publishing

Bonus Backfire: How Adding a Bonus to Your Book Can Be a Mistake

As an online business owner, I love launching things to my tribe. I love the free trainings I get to offer, the emails I get to send spreading the word, and I love designing my paid offerings – including the “sweetener” of a bonus.

You know…

That little extra that makes you REALLY feel like you’re getting a huge bang for your buck.

The same thing doesn’t hold true for launching your book, though. That “extra” that you’re offering as a bonus with your book can backfire in a big, big way.

I client asked my opinion on adding additional content into her book: additional chapters with resources, tips, and a “plan” to follow.

I suggested against it.

In her industry (health coaching) it’s common to add several bonuses to the main offer. The thought is that you’ll come for the meat of the topic (main offering) but stay for the potatoes, salad, and dessert (bonuses).

After all, when you buy a program for $997 and ALSO receive $2,000 worth of related bonuses, you really feel like you got a lot of bang for your buck, right? The thought is that you’ll come for the meat of the topic (main offering) but stay for the potatoes, salad, and dessert (bonuses).

But that doesn’t translate from the online sale of information to the sale of books through Amazon. In the book publishing world, this “add in a ton of “value” with bonuses” approach often backfires.

Keep Reading!

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Video – eBook or Print… Which is better?

Authors love to talk about publishing. After all, it’s the last threshold you have to take to go from writer to author.

I use the personal definition that a writer is someone who writes – an author is someone who is published and shares their message with the world.

It never fails, as part of the publishing conversation, I get asked this question all the time…

“Should I publish an eBook or a print book?”

It’s a great question – and one that I love to talk about. To answer the ebook vs print book debate, here’s a 2:36 minute video!


Publishing your book: eBook or Print? Which version is better? #amwriting Click To Tweet

To answer more questions about publishing your book so you can share your message, be sure to download “Kim’s Kickass Publishing Checklist: Stop Procrastinating, Start Publishing!” here.

or at http://PublishYourBookChecklist.com

3 Reasons You’re Hung Up on the “Unknowns” of Publishing Your Book

At the beginning of 2016, I sent out a survey to my peeps to find out what they really wanted from me – and the results were overwhelming:

You wanted to know about the “Two Ps”: Procrastination and Publishing.

For procrastination, I’ve brought you several great resources, including an interview with Dr. Sarah Reiff-Hekking.

But as for publishing… I’ll admit that I haven’t done as many articles and tips around publishing you book as I could have.

Why?

Because 99.9% of people want to KNOW about publishing their book. But only about 15% of them are actually READY to have that conversation. Mostly because the book isn’t done yet! In some cases, a prospect wanted to jump straight into asking me all about publishing and they hadn’t even STARTED their book.

Let me make a confession:

I used to accept people into my Assisted Self-Publishing service no matter where they were in the process. Yep, even if the book wasn’t written yet! They’d pay for the publishing services and we’d wait… and wait… and wait…

I finally figured out that this didn’t help ANYBODY. Books weren’t reaching the people they were meant to reach because THEY WEREN’T WRITTEN. Holding space for publishing is all well and good – except for a lot of really cool books, I’m still waiting.

I get it:

Publishing is exciting! It’s the final step in getting your words out into the world.

It’s fun to think about.

You can dream about having your book be on Oprah’s Book Club.

You can think about claiming your moment as a Best-Selling Author.

It IS fun.

But it can also be exactly what’s keeping you stuck, in this moment, and preventing you from writing your book.

There are three reasons why you might be attracted to publishing – and allowing yourself to be stuck and overwhelmed with your book:

1. You’re “Wasting” Time

In your heart of hearts, you know that all this “research” about publishing is a stalling tactic that you’re allowing to keep you from writing your book. You’re deep in the minutia of the publishing industry – and you know, on some level, that you don’t even NEED to know this information.

But continuing to spend endless hours on Google, researching how to publish your book, allows you to convince yourself that you’re “working” on your book.

Even when you know you’re not!

Keep Reading!

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{First Time} When You Hold Your Book in Your Hands

I remember the anticipation the most; I had spent weeks working on the project and I was 99.9% sure that the fruit of my labors was waiting for me in my PO Box. I leaned down to open my box; it’s only three rows up from the bottom. I took a deep breath and turned the key.

