Why Authors Fail

Derek Doepker

http://ebookbestsellersecrets.com

Copyright 2014

Disclaimer

This book and the items it distributes contain business strategies, marketing methods

and other business advice that, regardless of my own results and experience, may not

produce the same results (or any results) for you. Derek Doepker makes absolutely no

guarantee, expressed or implied, that by following the advice or content available from

this web site or provided by Derek Doepker, you will make any money or improve

current profits, as there are several factors and variables that come into play regarding

any given business.

Primarily, results will depend on the nature of the product or business model, the

conditions of the marketplace, the experience of the individual, and situations and

elements that are beyond your control.

As with any business endeavor, you assume all risk related to investment and money

based on your own discretion and at your own potential expense.

Free Marketing Training .................................................................................................. 5

Preface ............................................................................................................................ 6

About Me ......................................................................................................................... 9

How Do You Define Success? ...................................................................................... 11

Mindset Failures ............................................................................................................ 14

Mistake 1: Struggling Authors Don’t See The Big Picture From The Start ................. 15

Mistake 2: Struggling Authors Get Too Overwhelmed ............................................... 19

Mistake 3: Struggling Authors Treat Publishing Like A Hobby ................................... 22

Mistake 4: Struggling Authors Believe Passion Is All It Takes ................................... 26

Mistake 5: Struggling Authors Don’t Get A Hand Up ................................................. 29

Motivation Failures ........................................................................................................ 31

Mistake 6: Struggling Authors Don’t Manage Their “State” ........................................ 32

Mistake 7: Struggling Authors Let Themselves Get Habitually Distracted ................. 37

Mistake 8: Struggling Authors Worry About Perfection .............................................. 39

Mistake 9: Struggling Authors Lack Accountability .................................................... 42

Book Failures ................................................................................................................ 43

Mistake 10: Struggling Authors Don’t Follow Proven Formulas ................................. 44

Mistake 11: Struggling Authors Don’t Innovate .......................................................... 48

Mistake 12: Struggling Authors Worry Too Much About People-Pleasing ................. 51

Marketing Failures ......................................................................................................... 54

Mistake 13: Struggling Authors Don’t Know Their Audience ...................................... 55

Mistake 14: Struggling Authors Don’t Use Their Fans To Sell Books ........................ 57

Mistake 15: Struggling Authors Don’t Grab Attention ................................................. 61

Mistake 16: Struggling Authors Don’t Deliver Ongoing Value .................................... 65

Mistake 17: Struggling Authors Don’t Utilize Their Greatest Resource ...................... 69

Essential Resources For Authors .................................................................................. 76

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 77

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Preface

Do you wish you knew…

Why struggling authors sabotage any chance of success before they write a

single word… and how to virtually guarantee you’ll have a bestselling book,

before you even begin?

Why struggling authors spend countless hours and hundreds of dollars

publishing their dream book, only to find it gets lost among all the other self-

published “wannabe” books… and how you can make sure your book stands out

from the competition?

Why struggling authors often never get their book or series finished… and how

you can hack your motivation and creative inspiration to get your book done fast?

Why struggling authors’ creativity can be what leads to their failure… and how

you can combine one simple thing with creativity to give you an edge no one else

has?

Why struggling authors turn off potential readers before they’ve even had a

chance to read their book… and how you can utilize simple psychological tactics

that practically force browsers to purchase your book?

Why struggling authors can’t create a long-term business… and how you can set

things up from the start to ensure you’re thriving off of book sales for years to

come?

In this book, you’re going to discover the little known insights only a handful of

bestselling, self-published authors know. I want to make things very clear from the

start, you can know 80 - 90% of the information presented out there about what it takes

to be a successful author, and it may only be one or two little things you overlook that

will kill your success.

How do I know this? Because I’ve coached thousands of students all over the world in

self-publishing. While many of them are highly educated, well read, and have attended

many publishing and marketing seminars, they’re still struggling because of a few

missing links I can catch right away when I look at their work.

I’ve written this book to provide you with clarity and insight about the big picture of book

publishing for both non-fiction and fiction books based on my experience helping

aspiring authors turn their businesses around. While it will be filled with practical tips

and tools you can take away to immediately improve your book’s quality and book

sales, I want to make it clear there’s a few things this book is not.

This is not a book about improving your writing skills, specific marketing tactics, or how

to go through the technical process of publishing a book. There will be occasional tips

for all of these things, but that’s not the point of this book. There are plenty of other

books that cover these subjects in depth.

Instead, this book is meant to explain why even if you’ve read all those other books for

authors, you might still be struggling to get results. It will show you the principles

successful authors follow and struggling authors don’t.

Learning these things, while a prerequisite of success, is not an assurance of it. While

becoming a successful author is achievable for many who are willing to put in the time

and effort, it’s a skill that needs to be practiced. So don’t read any book, including this

one, and expect it to make you successful. Instead, all any book, training, or mentor

can do is point you in the right direction and show you some blind spots. After that, it’s

up to you to take action to fix things.

This means most of the learning won’t take place while you read the book. Rather, my

hope is that you’ll go through this book asking “What’s my lesson?” and “How can I

apply this to me?” This is particularly true for the areas you don’t think apply to you. As

a #1 bestselling author, I can say I’ve made all of these mistakes and more. I have to

continuously refocus myself on the basics. I truly believe this book will be one of the

most valuable books any author will read if they look for the lessons within these

principles.

I created this book to make sure all the mistakes I’ve made and have seen other people

make don’t go to waste. By learning from others’ failures, you can quicken the road to

success. I caution you, however, to not let that fool you into thinking you can’t or won’t

fail when trying things yourself. Most of my breakthroughs have come because of my

failures. As you’ll learn later in this book, you must develop a certain level of comfort

with failure as it will be with you all along your journey.

With that being said, you can be successful without reading this book, but you can’t be

successful without learning the lessons in this book. You can either learn them the hard

way, wasting a lot of time and money, or you can shorten the learning curve by

identifying and correcting these mistakes as soon as you finish reading this book. So

where will you be a year or five years from now if you don’t change what you’re doing?

Keep reading to become the very successful author you were meant to be.

About Me

There are a few things that I believe qualify me to teach the subject of becoming a

successful author.

I’m a #1 bestselling author and have had multiple #1 bestselling books in a variety of

highly competitive categories. I say this to point out that I understand from personal

experience what it takes to becoming a bestselling author. However, I believe my

biggest skill is my ability to deconstruct why certain books and authors do so well and

convey that in an easy-to-understand way to other authors. I currently have over 1,300

students to whom I’ve taught self-publishing tactics. I regularly receive testimonials

from students about how my training has helped them increase their book sales.

I also network and learn from other bestselling authors. I’ve spent hundreds of hours

researching what other authors are doing and hundreds of dollars buying high-end

training courses. I also personally talk with other authors, coaches, and publishers to

learn what they’re doing to achieve success. You can always say one person’s success

was a fluke, but when you see consistent patterns of action among numerous

bestselling authors, doesn’t that indicate there’s probably something to it?

I haven’t ever used a pen name, so you can track down my books and see exactly what

I’m doing. You can find me on Facebook. You can send me an email, and although I

don’t offer personal coaching for free, I’m always happy to help in whatever way I can.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, here are a few things others have said about

me:

"When I am all booked up, Derek is the Kindle coach I send my clients to. In the world

of publishing, you are going to need someone on your side. Derek is that secret

weapon." Paul Coleman - Founder of http://bookpumper.com

"Derek's content helped me to optimize one of my books so well that it now outsells all

of my previous books combined by 5 to 1!" Phil Pierce - Martial Arts, Self Defense and

Fighting Fitness Books http://philpiercebooks.com

If you feel in your heart that you have a book to share with the world, you must

implement this now. Otherwise, you’ll end up like so many others who had a great idea

they let fall by the wayside, never able to cash in on what could have been theirs.

How Do You Define Success?

In both the title and contents of this book, I often use words like “success” and “failure.”

Because of that, I want to quickly point out that these words can trap you and create a

lot of frustration depending on how you define them.

Many people I’ve talked to define being a successful author as having a bestselling

book. For some it is hitting an income goal such as making over $5,000 a month in

book royalties. Still others simply want to get their book finished, published, and make

the claim they’ve finally gotten their work out in the world without caring so much about

how well it sells.

These are great goals, and there will be strategies to help you accomplish all of these

things in this book. However, I want you to consider a few questions about goals that

will help you better understand how you perceive success and failure.

Imagine a goal you have as an author that will make you feel like a success. Then

consider:

What would you feel like before you’ve reached that goal?

What would you feel like when you have setback after setback delaying that

goal?

What would you feel like right after you’ve reached that goal?

What would you feel like months or years after reaching that goal?

