well on top of all the other solutions, there is one more and that is selling the rights to your book. this with all other things and suggestions has it's pros and cons. you make a lot in the short run, but nothing long term unless you add in some sort of recurring % for every book sold. don't really know how that would work though since it's just a book and not a business. my point is that you can get creative when selling off the rights.
this would be your end game or if you can't do the marketing yourself and can't find a partner. i mean if you can't sell your book then something is better than nothing.
i dunno what kinda contract you have with your publisher or when it expires but i personally would try and get out of it asap and find another publisher that is either paid for better services or has more at stake to create more incentive to sell the book or get it out there to at least be seen and noticed
anyway, wish ya luck with it. i've exhausted my ideas and you had other great suggestions. i think your next step is to just write everything down and come up with a business/marketing plan that you are comfortable with so if you have to market yourself, you can....and if you find a partner, you know exactly what to tell that partner in what direction you prefer to go in
if you have any questions or concerns or want to brainstorm, you can always pm me. it's also good to seek outside opinions and advice when sometimes we can get too close to our own project and where a sentimental value has been placed on it.
(10-18-2018 06:37 AM)California Kid Wrote: [ -> ]well on top of all the other solutions, there is one more and that is selling the rights to your book. this with all other things and suggestions has it's pros and cons. you make a lot in the short run, but nothing long term unless you add in some sort of recurring % for every book sold. don't really know how that would work though since it's just a book and not a business. my point is that you can get creative when selling off the rights.
this would be your end game or if you can't do the marketing yourself and can't find a partner. i mean if you can't sell your book then something is better than nothing.
i dunno what kinda contract you have with your publisher or when it expires but i personally would try and get out of it asap and find another publisher that is either paid for better services or has more at stake to create more incentive to sell the book or get it out there to at least be seen and noticed
anyway, wish ya luck with it. i've exhausted my ideas and you had other great suggestions. i think your next step is to just write everything down and come up with a business/marketing plan that you are comfortable with so if you have to market yourself, you can....and if you find a partner, you know exactly what to tell that partner in what direction you prefer to go in
if you have any questions or concerns or want to brainstorm, you can always pm me. it's also good to seek outside opinions and advice when sometimes we can get too close to our own project and where a sentimental value has been placed on it.
Selling the rights is something I have considered and may well look into at some stage. I'm not sure how or where I would find a buyer for such a specialised niche, or how I would value the rights, but I guess I would have to research this.
The agreement I have with the publisher is little more than a gentlemen's agreement and would be easy to get out of. Thanks for the offer of future help - I will certainly drop you a pm if I need someone to bounce ideas off.
In regards to your partner buying a list, he didnt do any due diligence because that's a terrible idea. With approved SOLO ads the buyers list will be warmed up to receiving your offer. Ive never bought solo ads myself but choose the right network and they will feature regular feedback and reviews.
Lets take Udemi dot com, if you add /solodeals after the URL you can see a list of sellers without even signing up.
Your product is $260. That might buy you 650 clicks (visits), no guarantee of a sale. So if you dont offer anything else, youve lost that money because you need an opt-in to keep that email address for another chance later without paying for it.
Id advise getting some results from your sales page via other means before sending solo ads as you can see this could get pricey.
So you see, this marketing game is tricky. Now if you found the right guy and paid him/her $260 you might get a lot more. Hopefully you can see now why not many are going to offer their skills as a partner without some guaranteed return. Because this stuffs hard. And costs money to learn which ever way you do it.
(10-19-2018 12:50 AM)Lippinzaner Wrote: [ -> ]In regards to your partner buying a list, he didnt do any due diligence because that's a terrible idea. With approved SOLO ads the buyers list will be warmed up to receiving your offer. Ive never bought solo ads myself but choose the right network and they will feature regular feedback and reviews.
Lets take Udemi dot com, if you add /solodeals after the URL you can see a list of sellers without even signing up.
Your product is $260. That might buy you 650 clicks (visits), no guarantee of a sale. So if you dont offer anything else, youve lost that money because you need an opt-in to keep that email address for another chance later without paying for it.
Id advise getting some results from your sales page via other means before sending solo ads as you can see this could get pricey.
