Promoting Your Books

Entries From My Friends

A Lesson in Copywriting

The following is taken from an email I received from Joe Vitale earlier today. I thought it made a great point about the importance of copywriting in making sales. Note how he quietly promotes his own web site in the process of critiquing another. He advocates that you read his web site to see how much better the copy is there. Well, if the copy is as good as he says it is, you might well end up buying whatever he sells on that site.

So his point is to show you how copy sells. But his hope, as well, is that you will buy from his well-written copy? Do you dare read it? You might end up buying or getting an automobile...

Does copy really make a difference on websites? Can't you just make sales with a few words, a good headline, and an order form? Well, let's see....

Brad Yates pushed for the quick release of our audio teleseminar called “Money Beyond Belief.” While I felt his quickly done site, well, sucked, I agreed. Result? Few sales. Brad was disappointed.

I advised him to add some endorsements, pictures, and bonuses, and to clean up the copy. He did. I then announced the site again. The result? Eighty-five sales almost instantly. Keep in mind going from almost zero to 85 is good for anyone, whether you're BMW or Brad or me. It's *not* great, but it's better than nothing.

The site still isn't the best, but now there's enough copy there to get the job done. But how could Brad make the site even better? What could he do to really bring in the sales? Here's where the real lesson begins.

I told Brad to compare his site to my site on how to attract a new car. I told him to note the differences. The new car one rakes in the sales. Why?

It's loaded with strong copy, long copy, convincing endorsements, a slew of bonuses, terrific pictures, powerful headlines, several PS's, a clear guarantee, subtle convincers, price comparisons, bold headlines and hypnotic sub-heads -- and much more.

The attract a new car site is probably 100 times better than the money beyond belief site. See for yourself. Look at both of the sites:

money-beyond-belief.
attract-a-new-car.

In fact, print them both out. Study them. Put them side by side. Which do you think is better -- and why?

This is a great education in marketing. And it's yours freeeee. Go for it. — Dr. Joe Vitale

I get no affiliate income if you buy from either site. I just think that actually looking at both sites side by side will provide you with a superb education on how long copy, well-written copy sells. That's something we all need to learn more than once. Not just you but me as well.

John Kremer, Book Promotion Expert

John is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter.

Amazon.com Secrets

The Inside Secret of Book Marketing

An Interview with John Kremer

Selling Novels

Q&A: Selling
Children's Books

My websites:

BookMarket.com

The Self-Publishing Hall of Fame

Hot Times,
Cool Places

WayBackWords.com

My blogs:

Promoting Your Books

Hot Times,
Cool Places Blog

Open Horizons
P O Box 2887
Taos NM 87571
575-751-3398

How to Write a Good Book Sales Letter

In his latest Fred Gleeck Insights ezine (http://www.fredgleeck.com/ebooks), my friend Fred Gleeck provided an outline for a good Internet one-page sales letter that would work for books, reports, audiotapes, kits, home study courses, DVDs, databases, software, etc. Here it is:

1. Prehead
2. Headline
3. Posthead
4. Opening Line/Paragraph
5. Build Rapport
6. Demonstrate Credibility
7. Develop Bullet Points
8. Testimonials
9. Offer
10. Pricing Discussion
11. Guarantee
12. Bonuses
13. Reason to Act Now
14. PS

Follow this outline and you'll create a great sales letter. Include a few stories, some detailed testimonials, and a lot of soulful honesty and you'll knock the socks off your readers — and they'll want to buy.

Seth Godin's Advice for Book Authors

I just read a post on Seth Godin's blog where he provides his five most important tips to authors. He gets asked a lot of questions by authors because he's a bestselling author who has written some great books. To read his advice, check out his blog here: Seth Godin's blog.

Incredible Blogs Lead to Paid Speaking Engagements!

Tip from a reader . . . Tell your authors (audience) to blog!

1. It's the best free publicity I have ever gotten.

2. Blogs are hot.

3. It's an extension of books.

4. If speaking engagements are important, it's a great way to obtain for fee speeches. In the four months that I've been blogging, I have received 11 for fee engagements. The profits are much greater than publishing a new book -- 300 Incredible Blogs on the Internet!

