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Publishing using a launch company

Justin Gesso

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Guys- I originally started this as a Progress Thread, but it was recommended to me that I move it here to Self-Publishing/Writing and Authorship.

You guys let me know if this is of interest to you. If it is, I'll continue to post more of the behind-the-scenes details of this book launch along with the results.

My goal here is for you all to learn how a professional company handles a book launch. It's also so I can get feedback and learn from you.

Here goes...it's a long post, but I'm hoping to provide as much detail as you all want-

---

Hello everyone, since we have a lot of self publishers here, I thought I'd share the "behind the scenes" and results of my own book launch.

What makes this book publication different?
I want to make a big splash, so I hired a book launch company to help me through. It's Epic Launch and you can check them out at epic-launch.com.

They’ve worked with Brian Tracy and a bunch of great author entrepreneurs, so I’m looking to ultimately turn my book into a growing business.

What's the timeline?
We are on countdown to release the book on August 9.

What's the book about?
It's called Leave the Grind Behind and is about everything you need to quit your job and start making money your way. It's about leaving the 9-5 world and chasing down what you like to do via freelancing, consulting, and entrepreneurship. Making more money and living life on your terms.

I consider myself a successful graduate of The Millionaire Fastlane . This is my take on how you can excel on that journey. See more at grindbehindbook.com.

What can you get out of this thread?

I am going to share as much as possible about the tactics, practices, and actual results. Hopefully this becomes a blueprint you can use for successful book, website, and product launches.

Why did I pay for a launch service?

I have a lot of background in marketing and even managed products for a Fortune 500. My work included launches. I've helped others with self publishing, but this is my first book. I want to squeeze everything out of it I can. I also want to learn from some pros so I can apply that to future book and products launches. Basically, I don't want to throw my book into the black hole of self-published Amazon books.

What are the goals?
  1. Be an #1 international bestseller on Amazon
  2. Pay back my investments within 6 months
  3. Open the door to offshoot products I can sell
  4. Build a personal brand
  5. Open the door to media appearances and mentions
Overall strategy
  1. Do a pre-launch of the book that will include free download and discounted print version…. With a major focus on building my email list (email is always the best way to sell online, hands down).
  2. Get as many people (by email, phone, social, etc...) to buy and leave reviews as possible. Have them then share the book to help it go “viral” within my niche.
  3. Raise the price based on triggers to achieve milestones.
  4. Be on "Amazon's radar" and move to full price; have Amazon start to promote my book for me, by including it on the different bestseller pages, on related books, and also ranking high for certain key phrases related to my topic.
  5. Manage the lifecycle of the book to ensure continued success.
  6. Build an email list and audience that can then turn into different offerings that are more lucrative than a book sale.
What has been completed so far (along with the Epic Launch team)?
  1. Book is complete and professionally edited
  2. I've created a marketing website and am starting to add in content: grindbehindbook.com
  3. A new fancy logo
  4. Create lead magnet items (free downloads), professionally formatting
  5. Final editing and structural changes to the book were finalized
  6. Book formatted to mimic a New York Times quality book
  7. Lots of professional 3D graphics, advertising and social media images
What's coming?
  1. Get endorsements from some big names that my audience will know
  2. Test landing pages (we’re using ClickFunnels) and ads
    1. Core landing pages:
      1. Email optin for book pre-launch
      2. Email optin from book for bonus resources, free training, book guide
      3. Additional lead magnets are to be created
  3. Facebooks ads fully engaged and optimized
  4. Social media blitz - Epic Launch tries to get a book in front of many hundreds of thousands of people during the launch via social media, forums and websites, email lists, etc.
  5. Have a launch team set up
  6. Build up my email list big time
  7. Pre-launch the book, throttling the price
  8. Hit initial review count stages - we aim for some reviews before the book is officially launched, and then try to get as many reviews as possible
  9. Email blitz and free promo
  10. Then rise up the paid charts.
  11. Confirm #1 international bestseller status. Bam.
  12. Then leverage the heck out of that success into more business momentum, program sales, continued book promotions, and more.
What's the technology stack?
  1. Wordpress website
  2. SociallyViral theme
  3. OptinMonster for email opt ins on website
  4. Buffer for Twitter and Facebook social media queuing
  5. Zapier for Twitter auto-replies to new followers
  6. Getresponse for email marketing
  7. Click Funnels will be used (not setup yet)
  8. Facebook for advertisements
  9. Google Analytics - currently only goal of website is email subscribers
  10. Potentially SumoMe for heat maps, and other tools
  11. More to come...
What are my current advertisements?
  1. $5 per day retargeting with Facebook post of one of my blog posts.
  2. Spend of $5 to $15 per post on Facebook to boost. Still trying to gather data on my audience. Literally just started.
  3. More will come, especially once ClickFunnels is set up.
What are current results?
  1. Email opt-in rate from site is 5.6% (but it's early). This is from content marketing, not landing page marketing.
  2. Website views of about 150 per day (it's early)
  3. Email list size of 1,018 (again, early)
  4. Much much more to come...
You tell me...
  • What do you guys want to see or know?
  • What recommendations do you have?
  • Has anyone here used a launch team?
  • Have you published a book? What are your best strategies that you’ve found?
PS - Epic Launch has graciously agreed to me posting this information here. There are some proprietary components to their success plan--naturally--which I may not be able to share. Fire away with questions and if I can't answer something, I'll just let you know.
 
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theag

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Cookie cutter topic, #1 international bestseller goal, but don't want to do hard part (promotion). Sounds like a plan.

This is pathetic:
00000324.png


If I was @MJ DeMarco I would sue you over this just for the lulz.
 

Raoul Duke

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Cookie cutter topic, #1 international bestseller goal, but don't want to do hard part (promotion). Sounds like a plan.

This is pathetic:
00000324.png


If I was @MJ DeMarco I would sue you over this just for the lulz.






giphy.gif
 

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Guys- I originally started this as a Progress Thread, but it was recommended to me that I move it here to Self-Publishing/Writing and Authorship.

You guys let me know if this is of interest to you. If it is, I'll continue to post more of the behind-the-scenes details of this book launch along with the results.

My goal here is for you all to learn how a professional company handles a book launch. It's also so I can get feedback and learn from you.

Here goes...it's a long post, but I'm hoping to provide as much detail as you all want-

---

Hello everyone, since we have a lot of self publishers here, I thought I'd share the "behind the scenes" and results of my own book launch.

What makes this book publication different?
I want to make a big splash, so I hired a book launch company to help me through. It's Epic Launch and you can check them out at epic-launch.com.

They’ve worked with Brian Tracy and a bunch of great author entrepreneurs, so I’m looking to ultimately turn my book into a growing business.

What's the timeline?
We are on countdown to release the book on August 9.

What's the book about?
It's called Leave the Grind Behind and is about everything you need to quit your job and start making money your way. It's about leaving the 9-5 world and chasing down what you like to do via freelancing, consulting, and entrepreneurship. Making more money and living life on your terms.

I consider myself a successful graduate of The Millionaire Fastlane . This is my take on how you can excel on that journey. See more at grindbehindbook.com.

What can you get out of this thread?

I am going to share as much as possible about the tactics, practices, and actual results. Hopefully this becomes a blueprint you can use for successful book, website, and product launches.

Why did I pay for a launch service?

I have a lot of background in marketing and even managed products for a Fortune 500. My work included launches. I've helped others with self publishing, but this is my first book. I want to squeeze everything out of it I can. I also want to learn from some pros so I can apply that to future book and products launches. Basically, I don't want to throw my book into the black hole of self-published Amazon books.

What are the goals?
  1. Be an #1 international bestseller on Amazon
  2. Pay back my investments within 6 months
  3. Open the door to offshoot products I can sell
  4. Build a personal brand
  5. Open the door to media appearances and mentions
Overall strategy
  1. Do a pre-launch of the book that will include free download and discounted print version…. With a major focus on building my email list (email is always the best way to sell online, hands down).
  2. Get as many people (by email, phone, social, etc...) to buy and leave reviews as possible. Have them then share the book to help it go “viral” within my niche.
  3. Raise the price based on triggers to achieve milestones.
  4. Be on "Amazon's radar" and move to full price; have Amazon start to promote my book for me, by including it on the different bestseller pages, on related books, and also ranking high for certain key phrases related to my topic.
  5. Manage the lifecycle of the book to ensure continued success.
  6. Build an email list and audience that can then turn into different offerings that are more lucrative than a book sale.
What has been completed so far (along with the Epic Launch team)?
  1. Book is complete and professionally edited
  2. I've created a marketing website and am starting to add in content: grindbehindbook.com
  3. A new fancy logo
  4. Create lead magnet items (free downloads), professionally formatting
  5. Final editing and structural changes to the book were finalized
  6. Book formatted to mimic a New York Times quality book
  7. Lots of professional 3D graphics, advertising and social media images
What's coming?
  1. Get endorsements from some big names that my audience will know
  2. Test landing pages (we’re using ClickFunnels) and ads
    1. Core landing pages:
      1. Email optin for book pre-launch
      2. Email optin from book for bonus resources, free training, book guide
      3. Additional lead magnets are to be created
  3. Facebooks ads fully engaged and optimized
  4. Social media blitz - Epic Launch tries to get a book in front of many hundreds of thousands of people during the launch via social media, forums and websites, email lists, etc.
  5. Have a launch team set up
  6. Build up my email list big time
  7. Pre-launch the book, throttling the price
  8. Hit initial review count stages - we aim for some reviews before the book is officially launched, and then try to get as many reviews as possible
  9. Email blitz and free promo
  10. Then rise up the paid charts.
  11. Confirm #1 international bestseller status. Bam.
  12. Then leverage the heck out of that success into more business momentum, program sales, continued book promotions, and more.
What's the technology stack?
  1. Wordpress website
  2. SociallyViral theme
  3. OptinMonster for email opt ins on website
  4. Buffer for Twitter and Facebook social media queuing
  5. Zapier for Twitter auto-replies to new followers
  6. Getresponse for email marketing
  7. Click Funnels will be used (not setup yet)
  8. Facebook for advertisements
  9. Google Analytics - currently only goal of website is email subscribers
  10. Potentially SumoMe for heat maps, and other tools
  11. More to come...
What are my current advertisements?
  1. $5 per day retargeting with Facebook post of one of my blog posts.
  2. Spend of $5 to $15 per post on Facebook to boost. Still trying to gather data on my audience. Literally just started.
  3. More will come, especially once ClickFunnels is set up.
What are current results?
  1. Email opt-in rate from site is 5.6% (but it's early). This is from content marketing, not landing page marketing.
  2. Website views of about 150 per day (it's early)
  3. Email list size of 1,018 (again, early)
  4. Much much more to come...
You tell me...
  • What do you guys want to see or know?
  • What recommendations do you have?
  • Has anyone here used a launch team?
  • Have you published a book? What are your best strategies that you’ve found?
PS - Epic Launch has graciously agreed to me posting this information here. There are some proprietary components to their success plan--naturally--which I may not be able to share. Fire away with questions and if I can't answer something, I'll just let you know.

When did you quit your job? What month and year? The reason I ask is because your LinkedIn profile still looks like you work for someone else.
Did @MJ DeMarco or Viperion approve of you using them for credibility?
 
Last edited:

Justin Gesso

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Cookie cutter topic, #1 international bestseller goal, but don't want to do hard part (promotion). Sounds like a plan.

If I was @MJ DeMarco I would sue you over this just for the lulz.

Ha...

Look, I'm stating I'm willing to provide these details if people want them. Personally, I would have loved to see info on this topic 6 months back.