So you see, this marketing game is tricky. Now if you found the right guy and paid him/her $260 you might get a lot more. Hopefully you can see now why not many are going to offer their skills as a partner without some guaranteed return. Because this stuffs hard. And costs money to learn which ever way you do it.
Wise words, when you mentioned solo ads initially I was naturally hesitant, and you just reinforced my opinion. I will definitely try some less expensive traffic sources first, before taking the plunge with that. To be honest, it amazes me that solo ads that direct to a squeeze page work, because I used find it annoying (before I knew much about online marketing) when I got emails with an offer, only to have to enter my email address to receive it. You would think that the email sender already has your email address, so why do they need it again?
As you say, this game isn't straightforward, so I think I will have to outsource at least part of the traffic generation to someone who knows their way around these different platforms. That's probably the best way to increase the chance of a positive ROI.
email marketing is the most effective type of marketing out there hands down. so solo ads is definitely doable as long as you have a funnel leading to your book sales page eventually and the right autoresponder sequences that will warm up your list and and direct them to your book sales page eventually.
this is where lips suggestion came in to offer a freebe to get them on a list and then the right marketing to warm the list up. and even offer 1 or two products either as an affiliate or your own so you can separate the freebie seekers from your potential buyers.
creating a free report is easy enough. you just summarize your first chapter which should be summarizing the rest of your book. creating free content in your news letter(part of your funnel and email marketing) should be easy enough when you take the points in your freebie offer and be more specific in email followups. my point is, you already have content that you can use for marketing.
those who don't buy your book doesn't mean they wont buy something else you are an affiliate of. your list is an asset so just because they don't buy your book, other sales can offset the price of paid traffic.
since you already wrote a book, even a condensed course or membership site could be a lead in for some sales and eventually send them to your book offer. a coaching program can also either lead them to your book or presell your book.
i remember when my girfriend wrote a novel. when she finished it and got it all edited, i told her that instead of selling something to someone who doesn't know you, split the novel in to 3 books. this way, after the first book, people will know you, you will have them on a list, and can market very easily the other two books. you can't do this with your book as each chapter is going to be needed for the end reader/invester/gambler but you can certainly create a list. either through solo ads or purchase the use of someone elses list that is that is similar to your niche(these blog reviewers list for instance. if they write a positive review, they are more apt to email to their list of subscribers and can probably get a good rate as they already believe in the end product).
if you have a good funnel, then you could offer affiliates 50%-100% on the front end low ticket items and 25% on your back end book sales. if done right, that is A LOT of free targeted traffic and one campaign could eaily be worth 100k to you after expenses and you have a list you can continue to market to with another book in the future or sell solos or other affiliate offers or whatever....
(10-19-2018 12:52 PM)California Kid Wrote: [ -> ]email marketing is the most effective type of marketing out there hands down. so solo ads is definitely doable as long as you have a funnel leading to your book sales page eventually and the right autoresponder sequences that will warm up your list and and direct them to your book sales page eventually.
this is where lips suggestion came in to offer a freebe to get them on a list and then the right marketing to warm the list up. and even offer 1 or two products either as an affiliate or your own so you can separate the freebie seekers from your potential buyers.
creating a free report is easy enough. you just summarize your first chapter which should be summarizing the rest of your book. creating free content in your news letter(part of your funnel and email marketing) should be easy enough when you take the points in your freebie offer and be more specific in email followups. my point is, you already have content that you can use for marketing.
those who don't buy your book doesn't mean they wont buy something else you are an affiliate of. your list is an asset so just because they don't buy your book, other sales can offset the price of paid traffic.
since you already wrote a book, even a condensed course or membership site could be a lead in for some sales and eventually send them to your book offer. a coaching program can also either lead them to your book or presell your book.
i remember when my girfriend wrote a novel. when she finished it and got it all edited, i told her that instead of selling something to someone who doesn't know you, split the novel in to 3 books. this way, after the first book, people will know you, you will have them on a list, and can market very easily the other two books. you can't do this with your book as each chapter is going to be needed for the end reader/invester/gambler but you can certainly create a list. either through solo ads or purchase the use of someone elses list that is that is similar to your niche(these blog reviewers list for instance. if they write a positive review, they are more apt to email to their list of subscribers and can probably get a good rate as they already believe in the end product).
if you have a good funnel, then you could offer affiliates 50%-100% on the front end low ticket items and 25% on your back end book sales. if done right, that is A LOT of free targeted traffic and one campaign could eaily be worth 100k to you after expenses and you have a list you can continue to market to with another book in the future or sell solos or other affiliate offers or whatever....