— Ken Leebow, blogger and author. Web: http://www.IncredibleBlogs.com.

Promoting Your Books the Storyteller Way

The following article is excerpted from my good friend and talented radio voice and commercial producer Jeffrey Hedquist's monthly Radio Hed Lines newsletter. In writing and performing radio commercials, Jeffrey is adamant that you have to tell stories. Here's what he says:

People love stories. Best-selling books, top movies, the best radio commercials are great stories. Like a play, your commercial should have conflict, tension and resolution. Each character in a radio commercial, even if it's a simple one voice spot, should go through a transition, show some development.

One character might change from a skeptic into a believer (at least partially). Another might start out frustrated and become fulfilled by the end of the commercial. If all your characters change as they would in a play, you'll sustain your audience's interest.

More than the voices, sound effects, music and technological tools available, your ability to tell stories is the greatest skill you have. An interesting story will involve your listener's imagination, and the story becomes more their own, because they've participated in its creation.

Then, instead of trying to sell reluctant customers, you're simply building marketing elements into a story that your audience is helping create. Magic? You bet, and it all happens around the individual electronic campfires we call radios.

Jeffrey Hedquist creates short stories for the radio at Hedquist Productions, P.O. Box 1475, Fairfield IA 52556; 641-472-6708; Fax 641-472-6708. Email: jeffrey@hedquist.com. For more story resources, visit his web site at http://www.hedquist.com.

Magnetic Advertising: Promotion Goes for a Ride

Here are two tips from my friend Fred Gleeck's recent newsletter, Fred Gleeck Insights...

Since January 1st, I've been driving around with a magnetic sign on the right side, left side and a small sign on the back bumper of my vehicle. I use black type on a bright yellow background. Heck, if it's good enough for the yellow pages, it's good enough for me. To date, this year I've done over $5,400 worth of business specifically attributable to this method of marketing.

John's Comments: Now Fred didn't reveal what he put on his signs, and that seemed to be important in generating the results he got. Also, he lives in Las Vegas, so a lot of people see his car as he drives around. I'd probably have less results here in Fairfield, Iowa.

If you attend seminars, you have to know where to sit at any event. Isn't every chair the same as the other? Absolutely not. There are only 4 places to sit at a seminar. Front row all the way to the left, front row all the way to the right, last row all the way left and right. Why? Because when you ask a question you can be seen by the entire rest of the group. These are the only 4 spots with maximum exposure to the rest of the group. I tend to sit in the back at the corner which is closest to the door for a quick and easy exit if necessary. But any of these three locations makes it easy for you to be seen when you stand up to deliver your pearls of wisdom, subtly promoting your products and services.

John's Comments: I'm like Fred. In fact, I think we've had to fight it out a few times to get the seat we wanted. He usually wins since I'm such a nice guy. :))

If you'd like to get a few free books, real ebooks of substance, from Fred Gleeck, check out this part of his web site: http://www.FredGleeck.com/ebooks.

Book Gifting in Your Book Marketing Campaign

Who really knows who coined the term gifting and what does it really matter? What I can tell you is this action of gifting books is transforming the literary world as we know it.

Authors are normally writers and not always experienced marketers. And yet, if the author is a true giver, that author is a marketer.

Eight years ago, I published my first children’s book. With love, passion and joy in my heart, I gave books to children and parents all over the country. I saw them beam with energy from this transaction of a true gift. There was nothing behind this except that I wanted to give my gift to them and the world. Many people told me they have never met an author before, let alone be given an autographed book by one.

What book gifting has taught me is that the world responds to sincere generosity and a heart with good intentions. From the day I gifted my first children’s book in 1996 until now, The I AM Foundation has gifted and distributed over 275,000 books and products to the world. This is proof enough for me that the magic of marketing and book gifting go hand in hand.

What better way to spread the news of your book than with someone who has first read it, and is so excited about it they tell everyone they know?

