How to Self-Publish a Niche Book from an Off-the-Grid Eco-Home in Uruguay
THE FIRST TIME THAT I HELD MY BOOK was 26 days after its release. By this time I had sold 1,312 copies, invested $16,797.90 and was 7,532km from home.
Note: At the bottom of the article I’ve included a recap of all costs and a few key tactics employed to help with evergreen book sales. Ignite the Fire has been out for 7 years and sells better month after month largely due to these tactics.
The copy was shipped to my brother in Vancouver who brought it to me in Salvador, Brazil the day before we embarked upon a 5-day trek in the Chapada Diamantine National Park.
What follows is my story of self-publishing a book — well, two books actually — for a niche. It spans 9 countries. I’ll share everything from initial concept to marketing to release over 412 days. Hopefully it will open your eyes to what’s possible and help you understand the steps involved without sacrificing your own adventure.
I’ll tell you the story in chronological order listing all costs, resources, people, and locations.
Jan 2, 2014 in Koh Phangan, Thailand — It begins
Kelly James-Enger, from Chicago, worked with me on the first version of Ignite the Fire: The Secrets to Building a Successful Personal Training Career and it needed an update. She was the only one I wanted to work with. From January 2 to April 3, 2014 we independently worked through the existing manuscript noting areas to improve upon, subjects to cut, and topics to include.
After comparing notes there were two categories of information:
- Places where I could produce the information needed.
- Subjects that should be included where I didn’t have sufficient expertise.
We decided to call in experts to provide sections on subjects I wasn’t an expert in.
Editor / project manager — The process
I need my work broken down into small bits.
Kelly acted as a project manager sending me requests for information on a subject, full written sections, or requests for clarify on points. She then patched it all together.
This process went on for a few months and was finished early summer after I had returned to my home in Toronto, Canada.
To give the book some added clout I called a mentor, and one of the most notable fitness writers of all time, Lou Schuler, to write a foreword for the book. Lou agreed.
Ignite the Fire initial edit / project management — $5,000
The second book
My SEO (Search Engine Optimization) team at the time, Cloud Surfing Media, and I decided to produce a giant F.A.Q. for the Personal Trainer Development Center. This was to be a huge resource answering every question a trainer might ask indexing our site in the process.
To tackle the task I took two steps:
- Wrote down every question I could think of.
- Polled over 100,000 trainers worldwide for questions.
I was able to distill it down to 48 questions. The monster task of compiling thorough answers was made easier because I had an existing F.A.Q. from years of answering email. Every time I answered a new question I’d template it and add it to my document.
Midway through producing this list I thought that it would make a great accessory book — a handy reference.
The decision was made to repurpose the F.A.Q. for the site into a second print book that went on to be called the Personal Trainer Pocketbook: A Handy Reference for All Your Daily Questions. Kelly reluctantly agreed to add to her workload.
And so it went.
Personal Trainer Pocketbook initial edit — $2,500
$7,500 Wasted. Well, not quite.
The goal was / is to get Ignite on the bookshelf of every personal trainer on the planet. It deserves to be there. For that to happen I needed to encourage bulk orders from gym owners and education companies. Knowing nothing about the bulk order process I hired a book marketing company with a great reputation to help.
It was a bust.
Not only did I chase after them for months but also the plan that they gave me was filled with holes and unusable. Admittedly they were used to working with authors to build their platform and wasn’t experienced helping authors leverage their existing platforms for bulk orders.
Frustrated, I realized that I was on my own. In the end after a few detailed emails to the company I did get half of my money refunded. They dissolved their company soon after admitting that they were over-busy and not able to do a good job.
It’s now close to the end of the summer and I’m getting ready to leave Canada again.
Book marketing company — 3,750
By this time both books were finished and had been through a proofread by Bryan Krahn in Calgary. The marketing company did set me up with an interior designer (at an extra cost) who did a nice job with Ignite.
Proofread Ignite and Pocketbook — $1,000
Ignite interior design — $750
The marketing company also suggested that I clone the interior design file and use a more cost effective contractor on eLance to apply it to the Pocketbook. Unfortunately the contractor is no longer on eLance, so I can’t refer him.
