The new & improved way to market your book

Fall 2021, I found myself in the John Hand Club in downtown Birmingham— about 20 floors up. I was running the digital footprint for a coaching organization, and we were prepping to launch the CEO's upcoming book. The publisher— Martijn— had flown to town.

“Let’s think bigger,” Martijn said. Then— “Most people try to sell their book for $15-20 and then give away a bunch of bonuses to entice people to buy. They even create those bonuses, just to give them as freebies.”

“I’ve seen that a lot lately,” I said.

“They push their new book for a week or so, and it’s a lot of work. But, the money isn’t in the book…”

“My experience has been that it’s in the other things,” I said. “The books only make $5-6 each— if you own the book and not the publisher.”

“That’s right,” Martijn continued, “so what if we give the books away…?”

“I saw that strategy before,” I replied. “In fact, I actually did that strategy.”

I briefly relayed my experience upselling those USB drives from the business builder workbooks…

(That's another story for a different time & place, but was my first experience tampering with a "free + shipping" book launch strategy.)

Forget about the book for a moment...

“Instead of giving away a course that we could sell for $100 and making $5 or $6 on each book, let’s forget about the book-profit entirely. Let’s just break-even on them like you did, or even be willing to lose a few dollars, then let’s do this…”

He mapped something like the stair steps below across the whiteboard in the room. He sketched a value-ladder, not a blueprint for building your ecosystem.

“You can add something small as a bump at the checkout,” Martijn suggested.

A “bump” is a point-of-sale offer. It’s generally a low-ticket item that makes sense to add to your cart. Magazines, candy bars, and other trinkets are “bumps” you encounter at every grocery store checkout. When making a purchase online, you’re presented with the “bump” after you’ve entered your billing and shipping info but before confirming your order.

Martijn suggested adding an audiobook or study guide to the bump. Or an additional book to give a friend. Or even a few books.

“Other bumps might be a mini-course… or even a membership subscription they can try free for 30 days. The bump is a low-ticket offer that doesn’t require much thought. People can make a quick decision about it.”

Here’s where Martijn encouraged me to think bigger…

He continued, “Don’t stop with the bump, though. Keep going until they stop.”

He suggested we offer a few upsells. Not one, but a few…

An “upsell” is— as the name suggests— a step up from whatever they purchased. It’s generally a bit higher in price.

Why it actually works

The thinking behind an “upsell" is this: the most difficult part of the entire process is to get people to go grab their credit card, enter their shipping information, and then walk through the purchase process. Once they do that— the most laborious and dreaded part of the experience— they’ll readily “click” and check “yes” for things they want. Especially if the next offer in line “makes sense.”

As well, whereas “bumps” occur before someone finalizes their order, “upsells” happen after the order has been placed. If they abandon the webpage, their order has already gone through.

Whereas the gurus suggest 15-20% of the people who take the initial offer will accept the “bump,” 15-20% of your “bumpers” will purchase the “upsell.”

Creating a “value ladder” here enables the buyer to decide when to stop the purchasing process. Generally, we stop them because we only offer one or two options— as I did when a pushed the biz workshop with my USB drives. However, if you offer more opportunities for people to purchase, many of them will.

Martijn continued mapping his blueprint on the wall.

“You might want to target $100 for the first upsell,” he said. “Use a $200 or $300 item that you markdown just for this funnel, as a one-time-offer.”

A one-time-offer is, just as it sounds, a special deal that’s presented once. They might find a similar price, but not that one.

“If they opt-out here,” Martijn said, “It’s OK. We’ll ship the book, because they’ve already completed their order. This is all occurring post-purchase.”

I jotted a few notes as to how to follow-up with these buyers. I decided to drop them into an email sequence, telling them where to access other content on our site related to the book, which blog posts to review, and how to contact us for a free strategy session— so we could potentially coach them 1:1.

Don't stop offering until they stop buying

“A next step might be a group coaching program you’re hosting…”

Martijn referenced a funnel he ran for one of Sam Chand’s leadership courses which included—

•  A free book (offered as the lead magnet)
•  A  bump to a master-class ($47)
•  An upsell to a coaching course ($197)
•  A limited coaching cohort with Sam ($97/month)
•  An exclusive one-day event with Sam and only a handful of others ($997)
•  A  trip to meet Sam at the Panama Canal for more coaching ($4,997)

When we launched Shawn’s book, the book we were meeting about, we included two bumps— a 3-pack of books as well as a $97 video course, which was marked-down from $497 / retail. We originally planned a group coaching / membership program but pulled the plug— even with 80+ registrations already-in before launching the book. I explain why in the training on memberships & subscriptions. As well, we planned a few live events on the back-end of the funnel, but couldn’t get confirmation before launching, so we punted. 

Flip the paradigm upside down... and benefit

Regardless of the bumps and upsells chosen to present to potential buyers, rather than making $.50 per book (like many authors make) or even $6 profit like I did on my first book, you now make exponentially more— all based on the average sale.

“As long as your funnel is working,” Martijn said, “you simply need to unload more free books in order to grow your audience and boost your income.”

With traditional publishing, authors typically sell the book and give the bonuses away. In some sense, you must. You’re not making much from the book, so you need to direct the buyer into your ecosystem so they can make a future purchase.

And, without their contact info (i.e., the book is sold on Amazon, in a bookstore, or the publisher’s website) you have no way to communicate. Giving away all the bonuses achieves this— it lures them to your website where, in effect, they opt-in.

With this plan, you give away the least profitable part of your ecosystem (the book), you sell the additional content, and you continue the relationship long-term. And, there’s less friction involved. You don’t push people back and forth from website to website.

Your next step

Access the 11 Mind-shifts, free audio training (listen on-the-go from any of your devices) that equips you to make sense of the changes in the information, influencer, and publishing industry... and then empowers you to move forward with confidence.

Access it here: www.AmplifyOnline.info/11