016 - Little Back End Victories Help Prepare For Your Book Launch

The other evening I finished up a class I’ve been taking to learn about email list building and SEO. It took me a very long time to complete the class because I was also writing out my value proposition and defining the audience I’m speaking to, generating ideas for lead magnets (that thing my target audience is drawn to and clicks to learn more about me), and making lists of key words (further identifying who I am and what I do). I also set up google analytics and played with a few other website monitoring tools. Have you done any of these things for your business? 

I have to admit that these items were just always kind of tossed in a corner and left for a rainy day for the first decade of my business. It wasn’t until recently that I began to really start thinking about how much more functional my business would be if I plugged in some back end enhancements and leveled-up my business. 

I’m super excited to now be able to monitor the traffic on my website with google analytics too. And it’s really quite easy to do. If you haven’t done this, just do a search online for google analytics—set up an account and add your website. If you have a web person be sure to chat with them about gaining access for your website. I’ve been excited to start seeing numbers populate in the charts. I can now watch the traffic for users, new users, sessions, number of sessions per user, page views, pages viewed per session, and the average session duration…among so many other things. The irony is that I used to work in e-commerce, web, and software development in the early years of my career. But, we often don’t take the time to do for ourselves. 

I had a great chat with an incoming client yesterday about a few key topics that come up often in the book writing and launching process. He asked about the aftermath of self-publishing, how to define himself as a leader, the importance of a mentee/mentor relationship, and how to turn his book into a tool to get on stage to speak. Although we feel these topics are all challenges in the process of writing a book, quite honestly they are not at all unique. These are all the common things that come up when you’re about to put yourself out there. 

I feel like I’m repeating myself here in my podcasts…if you’ve been listening to the first few episodes you’ll see the repeated response I have here. It all comes down to what you’re planning to do with your book. It always does! I’m going to reiterate again that even if you are out there grabbing attention with the book you still have to build a solid platform to fall back on. Again, the book sales are a one time thing. But, building out a business and adding the book as another tool for sharing your knowledge-base will expand your reach. But, it comes down to one time sales verses long time customer, product, service, or message. Again, be a writer and sell a book or be an author and use a book to enhance your business. This doesn’t mean you can’t use this same approach in the business of writing books. You just have to get out of the mentality of selling books if your goal is not being a writer. 

In my conversation with my client I told him that you can really reach out there with the aid of your book but ultimately you have to ask why…what are you trying to do with your book? If it’s to get on stage to speak you have to first back up. What is your platform? What are you speaking about? In his case he’s a health and wellness coach but also trying to expand his reach and message outside of this arena and grab the ear of an audience also looking to lean on his years of personal growth as a coach for general life wellness. He wants to be an encourager. He’s a go-getter and doesn’t want to stop at just a book. He’s willing to do the work and put himself out there.

So I told him that he has to work a bit more on first building his platform. Write the book but hold onto it for just a bit. Create the back end and get focused on what he’s really offering. He needs to use the book to gather people for a book release party but then partner with other like-minded people to expand his reach. He needs to find others launching new products or services in similar arenas. He needs to find affiliations speaking to his same audience. He needs to first define his audience and who he is speaking to. Once he gets clear on who he’s speaking to he can target market his message and through affiliations bring an expanded audience into a book release party that is joined with multiple speakers…create an event. See the fact is that people that like you will always show up to support you and they will buy your book and go home thinking what a great guy you are, but not invested deeper into what you are really selling or offering. Since you know they are there to support you, don’t just sell books! Prepare to wow them with the exciting new thing you are doing by giving them real value…still not exactly selling them. Prepare to set yourself up further as an expert in your topic. Bring in a new audience through affiliate partnerships and reach beyond those that support you. And definitely sell your book, but sell it through a tracking tool, not just off the back of a truck. Every book you sell can be sold via Amazon or some other distribution network so that your sales count. Then as they buy get them to write a review and tell them they can show the receipt at the back of the room to get a personalized sign copy as they leave. Otherwise you are selling books without tracked numbers.

So, you have to step back to step forward. Build your platform and your back end before you start selling books. Make sense?

I will leave you with action item today. If you are stuck on the role you play or the key topic of your book then sit down and make a list of all the keywords you’d want to be found online with…are you a coach? A coach of what? Be sure all these key words are known and then make sure they are in your book title, subtitle, and tagline. Now make a list of what you want your book to do for you as you launch it. Is your goal to speak? If so, what does your speaking environment look like? Can you start creating a dream board for your goals with your book project? Keep blowing it out and then launch your book.

Keep going and keep up! Get clear on your vision and in no time you’ll work yourself into becoming an author. 

I can help you with all phases of the project when you’re ready. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! 

Let me know what topics you're interested in and we can add those to a show for you to keep you going. 

Eyes on the prize! 

Until next time…

Note: Repurposed material from podcast #16