Pocketbook interior design — $325
Finally, the marketing company helped me navigate 99designs to get a fantastic cover done. For self-published books the cover is essential and no cost can be spared. It will make or break your book. Emir from Bosnia won my contest.
You can view the contest here — https://99designs.ca/book-cover-design/contests/help-ignite-fire-personal-trainers-fantastic-book-cover-428969
Ignite cover design — $637
After the contest I asked Emir to design the cover for the Personal Trainer Pocketbook.
Pocketbook cover — $203
The books are done. Almost there, right?
Not even close.
By this time I had left for my next winter adventure. On December 3, 2014 my girlfriend and I arrived in Montevideo. The majority of the marketing was going to happen in Uruguay.
I’ll discuss the marketing soon. First I had to get proof copies of the books to ensure they looked and felt good.
I publish through Createspace and ordered a proof copy of each book to my parents in Scottsdale, Arizona where they spend their winters. My Mom, a retired editor and English teacher, found a number of mistakes in the books.
- Pocketbook cover is terrible.
- Margins were off for both books.
- Left/right justification (how much space is blank on either side changes depending on the left and right page to make for easier reading) was opposite in the Pocketbook.
- Awkward / jarring blank pages in both books.
Oh man.
Emir quickly developed a better cover for the Pocketbook.
Pocketbook cover revisions — $50
Reformatting the book was painful. It took a long time and required 2 more proof copies. These mistakes delayed the review copies.
Reformatting of the Pocketbook — $50
Pocketbook proof order — $6.94
Proof order for both books — $14.91
Proof order for both books — $19.96
Ignite proof order — $7.57
Every time my parents and I spoke over Skype to talk about the book and what needed to be improved upon.
The books were done. My team and I nailed it. By this time I knew that Ignite is the best book for personal trainers and would blow anybody away who read it. But no matter how good the book is, all my work to date would have been for naught if nobody read it.
A critical mass of 1,000 books sold in the first week to 1,000 different trainers was required. This would be enough momentum to carry the book forward.
1,000 books sold to 1,000 people. That was my goal.
The initial book launch — the marketing begins
To preface: If you begin to market after the book is ready you’re at least 4 months too late. Much of what I’ll describe could be done by anybody but I had already spent years developing connections and a platform. If you want to have a voice you’ve got to earn it.
To promote the book, I did 4things:
- Gifted books / review copies.
- Performed an online book tour (podcasts and guest articles).
- Created a book website.
- Gave away the Pocketbook free.
Most of the marketing was done from two remote homes with lackluster and inconsistent Internet in Uruguay. It was paradise but led to a number of problems.
Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of the four promotional systems I employed.
- Gifted Books / Review Copies
After creating a massive list of people ranging from friends to editors to bloggers I asked for mailing addresses and created 3 spreadsheets with 120 names:
- United States
- Canada
- Rest of the World
Note: I made an effort to mention as many people in the book as possible when writing. Odds that somebody featured in the book will help promote are pretty good.
I then ordered 120 review copies of both books to my amazing assistant, Courtney, in Savannah, Georgia.
Ordering 120 review copies of both books to Courtney — $1,093.09
When publishers send me books written by others they always come with a form letter and request to share the book and review it. These packages are impersonal and leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I understood two realities as they pertained to review books:
- The chance that the recipient would crack open the book at page one when they got it and read it cover-to-cover in less than two weeks was low.
- Personalization is everything. Being self-published allows me to do things conventionally published authors cannot. This is a big competitive advantage.
For every review book gifted I wrote a personal letter bringing attention to one section in the book and included a minimum of one post-it note.
It was important to me that my recipient read the letter before seeing the book. To accomplish this I had to be purposeful in wrapping my packages.
First layer = Envelope where I wrote the name and a personal letter inside with mention of the specific section of the book for that person.
Inner wrapped layer = both books with a form layer that included some info on the books and dates of release.
In Uruguay there’s very little English. We were living in an apartment in a beach suburb called Pocitos at the time.
