Why my book launch is not just about the book sales GASP

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

In this training, I'm going to talk to you about why my book launch for my book 9 Strategies to Build and Grow youw Author Platform is not just about book sales.

Did I just say that? Did I actually say those words? That my book launch is not just about book sales? Wow. I don't hear many authors saying that. Today's training, I'm going to tell you why I believe every author should think outside the book, outside the box, think beyond the book and really see such a bigger picture and what your book can do for you and how you can leverage your book. Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz. I'm a best selling author of over 40 books. The list keeps growing, thankfully. Right. And I'm the creator of authoraudienceacademy.com and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It is time to let your light shine. One of the ways I do that is by helping you to sell more books. You know, if you're an author, that is the basic. Once you have birthed that book and you've crossed that finish line, the next step is to sell more books. Right. However, what I see a lot of authors doing is they get stuck there. They get stuck in selling books, selling books, selling books, selling books. And what I often see happen is disappointment, discouragement, frustration, frustration and wanting to give up. So many authors that I talk to, they're disillusioned, they're frustrated, they're disappointed. Their book launch and their book sales aren't going as well as they had hoped. I actually just had an author message me today saying, shelley, help. I've only sold this many copies of my children's book. What do I do? And yet one of the things is I just get this picture that we walk around with blinders on our eyes. Now, sometimes blinders can be good. You know, racehorses, they put blinders on them so that they'll stay in their own lane. Like, sometimes you need those blinders. You need that focus. You need to have focus. Stay away from those bright shiny objects, right?

Focus, focus. But sometimes we get into only seeing things one way. And I've been having a book launch this week. I've put a ton, a ton of time, energy, effort into this and I haven't even sold 50 books yet. I have a really big list, you know, thousands of authors, and I've only sold 50 books. Like.

That'S kind of disappointing, right? If my only goal of this launch was to sell books, I would be kind of depressed right now, really. Honestly, I'm doing a five day platform challenge, which, if you haven't signed up yet, you guys, I mean, I'm giving, giving away so much incredible value. And it's not just me saying it. People are just getting ahas. Especially day two. You have to watch day two. Go to shellyhits.com platformchallenge Sign up. Go right to day two if you want. There were so many comments, so many people telling me they finally have figured out their target audience that has been haunting them for months. So if you have not signed up, go sign up. But I'm doing this five day platform challenge. I'm live on Facebook, live every day, investing a lot of time, energy and just, you know, resources into this launch. For only selling 50 books. That's really not that great of results now. It's not over yet. And so, I mean, the sales often come in at the last minute. And yet when I was planning this book launch, I actually wrote out my goals. Do you guys do that? Like, I have a list here in Google Documents. I'm loving Google Documents lately. It's awesome because I'm using it on my phone and on my computer. It syncs both places. All right, these are the goals that I set for my book launch. Number one, sell more books. I did want to sell books. When you're an author, that's what you want. You want to sell more books. So that was my number one goal. Number two, build my email list. So what did I just do? A few minutes ago, I gave you a call to action to go to my landing page where you can sign up to my email list to get access to the challenge. I've been building my email list. I've had hundreds of new people sign up to my list this week.

My second goal was to build my list. Now when I'm building my list, that is the number one asset I have in my business.

That is such an amazing thing right there. Just getting those new people into my space, into my tribe that may end up becoming my lifers or my ongoing tribe and community that continue to follow me. So, okay, number one was to sell more books. Number two was to build my list. Number three goal, build buzz about my books and about me, my brand on social media. So within the challenge, there's places to click, to tweet, to share. People can share the Facebook Live videos. I have a Facebook event. So it's building buzz and people are seeing a lot of me this week and like, oh yeah. And people are actually reaching out to me. I had somebody ask me if they could do one on one coaching with me and they're going to be having a session with me next week, I think to see if it's a good fit. Somebody asked me for marketing advice and I'm inviting them into Author Audience Academy. So it's building buzz about me and my brand and my books. And so that was my third goal. The fourth goal.

Is to get more reviews. When you have a launch like this, it's a great time to ask people to post reviews of your book. So I have a special photo contest right now. Anyone who buys the print version of my book, the print version of my book. Yay. Never gets old, does it? They can get access to A$47 training on giving your website a makeover. And people have doubled their email list, their website traffic. It's amazing training and you can get access to that@shellyhoods.com photocontest but this is what I did. For everyone who enters the photo contest. I've already written it up. I've created a reply email with their bonus. And then in the reply email I say, if you enjoy the book, I would love to your honest review on Amazon. You know how authors love reviews. I mean you're an author yourself and you can post it here. So people who sign up for the bonus, I'm going to ask them to post a review. That was my fourth goal. My fifth goal was to create a system that I can teach authors in my academy. So I have an academy where I teach something new every month. It's called authoraudienceacademy.com and I wanted to create a system. And what I did is throughout this entire book launch, I've been documenting everything. I've been creating swipe files, I've been creating templates, I've been creating all sorts of things, keeping the resources that I use and I'm going to be able to give this duplicatable system to my members in Author Audience Academy. Awesome. It took me quite a long time to figure all this out and to write up the stuff. You can have this, the template for my review email. You can have the template for what I used for just all the different things that I did. You can use those as swipe files and templates and cool. Go for. Saves you time. I'm actually creating a process that then will become a training and will become a Resource for the authors I serve. Pretty cool right now. The sixth goal for my book launch was to give tons of value to my tribe. So give tons of value to those who follow me and just pour out my heart this week, Pour out all that I can and give, give, give, give, give. Give is actually the G. This is build and grow is an acronym, and the G and grow is give. But one of my goals this week is just to give incredible content and just establish myself as an authority.

Next week, I'm planning a special promotion for author audience Academy that they'll be like, wow, I just got tons and tons of value value bombs all over the place. Aha. Moments, you know, and just this is good stuff. What would she have in her academy? Like, what would it be like to get access to her every day in a Facebook group and ask, you know, be able to get answers and be part of a community? And that was another reason for my book launch. And so I want you to think about the next time you have a book launch. How can you take those blinders off? And yes, I want you to sell books. Yes, I want you to do the very best you can to sell books. And I know that I will still sell more because you need a deadline. You need that urgency. You need a reason to buy now. But I want you to sell books. But I also want you to take off those blinders. And I want you to think outside the book. I want you to think what other things can happen. How can I leverage this book launch? How can I leverage this? This is a very short book. It's like 50 pages. It's not that long. But I'm leveraging it to grow my business in astronomical ways this week. And so what is one thing you can do to think beyond the book, outside the book for your next book launch? That is your take action tip for today. I hope to see you over on Facebook live. You can also get access to all the replays@shellyhits.com platformchallenge. All right, well, you guys have a great rest of your day and I'll see you inside the challenge. See you soon. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six step ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.