Julie Broad walks through how to get book endorsements that build credibility and drive sales. Start by listing potential endorsers, contact them with reading options, follow up once or twice, then decide where to place the best blurbs. Thank the people who say yes.
Are you writing a book? Is your manuscript almost done? It's time to start thinking about the book blurbs. Not sure what I'm talking about or not sure how to get great book blurbs. Stick around. I'm going to walk you through it step by step. Hey there. I'm Julie Broad with havemorinfluence.com every month or so I get an email from an author who's about to publish a book saying, hey, listen, I need to get endorsements. Would you do this? You know, I like what you've done with your first book or your second book or this and that. I met you here. You know, they do a lot of the right things. The problem is they're saying I need this in three days or sometimes seven days because they realized at the last minute that they're about to finalize their cover design and they don't have blurbs for their cover. Now, if you've watched my video on the five things you maybe haven't thought about when you're self publishing, you already know to plan for this. But many authors forget until they're finalizing their book cover and they realize they need them and they need them yesterday. Now, first of all, in case you're not familiar or you're not sure why they're important, a book blurb is simply this. I'll pull out my second book, baby. Now at the top up here is a book blurb from Kevin Hogan, Dr. Kevin Hogan, and it says this book is destined to be a classic in the field of selling and personal branding. Kevin Hogan, author of the Psychology of Persuasion, which is just one of his 26 books that he's written on my back cover. I have two others. Now these are just three of many that I collected. One of them is from a body language expert addressing the overall read, and the other one is from a client who used the tip, actually just one tip from inside of this book to make $10,000 more per client. Basically, the goal of these blurbs is to save sell books. So you're looking for social proof. You're also looking for credibility for yourself or for your book. And it's also going to address some potential resistance somebody might have to buying this book. So maybe you're writing in a genre that's normally boring. You'd want a blurb that addresses the fact that you know what, usually law books, just as an example, not picking on lawyers. Usually law books are boring. But this was an engaging, fun read and I got some great tips. Right, so you're addressing One of the pieces of resistance in that blurb, you're explaining what is in it for the reader. So that's why I chose that testimonial from the back that says, you know, one tip applied from this book helped me make $10,000 more per client. You won't get all that in one blurb. It would be way too long. But you're looking to cover the majority of those things in the blurbs that you choose to emphasize and focus on, on your book cover and, and in your other marketing materials. You can also get blurbs from press mentions. So if you get some good media coverage, you can update your kit and you can update your cover to include press mentions that come out. But before your book is out, before those things are available, you need to solicit them. So how are you going to get some fantastic endorsements for your book? Well, here's five steps to follow. Number one is to make a list. Make a list of the people you know, the people your friends and mentors and clients know, that would make good endorsements. And again, you're looking for people who can either speak to your expertise, they can offer their own credibility so they've got some celebrity status or some high credibility. You're also looking for somebody who can give a testimonial towards what they're going to learn and what's in it for the reader when they learn that. So those are some people to think of for your list. Step two is to contact them now before you just dive in and fire them off an email. What you want to do is when you contact them, let them know why you're contacting them. And not just that you're looking for an endorsement, but why do you think that they would be fantastic for this? A little flattery, genuine compliments, they go a long way. Try to build some rapport. Now, next, you want to say very quickly what your book is about and how you're publishing it. If you're self publishing it, say it. If you've got a publisher, let them know. And if you're self publishing, you may also want to mention something about your platform or how you're going to market it. Because if they're going to spend time, and it does take time to write a good blurb, if they're going to spend time on this, they probably want to know that this book has some reach. And finally, when you contact them, ask them how they would prefer to read your book. Would they like it? A printed copy is a PDF of a draft. Okay. Ask them how they prefer to read it. Number three is a follow up. Now this, this is going to take two forms. One is going to be if you haven't heard back, follow up once, maximum twice. Follow up once by email. Maybe if you have a phone number, send a voicemail, but follow up once or twice. Don't be a pain. Just say, hey, listen, I know you're busy. Just let me know if you can do this, if you can help me. But the other piece is to follow up. If they have agreed, make sure you're following up promptly with the PDF or the hard copy of your book and and remind them of the deadline. Step four, of course, is to collect all these blurbs and figure out which ones are going to be the best for your book cover. And you may want to reach out to copywriters or other people in the industry and see what they think. What do they think is most likely to resonate with your audience when they look at your book? Number five is to take all these endorsements and put them somewhere so you've got them. Because there'll be different times when you want to use them. When you're putting up your Amazon page, your description, you might want to use 5 or 6. Whereas your book cover only has room for 2 or 3. Many authors stick them all inside of their book. So you'll see at the back of the book, inside, on the, on the regular pages, there's page after page after page of endorsements that didn't quite make the COVID But they still wanted to make sure that people saw the social proof, the credibility, the value that they're offering in this book to overcome resistance. And finally, a bonus step is to show your appreciation whether you use that blurb on the COVID or not. Send a thank you, send a hardcover signed copy of the book when it's done, and thank them in whatever way you can because it took time and they were willing to associate their name with your finished product. And that's pretty cool. And if you haven't already, come on over to havemoreinfluence.com grab the broad thoughts newsletter. Let's connect. And if you like this video and you want more, give it a thumbs up. Makes me happy and it encourages me to shoot just a couple more videos for you. All right, see you next time.
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