How to Launch a Business Book That Actually Sells

I've been asked this a lot about how to actually get my books to go viral and how did I get my books like Vivid Vision, The Second in Command, Double Double— how have I done so well in getting all my books out the door the way that I have? Let me walk you through what I've done specifically, and I'm going to look every once in a while back to a little list to make sure that I can cover it all for you. But let me walk you through the list of what I've done to actually help my books go viral so that you can actually help grow your books as well. Number 1 is press coverage. There are a lot of bloggers, a lot of magazine writers, a lot of podcasters who will actually have you on their podcast to talk about the book content. And it's not, as I cover in my book, Free PR, it's not about what podcast you're on. It's about what you do with the podcast once you're on it. So it's all about getting coverage on a podcast and then sharing it multiple times on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, with your email list, adding it to your press page, but press is a great way to actually grow your brand and to get your book out the door. Secondly is to have a really good landing page for your book. So I actually did for my newest book, "The Second in Command," I had a core landing page for that book that explained the book, showed off the value, had lots of really good advanced testimonials from readers. And it was a way that I could use that landing page to get exposure with the media. So rather than waiting for the media to read a book, or just sending them a book, I sent them a very, very succinct core landing page that explained the book, which then allowed them and got them to want to actually interview me in the media. So that's why you have a landing page. It's not to drive customers to it to buy the book. You want them just going to Amazon. It's to actually reach out to the media and partners who are gonna be promoting your book to give them some of the sizzle before they actually get the book in the hands. Next one is prepping your email list. So I went through and looked at all of my COO Alliance clients that I could send copies of the book to, all of the CEOs that were on my— I think I had 40 or 50,000 CEOs on my email list that I could send copies of the book to, or that I could let them know about the Amazon link. But the core thing that I was looking for here was how do I get a bunch of advanced testimonials that I can actually include in my marketing? How can I then get early testimonials on Amazon from verified readers? So I wanted them all to buy the book in the first week. For 99 cents and then leave an Amazon review very, very quickly afterwards. And I pushed to get 200 Amazon reviews for each of my books in the first 2 weeks after it went live. So I was leveraging the email list to get them to buy it on Amazon and to get them about the reviews. Everybody gets Amazon bestseller, right? So stop all the excitement about, I'm a number 1 bestseller. Great. You did that for a week and then you fell off a cliff and now you're, you know, I'm 1,000,005 on the Amazon list. The key to actually stay in the top list where I am on, on Amazon with my books is to have a lot of really good Amazon reviews. So that's what I actually leveraged my email list for was getting Amazon reviews, which is kind of like launching a satellite. Those reviews actually pay dividends for a long period of time. Next was doing a podcast ad. So I have a podcast called The Second in Command. In my podcast, I actually ran ads for my book. The Second in Command. So on my own podcast with my own listeners, I wanted them to know about the book The Second in Command. So I ran that on my own podcast. I wasn't paying other podcasters for it. So if you have a podcast, definitely do some own inserts about your books in there. I also got lots of photos of me holding my book. So as an example, you'll see lots of copies of me holding my book The Second in Command, lots of readers reading the book The Second in Command. There's a lot of buzz around when you launch a book. So asking all of the readers just to send you photos and then over the next year or two, you can even recirculate the photos. I have a friend of mine, Michael Erath, sent me a couple of photos of him and his boat and him at the beach reading the book. I can share those photos of Michael Erath a number of times. People forget that they saw it 2 years ago, but having a number of photos from early readers that are excited about your book, it's easier to get them right when the book launches than it is a year or 2 after the book has launched. But you will use those for sure going forward. If you haven't already signed up for my online training, where I cover the 12 essential leadership skills for anyone who manages people, go check out investinyourleaders.com/ch. Close to 5,000 leaders are already going through my content. I also leveraged my YouTube channel and I did some shorts about my book, The Second in Command, for YouTube. I actually did some what I called fireside reads where I would just sit by the fire in hotels. I actually went to hotel lobbies and sat at fireplaces and read chapters of my book aloud so that you could actually use those on social media. When I did the audio recording of my book, The Second in Command, I did it in a studio in Dubai and I had a film crew recording me. So I actually have B-roll and video recordings of me doing the audio recording, but at the same time I got video of me that I was then able to use on YouTube. So that was really powerful. I also sent out clickable links. So I forget what it's called or how it works, but your marketing team will know how to do this. You can send out a short email to your list with a link for Facebook, a link for LinkedIn, and a link for Instagram and a link for Twitter. And they just click on that link and it pre-populates for them with a short blurb and an image of your book. And all they have to do is almost press send and it's pre-populated it in a way that they can edit it. So I just made it very easy for people to actually be able to refer me. On my Linktree, I had a link to my book page and a link right to Amazon. It actually was so successful that I redid my Cameron Herold website. To actually just be like a Linktree and all of my books are there as one of the callouts. I leverage something on AdRoll. You can use either Google's remarketing or AdRoll's remarketing, but you'll see ads all over the internet for my book, The Second in Command, and I only pay for those ads if you click on them or if someone clicks on them and goes to buy the book. But more often than not, people aren't necessarily clicking on it, but they're seeing the image of my book constantly, which reminds them to go and buy the book. Or it reminds them about me. So that remarketing, and the only people that saw the actual ads for the book, The Second in Command, were people that had been to my CEO Alliance website, people that had been to my Cameron Herold website, people that had been to the Second in Command podcast page, etc. They're the only people that saw the actual ads all over the internet. So it didn't cost me anything for all of that branding. I looked for some really good authors and looked at their landing pages on Amazon for their books. and I just tried to do and follow what they were doing. So I looked at my friend Simon Sinek's, I looked at Dan Martell's, I looked at Alex Hormozi's, I looked at Jim Collins's, I looked at authors in the business community and what their book page on Amazon looked like with reviews, with images, with videos, with the way that they actually listed their book. And I just took their format and followed it rather than me trying to figure it out. I just did what some of those best were doing. I also sent out text messages. I was okay with taking my entire text list. I think I had about 2,500 email or phone numbers that I was able to text. And I just said, hey, it's Cameron. I'm launching my newest book. Wanted you to know about it. Hope this text message is okay. I'm just really excited about the book. Here's the link on Amazon. I would love it if you would buy a copy. It's only $0.99 this week. And if you would leave me a review and sending out text messages like that to my entire book, I ran some Amazon ads and I didn't spend a ton of money. But in the first month, just running Amazon ads to people who were buying other books like mine or to people who were searching for search terms related to my book was powerful. I also bought copies of my book and other books that were similar at the same time. So I did that, my EA did it, I had everybody on my team, my wife, we would all go out and buy like Dan Martell's book and my book, or we would buy Alex Hormozi's book and my book, or we bought Traction and my book. So now when people were looking at those other books, my book, The Second in Command, or Vivid Vision, you know, would appear in the searches right beside them. After I launched, I did ask me anything calls. So I actually did free calls on Zoom. I marketed them to my entire list, and I was able to ask or allow my audience to ask me any questions about the content from my book, The Second in Command. And then I used that content to actually create more B-roll and more social media videos. So that was really powerful. I offered free copies of my book, The Second in Command, to any COOs on LinkedIn, and I pushed that out to a few thousand people on LinkedIn that were COOs, and I made them promise to at least go and buy a copy of it on Amazon for 99 cents, even though I was sending them a free copy, and to leave an Amazon review. And that was very powerful. So those are some of the key things that I did to actually market my book. You can take each of those, maybe transcribe this video, have your marketing team do that, and that'll help you to either launch or to relaunch your books as well.