For many people, the typical pattern is that they’re excited and driven in anticipation of

reaching a goal. Then their hopes and excitement get diminished whenever they have

a setback. If they continue to have setbacks, they’ll often give up all together. If they do

manage to reach their goal in spite of setbacks, they’ll feel successful… for a period of

time. Then the feeling fades, often after just a matter of days, and they wonder “Why

did I work so hard if I don’t feel different?”

This is typically what happens whenever someone defines success as an event. The

alternative is to define success as an ongoing process that never really ends. It could

also be considered a mindset or way of being.

From this perspective, having a bestselling book, for instance, would be a milestone, but

not necessarily the definition of success. Every single day a person with this attitude

would be feeling like a success whenever they’re taking steps towards their various

daily goals of gradual improvement.

Another reason why I’ve found that it’s important to define success as a process and

way of being is because it helps people push forward in the face of inevitable setbacks

and “failures.” If we’re defining success as an event, then a consequence of not seeing

yourself get closer to your goal is feeling like a failure. This, however, is an illusion

because it’s typically through failures, mistakes, setbacks, or whatever else you want to

call it that a person is given the opportunity to learn the necessary skills to become even

more successful.

When I first got into writing, it was with a 350-page fitness book that I could barely sell to

my own family. Months of work ended up creating few results. Then I got into blogging,

which cost me more money than it generated. After that, I published my first two books

on Kindle. I saw a small profit, but nothing that compensated for the time I invested into

it.

Were any of these things failures? At the time I thought they were, but looking back

now, I can see that I needed to go through all of those things to get me to my next step.

I needed to fail at marketing a book to my own family and friends to realize “I need to

study marketing.” I needed to publish a book on Kindle and not make any sales to ask,

“How can I master this kindle book publishing thing?” Eventually those setbacks and

the ensuing drive they gave me to improve myself led to becoming a #1 bestseller in

one of the most competitive markets – weight loss. Not bad for someone who at the

time was a dead broke valet and musician who could barely afford rent.

Consider this:

What if your setback isn't a failure, but the exact experience you need to make your next

breakthrough?

I’m grateful for the failures I’ve had because those failures made me more successful.

When seen from this perspective, a failure is no longer a failure if it’s helping you in the

long run. Failure, like success, is never going to be an event. To be a “failure” as an

author really means to not embrace the process and way of being of a successful

author.

For the remainder of this book, it is my goal to help you better understand the habits,

skills, and perspectives that struggling authors have and contrast them with how

successful authors are different in these areas. However, this is still only from my

limited perspective. While I encourage you to adopt the attitude that success is a

process, in truth there are many ways of looking at success and failure, and you don’t

need to believe anything I say. Rather, to get the most out of this book or anything else

someone is teaching, ask yourself, “What is my lesson here?” My ultimate goal is to

help you discover the answers that reside within yourself for how you can accomplish

what you want with your writing.

Mindset Failures

“The winner, after careful preparation, is confident he will win the war before he

wages battle. The losers, without preparation, engage the enemy first, hoping

they will win the fight.” – Sun Tzu

There are countless resources that can teach you the skills of marketing and book

publishing, so why is it that so few achieve success? With few exceptions, the biggest

reason I see authors fail is because they haven’t prepared themselves internally for

what it will take to succeed. They’re holding onto limiting beliefs and attitudes that

sabotage their success before they even put a single word on paper. In this section,

we’ll take a look at five mindset killers that guarantee an author will fail.

Mistake 1: Struggling Authors Don’t See The Big Picture From The Start

One question I was asked by a student was “What are the top five things an author

should focus on to sell more books?” This was a great question for this individual to ask

so that he could get focused and not waste his time on things that weren’t going to

move him along that much.

However, this type of thinking taken to the extreme can backfire when it narrows a

person’s focus too much. It would be like asking, “Which five organs in the body are the

most important?” The same thing is true when it comes to writing and publishing books.

If even one piece of the puzzle is missing or out of order, it can ruin the entire process.

Let’s look at the ingredients you need for a successful book.

Great content that there’s a demand for

Great title

Great cover

Great description

Great reviews

Putting that in front of tons of people

Keep in mind that a book could lack in one or two of these areas and still probably do

well, but if you want everything working in your favor, it will have all of these bases

covered.

The way struggling authors screw this up, however, is that they read that list as a linear

process. The thought process is typically, “I’ll write a book, I’ll get a good cover, I’ll write

a description, I’ll get some reviews, and then finally I’ll get that out in front of people and

hope they buy it.”

Even though that’s how the process plays out in terms of the steps an author goes

through when publishing a book, the planning process is more like military strategy. In

military strategy, you work backwards from the objective you want to achieve.

What this means on a practical level is that, if my goal is to become a bestselling author,

I first think about what kind of books people want, how I’m going to get it in front of

them, how I’m going to capture their attention when it’s in front of them, and everything

else related to my end goal before I ever sit down to write a single word.

Struggling authors write a book and then ask, “How can I make this a bestseller?”

Successful authors ask, “What book will become a bestseller?” and then write

that book.

You’ll notice this is similar to what Sun Tzu was talking about when it comes to

preparation resulting in winning battles before the battle is actually fought. Abraham

Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to cut down a tree and I will spend the first four

sharpening the axe.”

How To Fix This Mistake

In the book publishing world, the time spent “preparing for battle” or “sharpening the

axe” equates to pre-writing research. Just like Abe, you should be spending as much

time in this process as you spend actually writing a book if you want things to go

smoothly.

Pre-writing research is basically time spent browsing books in your niche, seeing what

you like and don’t like, and figuring out any things that you can model for your own

book. It can be reading reviews to discover what people like and don’t like about similar

books. It can mean looking at covers to determine which catch your eye. It can be

figuring out which books are selling well, and which ones aren’t in a niche.

This process of pre-writing research serves several purposes.

First of all, it prevents you from writing a book for which there is no demand. If there’s

no demand, it doesn’t matter how great the content is, you probably won’t sell enough to

make a good income. If you’re passionate about the subject, and it’s a labor of love,

then by all means go ahead with the book. Just realize it will be very hard to market a

book that a mass of people don’t feel they have a need for.

The second reason for pre-writing research is that experiential learning trumps passive

learning every time. Passive learning is something like reading this book, or watching a

video, or listening to an audio course on publishing and marketing. While these are

helpful parts of the process to shorten the learning curve, the best learning takes place

when you’re actually in the trenches doing the stuff. In this book, you’ll discover how to

use experiential learning to become a master marketer without ever having to read a

book on the subject.

The third purpose of pre-writing research is to gather intelligence that you’ll be referring

to all throughout the publishing process. Coming up with a book title, subtitle, content,

cover, and description is all made easier when you have other things to reference.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when other people have already figured out what

works.

In truth, this should really be called the pre-writing “experience” stage because it’s not

just about intellectual research but rather actually engaging your emotions. If you can

pretend to be a book buyer during this stage, you’ll see which emotions are triggered

within you when browsing books, and what triggered the emotions.

By noting what stirs your emotions, you’ll have a better understanding of how to

communicate with your audience on an emotional level. If something in the description

of another book, similar to the one you’re going to write, grabs your attention and makes

you really want to buy that book, doesn’t it seem like it would be a good idea to do

something similar with your book’s description? This is the power of experiential

learning.

An important caveat is that new authors won’t be able to figure out every step of the

process until they go through it all once - and probably even multiple times. For

instance, it’s helpful to be aware of the steps of marketing a book, but you can’t become

a book marketing expert until you reach that stage and practice it. You’ll never master a

step by thinking about it, only by doing it.

One theme I hope you take away from this book is that it’s rarely all or nothing. You

can’t blindly go into something without having prepared, and at the same time you can’t

ever be fully prepared for anything. This yin-yang aspect is essential to success. This

means there will always be an element of having to take calculated risks. If you jump

into things hastily, you’ll make mistakes. If you don’t jump into things at all, you’ll make

the mistake of never getting anything done.

Once you’ve studied what other authors are doing, you can now begin to imagine what

your own book will look like. Imagine going through the steps of a person buying your

book. Who is the person looking for your book? How will they have found it? What

kind of cover will they see? What will the title be that grabs their attention?

The more you can imagine yourself going through the process of buying your own yet-

to-be-written book, the more you can reverse engineer what it takes to get to the

finished product.

Before I write a single word, I spend as much time getting my book set up to be

successful as I do actually writing the book. – Derek Doepker

Mistake 2: Struggling Authors Get Too Overwhelmed

Once an author understands the big picture process of researching a book, creating it,

and then marketing it, they run into another dilemma – they feel so overwhelmed by all

the individual steps that they end up failing to act. Getting overwhelmed by all the

different tasks required for success can be just as dangerous as not considering them at

all.

