I wanted to share with you how one or our authors ended up having her book shared to a mailing list of more than 60K people, then to a Facebook page with a following of more than 230K, and then to an Instagram account with a following of more than 61K people.
Disruptive Author Zoe Martin, author of Making Peace with Autism, was inspired to send a copy of her book to one of her favourite people and someone who had been a positive influence in her life. She sent it as a gift to say thank you for what this person had done for her and her family.
A couple of weeks later, Zoe received a phone call from that person – leading parenting educator, Maggie Dent – and let’s just say that Maggie was delighted with her gift and wanted to do something for Zoe in return.
Maggie told Zoe that she would be promoting Zoe’s book as her book of the month and that she hoped every single person who followed her would buy her book.
How exciting is that?! Zoe has had just a fewsales come in as a result, which is just wonderful, and it is good for everyone.
So let me ask you, is there an influencer in your life that might appreciate a heartfelt gift from you? Perhaps a copy of your book? You never know who might pick it up and benefit from reading it so why not send it out there.
PS: If you would like to know more about building your author platform, message me at deb@disruptivepublishing.com.au and I will show you how to access my Masterclass ~ How To Build Your Author Platform.
Congratulations to Disruptive Author, Paula Burgess, who was featured in The Redcliffe Guide this week. What a great article.
Paula is a wonderful advocate for people living with ADHD and it is wonderful to see her, and her book, Beyond the ADHD Label, in the spotlight and still relevant after more than 4 years of being in print.
I wonder how many of Paula’s ideal readers saw the article and wanted to reach out to Paula.
It probably seams easier to generate interest in your book when it is first launching and everything is new and fresh, but I wonder if that is actually true? Especially when hugely successful nonfiction books such as You Can Heal Your Life and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior have actually gained more momentum and sold more copies over a longer period of time.
Have you given thought to what it would take for your book to become a best-seller? I’m not talking about being an amazon kindle bestseller for a day or two.
That’s exciting of course, but I’m actually talking about the type of bestseller that generates enough revenue for you to make a living from your writing? Wall Street Journal bestseller would be a good example.
One of my favourite marketing gurus for authors suggests that it takes at least 365 days of consistent marketing, and your book in the hands of at least 10,000 readers before a book will go viral.
Most authors I know would kill to have their books read by more than 10,000 readers and they’re more than happy to market their books as long as they are getting traction from their marketing.
As soon as they stop generating interest, however, they tend to stop sharing their books and alas, sales come to a complete halt.
How, then, does an author reach 10,000 readers? And how do they find 365 unique markets in which to share their books in order to reach their 10,000 readers? Remembering of course that in order to reach 10,000 readers their book needs to be in front of anywhere up to 100 times that many readers!!
Personally, I think there is probably a lot of luck involved in a book becoming a bestseller. That means finding yourself in the right place at the right time with the right attitude.
But I also believe the odds increase significantly in an author’s favour when they know who their ideal reader is and where they hang out.
Who is already looking for your book? Who needs to read what you wrote? Who’s life will be changed by your words…your wisdom…your expertise?
Where is she? Who is she watching? Who is she following? Who is she listenning to? What is she already reading?
Most importantly, how can you use this knowledge and put your book in front of her? And how can you do it en masse?
Is there a magazine, a newspaper, a Youtube chanel, a podcast or a social media platform where lots of your readers are hanging out?
Is there an event or a news story that matters to your reader that you can associate your book with?
I am willing to bet that there are lots of opportunities for you to connect with your ideal reader that you have not yet explored.
I challenge you to find the answer to these questions, and if you truly believe your have written something that will change someone’s life, reach out and do whatever you can to put your book in front of your reader.
Start by registering with SourceBottle.com and look for opportunities to share what you know.
Create your own author platform and create your own opportunities to share what you know.
Then keep doing it!! Don’t give up until your book sales hit the critical point where it takes on a life of it’s own.
PS. If you haven’t already established your author platform and you want to know more about how to do it, email Deb at deb@disruptivepublishing.com.au and ask how she can help.
This is the most common question I am asked when I am approached by aspiring authors. They know their topic, they know who they want to help and they know how they want to help them. They just don’t know how to get what they know into some sort of order that will make sense to them and to their readers.
At Disruptive Publishing, we use structured formulas to guide aspiring authors and help them get from “Where do I start?” to “OMG that was so much easier than I thought it would be!“
Being able to successfully do this for our authors is the reason we have been able to help well over 100 authors realise their dream of becoming published.
So if you are struggling to finish your book – or if you don’t even know where to start – reach out and let us help you. Our extensive experience will save you time and money and you will achieve your goal in the shortest possible time frame.