It took two weeks to write the letters. All were done unique to the individual re-telling a personal story or reminiscing about a moment I shared with the recipient or mentioning something they’d done that I admired or had influenced me.
Once the letters were done I had to find a printer, envelopes, post-it notes, and the post office. All of these simple tasks are taken for granted in a familiar environment but in a foreign place with no English it’s not easy.
Juan Pedro, the man whom we rented our next beach house from, was nice enough to take us to a printing store and translate so I could get what I needed.
Stationary and envelopes = 500 Uruguayan Pesos (~$40)
Next came the personalization of each package. The plan was to prepare everything and send it to Courtney to put the pieces together and mail out. My jobs were:
- Write name on envelope
- Sign letter
- Write post-it note (include page # so Courtney knew where to put it)
Here’s a video I filmed for Courtney from Pocitos going over the specifics
Putting the packages together took 3 nights. All envelopes were packed together in one brick. Off to the Correo (post office).
My cave man Spanish eventually communicated to the postal worker what I wanted to do. I selected the most expensive option for shipping. It came with a tracking number and signature. Because of the interior design setbacks, time was of the essence.
Little did I know that the tracking number given only tracked my package until it reached the Montevideo head post office — big help.
A week went by. Two weeks. Three weeks. I’m panicking now, emailing Courtney every day to see whether it arrived. No way to track the package. Do I start over and try again? Four weeks go by. I’m checking my email 10 times a day. Nothing.
Finally 29 days later, I’m now living in a beach house a 15-minute walk along the beach (no road) from a tiny town called La Pedrera, and Courtney messages to say the package arrived. Yes!
I can breathe again.
Shipping the books to Courtney = 850 Uruguayan pesos (~$40)
With the design mistakes and postal delays it was too close to the release date and reviewers wouldn’t get their books in time. I refused to push back the release date, it’d been far too long already, so Courtney shipped out all 120 books in this order:
- Rest of world
- Canada
- USA
The books arrived to the recipients reasonably quickly but most still arrived either on or after the official release date.
Shipping the books worldwide to individual recipients = $1,169.43
Bonus to Courtney for helping out with the books = $200
The Online Book Tour
A difficult thing about writing a niche book like mine is that there are no existing large platforms that directly serve my niche other than my own.
I came across this article by Ryan Holiday where he outlined Tim Ferris’ model for adapting a topic to various audiences that may have an interest in the book. I decided to apply this tactic in an attempt to get onto platforms that have audiences of trainers but aren’t specifically for trainers. The plan was to take articles I’d written for trainers and write variations targeting audiences that weren’t specifically trainers but likely had a good trainer-readership.
For podcasts and blog appearances I targeted medium to large single-author blogs (50,000–500,000 monthly views) that are slow churn (less than 4 posts a week). The first job was creating a spreadsheet of all topics I had written about that could have been adapted to the general public.
Every blogger I contacted received a pitch with two options for material specific to why it would appeal to his or her audience. I was up front and told them that I was promoting a book and wanted onto their platform to help promotion. No sense hiding that fact.
The final piece of my pitch was to spend two minutes looking through the bloggers social network to see if there was anything specific they did recently that I could mention. Finally, I tried to include examples of similar pieces I’d written and made sure to mention that I was going to have the article professionally edited before sending it along.
Here’s an example of the pitch that I sent to Dr. Yoni Freedhoff for his Weighty Matters blog:
—
Subject: Article Idea
Hey Yoni,
Hope everything is going awesome for you dude. Your segment on Global a few days back was epic. I’ve never seen somebody debunk so many myths in such a succinct and eloquent manner. Truly awesome man!
I’ll get right to it: I’d love to provide some content for Weighty Matters
Full disclosure — I’ve got two print books coming out mid-Feb. One is a revised, updated, and expanded version of my first book, Ignite the Fire, and the second is called the Personal Trainer Pocketbook (reference guide to answer the 48 most common questions that a trainer asks). Ignite revision is a new book. 17,000 words longer and 10,000x better. Honestly, both books are so good, I can hardly contain myself. They’ll blow the roof off. You’re getting a copy of both in the mail with a note.