The idea of book gifting is not new. James Redfield, who wrote The Celestine Prophecy, drove around the country giving books to people he talked with, bookstores, and everyone he deemed it was appropriate for. The result was a book deal with Time Warner whose sales people watched in awe as these books flew off the shelves.

My gift to you today is this idea: take ten percent of your print run and donate these copies to people and organizations that will benefit from your book. Think about taking your overruns, remainders and misprints and having them serve you as marketing pieces to your target markets.

If you need help, The I AM Foundation exists to serve you in this area. We gift books to the world. I invite you to watch the magic behind a book gifting campaign. The publisher of Nonviolent Communication (Puddle Dancer Press) watched their title go from being ranked #3000 on Amazon to #300 within six months of working with The I Am Foundation.

Whether you would like a partnership with us or otherwise, please see the value in how gifting your title will help you overall. I stand by eager and optimistically waiting to hear your results.

— Steve Viglione is the author of three children’s books and products with over 100,000 copies in print. He is the founder and CEO of The I AM Foundation, a 501c3 educational non-profit whose mission is gifting educational books and music to children and adults worldwide. Please visit I Am Foundation, email him at steve@iamfoundation.org, or call him at 619-296-2400.

Marketing Information Products

My friend Fred Gleeck writes some great stuff in his weekly ezine Fred Gleeck's Insights. Below are just a few quotes from his current issue.

“If you don't have the right knowledge or skills, don't coach someone. If you don't have personalities that click, don't coach them.”

“Some people never create information products because they feel as if they don't know enough. They think that unless they are one of the most knowledgeable people in the field they have no right to produce the product. Baloney! Two important thoughts on that: If you know more than 90% of the people out their, you have the right to create the product. You may even have the right if you know more than 80% of the people. Maybe even less.”

“Stop sitting around contemplating your navel and get going. Produce something. Anything. Get started. The toughest dollars to make are the first dollars.”

“Ethics are like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. Same thing with honesty. People either are or they aren't. You can't be a little bit honest.”

You can find out more about Fred Gleeck at Product Guru

Be Human

Below's a post from a good friend of mine, Jeffrey Hedquist, a radio ad man extraordinaire and voice talent par excellence:

People buy from people, not from institutions. Advertisers often forget this, and are more concerned about their perfect image than about relating to their audience as fellow human beings.

It's not a perfect world, and listeners recognize this, so a commercial that tries to portray the advertiser as perfect doesn't ring true.

Let the audience in on your little faults, the chinks in the armor. For example, the car dealer who says, “We have the best deals, the biggest selection, the friendliest salespeople, but...our coffee's not so good,” allows the listener to discover his embarrassing secret. Don't be afraid to joke about your hard-to-find location, the tacky sign you inherited from the former owner, the boss's idiosyncrasies.

A little self-effacing humor can go a long way. Give listeners something to smile about. If a listener can say, “Yeah, that's me. I've done that.” you've established a bond. Now your audience is involved.

Poke fun at yourself and punch up sales.

-- Jeffrey Hedquist has been helping advertisers poke fun at themselves for years. You can poke fun at Jeffrey anytime at Hedquist Productions, P.O. Box 1475, Fairfield IA 52556. Phone 641-472-6708; Fax 641-472-6708. Email: jeffrey@hedquist.com. Web: http://www.hedquist.com.

The Visible and the Invisible: The Truth

A note from my friend Fred Gleeck's ezine Insight:

I'm about to start rewriting some of the copy for my (over 175) websites. This was prompted by my recent get together with a friend of mine, Bob Sheinfeld.

Bob is an information marketer who does some really great stuff. We were talking about copywriting and he brought up the fact that copy has two components, the visible and the invisible.

The visible is what you see on the page or on the site. The invisible is what the TRUTH is behind the copy. He mentioned how you feel when you read something and it just doesn't sit right with you. Something feels strange or a bit off.

Bob thinks (and I now agree wholeheartedly) that the reason is because of the fact that what you're saying and what is really the truth aren't in alignment. There are the words on the page and then there are the silent words which speak to your heart that sit "behind" them. The truth!

What this is going to make me do is to go back and re-write everything I've done. You can pay fancy copywriters to do an incredible job of hyping your product. In some cases it might even help increase your sales.

Nothing will increase your sales more than copy that is written from the heart that is in INTEGRITY.

This doesn't mean you can't sell like crazy. I've got some REALLY good stuff that I think everyone should I own. I feel that way in my gut and know it to be true. This system doesn't say that you can't or shouldn't sell with all the zeal of a Baptist preacher if you've got something great to offer people.

What the system says is that you better believe, in your heart, that what you're saying is true or people will NOT believe it. They won't be able to tell you why, they just won't buy.

They will feel an inconsistency between the words on the page or web site and what you really feel. The truth. This will make it so that people won't buy. They won't know why, but they just won't!

The lesson? Just write the truth. The truth as you see and feel it. People will then feel more comfortable about the copy you write. They may not be able to put their finger on it, but it will be more believable and it will increase sales.

Forget the hypey and slightly untruthful copy. Adopt a writing style that makes sure that what you say and what is ACTUALLY true are in complete harmony.

Net result? More sales? Is this common among people out there selling stuff either on or offline? Absolutely NOT. — Fred Gleeck, The Product Guru

John's Comment: What Bob and Fred hit upon is accurate. Only the truth will really sell. Nothing less has the impact of the truth. Speak the truth. Speak the sweet truth.

Why We Leave a Message When Phoning Media

The following tip is from Bryan Farrish of Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion. I thought it was a gret explanation for why we make phone calls and more phone calls when attempting to break through to the media. Enjoy the read...

When authors or public speakers (i.e., clients) hire a PR firm or promotion company for the first time, they are often taken aback by the large number of messages that the firm leaves with radio stations. The clients view the situation as, “Hey, why are you just leaving messages, and not promoting me to them?!”

Well, there are several answers here. The first is: Messages ARE promotion. What has happened is that the client assumed that (1) the firm is not including the client's info in the messages, and (2) that messages are of absolutely, positively, no use at all.
And let's not forget the receptionist factor (also known as the assistant or producer factor): Anyone who thinks that leaving messages with these folks (and thus warming them up to the idea of having the client as a guest) is a waste of time has obviously never had to work their way through business situations in the past.

Suppose you loaned your next door neighbor $500. You did not know him that well, and now you hear that he might be moving out soon. You want your money back, so you knock on his door, and you call, but no answer. So what do you do? You leave a message. But wait.. why would you leave a message if messages are so useless? Then, you hear he might be moving out as soon as tomorrow, so you try again but can't reach him.

So you leave ANOTHER message. The chances of you getting your money back are based on how many times he hears your messages, of course.

But some clients still just don't like messages. Some PR firms skirt this issue by changing the words "Left Message" to "Pitched" (giving the impression that a phone conversation about the client occurred,) or, by not putting the messaged-stations on the report in the first place (waiting instead until there is human-human contact), or, by not giving reports at all, and just letting the client see the end results. The advantage to this is that a client won't complain of all the messages, since the messages are invisible. But the disadvantage is that the client does not know what is going on with these stations either, or, that the firm is doing any work at all.

Also hidden in some reports is the fact that many people (especially at talk stations) are involved in the possible booking of a single client. Matter of fact, if the client is a general-topic client, there are some talk stations that have over THIRTY separate hosts and producers (not to mention the assistants and receptionists) that need to be pitched individually, by phone. But on the report, it may only appear as "Left Message" for that single station. This type of report is easy to read, but it does make it look like there is less going on than there really is.

One client made our point for us; he said "I've booked myself before, and I had a 70% success rate AFTER I GOT THEM ON THE PHONE." Yes, of course... and how do you think he got them on the phone?.... Messages! And that's how we do it.

Messages are especially important with the only non-visual medium: Radio. Radio people work best with sound, and they are just not going to react as well to visual press releases.

Depending on how much you are paying your firm, they might try to reach each station once, or they might try twice (this would cost twice as much,) or they might not try at all, as is the case with some lower cost campaigns. With these, they just send a press release.

Point is, the more attempts and messages that are left, the more responses are obtained, and the more people are spoken to (as a result of the messages.) And thus, there are more results.

— Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion is an independent radio interview promotion company. Call 310-998-8305 x95. Email: interviews@radio-media.com. Web: http://www.radio-media.com.

AdSense Makes Money

The following paragraphs are excerpted from my friend Paul Myers's Talk Biz email newsletter:

How do you go from $30 a day to over $18,000 a month... without creating any new content or products? That's a tough trick. A friend of mine showed me recently how he pulled it off. The good news — he's willing to tell you, too.

The guy's name is Joel Comm. His secret? AdSense.

No, he's not using iffy search engine techniques or automated page creators. He's using the content he had before he joined the AdSense program. He just figured out how to get the maximum clickthroughs out of his traffic. In his case, those clicks will add up to over $200,000 a year.

The great thing about this is that it costs nothing to join the AdSense program. You plug some code into your pages and when people click on the links, you get paid.

A lot of people use it, but very few actually do well with it. Joel's book will show you how to turn that around. Details at: http://www.talkbiz.com/adsense.html.

John's Comments: Now, I haven't seen Comm's book. Nor do I know the details of how he used AdSense to create that kind of income. What I do like, though, is that he was able to do it. I believe many other content creators can do the same. Perhaps, not make $200,000 per year, but certainly anyone should be able to add several thousand extra dollars a year to their income with enough good content and traffic. Why not try it today?

Jokes for Word of Mouse Propagation

One of the best ways to get your message passed on is to include a joke. While your entire message may not get passed on, the joke will be. For example, here's a joke I just received from Ken Darby, who sends out thePEBBLE Article for Print ezine, which always includes a joke, a saying, and an article that are all available for reprint at any time. He requires that if you reprint the article, you include his credits. See his credits at the end of this joke.

You may not know that many non-living things have a gender. For example:

1) Ziploc Bags -- They are Male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.

2) Copiers -- They are Female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm them up again. It's an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can wreak havoc if the wrong buttons are pushed.

3) Tire -- Male, because it goes bald and it's often over-inflated.

4) Hot Air Balloon -- Male, because, to get it to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under it and, of course, there's the hot air component.

5) Sponges -- Female, because they're soft, squeezable and retain water.

6) Web Page -- Female, because it's always getting hit on.

7) Subway -- Male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

8) Hourglass -- Female, because over time, the weight can shift to the bottom.

9) Hammer -- Male, because it hasn't changed much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

10) Remote Control -- Female. Ha! You thought it'd be Male. But consider this: it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

Ken Darby authors many articles found in newspapers and magazines throughout North America. He is the author of The Saga Of Pinehill, The Adventure, ISBN 1-4137-4723-X, now available through your favorite bookstore. Web: http://www.the-pebble.com. Email: ken.darby@emailsystemscentral.com.

Writing and Sending News Releases

The following is excerpted from: How To Steal To The Top Of Google: Use the News by Danny Wall on SEO Chat. It describes how to write and send a news release that gets attention.

===

Let me give you a good example. Lets say you sell a product that teaches people how to swing a bat properly and is aimed at baseball and softball players (and their parents). What you do is you hang back and you proceed to watch some baseball games, waiting for one of the big name batters to make some significant batting mistake. When they do (and they will because no one is perfect) you send a press release that says:

“Holy Crap! Did you See The Mistake Barry Sosa Made At Bat?”

You then talk about the error, that was made, say what the correction is, and give a link to a page on your website that talks about common batting errors and how to fix them, and gives contact information for reaching you by voice. And you had better answer the phone, and if you miss the call you had better call back promptly.

Let me reiterate what I just said. The phone number you give goes to you. Not your secretary. Not your marketing VP. You.

That press release gets sent out to every single sports reporter in the country (or at least to those that you know about), by fax (not email, not B.S. internet media press release, by fax) well before the game is over. You just became a sports reporter's best friend. You’ll probably get written about by a very significant percentage of the sports writers. But you may find yourself getting called for interviews by both TV and radio personalities.

You’ll find that article popping above the number one search term for things like “baseball” and “hitting” or “batting.”