There are lots of ways in which we can help you. Click on our Heartbeat Brochure to find out how.
One question I am often asked is, “How do I write a book?”, the answer to which can be quite long and involved.
In fact, I offer a membership program – Authorpreneurs Bootcamp – which is dedicated to teaching aspiring authors how to write and publish their books because there is no possible way to answer that question in one conversation.
When a friend messaged me recently to ask me what guidance I could offer her as she embarked on her own book-writing adventure, I gave her my best advice on how to set herself up for success.
In short, there are a lot of books on the market, and while I personally think there are not enough, it helps to approach this from the right space so you can have the biggest possible impact in return for the time and energy you are going to invest.
The following 5 things will help you write a good nonfiction book and have a successful publishing experience.
You have to know how to W.R.I.T.E.:
W stands for Wisdom. You need to have some sort of knowledge or expertise that people will want to know more about. You also need to be passionate about sharing your wisdom and be willing to be vulnerable.
R stands for Reader. You need to know who you are writing to and have a good understanding of what they are dealing with and what they are looking for so that you can write to them as if you were writing a letter.
I stands for Intention. Be clear about the message you want to convey through your book and let that be your guiding light as you write your book.
T stands for Transformation. Understand that the best nonficiton books are transformational. How will you use your book to transform the lives of your readers? Know what your point of difference is and why your reader needs to read your book as opposed to someone else’s book on the same topic.
E stands for Execute. Create a plan to write your book and execute it. Schedule it in to your calendar and show up to write. Invest in the skills you need. Get the right help. Make it happen. Otherwise all that life-changing, inspirational wisdom you have will never make into a book and into your hands, let alone into the hands of those who really need to hear from you.
Let me know if you find this helpful, and if you have other questions you would like answered, comment below or email me. I’d love to hear from you.
I’m putting my Feng Shui hat on today and I want to talk to you about the current, and very interesting energies in our homes and workplaces that might be impacting your writing, your marketing or your business this month.
If it feels to you like everything is heightened then that would mean that you were tapping in to what is happening.
We currently have extreme energies in all areas of our homes and workplaces and when it comes to the good energies, that is fantastic. When it comes to negative influences, however, that is not so good.
Moving into the heart of all of our spaces is an energy that at the very least brings conflict and quarrelling. You might feel particularly prickly or super sensitive to the people around you and you might find yourself wanting to gossip uncharacteristically, or complain, or worse, attack others because they are triggering you.
Given that potentially everyone is tapping into this same energy and is prone to feeling triggered to some degree, I encourage you to take responsibility for the energy you bring to your day, your interactions, your responses, your reactions to the events of the day and to yourself.
Be mindful, be gentle, be slow to judge and question everything you think because just because you think something does not make it true.
If you are feeling tense, irritable, sensitive and your tolerance levels are lower than usual I encourage you to drink lots of water to flush toxins, walk to move energy through your body, talk to someone about how you feel and get things off your chest or write your thoughts and feelings in a journal to get them out of your head and out of your body.
Breathe and count to 3 before you re-act to something or someone.
And finally, do what you can to maintain a quiet and still energy at the centre of your home and workplaces.
If we all do this for ourselves then perhaps we might survive the month and keep our families in tact through the Christmas period. <3
I was fortunate to be able to see Mark Bouris present recently and during his presentation he quoted Richard Branson stating that in building your business and your brand you need to seek opportunities to gain “notoriety with affection”.
Given that much of my work currently is with small business people seeking to set themselves apart from the crowd and build more meaningful relationships with their target market through storytelling and publishing, that concept really resonated with me and I understand the importance of being able to achieve that if you want a strong and profitable business.
You can imagine how excited I was then to be interviewed recently by Get Known Be Seen contributing author and journalist, Sally Eberhardt, for an article she wrote for the Redcliffe Guide.
Sally has done a remarkable job of making me sound quite affable and altruistic for which I am truly grateful, and I’m in awe of her writing talents. And photographer Ben McShea did a great job of making me look acceptable. Thanks guys. And thanks for the plug for MJL Publications.
If gaining notoriety with affection is all about lead generation and you need more leads to grow your business, where and how do you need to be seen in order to gain notoriety with affection on a larger playing field?
Julie Cross is used to being in the limelight, talking candidly about her life, encouraging others to let go of their fears and shine brightly, and we have all come to love her for that.
It was wonderful to listen to her read her own story from Parenting A Child On The Spectrum for the audience at the book launch and so many people who were present related to her experiences.
Happily we were able to capture that moment in time so that others could benefit from it too.
If you would like a copy of Parenting A Child On The Spectrum click on the book below:
