I wrote my first book almost two years ago. Initially, I was selling it via my Gumroad portal and getting excited about the small amounts that would trickle in. In fact, I’m really glad that I did this because I got to appreciate the small wins. The book was about Colorado and I still sell it. In the past year I’ve gone deeper into selling my own books. And I thought it would be helpful to share the 10 lessons learned from self-publishing.
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Self-Publishing Lesson #1
Real talk, your first book will likely be your worst book. Not because of anything other than the fact that experience will grow your writing skills and your marketing expertise.
But your first book will make you the most money.
Why is that? Your first book gets you over the most challenging hurdle which is getting your first book done. So many people spend way too much time:
- Waiting for the perfect moment
- Over thinking the process
- Not trusting your gut
- Worrying about perfection
Don’t do this. Get your book done. If you need help with that grab my Make Money with Ebooks Course to get the support you need.
Ready to Get Started? Check out my free mini-course “Do It Ugly” Grab it below.
Self-Publishing Lesson #2 (Non-Fiction)
Most non-fiction authors are way underutilizing their books. It’s almost as if they forget what a valuable resource their book is to their community/readers/etc. Publishing your book(s) is a huge deal, getting them to sell is even bigger. And, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to make money with your books.
They cannot be an afterthought.
Also, I have a friend in the personal finance space who is a business strategist and marketer. She self-published a personal finance book several years ago. This influencer, besides writing a great book, shared the following with me.
“No one asks how my book was published.”
Basically, her readers never ask her if she published traditionally or self-published. Instead, they were focused on the result that her book promised it would give-information related to a financial transformation. Not only has she helped people with their finances, that book has been a great way to get future clients into her business funnel. Spend some time really working on your funnel and every area that your book can be utilized. I can’t state this enough.
Self-Publishing Lesson #3
People are lazy. I’m keeping it real. Not because they are bad, just…life gets busy and then they drop the ball when it comes to their books. The majority of authors are under-marketing their books. In fact, I would say that you need to quadruple your marketing efforts starting today so that you can start seeing a consistent return (money, etc.) with your book.
There are a ton of books out there and your task is to get your books in front of the right people. Sit down and create a marketing plan after working on your funnel. Hint: this will require daily actions on your part to get people in front of your books.
Batch your marketing so that you don’t drop the ball! If you have the money, get help. Your consistent effort will pay off.
Self-Publishing Lesson #4
You CAN make money without ad spend. But, there will be a point when you need to pay for ads. I’m in a long-term debt repayment journey. It has been a pain in the butt and exhausting. As a result, I’m still unable to allocate a lot of money towards ad spend. In fact, September 2019 is the first month where I will allocate a certain amount towards it-and I’m not spending a lot. However, I’ve made $1600 in July and $1825 in book sales in August-without ad spend.
But, if you’re going to earn money without ad spend, there are some actions that you will have to take.
- Be consistent-You will need to take consistent action to market your books.
- Join communities related to the content that you wrote about. If you wrote a book about money, join groups about the specific TOPIC covered in your book. Be helpful, not spammy, when replying to comments. DON’T violate the group rules.
- Get on podcasts specific to your topic. Optimize other influencer’s audiences while helping them with a problem.
Make it easy for people to purchase your book and know where they buy your books. Have a completed book but aren’t sure about how to market it? Sign up for my “Marketing for Authors” Workshop today. I charge so that I know that you’re serious and my time is money.
Self-Publishing Lesson #5
Become known as an expert and share your expertise without expectation. It will amaze you how becoming known as a helpful person will pay off in your business.
Even though I no longer do “pick your brains” or coffee meetups, I’m known as being helpful in my space. Here’s an example:
- I run a website and podcast about Colorado called Square State. People in the following communities that I belong to know to refer friends/acquaintances/ family to that site. Here are the different communities that I belong to where I leverage this expertise:
- FinCon
- Podcast Movement
- Elevate Community
- My Groov3 dance class
- Meetup groups
- UWP community-I am an alumna
- F.I.R.E. community
- My co-working space
- My local coffee shops (baristas know people)
- During side-hustles-one of the BEST places to share your business!