Your insights are very interesting. Certainly, the product I have and the niche I am in does lend itself well to a condensed course, or a smaller product that could be used to gain trust and whet the appetite of prospects. It's just a question of putting it all together in an enticing autoresponder sequence. As I said before - the devil is in the detail.
I have considerable experience in gambling and could definitely produce another manual or two, with some original strategies. Perhaps my next task then, should be to get these smaller products written, then start planning how to structure them as part of an autoresponder sequence. After that, I can look at where to actually get the traffic from.
(10-19-2018 12:52 PM)California Kid Wrote: [ -> ]if you have a good funnel, then you could offer affiliates 50%-100% on the front end low ticket items and 25% on your back end book sales. if done right, that is A LOT of free targeted traffic and one campaign could eaily be worth 100k to you after expenses and you have a list you can continue to market to with another book in the future or sell solos or other affiliate offers or whatever....
How would you attract affiliates in the first place? Are you referring to blog owners, or are there other ways I could get people to promote my funnel?
the way you get affiliate is on any affiliate platform you feel you're front end offers would do best(your book being one of the back end offers). or you contact these so called super affiliates directly. you present the right proposal to some of these guys and they will set up the webinars for you presenting your offer to their list with you on the call to just answer questions pretty much.
i would actually figure out my traffic source first and then strategize a campaign around that specific traffic source. different strategies work different depending on the traffic source. when you start finding affiliate partners, they can actually help you with that
a big part of doing business online is networking and talking to people. talking to people about what you have and what you will need for you two to be a good fit for eachother to market this book with front end offers and list building and email marketing. they will know their list and target audience to help you.
for me personally, i would never buy a book for that price right out of the gate so this is the hurdle you need to overcome. i would however buy it if what you said makes sense and i was able to utilize a method or two of your successfully over time. you gt rid of some of the trust factor by taking advantage of other peoples lists where they trust the list owner, but there is still a credibility issue.
yes, there is work involved here but the returns on the work is going to be well worth it compared to trying to just sell the book outright without any front end and without any sort of well planned out preselling. it wold be A LOT different if you were known and have already sold a book on a best sellers list and could get a reputable publisher to publish it and market it for you. and since you intimated you are unwilling to sell the book for a huge discount for a while to get in reviews and testimonials, then you do have to use other strategies that will require more work.
and to be honest, i would never buy a high priced book like that without reviews and testimonials. so you are really spreading yourself thin here with even less options. it's not like your target market are people in book stores that can flip through the table of contents and content and decide if they want to buy.
also, i don't even know where you came up with that price. did you have some sort of goal in how many books you want to sell and how much money you want to make from this book? i don't think you did or those numbers came out of thin air without much though. if you do finally get a partner, he's going to have a lot to teach you as far as the different marketing approaches based on these price points
for instance, you are reselling candy(which i did in jr high btw haha). 1 candy cost you .10 and you sell it for .25. the other candy cost .10 and you sell it for .15. you have the higher profit margin on the first candy but the other candy will sell out faster and possibly out perform the first candy if it's selling out faster. you banked a bigger profit with the latter even though you sold it for cheaper. but then you have to consider the supply and demand aspect as well. when you are selling out of the second candy, you can eventually raise the price to .20 and still sell out. if i have 100 pieces of each candy, i've already figured out what i will make at each price poiint and i have a bare minimum going in to it in what i want to make(in this case 50% roi)
have you even thought about any of this because if you take on a partner, THEY will and they will possibly have to try and revamp your thinking so you're more flexible. do you know how many book sales you will be happy with? 200 book sales at $200 is 40k. 1000 book sales at $50 is 50k. you think it's unheard of that 850 more people will buy your book when you cut the cost by 75%? no. it's not and you made more money. this is the stuff you need to research and figure out. you say your book is worth more than that. well maybe it is. are you going to be selling the worth of the book or maximizing profits from the book? can't have it both ways.
