Note: This is the 2nd part of the Profitable Author Case Study Breakdown. If you missed it you can read part 1 here >>
As I’m typing this, I have literally JUST gotten off a call where I broke down how this author could dramatically increase her launch profits.
The way the call was set up was FIRST we dove into how to make her books more profitable and SECOND we dug into what at first looked like a tiny little side gig she had going…
Now before I jump into the dirty details, let me first point out what most authors are doing & why, even doing just a little bit of what I mention, can have a massive impact on your bottom line.
Most authors who come to us are doing pretty well at least at some level. While not all of them are heavy hitting NYT/USAT who are able to spend $10k/week on FaceBook, most are at least moving units (sales and/or reads) and are putting out new titles on a really nice schedule. (Not always 1 per month but at least 4x per year).
Really. We work with every level of author you can imagine and have pretty much seen it all at this point. Those earning $1k/month & want to shorten the road to success all the way to those doing multiple 6 figures+ who want to see have someone else run the business end while they write.
For just about 99% of authors we work with the writing & publishing of books is NOT the problem. Seriously. Our clients are wonderful authors and should be freakishly proud of the work they’ve put in to hone their craft.
The problem is because they are often so focused on writing they FORGET to market their books! (or at least aren’t doing it to the extent they should)
See if any of these situations sounds familiar:
#1: You come out of your “cave” with a stunning new title all wrapped up in a cover that would make the angles weep and… CRAP! I forgot to setup ads and it’s going live in 5 days!
#2: Another other way we see it play out is when someone is too conservative with their ads. That looks like “I spend $1K/month on ads and earn $5K”.
The question we often ask is “so what if you spend $2k?” Would you make more? Have you tried it? And what do your earnings look like after 90 days?
More often than not the question surprises them and they haven’t tried it and/or tracked ROAS (return on ad spend) past the initial dates they were spending it.
#3: And yet another way this plays out is when an author doesn’t have an effective, repeatable action plan for launching their new titles.
This often shows up as a mad scramble to book email lists, schedule swaps, set up ads & run some social posts between editing, uploading & remembering to send a newsletter.
Here’s How To Fix All This AND Have A Chilled Out Yet Profitable Book Launch… EVERY TIME
Everything starts with a simple fact: If you have a written plan & simply follow it every time A LOT of cool things can happen.
By “cool things” I’m talking about making more money.
The other element of this very much flows into another major point of our strategy call and that is: If YOU don’t have time to do it pay someone to get it done!
To keep this post manageable I’ll breakdown both a SOP for a launch AND how to have someone do it for you.
Step 1: Determine what marketing activities move the needle for you
Step 2: Create easy SOP’s around those things
Step 3: Do the bare minimum each day
Step 4: Earn more money!
Step 5: Do it EVERY TIME!
For just about everyone the list is the same:
- Your own house email list (let them know the book is out & they can buy it)
- Newsletter swaps with other authors (during launch week)
- Opening your launch at a slightly lower price than you normally sell your books
- Pushing with FaceBook Ads
- Letting your fan groups know they can get the book
- Buying email ad space on 3rd party, genre spicific websites (Like Romance Devoured or I Love Vampire Novels)
- Pushing with AMS ads
- Letting everyone know on your social media platforms…
But here’s the kicker: even though EVERYONE knows that putting all this stuff, even just a little, into your launch will help you sell WAY more books… very few authors find the time to actually do it all!
This is why it’s so important to create either a SOP (standard operating procedure) OR work with someone who already knows how to do this, can do it better than the average bear & can bring even more tricks to the table.
Example: Like setting up a presale page (NOT sending to Amazon) that will build not only your email list but also your SMS list, social following & boost launch week sales past what you’ve ever seen before.
But at the very minimum: run that list up there every time you put out a book. It will blow your mind how how much better your book releases go. (And yes, this is for KU and Wide authors equally)
And that’s what we did on the 1st half of the call. I broke down exactly what she needed to to ON TOP of the list above to really blow her books up the bestseller lists during launch week.
Because then, as they slowly slide down the post launch rankings, (as pretty much all books do) they will passively earn FAR more profits than they would have doing only partial measures.
But Wait! What About That $200K Profit Monster? How Does That Fit Into Your Call?
When we were chatting yesterday she had made a tiny little comment about how she was doing VA/Social & BookBub marketing for an author who was a really big name.
Then, on the call today she just passively dropped a few major bombshells. (Without even knowing it!)
You know, stuff like how she was able to track that her efforts took this author (using no marketing other than BookBub) from $66K/year to $88K/year in the first 12 months and then in the second took her from $88K to $112K in the 2nd year.
OMG!
And on top of that she’s been managing all her social and all her newsletter content!
That’s a pretty epic service!
And the biggest part of the whole thing was that her entire philosophy was “If I can’t provide the evidence I’m making you money, you should fire me!”
Clearly I asked her the most obvious question: Why aren’t you building a business around this?
Her answer was exactly what I thought it was going to be: Because if I take on any more clients it’ll take away from my writing time.
Do you see the mindset problem?
Who said SHE had to do all the work?
What if she took a few hours and documented her process for each service she performed for her client?
Then what it she took that documentation & trained someone how to do it for her?
Then what if she, rather than spending hours doing the work, checked the work of the other person until they were performing at rock star level? Hint: this is why you also create KPI’s with your SOP’s (meaning key performance indicators tell you exactly how long a task should take as well as what outcome should happen when a task is performed)
Then what if she brought on 10 more clients? (As we figured based on work load each person could take up to 15 total clients before being saturated.)
Here’s the real kicker: She had to recently turn down 12 (TWELVE) clients who were waiting, begging for her services because she didn’t have the right mindset or strategy.
Now she does.
Based on her past successes does it seem slightly possible those 12 might ALL jump at the chance to work with her if she were to reach out?
Did you know that with a model like this it only takes 34-36 retained clients to hit $200K/year in revenue?
If this was you how fast would you hammer out simple SOP’s (standard operating procedures) so you could take on 12 new clients?
At the end of that call she came away with an exact, step by step plan for more effectively launching her titles AND a step by step plan for very quickly.
Here’s the BIG question: Where are YOUR blind spots? (Hint: we ALL have them)
NEXT: Doing This ONE THING Can Save Years Of Struggle & Speed You Towards Success >>