Author Websites and Book Launch News - Livestream Replay

Hey, hello, everybody. It's Julie the Book Broad and it is our Tuesday livestream. So welcome, welcome, welcome. If you are watching the replay, you're not too late. You can still say hello, you can still answer your questions. I promise that I will still respond, especially if you're on YouTube, because I always respond to each and every comment that you guys take the time to put onto YouTube. So today we have a really cool, cool, I think, discussion answering a lot of questions that come up all the time around your author website. So I'm going to hit you with some essentials and then I actually have a YouTube video that'll be coming out early March that will dive into this with some actual showing you some actual websites, some of our clients websites, some other ones that I think are just great, they've done a good job. But today I thought we would talk about the essential elements. So if you have questions about that and you're watching live, you can post them here or you can post them in the replay and we will chat about them. Also, as always in these live streams, I have some prizes. And if you caught the special International Book Giving Day livestream that I did just on YouTube last week, it was also Valentine's Day, but I thought it was more appropriate to celebrate International Book Giving Day. So that's what we did. And I got people to submit not just a comment, but I talked about the four books that we were a part of in January and then had the viewers just say, hey, this is the book I want and why. So I'm going to be giving away the winner of that one today. And as always, a noboring. NoboringBooks Book Launcher's mug will be drawn today as well. And if you want to win one of these beauties, which I don't have one in my office today, though, this is fun. If you're here, say hello, Smash. That like button always makes me happy in Facebook. It sends these fun little things across the screen. But check this out. This is what I'll be using to make the draw from today. I got this from one of our clients. He calls himself Robert Danger Workman, and he had a book come out quite a few years ago now called the Hired Gun. And so now we're helping him with the Hired Gun too. So I've got the names inside of this and I'll be doing today's draw on inside out of this fantastic mug. But if you want to win a no Boring Books Book Launchers mug, all you have to do is post any day that A video is released on YouTube, post a comment. You know, you can say hello, comment on the video, ask questions, whatever it is that will get you entered. If you are commenting the day a video is released, no matter when you comment, you get my great appreciation and my attention. I definitely respond to all comments because I'm very grateful for them. All right, so let's dive into it. So author websites today. A few things and why I want to talk about this today, and I'm going to be talking about it with our clients and some of our private streaming that we do just for our clients, but it is really, really important. I'm not a big fan of, you know, investing thousands and thousands of dollars into elaborate websites, but I think that having an author website or, or if you already have an existing website, taking the time to set up a page specific to your book is really important. And what's happened, you know, one of the things. Thank you. I see the likes. It looks great on the screen when you do that. So thank you for that. So one of the things that's happened, we at Book Launchers, we will pitch you to get media attention, speaking engagements, podcasts, anything where we think you have your ideal reader in somebody else's audience. We're pitching your book and you to get out there. We had at least one, if not two really, really incredible opportunities come up for some of our clients, and it didn't work out and we were turned down. And it was blatantly stated that it's because of the lack of presence of website or the poor quality of a website. I was speaking with an author yesterday who had released a book in September and it has sold less than 25 copies. She was looking for support with marketing, and I said, look, you can pay us to market your book, but it's not going to get you the results you want until you go back and you fix the COVID you improve the description, probably even change the title and change your website. Her website did not establish credibility. It had probably 40 different colors, 10 different fonts. It did not look like an expert's website. It was colorful, but it just did not do the job. So you really, really have to invest in creating a great web presence of some kind if you're going to be pursuing podcasts and media interviews and all those kind of things. So say hello when you're here. Hello. I see trivial join. So hello and smash that like button. Make sure you're saying hello. So I feel a little less like a crazy person talking to myself in my glass fishbowl. Here you'll see people walk by and they can see that I'm talking to myself on the screen because there's nobody, you know, usually when you see somebody talking, they're looking at, you know, other faces on the screen. But no, they can see that I'm just staring at myself talking. So, you know, at least you guys can make me feel a little less crazy. Alright, so author websites. So you need a website, or at least a minimum a page on your business website that's dedicated to your book and your author description. Now one example and why just as an example of a website that is designed, dedicated, it's not dedicated to the book, but it's just got a single page, but it's done well, is one of our clients, Todd tressiter. His website's thefinancialmentor.com so I'll just actually type I'm not crazy. Thank you, financial mentor.com I'll just type that link. Hopefully I typed that right in there in case people want to check it out. Amber says the most intelligent people talk to themselves. So yes, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you guys. And Ann says I'm not crazy either. I actually am a little