You see, the technique I just mentioned allows you to solve a reporter's problem. How to find news that is actually news. Any idiot can report the scores and the newspapers know that. But the reporters that pick up your “story” will be heroes to the newspapers because it’ll be something interesting. It’ll be about something that happened to a “celebrity” and explains how to “fix it.” All it takes is imagination and the willingness to keep your eyes open and “exploit” current events to your favor.

Did you just hear about some bad business decision by some major celebrity? That’s good news if you do almost anything related to the financial sector.

Is the price of gas going up? That’s good news if you do almost anything that helps to extend a car’s fuel economy.

But you have to be willing to be bold, to use your imagination. Notice that the headline above may actually “offend” some people. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing. Now, you don’t want to go out of your way to be offensive, but at the same time, some people are always offended by anything that is bold and out of the ordinary.

If you want your company, your web site, to be picked up by the news you have to stand out. You have to be bold. You have to be willing to stand out from the crowd. Some people are going to be offended by that.

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To read the entire article, which provides great advice on getting to the top of Google, go to SEOChat.com.

Would You Like to Be 6 Times More Profitable?

It's easy. Just listen to what Troy White has written in his recent Word Wealth blog:

"It costs one-sixth as much to sell something to one of your existing clients than it costs to go out and find a new customer. And yet, almost every single company I talk to spends two to three times more effort on finding new clients than investing in old."

It doesn't take being a rocket scientist to figure out that you should be paying more attention to your current customers -- and selling to them -- than trying to uncover, attract, dig up, or otherwise snare new customers.

You should read more of what Troy White and the rest of his companion bloggers have to say at Duct Tape Marketing.

Marketing Moron of the Month Award

Below is an excerpt from my friend Paul Hartunian's Million Dollar Publicity Strategies ezine. I think Paul always has some interesting things to say.

I just read a brochure produced by an interior decorator. I now see why most of these people are starving. Here are the first two sentences I read in that brochure:

"Hello Everyone, Welcome to my world."

Moron. What do I possibly care about her world?

What do I really care about? What's the *only* thing I care about? If you said the only thing I care about is what she can do for me, you are right on target.

So many people approach the media people the same way. They actually think reporters, editors, talk show hosts, etc. really care about their book, their product, their service or their whatever. They don't care. Nobody cares. The only thing people care about is what you can do for them.

The only thing media people care about is what you can do for them, what information you have for them, how you can make them look good to their audiences. That's the way it should be.

When you give the media people what they want, they'll give you what you want. They'll give you space in their newspapers and magazines, time on their radio and TV shows. They'll plug your products or services for you and they'll do a darn good job of it.

If this interior decorator had sent out a press release offering to tell reporters the best way to pick a qualified designer or how not to get scammed by furniture salesmen posing a designers, she would have been a media hit. Instead, she welcomed people to "her world."

She gets my Marketing Moron of the Month award.

Look over your publicity and marketing material. Do they talk about why you are so wonderful? Or do you talk about what you can do for reporters or your customers?

I don't want you to be a candidate for the next Marketing Moron of the Month.

Paul has been called the King of Tough Love Publicity. For more information about Paul's products and services, see http://www.Hartunian.com/prkit.

Book Publicity Notes from Irwin Zucker

The following are a few pieces of advice from my friend, book publicist Irwin Zucker:

“Radio is a very good medium for steady, progressive publicity. But for massive exposure, nothing beats a national TV show like Oprah's. We all want that and other hot TV shows. Good local TV shows are needed as well and the news segments of TV stations mean a lot to gain sales.”

What then is the value of radio? “Radio is very, very important because you get more time with this medium and you can rise to the occasion with your viewpoints. Interviews in daily papers are also essential as well as book reviews. I think a good balance of radio, TV and print can generate sales on a book that really has it between the covers.”

The caveat is: “You can't make a lousy book a bestseller no matter how intensive the PR might be. In the end the public tells us whether a book is good or not--based on sales. That’s the reality. You’ve got to have the product to win this type of ballgame.”

For information on Irwin's services, contact him at Promotions in Motion: 323-461-3921.