For some authors, this feeling of overwhelm means they never even get their book

written. It’s not uncommon to hear about writers with a manuscript they’ve been

working on for years but they’ve never gotten published. Just as common would be the

author who publishes her book or even multiple books, but the process of marketing it

seems so overwhelming, she simply doesn’t bother.

The reason a person feels overwhelmed is that they’re thinking about an entire process

instead of just the next step. One thing to keep in mind when feeling overwhelmed is

that you can’t do everything, but you can do anything one thing at a time.

Whatever you're trying to accomplish, including writing and publishing a book, is just a

series of small steps. It’s about breaking things down into a series of manageable

pieces. If success is a process, then that process would consist of reaching mini-goals

(taking small steps) day in and day out.

How To Fix This Mistake

The simplest trick I’ve found to just get started is to use the three magic words for taking

action – “Can I just…?”

Can I just take five minutes to brainstorm some chapter ideas?

Can I just review three blog articles of mine as potential content for an upcoming

book?

Can I just do one thing to market my book today?

The key is to get yourself to take action, so choose something so absurdly small and

easy that you can’t fail to do it. Then you can always ask, “Can I just do a little more?”

If a person asks, “Can I just read two pages about book marketing?” then they can

always ask, “Can I just read two more?” after they get started. You’ll find that breaking

down your goals into miniature goals and posing it as a question like this will almost

always resolve any resistance you have.

Keep in mind that it’s important to pick a task that is so effortlessly small that you can’t

help but to complete it. “Can I just write the first sentence of my next chapter?” would

be good. “Can I just write a 400-page masterpiece this afternoon?” would not be so

good.

The task should also be immediately relevant. It’s certainty possible to give yourself a

lot of busy work that’s not really helping you move forward. Ask yourself, “What’s my

next step?” By only focusing on your next step, you’ll keep yourself from getting

overwhelmed with things that might not be important until days, weeks, or even months

down the road.

For instance, if an author just finished a draft of her book, she can ask “Can I just reach

out to one person today to review my manuscript for feedback?” instead of “Can I just

find one blogger who may recommend my book to their readers?”

This was something I had to constantly remind myself of when I was planning the

contents of a new book I was going to write. I found myself taking time to seek out a

cover designer, study marketing techniques, and even plan out ideas for future books.

All of these things are important tasks and things that need to be done at some point,

but they were taking me away from what was most important in the moment – just

getting the book done!

Since we don’t want to neglect these things, it’s important to have a system in place to

manage these distractions. My favorite technique is to have either a notepad or folder

on my computer desktop where I file away my “to do later” ideas. I may also record

ideas on my cell phone as they come to me. Later, I can refer to them down the road

when I’m ready for them. What this does is allow you to “brain dump” the ideas you

have into a safe place where you don’t feel like you’re going to miss out.

Whenever I find myself working on something or feeling overwhelmed, I simply ask

myself, “Is this what’s most important right now?” If the answer is no, I stick it as a to-do

later task and completely forget about it while I go back to work on what is most

important in the present moment.

Mistake 3: Struggling Authors Treat Publishing Like A Hobby

If book publishing for you is simply a hobby, then naturally this won’t apply to you.

However, I’d venture to guess that anyone reading a book on why authors fail would

want to achieve some level of success. In order to do this, an author must take a more

business-minded approach to book publishing.

Struggling authors treat publishing as a hobby. Successful authors treat

publishing as a business.

This involves three things for the author:

1. Being on their customer’s agenda rather than their own agenda.

2. Seeing time and money put into a book as an investment rather than an

expense.

3. Adapting to a changing market by keeping their skills up to date.

When I say being on the customer’s agenda, what I’m referring to in a broad sense is

being customer-oriented in the same way a business would place a high priority on

customer service. It doesn’t mean sacrificing all of your own desires for your books or

trying to be a people pleaser, but it could mean making compromises when what you

want and what your readers want differ.

For instance, a non-fiction author may create a title that makes sense to themselves,

but the customer can’t understand what it means. I see this quite often with authors

who have cutesy clever titles that no one else understands, but they feel quite smug

about how creative they were coming up with it. This failure to empathize with the

customer’s perspective will sabotage much of the book’s potential no matter how great

the book actually is.

The second issue is reframing expenses as investments. If an author wants to save

$50 by getting a lower quality book cover, but the higher quality book cover would end

up generating a $100 in additional sales each month, they didn’t really save money.

Spending $50 to make $100 isn’t an expense but a profitable investment.

Another issue is with authors not wanting to invest time into their business. We all know

overnight results can’t be expected. However, it’s human nature to want results as

quickly as possible. The upside is that this will often motivate people to seek out more

efficient ways to doing things. The downside is that people can feel entitled to quick

results without having properly invested enough of themselves.

This can be especially dangerous when reading stories of “overnight” successes. The

time it took me from starting to write my book, “50 Fitness Tips You Wish You Knew,”

until it became a published book and number one bestseller, was three weeks. This

may seem extraordinary, but consider that I had written much of the material that ended

up in the book over the course of the prior year. I had spent the previous two to three

years studying marketing to know how to put the book together in a way that captivated

readers. Finally, I had spent the previous nine years studying health and fitness

information on a regular basis. So was it really three weeks to success or almost a

decade? It’s important to keep this in mind when looking at the “quick” results others

get.

The natural fear, of course, is that the investment of time and money won’t be profitable

but will end up being a waste. This is only true if an author fails to learn from their

experience. Businesses spend thousands of dollars on research just to see what will

eventually turn a profit. As long as every investment you make gives you useful

information going forward on how to do even better, you can recover your losses down

the road. Another way of looking at it is seeing everything as an investment into your

education.

Finally, businesses adapt with the times. Most of what I teach in this book is principle-

based, meaning that it’s big picture stuff that won’t change over time. However, many

marketing strategies, especially in today’s age, will constantly be changing. This means

you must continue to invest in your education so you can stay in a state of learning and

growth if you want to be a successful author. Some of the biggest businesses on the

planet have failed when they didn’t adapt to changes in the marketplace – especially as

technology rapidly changes the way we do business and market.

How To Fix This Mistake

There is one simple question that has completely transformed not only my publishing

success, but my business success in everything I do.

When I first got started, I would ask something like “How can I get value?” That can

take on any variation like, “How can I make more money?” “How can I make more

sales?” “How can I get people to promote my book?”

I didn’t have much success asking these questions because I was on my own agenda.

It was when I switched this question that everything changed.

Instead of asking “How can I get value?” I asked “How can I give value?”

This could mean switching “How can I get more book sales?” to “How can I create a

book so valuable that tons of people will naturally want to buy it?” “How can add value

to my existing readers’ lives, so that they’ll naturally be inclined to share my book?”

The difference between “What can I get?” vs. “What can I give?” is like the difference

between a sales person who is only trying to make a buck off of you vs. one that is

trying to figure out what’s best for you and lead you in that direction. Most people don’t

appreciate the former, and that’s because we’re naturally repulsed by people who only

care about their own agenda.

This question also makes it easier to frame the time and money spent as an investment.

I’m not losing money when I hire an editor, for instance. I am giving them value and

helping them make a living, and I am giving my readers a better reading experience. In

the long run, this can, in turn, result in more sales and more money back in my pocket.

The short term loss is made up for by a long term gain.

As someone reading this book, you’ve already indicated that you understand the

importance of education. However, it’s important to remember that everyone will

naturally slip into something a mentor of mine calls the Pride Cycle. This is where at

some point you feel like you’ve learned what you need to and don’t have to continue

developing your skills. The result of this pride is a fall which many “too big to fail”

businesses have experienced. Authors are not immune to this either.

Sometimes I hear people say things like “I already know all that” and scoff something

off. I laugh at that because I can re-read the same books several times and still get new

things out of them. Remember, everything that happens in your life provides a new

chance to learn and grow if you’re open to it. All this requires is the intention to see

things with “fresh eyes” and to ask yourself “What is the lesson here for me?”

Many times education isn’t about learning something new, but rather refocusing on what

we already know but have lost sight of. Other times it’s about unlearning all the stuff we

think is important but is simply taking us off track. One of the biggest reasons why I

found having a coach was helpful was not because they told me something I didn’t

know, but because they kept me from getting distracted with all the things that would

have taken me away from what I already knew.

Successful authors don’t stop studying publishing and marketing after going through

several books and courses on the topic. Sometimes when going through trainings, I

would only get one tiny little new insight or detail, but that’s all it took to make the radical

difference.

Some helpful resources to continue your education are:

http://tkcpublishing.com

http://publishingprofitspodcast.com

http://ebookbestsellersecrets.com

http://www.rickfrishman.com

Mistake 4: Struggling Authors Believe Passion Is All It Takes

As an artist, I can appreciate the importance of having passion for what you do. It’s

great to get fired up about how your books are going to change the world.