nutty. You have to be to run your own business. Just say it. Okay, so his website, it's a business website, a blog, but it does a really, really great job of showcasing him and hitting some of these points. So I'm just pointing you to that because he has a single page. So just so you don't feel overwhelmed, they have to create an entirely new website. You can create a single page dedicated to your books. A couple things I like about his site, it's clean, it's bright and it has a ton of content which you don't necessarily have to have. But what that does, he's getting high quality media opportunities. And the reason that he can get really high quality media opportunities, like national media podcasts that have hundreds of thousands of downloads, those kind of things, is because he has a lot of content that clearly showcases. He is the expert in the subjects that he talks about. But front and center, and this is number one, if you're taking notes, this is the most important thing on your website. Front and center. On his website, he has a very, very clear call to action to subscribe to his newsletter. And it doesn't just say join my mailing list. Okay? It says just got notes here. Get your free wealth blueprint here. Okay? So you need a clear call to action above the fold. And all that means is that people don't have to scroll. See, I'm scrolling. I bet you that doesn't look like scrolling, does it? So it has to be before people scroll down. So a clear call to action that invites them to do something. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting hot. So I'm just gonna get a little cooler here. So it's above the fold. And it's not just join my mailing list. It's some sort of a clear invitation. On our website. Book launchers, we have a few different things that you can find. There's a guide that's the seven steps to write and publish a book that will sell. There is game plan for selling 1,000 books for under $100. So, yes, you get added to our mailing list, but you have a clear and enticing invitation to get something in exchange for joining that mailing list. So that is the single most important thing that I would put on your website. Make sure it's above the fold. Clear. Spend a little bit of money. You don't have to spend a lot, but spend a little bit of money getting a very nice eye appealing ebook design, like a 3D ebook version or if it's worksheet, some sort of imagery so that they're seeing it and they get a clear call to action. Action. Okay, that is number one. And Todd's is a good example of it. Okay, great. That loaded? Excellent. Hey, Cinco. It's good. Good to see you. I haven't heard from you from a long time and Amber says she's freezing. We have snow flying right now in Idaho. I'll trade you the weather. Yeah, you don't want to hear. I actually think it's cold here right now. It's. Let's see, it's 59. That's cold for California. I know you don't want to hear that when there's snow flying, but my office, however, is definitely warm today. Okay, so. Oh, yeah. So I just want to emphasize this and if you aren't sure about what else to do for your book platform, I have quite a few videos on book launchers. TV on building your author platform. Check those out, because I talk about, you know, why an email list is important, but then also what to say to them and a little bit about how to build them. I highly recommend ConvertKit as a program to use. But there's lots of great ones out there. I've used AWeber. I've used Constant Contact. We use Infusionsoft, which is do not want to use Unless you're building a really big business. Infusionsoft is a pain. They now call themselves Keep K E A P. Don't know why, but a book buyer is nice. But a newsletter subscriber is somebody you can build a relationship with, who you can sell future books to, you can offer other products and services to. So you really want to be building that long term relationship with folks who visit your website. So this is super, super important. So that's number one. And again, the offer needs to be strong. It needs to have some sort of a promise. So look at your website. If you have something that says join my mailing list, get rid of it. Let's come up with something better, something that's cool and will create curiosity and people would potentially even have paid money for. Right. Even if it's just $19.99 or even $9.99, somebody would have pulled out their credit card to get this because you're offering some sort of a clear solution, clear promise with this offer, this checklist, this tool, game plan, this guide, whatever it is. All right. Okay, cool. Ron Neitzel's in the house. So I'm just going to interrupt this conversation about author websites to say a huge congratulations to Ron Neitzel. I don't have a copy of his book yet, but it just came out today, the Green Wizard. It is on Amazon only in print right now. He's doing the print first, ebook later, and he is crushing it. He's number one in fruit gardening and his book is all about how you're going to get the greenest lawn in your neighborhood, the tastiest, best vegetables and fruits. And, you know, I'm really excited for this book and I can definitely see it being a gift that I give to quite a few people because it's all natural solutions and cheap. You know, you're not buying a bunch of expensive things. A lot of the things that Ron recommends you do and use in order to create great results, to get rid of bugs, to get rid of weeds, all of these things, a lot of them are things that are in your house already. So it's a fantastic book. It's a little quirky, so it's really fun. Different. Yeah. So I'm really excited for you, Ron. So thank you for stopping by on your book launch day. It's a busy day for you. I know. Lots of things to do as you promote your book on book launch day. But yeah, pumped for that. And on our next show, I will definitely have a copy of your book to show Everybody, it's on its way here today, so yay, Ron. Congratulations. Okay, so back to the website. So the author website obviously needs to have a picture of your book in 3D version, which if you are working