And just because I have hired a company to help with promotion, does that mean necessarily mean I "don't want to do the hard part?" Heck no!

I know marketing is the challenge. It's called best-selling author, not best-writing author. That's why I am spending money there and getting help from pros. I have a lot of internet marketing background, but I still want help, best practices, and more.

If you want to run a business effectively, you're going to want to bring in people and companies to help you out. Not sure why you see that as an issue.

Alright, I'll stop there. :)
 

Justin Gesso

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When did you quit your job? What month and year? The reason I ask is because your LinkedIn profile still looks like you work for someone else.
Did @MJ DeMarco or Viperion approve of you using them for credibility?

I've pulled the Fastlane Forum image. Copy writer changed the wording on that section...my fault for not revising that image accordingly.

I quit in Sept of 2013.

What you see on LinkedIn started out as a consulting customer I picked up shortly out of the gate. With part of my time, I provide marketing and strategic advisory and services to them. Since LinkedIn is a major center of the work I do for them, it makes sense to feature that company up first. My contract with both them and the other company that shows active for me on LinkedIn has % earning components, so I can grow as the companies do, providing a component of scalability to my efforts with both of them.

I will be making some updates to that profile, because I agree...it can seem conflicting.
 
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Which books have Epic Launch launched that became best sellers?

That type of service is probably extremely useful, as most indy authors have no idea how to take their book and get placement, publicity, or distribution on it.
 

Justin Gesso

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Which books have Epic Launch launched that became best sellers?

That type of service is probably extremely useful, as most indy authors have no idea how to take their book and get placement, publicity, or distribution on it.
I'm aware that they've worked books by Brian Tracy and Kevin Ward.

Kevin's came out in January and is still holding a #2 spot, which is awesome. I assume most people know Brian Tracy already...dude is everywhere.

When I asked for reference customers from Epic Launch, those were the two that resonated with me. I'll see if they can give some others.
 

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I've pulled the Fastlane Forum image.

I quit in Sept of 2013.

What you see on LinkedIn started out as a consulting customer I picked up shortly out of the gate. With part of my time, I provide marketing and strategic advisory and services to them. Since LinkedIn is a major center of the work I do for them, it makes sense to feature that company up first. My contract with both them and the other company that shows active for me on LinkedIn has % earning components, so I can grow as the companies do, providing a component of scalability to my efforts with both of them.

I will be making some updates to that profile, because I agree...it can seem conflicting.

I think the more you can tailor your LinkedIn profile towards the freedom aspect of escaping the grind, the more credible your bio will be when people do what I did, which is a quick Google search.

Thanks for posting the launch outline here. I think it will be useful for people that come behind you. Good information, and a good outline for people to think through when launching their own books. Tell Epic Launch to sponsor the site for a few months and see what they get in terms of new clients, as there are a lot of fledgling authors here.
 
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I'm aware that they've worked books by Brian Tracy and Kevin Ward.

Kevin's came out in January and is still holding a #2 spot, which is awesome. I assume most people know Brian Tracy already...dude is everywhere.

When I asked for reference customers from Epic Launch, those were the two that resonated with me. I'll see if they can give some others.

I think they're pretty new (maybe 2015) but that might just make them more hungry to kick a$$ for their new authors.
 

Justin Gesso

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That type of service is probably extremely useful, as most indy authors have no idea how to take their book and get placement, publicity, or distribution on it.

And yes...I have a pretty strong background in online marketing, FB, Google Ads, etc... This is my first book. (Though I have participated in the launches of other authors.)

Even after reading this forum and others, I felt I didn't know enough to successfully sell a book. I didn't want to just throw my book into the black hole that Amazon can be, so I started contacting companies to see if there were some good options out there.
 
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Do they charge a flat rate, or a percentage, or both?
 
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Justin Gesso

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Do they charge a flat rate, or a percentage, or both?

For me, it was a flat fee. I do not believe they do a % option, but it may be worth asking for authors who are interested in that route.
 