It was waiting for me. A non-descript brown cardboard package, deceptively lightweight. My mom was waiting for me in the truck; we were just about to head to town for a grocery shopping trip.

Do I open it here, in the Post Office, alone, or wait until I was in the truck, with an audience? I was sure I was going to cry. That decided it for me; if I was going to cry I wanted it to be with only my mom watching and not the whole of a small town Post Office. I didn’t bother to pick up the mail in the four other PO boxes I checked daily but walked quickly out into the late summer sunshine and back to the truck.

My hands were trembling as I pulled back the cardboard zipper. That surprised me. It wasn’t the first time, exactly. I had been here before, almost.

The package opened in my lap. I was glad I was sitting down.

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When I was in college, I decided that I should treat my writing like a business. I had a very small portfolio of work but I knew that I had enough work to start sending out submissions and begin collecting rejection letters.

One of the first rules of submission is to carefully study the magazine or journal you’re submitting to. Then, you submit a piece (or write a piece) that meets the tone, style, and subject matter of where you want to be published. You could buy a copy of most literary journals for $20. And then submit three poems, no longer than a page, for another $20.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I had a three hour break between classes. I designated this time “Submission Time”. Tuesdays I found places to submit, Thursdays I stuffed envelopes with poems. And checks. Lots and LOTS of checks.

I realized quickly that it added up. Fast. So I skipped the step that said study the publication and just started submitting to every contest, call for submission, and open reading period I could find.

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Can an “Older” Book Be a Best-Seller?

I totally understand the quest to be a best-selling author:

  • That title can give you credibility to your readers and to your potential clients
  • It makes you feel famous
  • It sounds cool

Here’s the truth of how being an Amazon Best-Selling Author works:

There are no “checks and balances” and to way to research which books are best-selling books and which… aren’t. That means that you might have been #1 in a category for a matter of minutes – or it might mean that your book never was, you’re just claiming that you’re a best-selling author.

Learn the TRUTH about being a best-selling author! Click To Tweet

Then, you have to create your personal decision about what exactly is a best-selling book or a best-selling author.

  • Best-selling in a category – no matter how many titles are in the genre?
  • #1 or anywhere in the top-ten? Top 5?
  • Best-selling in another country – where the competition might be less?
  • Kindle book or physical?
  • How long do you have to be on the list?

With so much emphasis on book launches and when a book is freshly released, what happens to books that are a year old? Or two? Or FIVE?

Can an older book still be a best-seller?

Teehee – GREAT question! And the answer is (drumroll please)

Keep Reading!

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Getting Ready to Publish Your Cookbook – 5 Self-Editing Steps

Cookbooks are a ton of fun to write! And they’re a great way to convey your expertise in any of the health or healthy eating fields. Even with more and more recipes being online, cookbooks are still being purchased and used – especially cookbooks that are around a single topic or theme.

You want your readers to have a great experience with your cookbook – it’s not just about yummy recipes, it’s about creating a literary culture that they enjoy.

During these 5 editing steps, you’ll want to do the step to the WHOLE book. Then do the next step. Yes, that means (at least!) 5 read-throughs of your book, but it’s been proven to be a more effective way of editing – rather than editing each recipe for ALL things and then moving on.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Standardize how you’re listing measurements
During a read-through of my first cookbook, I found that I used the following:

  • tablespoon
  • Tbs
  • TBS
  • Tbsp.

That’s four different ways to say the same thing! Decide on one standard format and will be keeping it the same throughout the book. (And using the same format for cup, pound, and teaspoon, etc.!)

It doesn’t matter what you’re using, but it needs to be the SAME for all instances in the entire book.

You can use a find & replace function to help you make this standard but you need to check EACH and EVERY place you say it – not use the “replace all” function.

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Video – 3 Tips to Get Your Book Published

You can’t WAIT to share your message with the world – and that means publishing a book! But before you spend countless hours researching the ins and outs of the publishing world, you need to know these three tips!

3 Tips to Get Your Book Published! Click To Tweet



 

To get started right, be sure to download, “Kim’s Kickass Publishing Checklist: Stop Procrastinating, Start Publishing”. Get it for free at

http://publishyourbookchecklist.com/

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