I’ve never had the misfortune of writing a book I wasn’t passionate about, but I also

know that everything I publish is going to do well. Maybe not a #1 bestseller, but at

least solid sales. The same thing is true for my mentors and fellow authors who have

multiple bestselling books. How can they be so confident? Because they combine

passion with learnable skills like writing effective and engaging descriptions, finding

designers that will create the right type of book covers, understanding what readers

want, delivering it to them, and more.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of passionate people out there who fall flat on their faces

trying to get their message out. The whole “just do what you love and the success or

money will follow” attitude doesn’t help either. It’s more like “do what you love AND

learn the skills, network with the right people, and continuously test and experiment until

something works.”

Passion serves its purpose to help give a person motivation to learn the necessary skills

and overcome the hardships they’re going to face. Passion and good intentions,

however, don’t replace essential skills. While there are some stories of people who

simply did what they loved without much thought and appeared to have lucky breaks,

the benefit of learning the skills of being a good writer and marketer is that you can

duplicate the process without relying on luck.

If you’re taking the self-published route, then that means a greater burden of

responsibility falls on your shoulders to understand not only how to write (or create

through outsourcing) books, but also everything else that ties into publishing and

marketing that book.

Successful authors nowadays often end up learning skills like creating enticing book

titles, utilizing social media, blogging, building an email list, connecting with readers,

networking with other authors, and more. We live in an age where any ordinary person

can become a bestselling author without an agent or publishing deal, but at the expense

of bearing a greater burden of responsibility to understand marketing.

This doesn’t mean you have to be good at every step of the writing and publishing

process. It could simply mean you have the skill of networking and connecting with

other people who handle that stuff for you. Remember, just because an author may be

very successful and they don’t worry about much besides writing doesn’t mean they

didn’t have to develop the skill of creating and maintaining quality relationships with

others who helped them achieve their goals.

So no matter how much an author wants to focus exclusively on writing (or anything

else), at the very least they’ll need an understanding of how everything in the book

publishing process works so they can get the right people on their team to take care of

their weak spots.

How To Fix This Mistake

To utilize the skills you’re going to need to be a successful author, there are four things

to do:

Identify which skills you need to develop.

Practice those skills until you become proficient.

Identify which skills you can delegate to others

Find, hire, and manage others with the skills that can complete the task

If you’re not sure which skills you need to develop, that’s a sign you can benefit from

coaching. Granted, everyone can benefit from coaching, however it’s even more

important if you’re feeling overwhelmed and struggling to put all the pieces together.

The second point is that skills must be practiced. Just like you become a better writer

with practice, you get better at creating captivating book titles, book descriptions that

suck people in, and communication skills that make people want to work with you

through practice. Reading this book or any other on how to become a better author and

marketer simply opens your awareness to what can be developed. After that, it’s up to

you to actually develop the skills (which isn’t always quick and easy).

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the most successful people don’t take on

everything themselves. They focus on their strengths and delegate their weaknesses to

specialists. Some authors try to do too much themselves and end up shooting

themselves in the foot because they end up with a weak link.

A common example of this is authors who design their own book covers when they

have no graphic design skills. What this means is an author will have spent all this time

creating a great book only to have it not sell well at all because they decided to do

something they had no skills in whatsoever. This also ends up costing the author

precious time that could be spent focusing on their strengths – like writing another book.

If you save $30 on hiring a designer, but it costs you ten hours of your time, ask

yourself, “Is my time really only worth $3 an hour?”

If there’s one area that I recommend every author get assistance with, it’s hiring an

editor. While I’ll admit to editing some of my own books, the quality of my books that did

have an editor improved significantly and allowed me to catch things I never would have

on my own.

Places to find qualified works include:

http://Odesk.com

http://Freelance.com

Referrals and recommendations. Shoot me an email at

info@ebookbestsellersecrets.com if you’d like recommendations for designers and

editors.

Mistake 5: Struggling Authors Don’t Get A Hand Up

What do the world’s most successful people, from superstar athletes, CEOs, to

bestselling authors, all have in common? I’ll give you a hint… it’s not necessarily that

they’re more talented, disciplined, or smarter than everyone else.

The answer is the world’s top achievers all have a mentor or coach to assist them and

point out their blind spots. Of course, if you’re reading this book, that means you’re a

cut above the average person as someone who takes the time to educate themselves

on a topic such as how to be a successful author. Passively reading books and

studying book publishing alone, however, will not be enough when you come up against

obstacles only an educated coach can help you navigate through. Even if you have an

incredible amount of knowledge on a topic, sometimes it takes an outside point of view

to see things you can’t see yourself when you’re too close to your own work.

A mentor’s greatest gift isn’t always his guidance, but rather the confidence he can give

you to move forward and take action. I was talking to a woman who was struggling to

even get started on her book. Through careful questioning, I determined that the

reason she wasn’t motivated had less to do with lack of willpower and more to do with

the fears that come from not knowing what to do during certain phases of the book

writing process. Once I offered her some guidance, she was immediately relieved and

inspired to start writing because she knew she’d have someone to turn to during times

of uncertainty.

There are always times of uncertainty we all go through. We subconsciously try to

avoid this unless we know we have something to lean on to get us through. A mentor

allows you to leverage her greater perspective that she’s gained through experience.

When I was starting my business, I hired a mentor whom I paid $2,000 a month to help

me launch a product. While I could have found out the same information for much less,

it was worth it to have the confidence of talking to someone who would tell me exactly

what I needed to do, when to do it by, and know that I wasn’t going to waste a second

on something that wasn’t effective. It also meant he could look over what I created and

offer me feedback to ensure I wasn’t going to screw anything up.

Mentors save you a significant amount of time and stress. There are a lot of things you

can do to keep yourself busy when writing and marketing a book, but only a handful of

activities are really going to have a significant impact while other things are simply busy

work. The 80/20 concept states that 80% of your results are from 20% of what you do.

A mentor can help you focus only on the most important 20% tasks that deliver the

greatest results.

All of these first four mistakes of not seeing the big picture, getting overwhelmed,

treating it like a hobby, and lacking skills can be almost completely avoided simply by

having the assistance of a coach.

How To Fix This Mistake

The answer is obviously to seek out the guidance of a mentor or coach. This could be

someone who specializes in authorship, or it could even be someone who has enough

foundation in the principles of business and success that they can help you move

forward. I have had multiple coaches throughout my career and will never let myself go

without at least one mentor with whom I can stay in semi-regular contact to help keep

me on track.

Coaching is something I offer to certain individuals. You can reach out to me at

info@ebookbestsellersecrets.com, and if I’m not a good fit, I can work to point you in the

right direction of another coach.

There are a variety of courses and trainings that offer personalized assistance in the

form of email support, live webinars, and Skype calls. Contact me for more details

based on your goals.

Motivation Failures

Besides coaching authors, my primary business is to help people reach their health and

fitness goals. If there’s one thing I’ve found that sabotages people’s success when

losing weight, it’s not a lack of knowledge, it’s a lack of acting upon that knowledge.

If you look at the resolutions that people set each New Year, you’ll find this isn’t limited

to fitness. So many people have big goals, like publishing a book, without taking the

necessary consistent action to do so. Typically a person may say a lack of productivity

is a result of not enough motivation, but all my research into this indicates something

else is at play. Getting more motivation, at least as it’s typically thought of, is not the

answer.

The following four mistakes will address how authors sabotage their results through

poor productivity, stemming from things like bad habits, emotional fears, and lack of

proper systems. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that the same methods that can help

people finally take action on their weight loss goals, end procrastination, and overcome

emotional hurdles like emotional eating, can also be applied to authors when it comes to

being more productive with writing and marketing their books.

Mistake 6: Struggling Authors Don’t Manage Their “State”

One of my mentors, Brandon Broadwater, taught me one of the primary keys to success

is to manage your “state.” Your state consists of how you’re feeling. Whenever you’ve

been in a good state, you may have felt energetic, creative, and ready to work hard. If

you’ve been in a poor state, you may have felt depressed or angry, unfocused, and only

have enough willpower to sit around eating ice cream. We all have times where our

state is high, low, or somewhere in between.

Feeling motivated is often a result of being in a good state. My problem with the

concept of motivation, however, is that from one perspective, you can never be more or

less motivated - you’re as motivated as you’re ever going to be. It just may be that a

person is more motivated to keep up with the Kardashians than to write a chapter in

their book.

So what do you do when you’re feeling “unmotivated” because your state is low and find

yourself unable to be productive? One option is to bypass your feelings, use willpower,

and rely on habits to get you through. This will be covered in the next section. The

second and more obvious option is to change your state.

The mistake struggling authors make is that they wait for a productive state to

occur by chance instead of proactively getting themselves in the state of

productivity.

