Wall Street Journal best-selling author, Pat Flynn shares some of the tips that have made him a bestselling author.
He starts off by sharing how the promotion of your book starts way before you finish your book. This is something we have shared before and is the basis of our book launch checklist.
“The promotion of your book doesn’t start the moment your book is finished,” says Pat. “Actually, it should start the moment you begin writing. With any following that you have on social media, on a website, on a podcast, on your video channel, doesn’t matter. Let people know that you are starting the book writing process now.”
Pat explains that this process helps create an expectation and some anticipation for the book; “You are seeding these ideas that a book is coming later, and it might come much, much later, but by planting that seed now, you’re gonna have much more success down the road.”
But how on earth do you promote a book you have not written? What do you say to people? Pat gives some suggestions for this; “So what does this look like? Well, maybe you write some blog posts or create some podcast episodes talking about your book creation process. People love to see the behind the scenes on how things are created. They feel a little bit more invested in those things. It’s almost like when you go on factory tours, you just have a little bit more affinity toward that thing because you understand the process about how it works.”
Other tips that Pat offers are
Building a street team [1:33] A launch team to help you spread the word about your book.
Build marketing activities into your book [2:59]. We Absolutely love this one as we haven’t seen it spoken about in too many places.
Organize a virtual book tour [4:20] Schedule appearances on podcasts, YouTube channels, etc.
Create a book club [5:04] He says this is a more long term strategy. He has a book club where he sends regular updates to people on his list about books he’s reading. When he launches a book, he know he has a list of readers he can promote it to. Bamm! Masterstroke Pat!
Create a Podcast [5:56] Before you baulk at the thought of creating endless episodes of audio, you need to read this one. Pat talks about his friend Chris Ducker who started a podcast to launch his book, Virtual Freedom. The podcast had a limited number of episodes and, years after it was recorded, is still driving sales of his book. If you’re interested in this tip, Pat has a course on how to start a podcast.
Raise the Price [6:35] Pat quotes Jeff Goins who uses this strategy and said of it; “…you might have mixed feelings about it, but what I do is I raise the price. After a certain amount of time, I raise the price. And so, what I’m really doing is a couple of things. One, in the marketing world, people understand that if you create urgency that that builds demand. And so, people will buy something now so that they can save money later…”
Offer it for Free [7:36] Offering the e-version of your book can increase the amount of attention it gets.
Create an Event [8:59] Pat says that besides making the launch day of your book a major event, you can build in other “event-like structures” on an oingoing basis to market your book. For instance, every year on June 17, he talks about his book ‘Let Go’ because that was the day he was told by his boss he no longer had a job.