Topic
I can write about a lot, but I had two ideas that I thought that you’d particularly like. If you think that there’s a better topic for your site, you can ask for something else. Your call:
Idea #1: Fitness elitism
Here I speak about the widening gap between trainers/fitness enthusiasts and the rest of the population. I discuss reasons why people are increasing feeling awkward coming into the gym and what needs to be done. Finally, I urge people already in the club to make it a more welcoming place and share strategies how we can make that happen. It’ll be loosely modeled off of this piece: http://www.jonathangoodman.ca/why-youre-failing-to-make-a-difference/
Idea #2: Do you need to work your way up to the gym?
Don’t know about you, but I hate it when I hear this line. In this piece I’ll discuss why people think that they aren’t good enough yet for the gym, why it’s not true, and what needs to be done. It’ll be a reworking of this one that I wrote for Schwarzenegger: http://www.schwarzenegger.com/fitness/post/do-you-need-to-work-your-way-up-to-the-gym
I’ll send the article to you fully edited and, if you like, format it in html ready-to-go.
Obviously I’d love for the piece to run in the final two weeks of Feb. I’ll be doing a promotion where you get a digital copy of the Pocketbook for free with a purchase of Ignite V2.0 for the first two weeks. But it’s not imperative. The books are so good that they’ll stand the test of time and I’m not worried about a big launch.
I’d love to get on there and think that your audience would get a lot out of it.
-Jon
–The article ran here.
Most bloggers I knew through my best articles list but there were also platforms I wanted access to where I had no direct connection. For these I tried to find somebody I knew in common with that person. Usually I could think of somebody but when I couldn’t I took to Linkedin and searched the blogger and looked for a mutual connection.
Below is an example where a previous business-coaching student of mine, Mike Samuels, makes an introduction to one of his mentors, Layne Norton. He sent this email CC’ing both of us:
“Hey Layne
I believe you’ve spoken to Jon Goodman (owner of the PTDC) before. He’s like the king of social media for fit pros, ace with content and mentored me when I started out in the industry.
Jon asked me to provide an official introduction. He has some killer guest blog post ideas in addition to being available for the podcast. Apparently he’s got not one, but two books coming out for personal trainers (both print).
I’ve CC’d Jon in here too, so will let you guys take it from here.
Thanks man
Mike”
–After some back and forth I published a popular post on Layne’s blog here.
There were a few no’s with these intros. It happens.
For podcasts, I had been saying no to requests to appear for a few months prior while I finished the books. All it took was making it known that I was available for podcasts and reaching out to some people specifically through common connections. For example, my then head of marketing, Richard Roach, introduced me to one of his mentors, Ben Coomber, who was nice enough to have me on. The outreach process was similar to that with the articles.
The article writing took a long time but I was in a beautiful beach house away from the world. The podcasts though, that was another story altogether.
Internet in a remote part of Uruguay is inconsistent. We lived in a house named “Jerico” with no address. The only time I could rely on a strong enough signal for Skype was early morning, usually before the sun came up. A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. Alarm was set, half a caffeine tablet was popped, and podcast recorded. Back to sleep after.
Many of the articles and podcasts went live during the two-week period at the end of February. I found it difficult to work with other bloggers whose priority, justifiably, wasn’t my book launch. Getting them to include the proper link and bios and posting at the time we had agreed upon didn’t always happen. Regardless, the online book tour went well.
Here’s a full list of articles and podcasts during that period.