with book launchers, you're getting anyways. But if you're hiring another book cover designer, just make sure you're requesting as part of the assets that they're creating for your book cover, they're not just creating the front of the book and the back cover and the spine. They're also creating an ebook version and a 3D version. And if you're doing an audiobook, the audiobook version as well. And you can even get a few different versions of 3D. Like, you can get them to have like a stack of books and turned on its side in different ways. It's really not a big deal for a designer to add that in. So just make sure if you're, if you are hiring a graphics designer to do your book, that you were requesting this because you're going to need that 3D version of your book a lot. So you're going to have that on your author website and you want to have your author bio and your book description on there too. And you can even put testimonials and other things like that on there as well. That's great if you've got them. If you've got video testimonials of people, that's wonderful, too. So I call this. I've got kind of an acronym for it. You've got the four Bs. You want to make sure that whether it's a page on your website or an entire author website, it's the four Bs. You've got the book cover, the bio, the buying links, which I'll talk about that in a second, and the book description. Those are the essentials. Now, there's lots of other things like you see on Todd's page. It's a business website. The book is just one page, but he's got all the places where you can buy the book. He's got lots of books, blog content. He's got a lot of different things there. So you can do that or you can just go. I think I'm trying to think of a straight book example. James clear.com is one that's coming to mind. It's hard because I can't show you guys on this the way I have it, have this live stream set up. But jamesclear.com I believe is just an author website. So you can see a great Example of a nice, clean, clear call to action. A clean website that showcases maybe I think you might do some speaking and other things. But yeah, thanks for the thumbs up, guys. Looks great. Makes me happy. Okay, so those are some of the things that you must have. So those are the must haves. You want to provide an obvious way to contact the author as well. It seems like a no brainer. Yet I see a lot of sites that don't have a really obvious way to contact the author, especially for bulk buys. Because people, we have one of our clients who is selling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books in bulk purchases. So corporations and associations are buying his book in bulk. If they don't know how to contact him, how can they contact him and order these books? And I know they're doing this because we're actually facilitating the bulk purchases. So we know how many books he's selling bulk. This is also why I'm always talking about like it's not just about Amazon. There are lots of ways to sell your books and it feels great, you know, like, you know, I'm super excited for Ron to be number one in fruit gardening in his category today. That's fantastic. But you know, like let's get that book into gardening store. Like let's get the book out there to a bunch of places. Because it's not just about Amazon. Your people are in a lot of different places and getting your book in front of them in as many ways as possible is really, really the end game here. So yes, you want to have a way for people to contact you on your website because I just sold my first book, More Than Cash flow came out five years ago, 2013, almost six years ago, five and a half years ago. And just last week I sold 26 books in a bulk purchase. It's a small bulk purchase, but still 26 books are getting shipped off to somebody who runs some real estate training and they like to give away my book. So you want to have a way people can contact you, links to your social media profiles and this is where it's also important. So your author website is important to showcase your expertise, to showcase your book, to be clean, to have a call to action. Your social media needs to back this up. So don't link to it if your book is totally different than your LinkedIn profile. So for example, let's just say that you've written a book on relationships but your job is actually as a engineer and it's in a totally different field that doesn't back up your book. So it's going to be less likely that a podcaster or someone else is going to interview you if your social media doesn't all align with the same message and showcase your expertise. So I recommend you link to your social media. It's just another way for people to engage and connect with you and communicate with you and follow you. However, if it doesn't jive with your book topic, then you'll want to think twice about it because it's really important for media in particular to see that you are an expert. And I will never forget this. Years ago, I was coaching. You know, I used to run a training and education business in the real estate space in Canada. And I had a client who was really good speaker and really knowledgeable, and I pitched him to speak at this big event that I had been speaking at for years. It was a national event run by Canadian Real Estate wealth magazine in Canada. And I thought this guy was a perfect fit. He kind of had a niche subject and the organizer took one look at his LinkedIn profile and went like, this guy doesn't have anything real estate on his LinkedIn profile because he was one of those people. Real estate by night and some other job by day. It always struck me that if it's not in alignment, if all your social media isn't in alignment with what you want to be known for, then it can cause big hiccups like this. So he didn't get that speaking opportunity that year, and we had to quickly make sure that he'd revised everything he could in all of his social media to really showcase him as that expert. Hey, Dave. Joined. Welcome. Hey. Okay. And for those of you who watch YouTube, you may know Dave as the funny comic relief that pops up sometimes