Justin Gesso

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Thats the fastlane business model here.
Yes, it is a good model and I wish them well.

Here's the thing...there are two outcomes from this:
  1. My book does well. Other Fastlaners can learn from the steps we've taken and/or consider engaging with the company or a similar one.
  2. My book flops. Other Fastlaners learn what NOT to do.
I'm not sure the issue with this.

And I am making much more money while working less precisely because I hire assistants and partner with companies to help me grow. If there's a company that can help me shortcut success in selling a book, that's fantastic.
 
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Tell Epic Launch to sponsor the site for a few months and see what they get in terms of new clients, as there are a lot of fledgling authors here.

@Vigilante - Good idea. I'll pass that along.

(And perhaps I should have put this earlier...but to be clear, I have no ownership, interest, or affiliate relationship with them. I'm just a customer.)
 

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Cool Justin!
Would be seriously interested in an in depth "deep dive" post about your facebook ads strategy + results.

I think you are in good hands with Epic launch - they are Matt Stone's and Buck Flogging's platform are they not?
 
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Justin Gesso

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Cool Justin!
Would be seriously interested in an in depth "deep dive" post about your facebook ads strategy + results.

I think you are in good hands with Epic launch - they are Matt Stone's and Buck Flogging's platform are they not?
Thanks Eric.

Facebook starts in earnest Aug 1, so given that there is some legit interest here, I will indeed post details/results.

I'm not sure about Stone and Flogging...I'll add that to the list to ask them.

From a FB strategy perspective, here's where we are:
  • Landing page is here: https://grindbehindbook.com/free-book (note that there are multiple versions of the page that will be tested, so you're going to get one of several variations when you land there)
  • In FB, we have 6 ad sets:
    • Interest targeting
    • Age targeting
    • 3 different copy sets
  • In each ad set, we have 4 ad variations
So ton of split testing.

I'll post cost/lead, opt-in rates, and cost per opt in.

After someone opts-in, there is a "smart bribe" to trigger social sharing of the page.
 

Justin Gesso

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As an update here...

Facebook Ad Info

This week has been about building an email list by using Facebook advertisements to drop people on this page:

https://grindbehindbook.com/free-book

The landing page is split tested. There are 6 ad groups, with 4 ads each. Once we gain more data, the ads will be opened wide this week.

Personally, it seems like a lot to test. Fewer variations might have provided more reliable results...but I'm letting them run to see what shakes out.

Audience Identification

We're doing two targeted audiences and a third audience that is wide open to see what Facebook decides the best people to target are...it seems it has really improved in terms of zeroing in on the best audience by itself.

The interesting finding from this is it's coming up with a different audience than I've been targeting: conversions are strong from women in their mid 30s and early 40s.

Email Asking Audience Questions

Another part of this "audience discovery" is a follow-up email that goes out asking people "What's the #1 thing holding you back from finally escaping the corporate world and building your dream lifestyle?"

This is a clear best practice.

The email is focused on the person receiving it, rather than providing more marketing info about the book. People care about themselves, not you. Go figure.

We're getting a lot of responses, which is great. A lot of the women are stating they are going from being full-time moms to thinking about earning money, but don't want to go back to the corporate world.

Apart from this, I'm getting a lot of great interaction with people on the email list. It's nice when communication isn't one way.

My Take Away

Of course we did target market identification and keyword research exercises, but nothing works like letting things fly in the real world.

By the end of the week, I should have some data and results to share.
 

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Thanks for the rich update! Care to share your daily FB spend?
I wrote an article about A-B testing in FB -BUT- for small budgets like 5 - 10$ per day (you know for beginner authors who don't wanna bust the bank).
https://kindlepreneur.com/ab-testing-facebook-ads-for-authors/
Would be interesting to see the numbers of a "big" campaign.
Keep up the good work!
 