Articles
http://www.strengtheory.com/5-traps-persist-throughout-training-careers/
http://www.weightymatters.ca/2015/02/guest-post-why-has-fitness-industry.html
http://www.bornfitness.com/confessions-trainer-workout-not-problem/
http://www.girlsgonestrong.com/how-to-be-a-personal-trainer/
http://deansomerset.com/never-just-give-workout/
http://www.jensinkler.com/know-youre-ready-gym/
http://www.jmaxfitness.com/blog/9-things-consider-buying-fitness-ebook/
http://www.alanaragon.com/researchreview
http://www.niashanks.com/alter-exercises/
http://tonygentilcore.com/2015/02/13-ways-transmogrify-exercise/
Lift the Bar fitness mentoring (private webinar): https://www.facebook.com/liftthebarmentoring/photos/a.425082227617462.1073741827.414917931967225/643436999115316
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/5-cures-for-gym-intimidation.html
http://www.livestrong.com/slideshow/1011305-10-steps-becoming-own-personal-trainer/
http://www.ptonthenet.com/articles/using-testimonials-to-attract-new-clients-3931
http://www.slideshare.net/thePTDC/aa-presentation-44891002
Podcasts
http://thefitcast.com/episode-338-back-to-school-w-jon-goodman
http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/04/how-to-learn-faster/
http://bencoomberradio.libsyn.com/128-fear-injury-progression-with-jon-goodman
http://www.scottrawcliffe.com/jon-goodman-from-the-ptdc/
http://highperformanceliving.co.uk/podcasts/jon-goodman/
http://fitwithflair.com/podcast/guest-blogging-jon-goodman/
https://www.ptprophet.com/jon-goodman-pt-prophet-podcast-episode-44-part-1-hosted-by-hayden-wilson/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-16-jonathan-goodman/id882982500?i=336439826&mt=2
By this time I had left Jericho, the beach house in La Padrera, and moved to an off-the-grid eco-home called Via Verde in a town called Punta Del Diablo.
Because my potential buyers are displaced around the World I needed a central gathering point to link them to. My book website contained links to places where people anywhere in the World to buy the book. Other reasons for building it were to:
- Showcase the book the way I wanted to showcase it.
- Include a sample chapter.
- Provide social proof.
- Answer all possible questions in one place.
The other advantage of the book website is that it made retargeting advertising possible. Amazon won’t let you insert a conversion pixel so measuring ad spend is impossible.
With the book website we could tag a user that had been to the page and insert a conversion pixel when they entered their email to claim a free copy of the Pocketbook (more on that soon). It’s not perfect, but we could justify and measure some ad spend this way.
Facebook retargeting ads to the Amazon page = $100.30
The book website is still live. I developed it myself using Optimize Press 2.0 and the sample of my book was displayed beautifully using a paid month of Issuu premium.
The book website is still live here
One month of Issuu premium = $38.31
Finally, the book website allowed me to create scarcity, add emails with Aweber, and eventually generate reviews and pictures. #4 of the marketing strategy helped me achieve all that.
Earlier on I mentioned that I produced a second book, a handy reference guide, simultaneously. Answering the 48 most common questions, the Personal Trainer Pocketbook is a refined copy of my F.A.Q. I’ve developed over the years.
After speaking with my friend Jayson Gaignard I decided to release the Pocketbook a month after Ignite. This allowed me to use it to generate scarcity for Ignite, gather emails of buyers, and obtain photos of people with the book.
A protected .pdf was created with the Pocketbook and I promoted a free copy in the header of the book website to anybody who bought Ignite in the first two weeks. The header linked people to a page to claim the free book. Here’s how:
- User had to submit a pic of their receipt or a photo of them with the book and check a box handing over all rights of the photo to me.
- I used Gravity Forms integrated with Aweber to put all submitters onto a new email list and created a new gmail account where the entry information was sent (just to keep it clean).
- The user was then subscribed to the new email list and the first autoresponse message sent them the .pdf.
The receipts got deleted but I did receive over 75 photos of people with the book and created a giant Facebook album.
or print ads
I then sent a few broadcast (one off) emails in the next 3 weeks asking the 500+ people to read and honestly review the book on Amazon.
Gathering a lot of early reviews was essential.
Finally, a month after Ignite came out I released the giant F.A.Q. on my site for free (the initial intent of it was for SEO, remember?). Because nobody had bought it yet, nobody was upset. This page still exists as the ultimate guide to personal training.
See the entire Pocketbook page for free online here
Lots can be said about the ease of self-publishing but there’s a reason that publishing houses still exist. It’s not cheap to publish a book well and the marketing is a big job. For me the books have been a highly profitable venture both in royalties and in bringing countless leads into my business. If you’re going to publish a book, do it right. My goal with this article was to share my story and open your eyes to the realities of the process.
