[Blog-to-Book Series] The Ultimate Book Marketing Plan for Self-Published Authors – Introduction10/28/2015
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By William Ballard Hey, don’t skip the introduction, there is very important information here! If you are a self-published author and struggling to get massive leverage with your current book promotions, I have reason to believe that this is going to be the number one blog series you are going to want to follow. Moreover, once I transform this series into the book that I am envisioning, it will be the number one book you will need on your shelf. It will be something that you will come back to time and time again. This series won’t be up on my blog for long, once this book is out on the market this series will be gone for good. The only way you will be able to get ahold of this empowering information is through buying the book.
For the record, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not an academic theorist. I have written and authored several books, and have tried just about everything there is to try when it comes to marketing my work. Plus, I’ve recently come by one of the greatest marketing minds on the planet in the person of Dan Kennedy, so you know a lot of what I am going to be showing you will be Direct Response oriented, both online and offline.
With that said, this blog-to-book series was inspired by Dan’s book, The Ultimate Marketing Plan (AFF), which I highly recommend getting a copy of your own. Now, as for his book, he gives some amazing tips about how to market brick and mortar businesses. However, what I want to do with this series and with my book (The Ultimate Book Marketing Plan for Self-Published Authors) is to give you tips and advice as to how to market your books, as well as yourself, as a respected and admired writer and author. I will be giving you examples and real-life stories of how authors just like you implemented these direct response marketing strategies and began seeing massive results in as little as weeks instead of months. I tell you all this for one purpose: so you know what is in this book (and blog series) is thoroughly grounded in real-life experience and repetitive success, so you can confidently invest your time, energy, effort, and money in implementing The Ultimate Book Marketing Plan for Self-Published Authors. The Bridge Between Having a Dream and Living Your Dream Many have the dream of living the writer’s life, but only a few actually turn that dream into a reality. Why is that? Well, I am glad you asked. You see, the bridge between having a dream and living your dream is thinking and planning. In other words, dreamers fantasize and thinkers materialize. And just for added icing on the cake: readers dream and writers think. Dreamers fantasize and thinkers materialize - William Ballard
Now, let me make this perfectly clear, I am not against dreaming. I think we all should dream and that dreaming has its place in achieving success. In fact, there are really only three steps to success and those steps are:
The problem is that most people never move out of step one. And I am going to be real with you, the real reason for this is nothing but pure laziness. You see, there is a truth that I would like to make known to you right now. People will always do what they WANT to do, over what they know they NEED to do. Think of it like this: You heard of a “To-Do” list, right? Well, let me introduce you to the “Want To-Do” list and the “Need To-Do” list. The “Want To-Do” list is always fueled by passion or emotion. The “Need To-Do” list is always written by logic or reasoning. But more often than not, we will cross out items (notice I said cross out and not cross off) on the need-to-do list so that we can cross off the items that we put on the want-to-do list. And another truth is this: items on the want-to-do list get done faster and more proficiently than the items on the need-to-do list. The key to success is being able to give the same kind of emotion and passion to the items on the need-to-do list that we do for the want-to-do list. Or, in other words, simply move items from the need-to-do list to the want-to-do list by inserting passion and emotion into each item. A paradigm shift is required here. Consider this analogy: Think about the concept of a GPS (Global Positioning System). Step 1 is inserting your destination’s address. Step 2 is to let the GPS calculate or compute a route in which to take in order to reach your destination. Step 3 is to proceed on the route that the GPS gives you until you reach your destination. In other words, (step 1) the inserting of your destination address is the dreaming stage. It is envisioning the reality that you want to experience, such as living the writer’s dream life. (Step 2) the calculating or computing of a route to get to your destination is that of the thinking and planning stage, which we are going to discuss in great detail in this book (and blog series). Finally, (step 3) the proceeding on the route the GPS gives is the journey you take to living the writer’s dream life. Obviously, since you are a self-published author, a lot of thinking and planning has gone into the writing process and organization of putting your book together, but that same kind of energy and passion must go into your book's marketing. Before we really get into the meat and potatoes of this book (and blog series), I want to mention two things: 1) What is “marketing” anyways? 2) What are the objectives in developing your own Ultimate Book Marketing Plan? You see, I do have a B.S degree in Business Management where I have taken many marketing and business planning courses. Therefore, I do have an academic understanding and definition of the word marketing and a higher learning perspective of business planning, but I don’t want to give you a collegiate text book definition of marketing – nor, do I want to give you an academia version of a business plan system. You see, we are working on marketing your book and making it a best seller, not trying to impress a banker or get a passing grade from a strict college professor who has probably never written or published an article let alone a book in his or her tenure career life. So, with that said, an actual in the trenches wordsmith definition of book marketing is: Getting the right message of your book to the right readers for your book via the right media and methods – effectively, efficiently, and profitably. Dan Kennedy has always mentioned in his books and seminars that the key to marketing effectively is having the right message and delivering that message to the right prospects by way of the right marketing medium or platform. And just as much as this applies to brick and mortar businesses, it applies to your book and to you as a writer and author. The definition that I have shared with you above is probably, in and of itself, worth the price of purchasing this book a million times over. It probes or drives out questions about your book marketing efforts, such as:
If all of this sounds too complex for you and your book, think again. If you are a new self-published author and have a limited budget you are going to really what to listen to this next point: When cash-flow and income is small, every good opportunity missed and every bad move made will have life threatening consequences for your book – I guarantee it! If you want to be a successful writer and author you need to become a master marketer more so than the marketing teams at major book publishers. Large traditional publishing companies can – and must- do things differently than the sole proprietor author. You have to micromanage your marketing. They have the manpower to macromanage. The fact is, you have to embrace the fact that you are the initial marketer of your book, and you must do this for yourself extremely well. Better than the traditional publishers. My objective with this book (and blog series) is to equip and empower you with many of the basic, fundamental, most reliable book marketing success factors that I use as a writer, author, and consultant when helping self-published authors, like yourself, craft up or recraft the most powerful book marketing message possible for their books; choose the most appropriate book marketing media and use it in the most appropriate way; and get their book’s message to the their most valuable market of readers. Your objective should be to put the success factors mentioned in this book (and blog series) together into a plan for advancing the success of your book(s). Believe me when I say this: I understand if you detest planning. In fact, I do as well; perhaps it is human nature to detest it. But a failure to plan is a plan to fail.
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About William Ballard
Freelance Writer, Copywriter, Blogger, Inbound Marketing Specialist, and Author, William Ballard, helps small businesses and entrepreneurs, like you, broadcast their message across the Internet (and offline through direct mail response marketing) and be seen as experts in their field. He has been dubbed the Expert Marketer of Writing. William, a writer and blogger since 2007, enjoys sharing with others his experience on how to become a successful writer, blogger, and author. View more about William Ballard →
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