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Thanks for the rich update! Care to share your daily FB spend?
I wrote an article about A-B testing in FB -BUT- for small budgets like 5 - 10$ per day (you know for beginner authors who don't wanna bust the bank).
https://kindlepreneur.com/ab-testing-facebook-ads-for-authors/
Would be interesting to see the numbers of a "big" campaign.
Keep up the good work!

@EricZ thanks. That is an awesome post. Best in class blogging...seriously. We're taking a very similar approach. I see your cost per click or lead in that article is low, but I don't think it includes the conversion rate of the page, right? (I'm referring to your 255 new email leads at 24 cents per lead.)

And by the way, I normally play in the $5-$10 per day range for FB advertising. On one startup, we were spending $100-$200/day, but that's not common.

Back to this project...

The landing page is currently converting at 44%. That is, of the traffic that lands there, 44% is opting in. I'd like to see that higher, with 80% being about best in class. Room to improve here.

8-4-2016 11-55-35 AM.png

As far as FB budgets go, we started first day at $5 per ad set (so $30 total). As we gathered more data, we moved to $10 per ad set ($60) on Tuesday, and $15 yesterday per ad set ($75). Now we're turning down poor performers and increasing budget on better performers.

Once we get the data nailed in, we'll drive the remainder of the budget to quickly build the list.

Cost per conversion (opt in) is just over $3, but we're still experimenting. I'd like to see this $2 or lower. Some ads are hitting this target already. But from a statistics perspective, need more data.

It might seem expensive to some to build an email list this way, but this is highly targeted and a compliment to other efforts, such as content marketing (which has already generated over 1000 opt ins). It helps me hit the "critical mass" fast, after which this spend won't occur. Plus, very focused email lists are just hugely valuable for many reasons.

Longer-Term Goal

Ultimately I'd like to get enough data out of here to have a business case to use FB leads into book buyers. That means FB Ad Click > Opt In > Nurture > Sell. That's a lot of conversion points and may be difficult to achieve. This exercise will help.

What do you think @EricZ ? Would you take a different approach on this?
 

Justin Gesso

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A couple of easy notes to other self-publishers...

I have looked at the books of a number of people on this forum and see a couple common misses:
  1. Amazon book Description section can be formatted. You can use HTML tags to format, include line breaks, bold, bullets, etc... Don't have a jumbled wall of text for your description. Seems to be a common self-publisher problem.
  2. Get Editorial Reviews and put them in the Editorial Review section on Amazon. Ask qualified people to review your book and put the quotes in the right spot on the Amazon page.
 

germandude

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You focus on noise over signal. How good is your book? It's about success I presume, in which case you are one of those fake gurus MJ is talking in the book.
 
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EricZ

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@EricZ includes the conversion rate of the page, right? (I'm referring to your 255 new email leads at 24 cents per lead.)
The landing page is currently converting at 44%. That is, of the traffic that lands there, 44% is opting in. I'd like to see that higher, with 80% being about best in class. Room to improve here.
What do you think @EricZ ? Would you take a different approach on this?

Sounds like a darned good campaign to me!
No I wouldn't take a different approach. You are increasing your spend 50% at each step, smart move there, seems to be an industry standard now.

Lead ads, YES they are cool, I will be testing them more e.g. I have been getting a solid 7% "dead" subscriber rate.
i.e. People who tap-tap-done to your lead ad are auto-populating the lead ad form with a bad email. I think this is normal, I recently looked at my default fb email, and it was also a fake email I made up years ago. So that's the downside to lead ads.

But I see you are monitoring your conversions closely and you are way ahead of me! That's why I'm so interested in the numbers of a "big" campaing. YES those 255 at 24 cents were just the facebook side, not the conversions on page. And don't forget minus 7% "bad" subscribers - so LOTS of lessons learned there.

I'm writing a joint venture with a big gun, he's gonna have a nice fat FB ad Budget too, so hopefully a deep-dive post coming!

Keep up the good work!
 

Justin Gesso

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You focus on noise over signal. How good is your book? It's about success I presume, in which case you are one of those fake gurus MJ is talking in the book.