i'm only telling you this because you WILL run across this when you take on a partner or affiliates. your partner and affiliate will want to make money and commissions and they know they will have a harder time with that price point you set. the higher the price point, the more work involved and the more time involved to get to your goals. the lower the cost, the faster you saturate your book sales. there is a middle ground somewhere where the price point is most efficient. it wont be at $200 and it wont be at $10.
because it's a book, there are different formats you can be utilizing. hard cover, soft cover, pdf, kindle, etc.. if you aren't utilizing thes options in your marketing and strategy then you are losing sales.
i just want to mention one last thing to think about from a marketing perspective. when attracting affiliates, they was to see a high conversion rate. low conversion rates SUCK. so the better the conversion rate, the more affiliates you will be able to attract. how do you get better conversion rates? lower price point, good copywriting, and a planned out preselling strategy. to get them to see a good conversion rate, you will have to have already been trying to sell the book. since you want to stick with that $197 figure, it's going to be d*** hard to see attractive conversion rates for affiliates which means you wont get any worthy affiliates. if you get the right partner, he's going to tell you the same thing.
if you create 1 or two front end products however where affiliate can make most of their money on them and you are building your list at the same time, that would be ideal because you are killing many birds with one stone with the issues hurdles i've mentioned. you would also be able to sell the book at $197 on the back end and get 1000+ sales eventually at that price point. so for a couple months work, you turned a book that woulda netted you around 50k in to a book that can potentially net you 150k after expenses and commisions. those number are pretty realistic i would think but still pulled out of thin air....
The price point was suggested by the publisher, and I let them decide that because they have been in business for 30 years, so you would think that they know what they're doing. The £197 price point also reflects the price of similar products that they sell. Of course, this is the price for a hard copy, but if I was selling the book myself in digital format, I probably wouldn't expect to charge that much.
The publisher has a massive list of past customers who trust them and my product has a 30 day refund guarantee, so people can try it with no risk. This was supposed to overcome the customer acquisition obstacles you mentioned.
The whole dynamic obviously changes, once you change it to a digital product and start advertising it through a sales funnel, with lower priced front end products. Notwithstanding, I maintain that I still wouldn't want to drop the price too low, so creating those extra products is probably the right way to go.
With a bit of thought and planning, I could present my main product in webinar format - maybe with some live trades. I know there are platforms where you can upload pre-recorded webinars for affiliates to promote. I could do this as well as contacting 'super affiliates' directly I suppose.
You say networking is important, however from my perspective the challenge is to find the right people to contact for this type of thing. I presume a lot of trial and error will be involved initially.
A lot of good advice has been offered here, I would certainly take it.
You seem to be putting up obstacles to others' useful advice..
"I am reluctant to sell the manual at such a low price point"
"I think you're right about the publisher not doing enough, however I'm reluctant to sever ties with them completely"
"I maintain that I still wouldn't want to drop the price too low"
But you say..
"I am concerned by the current lack of sales"
If you don't change your approach, then nothing is going to change.
So it is not working out for you at the moment, so as California Kid said, you're not thinking outside of the box.
I have purchased some very good Betfair Trading courses previously and I know they have had a lot of buyers. So this is a niche that can be successful.
Have you thought about posting a link to the sales page here? There are a lot of experienced marketers here who could give you good feedback.
I would definitely go with the idea of creating a sales funnel with a lower priced front end offer.
Good luck, I hope you get some success from your product.
I'm willing to change my approach and am open to new ideas - hence the reason for starting this thread - but I don't want to undersell/devalue my product or walk away from the publisher, before having a solid action plan in place. That would be like cutting my nose off to spite my face.
My initial thoughts were to set up my own sales page, then send traffic directly to it via PPC ads and approaching blog owners. However, maybe using a front end offer and autoresponder with solo ads would work better. Or possibly trying to get a webinar done that affiliates could promote.
There's many different approaches I could take and I will have to sit down and decide which one works best for me. The advice I have received so far should help me do this. I would prefer not to post the link to the sales page in public, however if anyone thinks they can help and wants to see it, they can send me a PM.