Basically, depending on your book’s topic, it may be of service (or, entertain) a ton of people in many different communities.
Self-Publishing Lesson #6
Stop looking for hard and fast rules when it comes to marketing and selling your books. I belong to a number of author groups and I see the same questions and concerns popping up over and over again. It’s as if they need to be reassured that what they’re trying to do is the right way.
I can’t, and won’t, give you this type of reassurance. It’s disingenuous.
- Each book is different
- You will need to do research related to each book before you market it.
- If you don’t want to do that kind of research-pay someone else to do it. Just know that you could do it for free, for an hour, once a week.
- The research isn’t hard, it’s just a part of the process.
- Don’t spend too much time on it.
- What to look at:
- Best sellers in your book’s niche
- SEO and relevant keywords
- Time of year
- Tropes that are selling
- Rankings
- Also boughts (books that were also bought in your genre)
- Stop looking for hard fast rules to dictate your behavior.
You will have to take action. That means embracing some risk.
Risk for authors equals:
- No sales
- Negative feedback
Learn from your mistakes and move on.
Self-Publishing Lesson #7
Analysis Paralysis is the enemy of action. Today I might have gone off on the authors in my Make Money with Ebooks closed community. This is a group for students in my course and I’d begun to notice something and finally had to say something.
What I noticed is strongly related to Lesson #6. Authors were really looking for hard fast rules to dictate what they should do next.
Here are some examples:
- Even though I shared exactly how to build a newsletter from zero subscribers, I still got questions related to how to do it. I literally shared what the steps were…but, doubt and fear reared its ugly head.
- Authors kept telling me about my book rankings. I’m like, I don’t even know those, why are you even looking at this when you don’t publish in that genre? And spending way too much time doing that?
- Authors haven’t published their book. Why? They keep tweaking things. Meanwhile, I’m making money and using reader feedback to improve my books.
- Not taking action unless you get approval about said action.
Maybe you break the rules and create a fabulous result? Try and see what happens. Still need some support? Sign up for “Make Money with Ebooks” today.
Self-Publishing Lesson #8
After publishing a fabulous book, your #1 area of focus is your email list. The majority of authors completely misunderstand how email lists work. But first you will do the following:
- Somehow you encourage your readers to get on your email list.
- Everyone starts at ZERO, BIG FAT ZERO, ZERO. So…get over it.
- Then, grow your freaking email list.
How an email list should be utilized:
- Build relationships with your readers. People buy from people that they know like and trust.
- Emails should NEVER be transactional. Why are authors surprised when subscribers don’t open their emails when all they do is ask readers to buy from them.
- Presell your books to your list
- It takes at least 7 marketing touches to get a subscriber to take an action. That’s why email is so important.
- Consistency-your email list is similar to dating. If you call once a month to a potential boyfriend/girlfriend how do you think that will go? Same as emailing your list. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO EMAIL YOUR LIST.
Self-Publishing Lesson #9
Love your product. Seriously, fall in love with what you’ve written. I love my smutty romances and my non-fiction work. If I don’t love what I created, who else will?
Self-Publishing Lesson #10
Let’s talk about reviews. I have a very specific philosophy about reviews. I don’t worry about them until they drop under 3.75. If for some crazy reason I want to look at comments on my book, I will look at my favorite author’s comments and that will kill any urge that I have to look at comments.
Get someone who is good at pulling helpful comments positive and negative and have them pull comments for you to review. Do not do this yourself.
Bonus Lesson
Self-publishing, blogging, podcasting, creating any kind of content, etc. is hard work Let me repeat this This is hard work. And, depending on where you’re at in your journey, it may be complicated too.
Here’s the truth:
- You might not have the energy to do the work because of personal capacity.
- You may need to hire help for certain tasks
- You may need to take a break from time to time.
If you are really passionate about anything that you’re working on, I am sending you encouragement because the road to success is f#cking rocky.
It’s hard work…but, you’re up to it!
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