How To Fix This Mistake

There are several ways to manage your state, including physical activity and mental

refocusing. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective methods I’ve found for each.

Find Your Why

Jim Rohn says, "The bigger the why, the easier the how." This means that the bigger

and more emotionally driven your reason for being a successful author is, the more you

can draw upon the passion it gives you to push through the challenging times.

You’re going to have plenty of reasons not to do the things it takes to be a successful

author as they will require pushing your comfort zone. This means you must have a

reason or reasons to draw upon to change than are bigger than your reasons to stay the

same.

Consider the following:

Why is becoming a successful author important to me?

Don’t just stop at the first reason you come up with. Continue to ask, “Why is that

important?” for each answer you can think of.

What will happen a year from now if I don’t get this done? Five years?

What else will that allow me to do? How will that impact the people I love the

most?

If I only had thirty days left to live, what kind of book would I want to leave behind

for the world, and how can I get it published in that time?

Whenever you’re feeling like you lack motivation, you can always go back and remind

yourself of why you want to be a successful author. If the reason you currently have

doesn’t inspire you, then spend some more time considering these questions.

“Would I rather?”

In psychology, there’s a concept called “reactance.” This is that feeling of wanting to

rebel against anyone telling us what to do. The problem is, we often boss ourselves

around by saying things like “I have to do this” or “I can’t do that.” The research shows

that this approach of taking away a sense of choice will drain your willpower.

The simple way to get around this is to present everything as a choice (which in reality it

is anyway), with a “would I rather?” question. You’ll present two options, and give

consequences for each.

“Would I rather sit and watch TV, not sell any copies of my book, and then feel guilty,

OR could I just take ten minutes to write a guest blog post, feel great about myself, and

keep my book sales going strong?”

“Would I rather not get any productive work done and feel like a sense of

underachievement, OR could I just outline the first section of my next book and feel a

sense of satisfaction and accomplishment?”

When you present your options as a choice in question form rather than as a command,

you’ll find you’ll often naturally want to make the better decision. If you do occasionally

choose the less productive option, the key is to remember it’s about consistency of

choices and not any one choice. After all, there is nothing wrong with watching TV or

taking a break on occasion.

Change Your Physiology

To change your physiology means to change what you do with your body externally.

One dangerous thing for authors is that we typically sit around in chairs for many hours

on end. Research has shown that sitting and a sedentary lifestyle has high correlations

with early death. http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/05/02/are-you-

sitting-yourself-to-death Walking, on the other hand, has been correlated with higher

levels of creative thinking. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/walking-vs-sitting-

042414.html

Based on both research and personal experience, working in shorter bursts such as 25

- 50 minutes with 5 - 10 minute breaks in between seems to result in the greatest level

of productivity. Part of the reason is it keeps your state high – especially if you get up

and walk around during your breaks to get the creative juices flowing again. Another

option is to occasionally get up and do some light exercises such as jumping jacks,

rebounding (jumping on a mini-trampoline), or pushups.

An area of physiology that some people don’t think about is the clothes they wear.

Being someone who works from home, I find myself more productive when I actually put

on nicer clothes and shoes compared to whatever I was sleeping in. While this may be

personal preference, some people do notice a change in their state depending on how

they’re dressed.

Change Your Environment

Yogananda has a quote that says, “Environment is stronger than willpower.” Authors

and many people who can work at a computer have often intuitively discovered they

work better if they go to a new environment like a coffee shop to get work done.

If you prefer to work from home, then the question is whether or not your environment

has things that could be distracting you from work. Do you associate where you work

as the same place as where you do things for recreation? Even if you can’t change

your work place, remember you can always change your environment by doing things

such as getting up and walking outside to take a break to recharge your state.

Music also plays a role in your state. A website I highly recommend is

http://focusatwill.com, where you can quietly play baroque music in the background

while you get work done. I’ve found I am much more focused when listening to that

music or alternatively, a brainwave entrainment track designed to stimulate alpha

brainwave patterns to help get me in the proper state of focus.

Emotional Releasing

Since your emotions drive much of your behavior, it’s important to recognize that you

can sabotage your own success if you have a subconscious fear of failure, fear of

success, or any other underlying emotional hang-ups that keep you from taking action.

I would argue that every single person has some sort of limiting beliefs and emotions

that will interfere with their productivity.

One of the most effective techniques I’ve found for dealing with this is emotional

releasing. While it’s outside the scope of this book to go into detail on this, I can

recommend the Sedona Method as a great resource for this. I also recommend

mindfulness meditation, EFT, and any system that works on helping resolving limiting

beliefs to such as hypnosis to deal with these issues.

Helpful resources:

The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin and Jack Canfield

Release Technique

Mindfulness Meditation

Hypnosis

http://www.profoundmeditationprogram.com

Mistake 7: Struggling Authors Let Themselves Get Habitually Distracted

One of the greatest challenges an author faces is getting taken off track by distractions.

I can’t recall how many times I’ve found myself working on a book, and then the next

moment I’m in the kitchen looking for something to eat. Then I wonder, “I’m not even

hungry, so why am I in the kitchen?”

In the previous chapter I talked about the emotional component of getting into state for

more productivity. The flip side of that is to use willpower to get yourself into a state of

focused flow, and then continue this on a daily basis until you develop the habit of being

productive and focused.

How To Fix This Mistake

The fix here is to use willpower. The first thing to understand about willpower is that it’s

a limited resource that can be drained. You’ll typically have more willpower earlier in

the day, more when in a better state, and more when your stress levels are low.

The thing to keep in mind though is that you can strengthen your willpower gradually

over time with practice. The key to doing this is to setup small, “can’t fail” targets that

you’ll hit every single day until they become habitual. This could be something like

writing 50 words a day, writing one social media post about your book a day, or sending

one email out per day that helps grow your business.

By setting small targets that require little willpower, you’ll be able to force yourself to

follow through on these tasks until they become habitual.

The second component is to use willpower to manage your environment, create

rewards and punishments, and set deadlines.

Schedule time to write, and treat it like you would any other job or appointment.

Set up a system with family and roommates about your writing time. If others are

a distraction, it’s your responsibility, not theirs, to manage this.

Turn off your phone, and if necessary, disconnect your internet if these are a

temptation.

Only allow yourself to engage in other activities after a writing goal is complete.

For instance, “I will only check Facebook after finishing the next chapter.”

Give yourself daily and weekly goals and deadlines to hit with your work.

While much of this will be common sense, it’s these common sense things that many of

us need to be reminded of, as it’s these things that make the biggest difference in

success.

Mistake 8: Struggling Authors Worry About Perfection

If you were raised with the attitude “Do it right or don’t do it at all,” you may suffer from

perfectionism. Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons why authors fail to get books

finished. Even if a perfectionist author finishes a book, it may take him an absurdly long

amount of time. He may also be hesitant to share that book for fear of judgment about

his imperfect work.

Perfectionism is really a selfish trait disguised as caring about the reader’s experience.

In reality, the reader doesn’t care about perfection since most reasonable people never

expect something to be perfect. Instead, the reader cares about the value the author

adds to their life. It’s only the author’s ego that cares whether or not something is

perfect.

Of course, I’m not saying one shouldn’t strive to do things right. The intention behind

the idea of “do it right or don’t do it at all” is sound, but the mistake that some people

make is believing they can become a master without screwing things up in the process.

My twist on the idea is this…

Strive to get it right, but remember you don’t have to get it right the first time.

In fact, it’s next to impossible to get anything right the first time. Whether that’s the first

draft of a book, the first book an author publishes, the first marketing campaign an

author runs, or any other first, there are always going to be things that can be even

better. You probably won’t get things totally right the second, third, fourth, or fifth time

either.

I know saying that things will never be perfect is stating the obvious, but we must

recognize that in order to move closer to perfection, there have to be imperfect attempts

made from which we learn. It’s like shooting an arrow at a target. Sometimes you’ve

got to take the shot and see where the arrow lands in order to make the necessary

adjustments for the next shot to hit closer to the bulls eye.

From this perspective, there’s no need to put undue pressure on yourself to have your

first draft or even your first book be a masterpiece. It probably won’t be, and more than

that you won’t know all the ways to improve until you get your work out there and

receive feedback on it.

Another reason why it’s important to overcome perfectionism is because every moment

you delay getting your book out there, people are missing out on what you have to offer.

This is especially true for authors who feel they have a message the world needs to

hear. I’m not too ashamed to admit that one of my bestselling books had and still has a

few spelling and grammar mistakes. While I’m well aware this makes grammar police

cringe, many readers don’t care about those minor details in comparison to how much

that book helped change their lives for the better.