Can you clarify the noise over signal? Seems like a fairly blanket statement. Regarding the book, yes...I believe it's high quality as do the initial readers. I put a lot of effort in and am proud of it. I do genuinely live what it describes and don't claim to be a guru...I'm always learning too. I've accomplished something a lot of people would like to, and it would be awesome if people were inspired and helped by it. I think it's natural to want to write a book at this point.
 

Justin Gesso

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For those following, the book launch starts tomorrow (Tues).

The plan is to open the day with the book free, then as the day goes on, start incrementing the price up. Price testing will continue for the entire week.

I don’t quite have the full info yet, but I’ll continue to adjust the price up and down regularly for test cycles every month or so for ongoing optimization.

Goal is to capture bestseller status in multiple categories (I believe target is 5) and as many reviews as possible (over 100 in this initial cycle). Coupled with it being good content, this should position it to continue to do well long term.

Learnings since last post
  • Doing a book launch with a “free day” is a great compelling event to build your email list. I'll do additional free days (I think you get 5 total) to build the list down the road. We’ve been building the list socially, with some content marketing, and Facebook advertising.
  • After the initial test period, FB ads are now pulling in opt-ins at around a $2/opt-in rate. (FB ads are just a component of the overall email capture campaign.)
  • Out of all the FB ads, long-form ads performed much better (which seems to always be the case). Specifically, the formula of identifying a few pain points (~20% of the copy) and then pointing to a solution (~80%) of the copy performed best.
  • For the FB ad campaign, the winning Ad Group targeted an age range and gender, but not interests. I haven't done this before, but Epic Launch recommended testing this as an option, and sure enough it performed better than interest lists we built. The concept is FB can chug through its Big Data brain and pick people best.
  • The landing page https://grindbehindbook.com/free-book has a life-time conversion rate of 49% rate, which seems pretty good.
  • The email campaign has been very much about asking questions of the audience and driving interaction. There’s strong engagement so far which seems really be building better loyalty than I've had before. We'll saw how this translates to the audience taking action.
Other thoughts

I have to say that it’s a pretty great feeling to check “publish a book” off the bucket list. Hopefully it does well and is the first of many. This is such a neat technological environment we live in that enables us to do things like this with relative ease (and whether I'm at home or on the beach).

I’ve learned a lot from many of the folks on this forum as well as the countless success, marketing, and Fastlane-esque books. Big thanks to the constructive Fastlane Forum members out there.

I’ll post the actual launch results as they come in this week and hopefully some of this info helps others looking to launch a book.

Any questions/suggestions from the community? Happy to share other details as desired.
 
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Justin Gesso

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My launch happened 10 days ago, so I'd like to provide a wrap-up on how it went, some learnings, and next steps.

I think this will absolutely be beneficial to people here launching books.

The Launch Approach (Quick Recap)

Instead of just putting my first book on Amazon and letting it fall into a black hole, I wanted to launch with a bang.

The approach was to pick a launch day, build a lot of excitement ahead of time, and then unleash everybody on the book on the same day. The volume should be enough to push the book up into some lists, start gaining traction in Amazon searches, and continuing to snowball.

This "build-up" period consisted of social marketing, email campaigns, and FB marketing. Having an upcoming book launch is a great compelling event to build your email list.

People were primarily signing up to get the Kindle version of the book for free on Day 1 of the launch. We quickly moved it to a paid book, so the window was short for people to act if they wanted it for free.

This is very similar to how movies are launched. Build excitement. Provide leaks. Get people geared up for opening day.

And importantly, I wanted to avoid any gray/black hat tactics. There are a lot of shady-a$$ techniques and companies in this space. Not worth it. I spent my time finding a launch company I could work with that would take an ethical approach to this (even if that meant spending more effort and money).

The Results

Personally, I have been more than shocked by the results.

Day 1 (free day) saw over 10,000 Kindle "purchases" of the book. This put the book on the map fast. There was another great side benefit of getting free readers (see below).