in some of my videos, also known as my husband. Okay. So we talked about the four B's. We talked about the obvious way to contact you. A blog showcasing your expertise is ideal. Not necessary, but it's ideal. Okay. You can also do videos. So you could have. You can embed the videos on your website. There's lots of different ways to showcase your expertise. You can take some excerpts from your book. That's another approach. So there's different ways. And that's something we can always talk about another day. But to start with, you don't have to have that. And you'll actually see on some of the websites, like James Clear, I think is one of the ones that doesn't actually have a blog linked there. So it's really more about these other pieces. And I'm just checking My list. Oh, yeah. So links to all the retailers that sell your book. Now, there's a couple of ways to do this on your website. I think it looks great if you can have the logos, you know, Chapters Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, wherever your books are available. And then people can just pick and choose. But here's the problem. If you are clicking on Amazon and you are in Canada, but somebody's directed to Amazon.com, you guys may not know this if you're American, but Canadians don't buy from Amazon.com typically we do. But. Or I say we. I did, but we prefer to purchase from Amazon.ca. and same with UK and Australia. They all have their own Amazon sites. So if you're linking to just Amazon.com that can be problematic for those people. And then they have to go to their own site and search for it. So one way around this. And you can actually do this. Just buy my book here or find your favorite place to buy books here. And you can use this tool, which is really cool. Draft2Digital. If you're a Draft2Digital client, you automatically get this link. But if you're not a Draft2Digital client, they're an aggregator, by the way. But Draft2Digital has a service called Books to Read. So it's. So it's books. I'll just type it in here. It's Books to Read. I think it's dot com. So you can create an account at Books to Read and it will give you what's called a universal book link. And it will then send a. It creates a spot that you can drive traffic to where people can find their favorite place to buy books and you don't have to worry about sending them to the wrong spot. Hey, thanks, Ernest. That's great. Oh, Dave, Our dog puked on the carpet today, honey. Yeah. So I'm at the office. So Dave gets to deal with everything that happens at home and I get to be in the office and not deal with dog puke. So thank you for taking care of the homestead. That's not very fun. Okay, I think that's the main points. I'm just checking my list here. See, I've got. I made notes for you guys, so I didn't miss anything. So we'll do some prizes now, I think. Just checking. Oh, if you are running an incentive program, something we probably should talk about in a future live stream, because I'm not going to spend any more time diving into this. But if you are running an incentive program, say around your Launch week. Because we just talked about Ron the Green wizard, his book. Let's talk about that for a second. So let's say Ron had a package that he was giving away this week for anybody who buys a copy of his book and sends in a receipt. They can be entered to win, or they can be eligible for some other gift or some sort of gift with purchase, basically, like another guide. Maybe he had checklists or videos on, you know, what he does on the lawn, like some other super secret tips that maybe weren't in the book, something like that. He could be running this incentive program. And everybody who buys his book during this week gets this. And as a result, he's building his email newsletter list, but also driving traffic to his website. So if he has other products and services to sell, people would then find out about them. But you want to put that information right on your website if you are running any sort of incentive program. And that can be a great way to promote and sell a lot of books. That's something I've talked about in the past, which worked really, really well for my books. Kind of giving people a reason to act now because, you know, I've done this, you've done this, I'm sure of it. You say, oh, that book looks cool, and you put it on a wish list or you add to cart, but then you come back four days later and you're like, I don't know why I wanted that book. You scoot it out of your cart and you never buy it. So you got to give people a reason to act right now and actually not just put it in their cart, but purchase it. And an incentive program can be a great way to do that. So your website should contain details about that. Oh, your picture. Did I say your picture? I said your bio. I know I said your author bio, but I might not have said your picture. Unless you are writing under a pen name. And if you're writing nonfiction, there's only a few reasons why I would use a pen name. The primary one being that you're kind of a whistleblower and you don't want your identity known. But most of us want to be known as the expert in our industry. So we're not using a pen name. And so you want to have your picture because people want to know who you are and get to know you. And so your picture is really, really important. And so that should also be on there. But I think I covered everything else. All right, let's just see if you guys have any questions. Oh, hey, Ernst. Ernest, great news. My ebook is now number one bestseller again. So congratulations. It was on interviews, right? Job interviews. So that's great. We've talked about your books before on the show, so thank you for giving us an update. That's wonderful. Okay, so let's do the draw. This is fun, right? Thank you, Robert. This is great. So again, Robert Workman. He's got a book coming out in 2019, Hired Gun 2, all about sales tips. It's actually interesting his book won't go too much into it because it's not out yet, and I don't have his permission, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind me telling you this