1. Word of mouth — or better said “Influencer Outreach”
I ask you this:
What’s easier? — tweeting something 10,000 times, or getting an influencer to send one message to his/her 10,000 followers?
Steps
1- Start a spreadsheet.
2- Make columns: Influencer Name, Influencer Website, Influencer Email, His/Her top 5 posts.
You are building your DREAM TEAM here of the top influencers in your niche. The people you would most LOVE to have promote… YOU.
3- Join their mailing list.
4 — DO one of their tutorials.
5- Report the results to him/her.
Basically you must develop rapport with this person and help them too.
If you do one of their tutorials and show some good results, they will LOVE to show YOU off on their website!
Advantages
You get promoted to an influencer’s list of 10k+ !
Disadvantages
None — aboslutely none.
2. Publish a free book or cheatsheet on amazon which is linked to your “full” book.
This is the most awesome technique — and my favorite method. As long as your free book is on amazon, it is “sitting” there collecting leads!
I have extensively tested this, and the results are: The “perma-free” model kicks KDP select’s butt!
Yes you can promote your book for 5 days in KDP select, but nothing beets the slow and steady incoming subscribers of a permanently free book on Amazon.
Steps
Go here: I will be teaching this in a live 7 Day Challenge — sign up here! !
Sometimes called the “perma free” model, you publish a book or preliminary material for free and it acts as the tip of your book funnel. Funneling readers to your other — paid books.
Advantages:
- You can test your titles and keywords on the actual platform(!) before you pubish the full book.
- You BUILD your list before launch — for FREE!
- As long as your free book is on Amazon you are getting free traffic to your blog or book landing page!
- You are VALIDATING your idea/book. If you get NO takers of your free offer, do you really want to write the 50k+ word book? = change something!
Disadvantages:
- None! What are the disadvantages of publishing a book? If it bombs just unpublish it!
3. Your own website/book landing page/author page — A MUST!
Get the SEO right and you will have a constant stream of views — for FREE.
Get the offer AND the SEO right, and you will have a constant income!
This is actually the preferred method if you are publishing a high value information product. E.g. Pat Flynn sold his book on his blog which helped people pass the LEEDS exam. He made $8,000 in the first month!
And our very own Zbook’er Jean-Yves Ponce does the very same, and sells his book as a pdf on his website.
Steps
See this post and podcast: http://www.zbooks.co/2015/11/the-most-awesome-seo-blueprint-ever_9.html
Advantages:
- You don’t need to promote yourself. Your audience is Google and Bing and all the other search engines.
- You can charge a MUCH HIGHER price than if you put your book on Amazon. Pat Flynn charges $24 for his .pdf!
Disadvantages:
- It is very tricky. SEO is a pseudo-science and has a HUGE learning curve.
- You are totally at the mercy of Goog’s whims. They change their search algorithm constantly. If you think you can game them — you are definitively wrong.
4. Facebook ads — still the KING of paid advertisement
This is my new favorite method, and as you know by now, the subject of my signature course Facebook Ads for Authors Crash Course.
You can see the posts on the blog, and the guest post on Kindlepreneur.com .
Long story short:
I use these to build up my list for launch, about 3 months in advance — and they work like magic!
Once you get the targeting right, it’s like turning on a faucet!
Steps
Get your FREE training here! http://bookmaster.co/fafacc-a/
Advantages:
- You build your list FAST!
- Your list stays “warm” and you have higher open rates.
- You can reach a lot of people around the world at the flip of a switch.
Disadvantages:
- It costs money, -BUT- this is almost not a disadvantage; because when you are A-B testing your ads, you get subscribers even from the less successful ads = awesome!
- There’s a LARGE learning curve, definitely check out all the free articles and online tutorials before diving in.
5. Borrow somebody else’s list: Email drops
Everyone is going to tell you BookBub here, but BookBub costs over $300 AND — does not accept any book without 50+reviews.
My platform of choice: BuckBooks. It works!
My recommendation:
Do a Buck Books promo, and when you finally get 50+reviews on your book, THEN apply at BookBub.
Nothing can beat BookBub’s list — they have over a MILLION subscribers!
7. Blog Tours/Podcasts
This is my next conquest, and I will be trying this for Be Freud and report back to you.
For now, here is an awesome article with the best resources:
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2014/02/greg-strandberg/
8. Forums “Arbitrage”
This could be any forum, everyone thinks of Facebook, but I have found FB to be the LEAST effective.
The most effective is a forum for your niche, like The World’s Largest Poetry Site or the Kboards (go there first!)
Reddit is supposed to be very good too but…
Pinterest is gaining on them all and leaving them in the dust, check out Nick Loper’s latest podcast with a very successful blogger who is really acing it with FREE pinterest methods.
9. Tools
KdRoi is very good here, it submits to over 30 sites!
Wesly Atkins the mastermind behind KdSpy and KdRoi is constantly updating the tool and adding sites. As it is, when I use the tool for my funky non-fiction books I get at least 10 or more sales.
That’s not ground-breaking, but it’s not chopped liver either.
10. Hybrid technique
ALL of the above or a combination thereof!
If you want results NOW as in really right now — TODAY:
I recommend doing #2, #4, and #5.
BONUS METHODS:
11. Giveaways
Giveaways work very well; I have not included them above because I have not personally used them.
But other authors have used giveaways with AWESOME results: Just Google Nick Stephenson 80/20 for example.
The trick with giveaways is that you MUST use your own platform or blog.
This way you can RETARGET people who landed on your landing page and a plethora of other things that you cannot do when you “just” do a standard Rafflecopter giveaway, or GoodReads giveaway.
The number one tool for a giveaway on your own website is KINGSUMO.
12. Amazon Ads — AMS
Amazon ads are awesome, maybe not quite so good as Facebook ads, but they are great for SUSTAINING SALES.
My rule of thumb:
- Use Facebook ads for finding new audiences and building your list.
- Use Amazon ads to sustain sales.
