full tilt
Start Your Marketing Well Before Launch Day
A common mistake authors make is waiting until their book is published to ask, “How should I get people to buy it?”
Fortunately, as a content entrepreneur, you are well-positioned to market a book. After all, your business is all about building and growing an audience.
Louis Grenier, a Tilt Publishing author, started marketing months before the release of his book, Stand The F*ck Out: The No-Nonsense Guide to Positioning Your Business, Finding Your People, and Building a Durable Brand.
That’s why, just five days after launch, sales topped $16K
How did Louis do it? He brought his audience behind the scenes, showed them he understood their problems, demonstrated the belief others had in the book, and used other familiar marketing and selling tactics. Though he used multiple distribution channels, we’re sharing his LinkedIn path to help you learn and be inspired about how to strategize for marketing your book (or any other longer-range content product.)
When Louis started his public conversation about his new book on LinkedIn, he expected it to be available about three to four months later. He ended up pushing back the launch by about three months but didn’t stop marketing.
3-6 months before launch
May 6 – Explains the difference made by beta readers of his upcoming book.
May 10 – Ponders if anyone reads a foreword. (He doesn’t.) Details that he will include one written by an author who’s an expert in the field because it develops a trust factor with readers. (Spoiler alert: His foreword was authored by Tilt Publishing founder Joe Pulizzi.)
June 6 – Gives updates on the book’s progress in a 35-slide carousel. Among his activities:
- Sent a third draft to an expanded beta reader group. (Beta readers left over 1K comments and reactions throughout the process.)
- Identified the introduction as the biggest challenge because he had a tough time externalizing how this book would help readers and why they should read it.
- Asked a visual professional to identify 40 potential concepts to be visualized in the book.
- Put together thank-you packages for beta readers, industry friends, and long-time connections.
- Work with the publisher to proofread, edit, and work on the layout.
- Decided not to do pre-launch.
July 10 – Shares 400 words from the first section of the book. He focuses on providing educational value and doesn’t do a book-specific CTA.
July 22 – Publishes another building-in-public post about the unexpected feedback he received when sharing the book cover in his newsletter. He changed the cover and posted a LinkedIn poll for immediate feedback on the revision.
Aug. 22 – Writes about selling the book directly, starting with “Help me stick it to Bezos.” If you sell the book directly (a great idea so you know who your buyers are), you must tell them to expect a different retail option.
6 weeks to 2 months before launch
Sept. 3 – Announces he’s finished the book manuscript. But Louis doesn’t stop there. He explains the next steps in the process for the book and the selling of the book. Most importantly, he includes a CTA inviting people to sign up for his newsletter so they get the latest information.
Sept. 19 – Makes brief update with new expected publication timeframe and includes a link to a free chapter.
Sept. 20 – Shares a testimonial quote from a bestselling author about the early draft of his book. He included a CTA with a link to join the book waitlist, promising a free chapter and discounts.
Sept. 25 – Outlines the five easy steps to sign up for a sneak peek of a chapter in the book.
Throughout these months, he also published posts relevant to his overall content brand. And one more thing, Louis did. He responded to the comments others took the time to add to his posts.
– Marc Maxhimer
Read the rest of Louis’ timeline to his successful book launch in the full article.
Join Louis Grenier this August at the Content Entrepreneur Expo. Register today for the best rates!
tilt publishing book club
Welcome to the Tilt Publishing family, Rachel King. This week, she launched her book, Getting Divorced…Now What? The attorney shares advice for readers contemplating divorce, in the thick of it, or piecing things back together. It’s the go-to guide to make the process of divorce less painful.
If you know someone who could benefit from this quality advice, buy a copy directly from Rachel (or send them to her site.)
Elsewhere in publishing …
- Blurb babble … Simon & Schuster’s announcement that its writers won’t have to pursue blurbs for their book bubbled up a conversation on the value of endorsements by other authors. [The New York Times]
- All that’s involved … What happens when a book agent and publisher meet with a public radio host? Find out in this podcast. [Minnesota Public Radio]
- Don’t do anew … Transform your content into a book with this step-by-step guide. [Lulu]
- Author talks … A Pulitzer Prize winner takes readers behind the scenes of all the work that went into writing two nonfiction books. It’s an older but still valuable read. [Global Investigative Journalism Network]
things to know
Money
-
Bigger Shorts: More advertisers are thinking of YouTube Shorts and welcoming incentives to do so from YouTube. But its rates are still 25% to 100% higher than typical TikTok CPMs, according to an ad exec. [Digiday]
Tilt Take: No end in sight for the war for short video viewers (and advertisers.) -
Stitching up: Over half of marketers say they’re on threads, and 23% are considering it this year, according to a recent Sprout Social Pulse Survey. And Buffer data shows Threads drives more engagement than X. [Social Media Today]
Tilt Take: Where audiences go, marketers will follow. Just make sure the platform fits your audience and content tilt.
Audiences
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Lots of listening: Nielsen research finds almost one in five hours spent by Americans listening to ad-supported radio involves podcasts. People ages 18 to 34 spend even more time – almost a third of their ad-supported audio listening is podcasts. [Podnews]
Tilt Take: Expect those numbers to grow as the population ages and traditional commercial radio stations decline (or homogenize even more.)
Tech and Tools
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Tall order: LinkedIn added new vertical video features as the number of users watching videos grew by 36% last year. Video also saw 1.4 times more engagement than traditional posts. The updates also include enhanced video search and more video analytics. [Axios]
Tilt Take: Whether the move is a counteraction to TikTok or not, the numbers reveal that video is growing as an engaging format.
And Finally
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See and believe: If girls see entrepreneurs, they’re more likely to become entrepreneurs as adults. A massive study finds girls were more likely to launch their own business by age 35 when more of their female classmates had entrepreneur parents. If their parent was the entrepreneur, they were 59.3% more likely to be one by age 35. [Inc.]
Tilt Take: Show people of all ages what content entrepreneurship looks like and expect to see more content entrepreneurs.
business of content
- TikTok Is Killing Our Kids [and They Know It] (Content, Inc.)
- Deep Learning a Game Changer for OpenAI (This Old Marketing)
- How To Use a PreOrder Campaign To Boost Your Book Launch (Publish & Prosper)
- The CEX agenda is almost set. Check out the fantastic slate of speakers and then reserve your spot!
- ICYMI: Expert Advice To Drive Action From Your Landing Pages in Your Content Business
Get more of the Full Tilt stories on TheTilt.com.
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