know any other book coaches with the kind of resume I have, so I’ve learned that if you aren’t promoting yourself, well… no one is going to do that for you! OK, OK, enough about me (for now)!

So, I want you to know that as I move into becoming a Kajabi expert I will begin mentioning this a bit more as a service I offer. You can go over to kajabi.com and learn more about the platform, but in general, it will be a great platform to build out any podcast, blog, coaching, coursework, or online community and you can also sell your book there. The thing I really like about the environment for the new author is that it’s actually hard to find a place to sell your book. You have to first think about what you are offering outside of the book. Why do I like this? Well… because it gets you thinking about what you are truly doing, verses just writing a book. I mean, there has to be a business behind the book to truly make it successful. And, yes, you might pay a bit more for Kajabi but in the end you are getting a very functional back end to support not just your book but also your business.

Let me state that I have no programming background and I’m not a paid sponsor for Kajabi. So, there really is no benefit to me for sharing this tool other than I think you’re going to be more than satisfied with the professional results you get for your business. But, where you and I will both benefit is that I can work with you to enhance the creative elements we’ve developed together. I can get you set up to run on the platform. I will be offering up my services for an hourly or fixed rate depending upon the level of involvement you wish me to have in your backend business or customer front end experience. I can get you started with a smart platform and if you are a bit more hands-on with just a slight bit of techie knowledge I think we would partner pretty well to get you going.

Before I close up the episode I want to let you know that it is becoming a bit more common for me to get clients that just want a bit of coaching. Many seem to be coming to me with a general idea of what they wish to publish and I’m finding more and more that clients are paying me for a few coaching sessions to start, then somewhere in the middle and just before they launch. I’ve available for an hourly rate, so if you are just wondering about how to get a publishing imprint, finding an editor, getting your book printed, or something else - we can set up a coaching session for where you’re stuck. I do however prefer to coach you on the entire process, but I can be as flexible as you need to get you going in the right direction.

Alright guys. I’ve been importing my podcast episodes into Kajabi and I’m pretty excited about this, as I’ve always dis-liked pointing people to an outside website or podcasting service to listen when they could be regularly be visiting my website. But, just before I was about to record this podcast it finished and I learned there are some pro’s and con’s to using Kajabi to house your podcast. In a nutshell, you must offer episodes as a product for sale. You can sell it for free, but you have to link to a page and there is no updated rss feed since the idea is they allow you the ability to create the podcast and upload it there. I guess this would cut out the need for an outside hosting company, but I’ll have to play with it and I will share what I learn. There are some benefits here however that I’ll talk about in another episode.

I’m excited to get you going on your book project and help you get all the pieces of an audiobook, a podcast, etc. integrated for your website and book project. I’m just having so much fun! You will too! The sky is the limit here!

Alright, it’s New Years Day and I’ve been off to a great start to the new year with extremely productive efforts and I hope you will be too! I look forward to offering you so much more in 2023! On that note… I’m wishing you a very happy New Year and as always… wishing you peace, love, and light!