This was enough to hit #1 free Kindle nonfiction book and #5 overall in the Kindle store.

We switched to paid on Day 2 and continued to see excellent numbers.

It's now Day 10+ and it's still a #1 best seller in numerous Amazon categories...you can monitor here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J4AGOQU/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

10 days later...

8-26-2016 1-55-02 PM.png

As a paid book, it was #1 in 4 different categories (and still at least 3 as of today) and 3 countries.

My favorite part? Someone gave me an Editorial Review that said "Move over Tim Ferriss..," which I freakin' love. Well in fact, my book did move into the #1 position (paid) in Careers, which is where Tim is the reigning champ. The 4-Hour Workweek did in fact have to move over...even if just for a bit.

Tim.png

Why Did this Happen?

As mentioned above, this has really been a snowball effect.

The lists and social marketing we did was enough to deliver a very concentrated blast of demand for the book. This put the book on Top 100 and Top 10 lists. People then started finding the book themselves through Amazon, driving demand even higher and hitting #1 spots. Once you're in the #1 spot, your book goes crazy.

Best Learnings

Two things I want to highlight...

Don't just release a product! Build excitement and focus on a huge launch. Elon Musk is a master of this. I will be taking this approach more to heart in everything I do.

Have your book link back to your site for downloads and interactivity. From my book, I link to a quiz on my site as well as numerous worksheets and companion info. This has allowed me to monitor how much people are engaging and also capture some value from all of those free purchases. After Day 1, I had a huge rush to my site with people signing up on my email list. I received tons of emails, terrific questions, and excellent feedback. It really felt great, but I would have missed that all if I didn't bring people from the book back to my site.

What Went Wrong?

We had a few hiccups along the way, but nothing that took us too off track.

Amazon did come in and scrub many of the reviews off of my book, which was a huge bummer. I'm not sure the logic behind what happened. Amazon simply said it was either a random audit or perhaps someone reported my book. I read their policies carefully ahead of time and did not do anything to violate them.

My parents and friends of course were excited and wanted to support, so I believe perhaps reviews from my circle could have been the problem. I didn't solicit reviews from them, but nonetheless. For everyone out there, I'd recommend you explicitly tell your friends and family NOT to review your book.

I put a lot of time and money into launching this book the right way. Reviews are important for long-term ranking, and a lot of reviews got caught in the crossfire. Many people read the book, sent me complimentary emails, and said they left a review...but I never saw them. I just watched my review count go down...

It's tough when you see other books launch and have over 1000 reviews within 1 day that aren't even verified purchases.

Oh well...press forward...

Keeping the Momentum Going

Alright, overall, the launch exceeded my expectations, but how do I avoid losing steam?
  1. I need to leverage this launch and do my own publicity tour. Podcasts, local media, magazines, content marketing, etc... Get the message spread. I have a media kit from this and will be using it.
  2. Run Facebook ads. I am running FB ads that drive traffic to the Amazon page. I set up an affiliate account just for this so that I can track how many purchases the FB ads result in, and thereby hold those $$ accountable.
  3. Run Amazon ads. Through Amazon, you now have the ability to promote the book. The report interface is awesome and shows you how much you spend on ads and how much royalty is delivered as a result. Easy to tweak.
  4. Run promotions through Amazon every 30 days.
  5. Any other ideas??
This is really about proliferating my brand and opening up future possibilities.

Would I Recommend Epic Launch?

If you want to use Epic Launch for your book, you can PM me and we can discuss more details about my experience and how similar it is to your situation.

They obviously accomplished everything they told me they would.

On top of launching the book, they provided website copy enhancements, edited the book, made the logo, cover, media kit, and managed the FB ads.

I have a lot of background in marketing, but I learned a ton from these guys. This was really what I was looking for...if I engage in something like this, I want to walk away having learned a lot...and I did.

Can I Answer Any Questions?

I really hope this post helps some authors get on the map. If I missed something, you have questions, or you want to chime in with what you've done better/differently, please do!
 

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