Julie Broad explains why nonfiction authors need a reader magnet, a downloadable resource that solves a specific problem in exchange for email addresses. Skip generic sign-up prompts and create something valuable like a checklist or spreadsheet, then promote it through speaking, ads, and podcast appearances to build an audience for your book or business.
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How many times have you heard the word reader magnet or lead magnet tossed around, but you really don't know what it is or how to create it or what to do with it? If you do, you're confused about Reader Magnets, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad overall number one Amazon bestselling author and founder of a fabulous self publishing services firm called Book Launchers. One of the topics we spend a lot of time on at Book Launchers is Reader Magnets. We assess the reader magnets our clients have created. We make reader magnets, and we also share our own reader magnets like this one. Get your free game plan to sell a thousand books for less than $100 at book launchers.com gameplan. You see, that is a reader magnet. And when you download it, you get a cool PDF download that explains the ways that I use to sell thousands of copies of books without spending money on advertising. So it's a pretty cool reader magnet. Reader Magnets are important to most authors. If you're a nonfiction author and you're writing a book and it has any tie to your business, or you're thinking you might want to offer courses, consulting, or even write another book in the future, a reader magnet to build your audience is a must. Now, first, let me tell you what will not work on your website, except in very rare cases like if, say, you're a fiction author and people just can't wait for the next book in your series. But generally speaking, this is not going to work to get people to give you their email address saying, sign up here for new releases. That rarely works. Another approach that rarely works is come on over like my Facebook page. Join me on Facebook here. Hmm. Frankly, even if they do, they're probably not gonna see your posts, so it's not worth the effort. Of course, there's also the old standby, get my updates here. So corny. And there's no true value in that. You need to give them an irresistible reason to give you their email address. You need to say, get this guide to write a business book that will grow your business here. Or get the next book free when you sign up for my mailing list. Or you can get the social media planning calendar here, or get this exclusive content I only share with my newsletter list when you sign up for my mailing list. Even that's not as good as I think you should get it, but it works as a starting point. Here's why I think, though. You really need a reader magnet, you're going to do a lot of book promotion activities that don't let you promote your book or really much of anything. You get one quick opportunity to connect with people and most people say follow me here and here or visit my social media or my website. That's rarely going to happen because people are going to overwhelm mode. So here's what I say. If you want to get the seven steps to write a book that actually will be set up to sell, you can download that@book launchers.com the number seven steps. When you do that, you'll also get my email address so you can connect with me there or at our website, which will be in that email too. Boom. That's all. Not 20 places one book launchers.com seven steps when you speak, you often aren't even allowed to share your email address. But you can sometimes give away a resource that relates to your book and allows them to get connected with you. Like book launchers.com businessbook that's a reader magnet. So what do you need? Well, you need email software like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, et cetera. You're going to need an opt in page where people put their email address in in exchange for that download and an autoresponder. And then you need that reader magnet. So what makes a great reader magnet? Well, my recommendation is think of a problem you can solve. So how do you sell books, you ask? Well, book launchers.com gameplan that reader magnet how do you write a business book? Book launchers.com businessbook those are examples of reader magnets and they don't have to be super detailed guides. It can be a checklist, a sample chapter. So long as that sample chapter solves a problem. It can be a spreadsheet or a quiz. Quizzes actually can be gold to the right audience. Get it designed so it looks nice. Make sure it represents you and your brand. We have an amazing graphics person that seems to make everything look beautiful, but you can find folks on upwork guru or fiverr.com expect to pay a couple hundred dollars to get something designed well, but it's worth it because this is the first impression of your brand to someone you're hoping to build a long term relationship with. Once you have that reader magnet, get ready to shout about it from the rooftops. Put it on speaking feedback forms. Run online ads to it. I always shoot a YouTube video or two for every magnet we have and then we run ads to those videos to download those freebies. And when you do a podcast interview or a media article, make sure you link to the freebie at the end. Oh, and here's a golden tip. On the thank you page of your download, you can sell your book. You can have it lead to a lovely little thank you page. Now buy my book for the full meal. Deal. This one of mine performed really well. I'll link to this in the description below. That page is built in LeadPages, but ConvertKit works to build some great pages that connect to your email autoresponder series as well, which we have talked about in past videos and of course we'll talk about it again. So if you like this video and you want more on this subject, please smash that like button and then head on down to comment on the video and let me know what lead magnet you're going to create. And when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some sweet nobornebookswag like our mug or our journal, neither of which I have in either hand. Okay, so now you need a website, right? This video right here is on creating a great author website. If you're good there, YouTube thinks this is the video that's going to elevate your author game. Either way, you're a delight to hang out with and I'm really looking forward to seeing you on the next video.