Also, I wanted to encourage you to live in an off-the-grid eco-home on a remote beach in Uruguay because, well, why not?
Addendum: Evergreen Book Promotion
Book launch stuff is cool, but what really matters is that the book sells month after month, year after year. I’m proud that Ignite the Fire sells better each month than the previous, 7 years after initial release. Below are some of the reasons why.
- It’s a Damn good book
- Amazon SEO
- Fantastic Amazon page
- Consulting and speaking
- Give tons of copies away
Here’s a bit more on each:
It’s a damn good book
If your book sucks, it won’t continue to sell. Write a good book.
Amazon SEO
Getting a book to rank in Amazon is a gold mine. I don’t profess to be an expert but I have been doing a few things purposefully since day 1 that I believe have helped.
Backlink keywords: Instead of linking the name of my book to the Amazon page, I’ve tried to use anchor text containing keywords that people would use to search for my book. On articles that I write, this is easy. When doing any podcast, getting quoted, or writing guest articles I’ve used a carefully worded bio well over 100 times. It’s always a variation of this (variation so the keyword changes slightly):
Jonathan Goodman is the author of the best book for personal trainers, Ignite the Fire, and founder of the Personal Trainer Development Center (theptdc.com)
–Notice that “best book for personal trainers” is backlinked, but I still include the name of my book.
Include keywords in book description and tags: Throughout the book description and in the book tags I made sure to include all major keywords. I’ll hit on this more in the next section about creating a fantastic Amazon page.
Consistent stream of sales: I’ve got to think that a consistent stream of sales for a book signals Amazon that it’s good quality and favoured over sales spikes in their search algorithm. The book is pitched in my autoresponse sequence, on an ongoing basis via social media, linked in 500+ articles online, and more.
Consistent reviews: In a similar vein to sales, I feel that Amazon probably favours a consistent stream of reviews over a spike of reviews, so I work my butt off to get them on an ongoing basis. Whenever I get a message from somebody saying they liked the book, I immediately reply back with a request for a review. Here’s an example:
–The book has over 500 5-star reviews on Amazon.com (700+ across all Amazon sites) and I’ve fought for each one.
The 7 components of a fantastic Amazon page
Your Amazon page is your book’s sales page. Put some love into it. I paid attention to 7 components:
–For reference, you can see my Amazon page here
- A great book cover
These days, a book cover is a small thumbnail that sells the book. I opted for one that is clear and uses simple imagery
–I used 99Designs and ran a contest for my cover and had a lot of success. Here’s a link to my contest.
2. Line 1 of the description
The headline. This is where I wanted to hook my reader. If I were to put myself in their shoes, then I would have just searched for a book to buy on a topic that I’m interested in. The reader is not quite sold, and the first sentence has to hook them.
I opted for great one-line quote from an authority that my ideal reader would recognize and used text decoration to pretty it up. The first line is in bold and it’s surrounded with asterisks.
3. Line 2 of the description has a bold promise
After hooking the reader, I wanted to promise them a big benefit that they would get to the book that appealed to their inner and outer dialogue.
4. Miscellaneous miscellany
The rest of my description was specific to the contents of the book, but I did try and do a few things:
- Used ALL-CAPS strategically to call my reader’s eyes to the promises of what they will get from my book.
- Used a bullet-point list containing promises. Added in the pages of my book as an additional proof element.
- Told them at the end to scroll up and buy the book. Always ask for the sale.
- Added in as many major keywords for my book as possible.
5. Added in tons of editorial reviews
In my Amazon author account I accessed the editorial review section and noticed that they appeared prominently on my page. Instead of hoping that a potential reader actually read the positive comments about my book, I added in both good press and snippets from verified reviews here. In particular, I made sure that there was at least one review in this section that dealt with every major objection to purchasing the book.
6. A personal note from the author
This was another section that I stumbled upon in my Amazon author account. I took it as an opportunity to introduce myself, highlight my bigger purpose for writing the book, and invite the potential buyer to purchase it.
