Jeffrey Hayzlett sold thousands of books during a six-month-long pre-launch kickoff campaign for his book, Running the Gauntlet. On Launch Day, the book was already a bestseller.
Leverage Your Content
He did it by leveraging the content from his book to generate constant copy with reduced effort.
Like Jeffrey Hayzlett, you can do it, too.
You “leverage content” that you’ve already created for one platform when you “repurpose” it to use for another platform. This is why authors are encouraged to hang onto their copyright.
According to Hayzlett, a member of the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame, “Typically, you have about two weeks to promote the book. After that period, even your mother is sick of hearing about it. What I try to do is extend it past that two-week period. You need to have ears, eyeballs, hearts, and minds to be considered for sales. In addition, you need to come up with content and ways to utilize that content.”
Here’s How
Here’s what he did:
“I did a regular two weeks of promo, radio tour, media tour, and a few key book signings at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue, airport promos, and the kickoff and the beginning of the month. In addition, I made every chapter title 140 characters or less to fit Twitter’s requirements at that time, which gave me about 33 tweets, one for each chapter. The first 1,500 words of each chapter I turned into blog posts, which gave me 33 more days of activation.
“Then I wrote a short blog post of about 250 to 500 words for each chapter, which gave me 33 additional activations. I also included a two-dimensional, branded barcode that I got through a vendor/client friend of mine, where people could text me; that led me to create a video for every chapter to talk about what they’d see in every chapter–a total of 119 extra days of activation.”
In case you’re not paying attention, Hayzlett created an awesome amount of content. And it all came out of his book.
Placing High on Amazon
To place high on Amazon’s list, he registered bulk orders strategically. He used not only Amazon but smaller retailers as well to increase distribution. Why? Because a bulk order of 500 books counts as one sale if you order them at the same time. And large orders create suspicion on the part of Amazon’s algorithm monitors.
“We went out to our friends, past customers, 30 to 100 different groups that buy books in bulk — organizations, promotional companies, whatever I could find — and I got them to give me their credit cards. Rather than place an entire order, I started placing orders the day before launch, in increments, until I fulfilled all orders. About 100 books a day on Amazon will move you to bestseller.”
Making Money by Giving Away Books
And yet sometimes the best financial reward comes from giving a book away: “When a person receiving the book is a potential customer and the value of giving it to them is greater than the cost of the book, you give them away. You have to find the value in everything you do when it comes to getting your book out.”
Jeffrey Hayzlett begins planning for promotion campaigns at least a year ahead of publication. “We look at objectives, press releases, media outreach, collateral materials, social activation, and every other component needed to surround the book launch. If you don’t start months in advance, you’re already behind.”
* * *
This piece was adapted from Ken Wachsberger’s You’ve Got the Time: How to Write and Publish That Book in You. Ken’s other books may be found here and here. For book coaching and editing help, or to invite Ken to speak at your meeting, email Ken at [email protected].
Schedule your complimentary 30-minute coaching and editing session now.
