How To Write A Best-Selling BS eBook

[sifuphilly]

I found this in my travels over the Web - gave me a laugh, but also offered some true nuggets of info.

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found this as a review for a book on amazon and had to share since it is the perfect outline for writing..or NOT writing a book .... book is the Best F****** Secret...or not a book ...

My Take on the Book: The whole BFS book project seems like an experiment in EGO and Internet Marketing.

Having a little bit of internet marketing experience and having researched law of attraction for years, here's my take on how this experiment by the creators of this book appears to have gone down. First, a hot product niche was picked - one with "desperate" people in it, in this case--those interested in law of attraction (LOA) and, most likely, those who have been exposed to law of attraction principles promoted by Esther Hicks, The Secret, etc., but couldn't get it to work consistently in their lives. Then some LOA PLR (private label rights) information was found and purchased for a few bucks and this information was used as the content for the book along with lots of low-quality graphics. A very controversial title was chosen for the book (see note below). The plan was to get the book out to market as quickly as possible to test the market response. If the market response was good and profitable - THEN flesh out the rest of the information presented in the book - the various non-existent and missing protocols and website(s) mentioned throughout the book, the very information that is supposedly needed to be successful in applying the BF secret . . . yet is is missing. ???

Note: Desperation and controversy are the KEY psychological ingredients to be used in any marketing campaign. Clearly, those ingredients were included as part of this project.

Next: Get the main, vanilla-looking website that goes along with the book - put together for under $200 by outsourcing it to a WordPress webpage designer on a website like Freelance. In the bid, state that you only have a couple hundred bucks because you are a "starving artist," as it were, but will continue to work with the selected person down-the-road, if the market test is positive and, of course, if they provide good work. Also, perhaps, ? pay some folks on Fiverr five bucks to post some testimonials and feedback on Amazon, the BFS website, and Facebook to provide some social credibility and proof - another VERY important part of the internet marketing equation. Social proof.

As far as the protocols (missing in the book), it seems as if the "fake it till you make it," tactic was used--fluff was offered as bonuses with a few conference calls given by the author. Evidently, this was a stall tactic, until a protocol could be put together, either from feedback provided by the readers or borrowed from other people's energy psychology work already out there (tapping, EFT, etc.). This information would be remixed and put forth as being the named protocols mentioned in the book. They would be sold separately, at least according to the author's poll on the BFS Facebook fan page.

NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) language was most likely used in promotional emails and conference calls to get people to buy book. Also, folks were told that words were combined in the book in such a way so as to give people the power to be the GOD they inherently are. (Close, but not quite. In my research, I discovered that the Creator gave humans the inherent ability to create their own destiny, as it were, through an infinite amount of possibilities available in the ether. You don't have to be a god to do this. The key is to remove whatever blocks are interfering or sabotaging our efforts in attracting what we want. These are usually acquired or inherited trapped emotions, false beliefs, or warped programs, stored in our subconscious mind [SCM]. When stuff shows up that we don't like or want, that is a MAJOR clue that something negative is stored in the SCM and is attracting it, usually unbeknownst to us. This means that no matter how hard we work at using law of attraction principles, it won't matter or even work, until we identify the issues causing interference and clear them. This is the REAL secret. It has nothing to do with being GOD.)

Back to the book - it appears that low-quality pictures were added to each page to take up more room on the page to get it to that magic 150 pages mark. The original document was probably about 25 or so pages, on 8.5" X 11" paper, font size 12, single spaced. If one reduces the paper size significantly, as is the case here, adds several graphics to each page, and increases the font size slightly, this can turn 25 pages of information typed on a regular-sized sheet of paper into the 146+ pages we find in this book. Also, as part of marketing, it's important to offer something FREE to hook people in - so the first few chapters of the book were offered to people free, as a teaser. Yup, psychology and internet marketing 101 - give people something free and they are more apt to buy from you. FREE is a magic word, especially in the USA.

Apparently, the plan was to leave out the protocols that really should have been included in the $33 book (but weren't because evidently they hadn't been developed yet?), and keep it a big secret from the buyers that the book was just an incomplete, draft aka "beta" version. These buyers would have the opportunity to buy the completed book later, and not just pay for shipping (at the most) as should be the case, but buy it at wholesale cost AND pay for shipping/handling again. Also, those who paid $33 for an incomplete, blind-offer book, would be asked how much they want to pay for the protocols that should have been included with the book and website in the first place. So we buy the $33 book with the missing, very important protocols, then we are supposed to wait for the completed book and pay for it again at wholesale price along with shipping and handling, AND, if we want the protocols we have to pay for them too. Boy, How much will we be paying for this book when all is said and done? Geez. Yet another internet marketing 101 tactic - gone wrong.

Also, it appears that some JVs (joint ventures in which those who participate get a percentage of the proceeds) were put together with guys who have large email mailing lists, to get the hoopla out about the book to a large group of people quickly, using key trigger words such as, Illuminati, secret groups, the secret, fifth dimension, etc., to spark attention and interest. Combine that, with the underdog approach (David and Goliath) to get people to buy in to purchasing the overpriced book and helping the underdog (human nature 101) get it to #1 on Amazon (the giant who supposedly said it couldn't be done). Power to the people. More psychology. More social proof. More Internet Marketing 101 - from the dark side.

If the market response is not as expected, then the effort can be ditched. It was all put together for around $500, and it shows in the book. Very little work was required by the author, as it was mostly outsourced. Thousands of dollars were made off the overpriced, incomplete book (worth about $9.95), so there is substantial profit to be made even if the great human "experiment" fails. Laugh all the way to the bank. Money just in time for festivus too. Woo.

That, my friends, is my take on this book overall, I probably could put this review into a 146-page book if I followed the author's example. :p Bottom line - this book is an insult to a thinking person's intelligence; buyers/readers have been majorly taken advantage of on this one. The author may have thought he was being very clever in using the tactics mentioned in this review to sell his book, but, they are, in fact, very transparent, as evidenced here. Law of attraction folks might be desperate, but they're not all stupid. I can't even say that this book would be good for newbies as there are major important and missing components left out of the book that the author states one needs to practice daily in order for the BFS to be effective.

The one thing I did get out of being scammed in this experiment is that a REAL LOA book is sorely needed that can provide people with the missing pieces they need to allow the law of attraction to work in their lives--a protocol that works for all who follow the steps in a simple and proven protocol. Most LOA books/protocols work for just a few, probably because LOA was already working in their lives before they ever read any books or watched any videos, etc., on it. That's because these rare people have fewer blocks using this inherent power, that we all were given by God, than the rest of us.

This REAL book would provide proven results from the author's life and the lives of others who have applied the protocols INCLUDED in the book BEFORE the book was ever published. Proven results speak louder than words. It will also be a book that truly comes from the heart and a place of love, rather than from ego and greed - and taking fellow humans for granted as desperate fools thru the use of psychology and internet marketing . . . sorely misapplied, transparent, and from the dark side.