7. Respond to negative reviews
Back when I released v1.0 of my book I had a 2-star review. Knowing that anybody who goes to buy the book will immediately bypass all positive reviews and read the one negative review, I responded immediately to it.
I figure that my response probably sold more books than all of my 5-star reviews put together. You can read it here (read my original response, not the ongoing discussion).
Consulting and Speaking
When I did offer consulting, I would charge $800/hr. I don’t consult anymore, but in the rare time that I do accept a call to coach somebody, it’s always in exchange for a bulk purchase of books. Instead of $800, they buy 80 books and are welcome to resell them or gift them.
In addition, I refuse to do a speaking engagement unless every attendee leaves with a copy of one of my books. In lieu of, or in addition to, my speaker fee, I require the event promoter to purchase and distribute a copy of whichever one of my books is most appropriate for the audience.
Every attendee for the event carries my book with them, many ask me to sign it, and they leave with it in hand, remembering me more than the other speakers afterward as a result.
Give tons of copies away
The more copies of my books that there are in the world, the more copies that I will sell. I know that it sounds counterintuitive that giving away books sells more copies, but it’s true. I’ll give away books at every opportunity. Here are a few:
- Colleges and non-profits. I turn down most speaking engagements, but accept a speaking gig at a college or non-profit if it fits my schedule. I still want every attendee to leave with a copy of my book, so I donate it.
- New members of the community. I run two large Facebook groups. When new members join they introduce themselves. If a member mentions that he or she is a new trainer, I’ll respond back offering a free book to welcome them to the industry. Then I send a signed copy in the mail with a note.
- Small-to-medium events. 100–150 is the sweet spot. These more intimate events attract the type of people seeking out information and willing to invest heavily into their professional development. So … my perfect audience. Whenever I can, I reach out to the organizer of these events who I usually have a previous relationship with, and offer a free book to his or her attendees. They’ve never said no. I’m usually not present at the event, but my book is.
4. Whenever the heck that I can
–Somebody mentions that they have a friend interested in becoming a personal trainer? I’ll ask for their friend’s address and send a book with a note.
–An awesome gym owner just hired a new staff member? Cool, I’ll send a book for the new trainer or, better yet, a copy for all of the staff at the gym.
–And basically every other scenario you could imagine where I could find an excuse to give somebody a book.
As promised, here’s a breakdown of all costs involved.
Ignite editing 5000
Pocketbook editing 2,500
Marketing company 3,750
Ignite interior design 750
Pocketbook interior design 325
Proof orders (total) 49.38
Ignite cover design 637
Pocketbook cover design 253
Book ordering to Courtney 1093.09
Proofread (both books) 1000
Printing and envelopes 30
Mailing of letters to Courtney 40
Review copy postage 1169.43
Courtney bonus for helping out 200
Voice acting fee (+audio book production) 1250
Ebookit preparation fee 74.50
Issuu premium for a month 38.31
Facebook retargeting ads 100.30
Total $18,260.01 USD
Write a damn good book, and give it gas
I wrote a damn good book. A great book. But writing a great book isn’t enough. You gotta give it gas. You gotta market it when it comes out, and you gotta keep marketing it, putting the pieces in place, nudging it along.
I’m not a book marketer. I’m a guy who felt like he had some knowledge that others could benefit from. My two golden rules are:
- Do great work
- Make sure everybody knows about it
It was my responsibility to market my book and it’s your responsibility to market yours.
I’m not a book marketer, but I did write a book on marketing
After Ignite I wrote my first (and still only) book for the mass-market. It’s called Viralnomics and it’s a timely, yet timeless book about getting your message to spread purposefully online.
The book did really well at launch and has built a nice cult following. I never promote it. It’s not my business. But people who have read it, love it. Even Jonah Berger, NYT bestselling author and the Iron Prof at the Wharton School of Business, called it “A must-read for anyone who wants to win at social.”
You should buy it. Here’s the link:
→ Viralnomics: How to Get People to Want to Talk About You
-Jon