one thing. Really good salespeople are at high risk of getting fired because on commission, they can actually end up getting paid more than the CEO of a big organization. And that apparently doesn't go over so well, which is kind of of bonkers, because if they're doing great anyways, it's okay. I would love to have a salesperson that is outselling and making way more money than me because that would mean the business is doing really, really well, thanks to them. But he talks about a lot of these things because he's been in these situations and been the top salesperson in a lot of companies, a lot of industries, and trained salespeople. So he's got some great tips in his book. And he sent me this great mug, which is what I'm using for today's draw. So this is for anybody who commented on the day a YouTub video was released. You get entered to win, and, you know, maybe in the future Robert will let us give away one of his fancy mugs. But you'll be entered to win one of Book Launcher's no boringbooks mugs. So drumroll, please. Here we go. Okay, so you guys can see my hands. You know, I'm not cheating. Here we go. Okay, so the winner of this week's no Boring Books mug is Poetry from the heart. Congratulations. And you know what? I've already selected you. It's like your lucky day. This is your day. So what I did. The other prize we have today is from International Book Giving Day. And I was going to do it randomly, but what I asked folks to do, I talked about the four books. Hold on. On International Book Giving Day, which was Valentine's Day, I. Oh, somebody put a mad face. A mad face just flew by. Are you mad because you didn't win? Well, you have another chance in two weeks to win your own mug. So all you have to do Comment on the day a video is released on bookcrunchers tv and you'll be entered to win and you'll win eventually. Guaranteed. I shouldn't guarantee because I actually can't guarantee it. It is random. But if you keep trying, you'll definitely get it there. Making promises I can't keep. But Amber, she tried. She kept trying and trying and eventually she won. Right, Amber? Okay, so these four books were four that we worked on and that came out in January. So I said, tell me why you want to win one of these books when you enter. And we had, I think or nine people give us really good reasons. And originally I was going to go random, but you know what, I read them and I thought, I want to select a winner this time. And I had pre selected it. Poetry from the Heart. I also selected you as the winner. So here's what she wrote. I think it's she. Poetry from the Heart could be a he or she. Happy International Book Giving Day. While I like the sound of each book and think that they would each be helpful in their own way, I think that right now the one that stands out is Return on Courage. As a very shy person who's trying to create a base on WordPress and YouTube and wants to write and publish her own books, it is a she. I need to develop a healthy dose of courage. It is so funny. On the one hand, I really want people to read the poems that I've written and watch my videos. Yet I'm so nervous about what they might think. I'm still fearful of publishing each video. If I want to reach my goal, I need to develop more courage. And it is my hope that Return on Courage will help. It is my hope that Return on Courage will help you as well. So I selected as the winner. So when you write me, let me know your mailing address. So Write me at team TamookLaunchers.com and I need your mailing address so that I can ship you a Noboringbooks mug and a copy of Return on Courage by Ryan Berman. There we go. So thank you so much for your participation, everyone. Thank you guys for all stopping in today. It was such a pleasure to have you all here. Hey Tara, thanks for joining in. And it looks like we got a question. I organized job interview workshops. Should I put it on author page and my website? Yes, absolutely. So, speaking of author websites. So thank you for the question, Ernest. I organize job interview workshops. Should I put it on my author page and my website? I encourage you to put your website link on your author central page on Amazon. And if you don't have an author central page, definitely create one and then on your website include your job interview workshop information. You could do it on your Amazon author page, but I generally will recommend you drive all traffic towards subscribing to your newsletter and then make offers from there. You really want to build that platform and that newsletter. Having those newsletter subscribers is worth their weight in gold. So that would be how I approach it. So, yeah, there you go, you guys. I'm just making sure I didn't forget anything. Oh. Oh. I also want to give a shout out to Phil and Donna. Their book came out at the start of February. They are in Australia, but they worked with us. They go to fincon every year, which is an event that Book Launchers has been going to for two years, and we're going this year again. So they are financial experts, and while they're Australian, they really wanted our help, so we helped them produce the book, but we're not Australian book marketing experts, so they're kind of taking it. We got the finished product for them and now they're marketing it in Australia. But I still wanted to give them them a huge shout out because it's a fantastic book and it's a fun little play on it. It's called FinFit, your ultimate financial fitness training guide. So it's all about getting your money and finances in shape, which I thought was really clever. And it's a fun, useful, practical read. So congratulations, Donna and Phil, and thank you guys so much for being here and congratulations again, Ron. I'm pumped to see where the Green wizard goes from here. And if you guys are watching on YouTube, make sure you pop over to the Green Wizard's YouTube channel and say hello and congrats on his book. Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much. We'll see you again in two weeks. We'll be live again, same place, same time. All right, thanks, guys. Take care. Bye.