I have to give the caveat that I’m not encouraging people to publish books with mistakes

and errors. Rather, I’m encouraging people to consider that if they’re worried their book

might have a couple mistakes, and that’s going to cost them a significant amount of

delay in getting it published, consider whether it’s truly worth withholding the book from

people who might benefit from it. My approach throughout this book help you get a

healthy sense of balance in all that you do.

Ultimately, book publishing is a fix-it-as-you-go process. Another way of putting it is “fix

your bike as you ride it.” If you can’t afford an editor or a great cover designer, do the

best you can, and improve these things as soon as possible. If you can’t write a great

book, then write a sucky book and make the second one just a bit better.

How To Fix This Mistake

Since perfectionism is an internal trait often based on wanting approval, we can shift

this by refocusing your thoughts. I’ve found the most powerful way to break through

perfectionism is to remind myself that I can always improve things down the road and

focus on the value I’m delivering to others.

Ask yourself,

Can I just allow myself to get this done now, knowing that I can always make it

better later?

Can I allow myself to finish this, knowing the feedback will help me improve down

the road?

Is it more important for this to be perfect or more important for it to add value to

people’s lives right now?

When is it good enough so that the value offered is more than I ask for in return?

Who will suffer if this doesn’t get done?

What will happen a year from now if I don’t finish this? What will happen five

years from now if this doesn’t get done?

Another key concept I keep in mind is this: Act Then Analyze

A natural tendency for some is to analyze everything before they get started. The

problem with this approach is that you have nothing to analyze until you act first.

When it comes to writing a book, I’ve found for myself and many other authors that the

key to getting into a state of flow is to write freely without analyzing or editing the work.

You simply let the thoughts flow out on paper and then go back and analyze how to

organize it, make it more succinct, and correct any mistakes.

Analyzing before or while you’re attempting the creative process will shut it down. While

both action-taking and thoughtful analysis are required to produce the desired finished

product, it’s important to let the right-brain creativity flow first before going to left-brain

analysis.

Mistake 9: Struggling Authors Lack Accountability

When people work a typical job, they often have a boss making sure they get their work

done. Parents have the responsibility of keeping their kids on track. Students have

teachers making sure they turn in their assignments and then grading them on the

quality. Under all these circumstances, an individual has someone else holding them

accountable for getting their work done on time and ensuring it’s high enough quality.

Self-published authors, on the other hand, don’t have this accountability – unless they

make themselves accountable. The most successful authors (and people in general)

seek out others to keep themselves accountable in order to ensure their work gets

done.

Despite being a fairly self-disciplined person, I work significantly harder when I have

either a person or situation to keep myself accountable. This is why I have “mastermind

groups” that I’m a part of. Within these groups, I will offer the people in the group

money if I don’t complete a task I say I will by the next meeting.

As I write this, I’m about to leave for vacation in half a week. That means I have to

finish the draft of this book and get it off to my editor before vacation. If I don’t complete

it in time, it significantly delays the release date of this book. I know I will get it done,

however, because I have set daily target goals to hit that will ensure that I am done with

the book one day in advance of when it needs to be sent off to my editor.

I’ve found authors who don’t have someone or something (even just a self-imposed

deadline) keeping them accountable are less productive than they could be. This

reduces their overall level of success. If there is one single action step you can take to

ensure you get your work done, it’s to have someone hold you accountable.

How To Fix This Mistake

If you have a mentor or coach, they can become your accountability partner and help

you set deadlines. If you don’t have one, you can still get a friend on board to help you

stay on task. Some ideas for keeping yourself accountable include:

Offer a pre-order of a book and set the release date forcing you to complete the

book on time.

Set deadlines for tasks and pay someone money if it’s not done on time.

Get a mentor, coach, or join a mastermind group that you share your goals with.

Publically announce what you’re going to do on social media, and ask people to

check in with you.

Join author groups and challenges where people are given daily assignments to

complete and post in the group.

Join a site like http://stickk.com and use it to create punishments for failing to act.

Create your own system of rewards and punishments for completing or not

completing tasks.

Book Failures

Even though the focus of this book isn’t on how to write a good book, it should be

obvious that producing poor quality books that readers don’t enjoy will keep an author

from having long-term success. While “good” and “bad” are subjective terms, there are

certain formulae and principles that will help ensure that you create a book that your

target audience will enjoy and want to share with others.

I’m going to assume that most know that books should ideally be relatively free from

errors, formatted correctly, offer value to the readers, and be easy to read. There are

plenty of qualified editors that can help with all of these things. What you’re about to

learn in this section is the deeper psychology behind what draws people towards books,

and how you can deliver exactly what your readers want with your content.

Mistake 10: Struggling Authors Don’t Follow Proven Formulas

Does your book follow one of the four blueprints that virtually every single bestselling

book falls into? If not, then you’re pretty much screwed from the start. That’s because

readers are subconsciously expecting your book to following one of these formats, and

they will be disappointed if it doesn’t.

These four blueprints almost all bestselling books follow are laid out by Robin Hoffman

of http://getpublishedcoach.com. They are as follows:

1. Tips

2. Outline, Step-by-step

3. Three-Act Story (Hero’s Journey)

4. Essay

If you’d like to learn more about these, check out her interview with Tom Corson-

Knowles at: http://publishingprofitspodcast.com/how-to-write-a-bestselling-book-using-

the-four-bestseller-blueprints-with-robin-hoffman

The “tips” style of non-fiction book is a collection of helpful tips, tricks, or articles.

Examples of my books that follow this formula include: 50 Fitness Tips You Wish You

Knew and Weight Loss Motivation Hacks.

The outline or step-by-step book is your typical non-fiction “how-to” book that takes

readers through a linear process to get from point A to point B. Examples of my books

include Why You’re Stuck and How To Stick To A Diet.

The Three-Act Story, also referred to as the Hero’s Journey, is the basis for almost

every single work of fiction, including movie screenplays. Fiction stories that do not

follow this formula rarely do well.

The final type of book is an essay style which applies to non-fiction. It is the hardest to

write and not something recommended for the average person, but rather for journalists

and those who have done extensive study in an area. These are books that are heavily

researched and are intended to influence people’s perspective on a topic. Examples

would be Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

(P.S.) by Steven D. Levitt and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big

Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.

These formulae will help engage a reader on an overall level. Another aspect of

bestselling books is that they typically have what I call “hooks” and “seeds.” Struggling

authors typically lack these altogether or rarely use them. What happens is that their

stories or information comes across as bland and doesn’t have that “suck you in”

component that we associate with great books.

A hook is something that instantly engages readers and sucks them in. In a fiction

story, this is any dramatic scene where the reader needs to find out what is going to

happen next. It’s equally relevant for non-fiction. The title of my book “50 Fitness Tips

You Wish You Knew” is a hook because “you wish you knew” creates an emotion of

curiosity that sucks readers in. Another example of a hook is an engaging question

such as “Do you know the number one mistake authors make that kill their book sales?”

These simple hooks help pull a reader along through the book and keep them turning

the pages.

“Seeds” are foreshadowing of something that’s about to happen later in the book. In

fiction, this is hinting at something exciting that is coming up that keeps a reader sticking

around for more. In non-fiction, this can be saying something like, “Later in this book,

you’ll discover my #1 marketing technique that took me to bestseller status in three

days.” A seed is planted in the reader’s mind about what they’re going to discover, but

they don’t know when they’re going to get it. Many of the bullet points presented at the

start of this book are meant to act as hooks and seeds to engage you to want to

continue reading.

How To Fix This Mistake

I know that many creative types, particularly fiction authors, hate the idea of following

formulas or blueprints. It can be perceived as predictable, boring, and restrictive to

follow a set outline. The issue with this thinking is that it’s seeing things from the

author’s perspective instead of the reader’s. If you’re writing as a hobby and don’t care

about your book’s success, then write it however you’d like. If you’re writing to be

successful, then you’ll want to consider what readers expect in their books.

To use music as an example, a baby sitting at a piano banging out notes is playing

without any restrictions or rules. The problem is it will sound like crap. We’re used to

music following certain rules such as being in a key, having a set tempo, structure, and

more. There’s a lot of flexibility with these rules, but the structure is in place so that

there is something our brains can latch onto.

Another thing to consider is that restriction can actually enhance creativity. As a music

composer as well as a writer, I’ve found that when I’m given guidelines to follow for a

composition, it keeps me from getting overwhelmed with options, a situation which

actually shuts down creativity.

Once an author accepts that they’ll want to follow guidelines and use particular structure

for writing, the next thing is mastering the system. The first and best way to do this is

through experiential learning; that is, reading and analyzing the types of books that are

similar to what you want to write.

I’ve spent a lot more time reading other people’s books than I have actually writing my

own. I had to not only absorb what other bestselling authors were doing, but actually

take time to ask myself questions like, “Why did this chapter engage me? Why did they

put that story in there at that spot? Why am I starting to get bored at this part of the

book? What is the difference between this book that excites me and this other book

that doesn’t seem to captivate me?” It’s one thing to be an avid reader, and it’s another

thing to be a student of what you read.

