As a self-publisher, it’s only when your book is completed that the work really begins. Having to hand sell or find a distributor can be a daunting task. Approaching bookstores who constantly give you the same line “We don’t accept self-published books” can be crushing.
There are better ways than purely selling your book to make money from it. This simple Seven Step Book Leveraging Program gives you another way to look at how to get the most out of your book. It could also be applied to any Information Product that you have created – whether it’s an article, an audio or a video.
1. Know your outcome You need to know what it is you are trying to achieve with your book. Are you trying to make money? Directly, through sales of the book, or indirectly, through new business? How much money do you want to make?
Or, are you more concerned with building your reputation? With being seen as the preeminent source of information within your industry? With becoming the ‘go to’ person when the media want a sound bite about industry developments?
Of course, your aim may encompass both of these things. Either way, they need to be written down and clearly defined.
2. Identify your market Just as in any sales process, you need to know who you’re selling to. The more specific you can be about it, the better.
For example, this book is aimed at SME owners. More specifically, it is aimed at SME owners who have had moderate to high levels of success, want to tell people about what they’ve done and how they’ve done it, but aren’t sure how to go about it.
3. Where are they?
Now you know who it is you’re selling to, you have to find them. Where do they spend their time? What do they do? Are there particular hobbies that a large percentage of them have in common? Do they play golf? Go to café’s? Collect stamps?
Ask yourself: who has my clients? What clubs do they belong to? What do they buy? Who would already be communicating with them?
4. Identify partners Go to the places where you clients spend time and visit the other people who service your clients.
Talk to them about forming Host-Beneficiary (HB) partnerships, where you’ll supply them with highly discounted or free Information Products that they can pass on to their clients. Even if this will only work out as a break-even for you, it gets both your name and the name of your book out there. So long as your product is good enough, this will result in further sales.
Of course, you don’t have to give your book to your HB partners. Instead, you can create other Information Products out of your book and pass those on …
5. Create Information Products Creating Information Products out of your book is simple – you’ve already done most of the work!
For instance, you could:
* Publish each chapter of your book as an article in an industry magazine or newsletter as a columnist.
* Create a summary of your book and bundle it with a pdf of the first chapter.
* Send a copy of your book to someone you know would disagree with what you have to say and work with them to create an Information Product that looks at both sides of the argument.
* Create an audio or video file to accompany any of these products.
* Hold a teleconference and allow people to ask you questions about the book content – record it and then have the recording transcribed, giving you two Information Products to leverage.
These Information Products can be anywhere from two pages through to twenty pages – two minutes through to two hours.
Most importantly, they need to be value packed. Every single part of the Information Product should add value to the reader (who is, of course, a member of your clearly defined target market).
As with your book, you’re not building a ‘sell’ into your Information Products.
The moment you do that, it stops being an Information Product and starts being a sales letter. There’s nothing wrong with a sales letter that is jam-packed with great information. But it’s not an Information Product. The distinction between the two is very important.
6. Leverage Information Products to HB partners Work with your HB partners to leverage the Information Products that you’ve created.
They could:
* Send the Information Products out to their database.
* Accompany the Information Products they send with a letter explaining why they are sending it and creating an understanding of the value they are receiving. For example, they could say “I’ve just read Leela Cosgrove’s book about writing a business book in 10 weeks and I thought it was so good that I begged her to let me send it out to you. The book normally retails for $49.95, but I’m so convinced that this book will be invaluable to you that I’ve talked Leela into agreeing to allow you to download it for free.”
7. Leverage Information Products to your database You can, of course, also leverage your Information Products to your own database, along with using them to enlarge your database.
You could offer a product as a gift for ‘opting in’ to your newsletter or update database.
You could use it as a sweetener to induce action – “The first 10 people to sign up / subscribe get a free copy of my book!”.
You could send out some of the Information Products to your database, purely to offer them the massive value you know your Information Products can create.
To learn more about this author, visit Leela Cosgrove's Website.
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Leela Cosgrove
(Visit Leela's Website)
Leela Cosgrove is Australia's only
information product creation specialist
who leverages exponential growth
strategies and award-winning creative
writing skills to develop multiple ways
for you, the small business owner, to have
meaningful conversations with your
suspects, prospects and clients who will
start knocking down your door to create
opportunities with you that put more money
in your pocket and theirs.
You are free to reproduce these articles
in your newsletter, as long as you leave
them entirely intact, give full
acknowledgments and link back to my
website.
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