⚡️📠 using a fax machine to boost your book sales?
and what to do if you've never used one...
Howdy folks!
Welcome to this week’s edition of Smokin’ Hot Books.
⚡️ If you are part of the invite-only beta launch for Viral Author Academy, you are currently receiving information about how to participate.
DM me if you have any questions or if you’re curious about how VAA can help you save time writing & marketing your book to attract more clients & business opportunities this year. ⚡️
We are continuing with our “Top 10 Myths of Book Marketing” series.
This one is a DOOZY because I see it ALL THE TIME.
On LinkedIn, I see it so often it saddens me.
Because I’ve been there, shooting from the hip, trying 1001 experiments to see what spaghetti will stick on the wall.
And this is a super common one for entrepreneurs who just published a book, but aren’t experienced at selling it.
At a Jack Canfield mastermind I was at in 2023, 10 out of the 12 entrepreneurs there (many of them highly-successful in their own right) were making this mistake.
And it’s easily avoidable.
If you know what to do instead. 👇🏽
The 3 most common myths about using your book to grow your business:
Myth #1: My book will sell itself (if I just upload it Amazon).
Reality #1: Once I upload the book to Amazon, I must work to continuously sell my book to see the big ROI other author-experts get from their book.
Myth #2: I am not good at marketing and sales, therefore I cannot market my book by myself.
Reality #2: The success of your book and your business elevates at the rate you practice your marketing and sales skills.
Myth #3: Marketing my book starts only after I finish my book.
Reality #3: The most commercially-successful books start with market research.
Myth #4: Posting my book on social media will sell it.
I understand why people have this misconception.
Especially if you have a big personal brand on social media, or if you are currently building it out for your coaching business.
Why doesn’t posting on social media work?
I have some theories.
Here is one of them:
You, as a coach, have offers you sell.
But you don’t actively sell them on social media.
Social media is a place to build trust, create engagement, and handle objections through content marketing.
It’s oblique selling.
I see authors post their book on LinkedIn all the time, with a link straight to Amazon, and they wonder why people aren’t clicking it and buying it (even after posting about it consistently after many months).
I don’t know about you, but I’m not on LinkedIn to buy books, much less anything else.
I’m on LinkedIn to connect and engage with other businesses.
Sales conversations happen later.
But second of all, people have natural resistances to purchasing books.
What are they?
Another book on my bookshelf, taking up valuable space
Another thing to read and spend time on
Another thing to learn on top of the 1001 things I’m behind on learning
Another thing to dive deep on, when I’m just here to dabble
Ok, fine.
When it comes to selling your book, flip those objections upside-down:
If you already have a bookshelf, you may want to have this book on-hand, ready to go to help you solve your next business problem when it inevitably arises.
You already love to learn, and your business grows at the rate you learn. If you’re already learning, why spend your precious time staying surface-level with free funnel content on Youtube when you could cut to the chase to solve your problem and dive deep into the meat through a book written by an expert who has solved this specific problem for hundreds of people with this same problem?
There will always be something new to learn, that’s part of business and part of life. That’s what makes business and life interesting, right? You are already facing this problem, and you need to solve it to get to the next level in your business. Let’s tackle it together through this book, which is designed to make it easy and save you time to learn this new skill here and now, rather than take you to the next thing, like a podcast or Youtube video would.
If you’re just here to dabble, totally understand. I’ve been where you are, until I found out that this 1 thing changed my entire life and my entire business. That’s why I became an expert at it and why I devoted the past 10+ years to it. This 1 thing may be the key to changing your entire business and life too, just like it did mine in 2015. Would you like to see how it could offer you a new perspective?
This content is what you post on social media.
Without links.
People are naturally icy towards new people and new solutions.
Melt their cold exterior and build trust with them through your posts, without selling them blatantly.
Your link to your book can be in your LinkedIn bio, or on your Instagram or Substack bio.
After posting about the payoff people get from reading your book consistently over time, tell them where to find your book: at the link in your profile.
This is the way to sell books one-at-a-time.
But what if I told you there was a way to sell thousands of books at once, rather than putting all this effort into hopefully making a sale once?
If you published your book already without this, there is a way to revive sales.
I’ve seen it done before, but don’t expect a magic pill.
You’ll need to work for it.
This is the same thing that James Clear did, I did, and my clients did to prepare for a single moment where you could make a big bang of sales.
What’s the benefit of many sales all at once?
First, a story.
When the fax machine first came out, it was hard to send faxes.
Not because the fax machine itself was hard to use.
But because in order to send a fax, you needed the other person on the other end to have a fax machine too.
Therefore, once fax machines gained popularity, the number of faxes that you could send increased exponentially.
Not linearly.
Exponentially.
This is a phenomenon in business (and in books) that is called network effects.
The more books out there, have seen the title, have seen the cover, have read your book, and have talked about your book, the opportunity for word of mouth to spread about you and your business increases exponentially.
Not linearly.
Exponentially.
What if you could have that experience happen in a single moment?
This is due to something that is talked about in the 6-Figure Book Marketing Masterclass.
When we do it, we gather all of our resources, our friends, our knowledge of how books move, our knowledge of human buying behavior, and our knowledge of our market to sell thousands of copies within a single week.
This creates a flywheel of sales.
It takes some time to get the flywheel going.
But when you do: that flywheel keeps on spinning for the next 5-10+ years, with just a little push here and there to keep it in motion.
The result:
Business opportunities attracted to you that leads to the next thing…and the next…
Reality #4: To increase exposure for my brand most efficiently, I execute a launch for my book to start the flywheel, then use social media and other tactics to keep the flywheel moving.
Have you seen how 7-figure entrepreneur William Brown made 6-figures in coaching sales in 6 weeks from his book launch?
Until next week.
May you always be happy and free.
Much love,
Renee
Love love LOVE this 🙌🏼