For fiction authors, you should be very familiar with the Hero’s Journey format. If not,

you may study the work of Joseph Campbell (The Collected Works Of Joesph

Campbell) and any other course that teaches the Hero’s Journey, also known as the

monomyth.

When it comes to hooks, a fiction author should consider engaging the reader as early

in the book as possible. If it takes the reader several chapters before anything

captivating happens, you may lose their attention before they continue on with the book.

It’s also quite common to leave the reader at a cliffhanger when a chapter ends to

compel them to keep reading the next chapter.

These techniques are fairly common sense for fiction authors, but I’ve noticed non-

fiction authors rarely consider them. The easiest approach for non-fiction authors to

create more captivating content is to write their book as usual, and then during the

editing process, insert various hooks and seeds.

Examples of hooks for non-fiction authors:

You’re about to discover my secret to (insert a desired benefit for the reader).

In this chapter, you’ll learn why (insert a common problem).

Have you ever wondered (insert a common question)?

If you’ve ever struggled with (insert problem), then pay attention. What you’re

about to read will be one of the most important things you will ever discover.

There is one simple thing that can fix (insert problem), but before I get to that….

My hope is that you’ll use your own creative thinking and stylistic voice to hook readers

in and keep them reading. Remember, the best way to learn this and any of these other

concepts is by studying other bestselling authors’ books, finding what engages you, and

learning to model that.

Mistake 11: Struggling Authors Don’t Innovate

A big mistake I see entrepreneurial-minded authors make is they try to copy or imitate

exactly what they see doing well. You may have seen these “knock-off” books yourself.

While you should model what else is working, if you just try to copy what someone else

is doing without understanding why they did it, you’ll rarely get the same results. If you

consider the most successful businesses, they’re usually the trailblazers rather than the

knock-off companies.

If all a person does is copy what else is successful without adding anything new, they

get lost in the endless sea of “me too” books that fail to stand out and offer anything of

unique value. While these types of books can sell well in the short-term, rarely will they

make enough of an impression to stand the test of time.

The mistake on the opposite side of the coin is typically made by more artistic-minded

authors who try to do something that’s never been done. They strive so much to create

something completely original that the market doesn’t know what to make of it. They

struggle because they’re having to start from scratch instead of learning to leverage the

insights of people who’ve come before.

You must strike a balance by modeling what is working already so that you fit in with

what’s popular, but you must also be unique enough so you stand apart from all the

other books. Just like yin and yang come together to form a balanced whole, these two

qualities blend together to form a middle path.

How To Fix This Mistake

The formula for innovation is: Imitation + Creation = Innovation.

Given that innovation is both art and science and can’t necessarily be taught in a paint-

by-numbers, step-by-step system, this perfect blend eludes many people. My goal is to

help you find this sweet spot by learning to activate your own creativity. However, it’s

ultimately a matter of getting in there and trying stuff, failing, and continuing to tweak

things until something works. This is why, once again, experiential learning trumps

passive learning.

In the previous chapter, you learned about the importance of imitation by following

proven formulas. You’ll get better at this as you analyze and model other successful

books.

The other end of the spectrum is to take a proven concept and add a twist to it so that

your book stands out. This is the creative side of things. One of the best ways to tap

into the creative powers of your brain is by asking questions.

Here are some questions you can ask to help stimulate creative thinking when it comes

to creating a book that will stand out and offer unique value.

Fiction Authors:

What story hasn’t been written that I would want to read?

What is missing from the stories I love?

What would make an existing story even better?

How can I model an existing story and make it brand new?

If there was something that’s never been done before, what would it be?

Non-Fiction:

What value can I deliver that hasn’t already been offered?

What is the book I wish I had when I first got into this topic?

What book needs to be created?

What will save people a lot of time, money, or effort?

How can I say what’s been said before with a different voice or perspective?

I want to point out that it may take time to reflect on these questions to get your creative

energy flowing. These aren’t things you ask once, come up blank, and then give up on.

These are especially good questions to be asking yourself while browsing through a

bookstore or looking through your own library.

When I first considered writing, I asked, “What value can I deliver that hasn’t already

been offered?” I didn’t think I had anything unique to offer. I assumed that there’s

nothing new under the sun, and anything I could want to talk about was already covered

in more detail by another author in another book. It took some confidence building and

listening to the feedback from others to realize what I have to offer as a non-fiction

author isn’t new information, but a new perspective. According to what people told me,

I’m able to convey a message in a conversational style that resonates with certain

readers and makes what could be difficult topics easy to understand.

Realize that you don’t have to be the most creative author on the planet to offer

something unique to your readers. As long as there’s something you do that’s a little

different while still following the overall structure readers expect, you will likely find a

niche audience who resonates with your style.

Mistake 12: Struggling Authors Worry Too Much About People-Pleasing

Perfectionism and people-pleasing often go hand in hand in that they’re often based on

wanting approval for what we do. However, perfectionism is often focused on our own

feelings about the work while people pleasing is more concerned with how others will

view our work. Another way of putting it is that perfectionism is driven by what the

author feels is right, while people pleasing is driven by what the author believes others

feel is right.

We all intuitively understand that no matter what you do, there will always be haters out

there who bash your work. One of my mentors says that if 1/3 of people don’t hate what

you’re doing, you’re probably not pushing the envelope. If you consider the biggest and

most successful authors, works of art, and businesses, they all have their fair share of

haters.

In the world of non-fiction, one challenge is that you’re often dealing with different

learning styles. If you try to appeal to people who like a lot of facts and details, you

miss the boat with people who want you to get straight to the point. If you get straight to

the point, some people may feel like they’re missing key details. You’ll never “get them

all,” so to speak.

In the world of fiction, people’s tastes in storytelling styles vary as much as people’s

tastes in different foods. If you run an Italian restaurant, you don’t need to try to cater to

people who prefer Chinese food. Instead, you make the best damn Italian food you can

make. While you should strive to improve your storytelling abilities, it must come with

the understanding that at some point, certain people simply won’t like whatever you’re

trying to do.

How To Fix This Mistake

The challenge is that on one hand, you can’t worry about the occasional people who

don’t like your work. On the other hand, you should be striving for constant, never-

ending improvement, and that means listening to the feedback people give you.

So how do you balance improving your work based off the feedback of others without

giving up your own sense of style in the process? The key to improving your work

comes from quality feedback. Both “your book sucks” and “your book is the best thing

ever” lack any real constructive insight. Neither blanket praise nor condemnation will

help you improve your books, so you must learn how to dig more out from your readers.

The way to do this is with high quality questions designed to get people to open up and

share more about what is working and not working with your books.

If you get praise for a book, some quality questions include:

What did you enjoy most about this book?

Was there anything in particular you found most helpful? (Non-fiction)

What was your favorite part and why?

What could make this even better?

When I have asked these questions of my readers, I’m often told they enjoy my casual

conversational style as if I were talking to a close friend. Because of this feedback, I

make sure not to edit too much of this casual style out of my books in an attempt to be

more formal. While some people may not appreciate my laid back, conversational style,

those people are idiots. Just kidding of course. In reality, they’re simply not my target

readers. By getting this feedback, I know what my readers like and can cater to them

without worrying about the individuals who don’t care for my style.

If you’re looking for constructive feedback on how to improve your book (and you

should), a great question to ask is, “How can I make this even better?”

This is a question to not only ask readers, but always to be asking yourself. The beauty

of this question is that it implies the work isn’t bad, but could simply use improvement.

That means I can even ask my mom this question, and she might end up telling me

something besides “This is the best book ever written, and how did I get so lucky to

have such an amazing son?”

It also means I can ask someone who gives a scathing critique of my book this

question, and they’ll be forced to actually provide constructive ways to improve it.

That’s because “How can I….” is a question that compels a person to provide an actual

actionable step that can be taken for improvement. If they lack the ability to articulate

what could make the book better, then perhaps they’re not someone whose critique you

want to take too seriously in the first place.

Ultimately, this question will force others and yourself to look for areas of improvement

without all the emotional ups and downs. The one thing to be aware of is that you will

get conflicting opinions because you can’t please everyone. My biggest suggestion is to

get very clear on your ultimate objective so that you’re not taken off track by those who

don’t understand your books as well as you, while remaining open to understanding that

each person may have a truth to offer you within their feedback.

Marketing Failures

Have you ever seen a great book that was significantly better than the competition

completely fail? If you’re the author of one of these books, you may be left scratching

your head as to why the best books aren’t always the best selling books.

