Post 3 of 26 of The Self-Publishing Series
The days of being teased are over
Do we really want to play the warehouse food sample game? I appreciate that you want to show me a bit of your book but you’re going to give me one chapter? First, it’s not hard to write one good chapter. Second, giving away a chapter of your book is like giving someone one digit of your phone number (Tweet That). Is it really your number? Sure. Does it move the relationship forward? Not really. My advice is to be stupid generous and see what happens. We’ll get to that later.
Why your free chapter has absolutely no value
Giving one chapter away has lost its value because of, you guessed it, Amazon.com. I can download a “free sample” of every book in the Kindle library and Amazon doesn’t require me to join your email list. I also get to see the reviews of other people who have already purchased the book to help me decide if I want to download that free sample.
What else you should give your readers
Two things are usually happening in the exchange for the chapter. Most authors, if they’re smart, are using the bait of a free chapter to get your email address. As the book gets closer to release or when the author develops other products related to their book they can communicate with you. The first benefit of the free chapter is creating a relationship. The second goal of giving away the chapter is to sell more books at launch. This is where I think authors miss an opportunity. If authors really want to sell more books at launch they must out give Amazon. They should give away different forms of those chapters (audio specifically) or some of those products they were going to deliver later.
Here’s an example.
Sara wrote a book encouraging moms to home school their kids. During her research for the book she recorded audio interview with experts which she used to help write the book. In addition to writing a book she packaged those interviews as a stand alone product. She also did interviews with other homeschooling parents. So here’s what Sara has that she could give away.
* A physical book
* A digital book
* A packaged product of “expert” interviews
* Unpackaged interviews with moms
So what should Sara do to get email subscribers and build excitement for her upcoming book?
* Physical Book – She can’t give away the physical book to the masses. That doesn’t scale and she can’t give away what she’s trying to sell if it’s physical.
* Digital Book – She can give away the digital version of the book. She could give away several chapters in PDF and Kindle form (with instructions on how to get it onto different devices). She can also give away a version of the book without the extra links inside the book that allow the reader to hear interviews with experts. She can control the version of the book she gives away.
* Expert Interviews – She can give away some of these instead of the book or combine some of them with some of the book. She can give away a chapter that featured a specific expert and then that expert’s interview recording.
* Parent interviews – Sara doesn’t feel right selling parent interviews but these are the perfect bonus to give away to get people interested in her book. She can give away some or all of them and some of the book (or none of the book).
As you can see, Sara has a lot of options for getting potential buyers’ email addresses other than a free chapter.
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How giving away more leads to more sales
Sara decides to give away five parent interviews, one expert interview and one chapter where that expert’s comments are included.
The week before launch Sara emails her list and tells them that with the purchase of the book they will get all of the expert interviews as well as the parent interviews if they follow the instructions in the book.
Sometimes it’s not even about the book
Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. Give customers several reasons to say yes when they’re thinking about buying your book.(Tweet That) Do you realize that Sara’s customer’s purchasing decision became more about audio files than the book? No matter what the buyer’s motivation was for making a purchase she gave them more than one reason to make a purchase.
It’s about the message, not the format
Some of her customers will never read her book but they’ll get her message. They’ll listen to the audio files and they’ll feel they got a tremendous value. The secret to this process is that they did get a tremendous value. The customers all got tremendous value because she over delivered for all of them. No matter what you do you must over deliver.
How hard is over-delivering?
The good news is that over-delivering has never been easier. Just don’t offer your reader a free chapter. Those days are over, I hope.
How can you over-deliver for your customers?
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