The answer is that a book only sells as well as it is marketed. Remember that people

buy a book before they’ve had a chance to read it. In other words, book sales are

dictated by the perception of a good book which means authors must learn to use skills

of persuasion and influence. The good news is that I’m going to show you the principles

that allow you to sell more books without sleazy, spammy, or unethical sales tactics.

Mistake 13: Struggling Authors Don’t Know Their Audience

One of the first questions I ask an author I’m coaching is who their target audience is.

It’s not unheard of for authors to think anyone and everyone should love their book, and

for authors not to have even considered a target audience. More common, however,

are authors who have a very broad audience such as “people who want to get over

depression” or “women who enjoy romance novels.”

It’s next to impossible to market to everyone. It’s a lot easier to market to a target group

and end up getting readers from outside that group in the process. To be fair though,

you don’t have to know your ideal reader when you first write a book. It can often be a

process of discovery as you put books out there and see who naturally gravitates

towards your work. Simply understand that you’ll never maximize your marketing efforts

until you know where to direct your attention.

How To Fix This Mistake

Ideally, this is something that is determined before a book is written. That’s because

the title, subtitle, cover, and contents of the book can all be tailored to resonate with the

ideal reader.

To give an example, my book Kindle Bestseller Secrets is targeted specifically to non-

fiction authors who want to or are currently publishing on Kindle, are primarily

concerned with making as many sales as possible, and may have read other books

about Kindle publishing but are frustrated with a lack of results. Fiction authors, non-

Kindle eBook authors, and hobbyists could all learn a lot from that book, but they’re not

people I target in my marketing. Everything I do with that book from the title,

description, and contents speaks directly to my target audience. If I wanted to speak to

all authors in general, I’d write a separate book like this one.

With my book “Why You’re Stuck,” I only really knew at first I wanted to target people

who felt stuck in some part of their life. In other words, I was guilty of the “this book

targets everyone” problem. With more contemplation, I got clear that these would be

people who have read other self-help books but didn’t find them helpful or were jaded

by the idea of self-help altogether. The target audience would be those who don’t want

another “positive thinking” type of book but something that is real, honest, and yet not

overbearing in “do this, don’t do that” advice. This is why I start off the description with

“Are you pissed off that life didn’t give you an instruction manual?” The idea being that

the strong emotional and slightly angry language will stand apart from similar self-help

books to instantly grab the attention of those who are feeling stuck and want a no-BS

solution.

The simplest strategy I’ve found for getting clearer on a target audience is to ask myself,

“What books are similar to mine, and who reads them?” Even if an author has a

relatively unique book, there’s a good chance they can find books in the same niche

that are somewhat related.

Once an author can identify a least one or two similar books, I recommend going to

Amazon.com and going through the “customers who bought this item also bought”

section. You can also click on an author’s name and check out their author profile.

From there, you can see other similar authors that Amazon displays.

After that, a good next step is to start reading the reviews of these books to get inside

the mind of the readers. Checking out the authors’ websites, looking at their comments,

and checking out their social media profiles will also help you get a better understanding

of their audience.

For myself, this is a largely intuitive process in which you’ll likely get a feel for who the

target readers are. If you prefer a more technical approach, you can type in an author’s

website into http://alexa.com and view demographics information.

The second approach to finding a target audience is to create books and see who is

drawn towards them. In order to do this, you’ll need some way of seeing who is buying

your books. I recommend all authors have an opt-in page on their website that

connects readers to a newsletter. From there, you can gather feedback about your

books by sending out surveys. The responses you get and who they’re from will help

you see the types of people buying your books. For those published on Amazon kindle,

the review and highlight system also gives you insight into who is reading your books.

Mistake 14: Struggling Authors Don’t Use Their Fans To Sell Books

Struggling authors try to sell their books by telling people how great it is. Successful

authors get other people to sell their books by having them talk about how great it is.

One of the biggest factors in marketing and persuasion is “social proof.” “Social proof”

is the concept that we look at what other people do in order to make a decision. If

thousands of other people are buying a book and raving about it, then we naturally

assume it must be a good book. Social proof also works because we’re not likely to

trust an author to be objective if they talk about how great their book is, but if a reader or

third party reviewer praises the book, then we assume they’re being honest.

Most authors understand the importance of book reviews/testimonials (I’ll use these

terms interchangeably) for selling more books. Where struggling authors screw up is

they either get the wrong kind of reviews, or they don’t leverage the good reviews they

do get. The struggling author often ends up reaching out to family, friends, and other

authors for reviews and testimonials exclusively. While there is nothing wrong with

testimonials from these people, readers want to see reviews from others that are just

like them.

If an author has a sci-fi novel, which do you think is more compelling?

“I loved this book! Joe is a great author and this was a real page turner for me.”

Or…

“I’m a huge sci-fi fan and am always looking for the best sci-fi books. Unfortunately, I’ve

been disappointed with a lot of self-published stories and had become jaded about

finding anything that wasn’t boring and predictable. Even though I hadn’t heard of this

author before, I decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did! The story engaged me from the

first pages and I couldn’t put it down. Now my only problem is I can’t wait for the next

book in the series! Highly recommended for any sci-fi fans out there.

Let’s say an author has a book written for busy professionals looking to get into

meditation. Which of the following reviews do you think is going to help increase sales

the most?

“I loved this book!! It had many great tips that anyone would find valuable for learning

about meditation. It was an easy read and I would recommend it to everyone.”

Or…

“I’ve known about the benefits of meditation for a while, but struggled to incorporate it

into my life because of my crazy, busy schedule. This book was a lifesaver because it

showed me quick and simple meditations that I could fit into my hectic life. I especially

love the five-minute meditations, which I started doing on my lunch break at work. I

would recommend this book for anyone wanting to begin meditation, but who can’t find

the 20 minutes at a time like other meditation books suggest.”

In these examples, you’ll notice the second review gives readers the impression, “This

person is just like me! They feel like I do, and since they loved this book, I’ll probably

love it too.”

How To Fix This Mistake

Successful authors know how to both get the right testimonials and ensure it’s one of

the first things people hear about. They’ll also recruit their fans to promote their books

for them. Finally, successful authors make sure the popularity of their book is made

known to a potential reader.

Book Reviews

Testimonials are a great way to create social proof, and you’ll want to be sure to

highlight them whenever you get them. While you can’t take an Amazon review (and

likely the same with other retailers) and post it elsewhere, you can have people directly

send you a testimonial praising your book and get their permission to use it in any of

your marketing efforts.

For instance, I had an author, Gary Yantis, send me an email about my book Kindle

Bestseller Secrets saying, "Your book is better than all of the other ‘how to’ Kindle

guidebooks put together! I own at least 50, and yours is FAR superior to ALL of the

others." With his permission, I posted this at the top of my description because it

instantly grabs a person’s attention. He’s like my target audience in that he’s read a lot

of books on the subject, and he says my book is far superior. This makes it the perfect

testimonial.

So how do you get genuine “just like the target reader” reviews?

The first and most important way is to make sure you’re asking the right people for a

review. In other words, don’t ask a 28-year-old guy like myself to review a book on

dealing with postmenopausal depression. If you think that’s a joke, the sad thing is it’s

not too far off from the type of review requests I’ve received.

How can you do this if you’re just starting out?

The first step to getting book reviews is to include a call to action at the end of your

book. You can say whatever you’d like, but be sure to give them a reason as to why

leaving a review is important. I usually say something to the effect of how leaving a

review will help others learn about the benefits of this book and your feedback helps

improve the quality of my books. I also revise my books to include a link directly to the

Amazon listing so they can click through as soon as they’re done reading.

My favorite method is to create connections with other authorities in my niche, and

leverage their audience. The simplest way to do this is with a guest blog posting that

allows you to give valuable content, establish yourself as an expert, and drive traffic to

your books from the people most interested in your topic. To find popular blogs on your

topic, I suggest browsing http://Technorati.com, and doing a Google search for

keywords in your niche and adding “blog” to search. You’ll learn more about

establishing relationships in the last chapter.

Another way, which is a more long-term strategy, is to build up a list of targeted readers

in your niche. I’m always building lists from my blog, guest blog posts, and my Kindle

books. I offer my subscribers valuable insights and tips on an ongoing basis. Then,

when I release a new book, there are usually a handful of regular readers and reviewers

who jump on board to check it out. This is obviously easier over the course of time after

an author has built a following, and this is why it’s important to see book publishing as a

long-term business.

For more details on how to get book reviews, check out my series of articles here:

http://www.tckpublishing.com/category/book-reviews/

Highlight Achievements

Another thing authors should do is highlight any achievements they’ve had. If I run a

free promotion for one of my books and get 5,000 downloads, I will make a note on my

book description page on Amazon that says “Over 5,000 copies downloaded!” because

it creates an impression that this is a popular book. If a book has become a #1

bestseller, I will note that as well.

This is equally true when talking with people in person. We’re taught not to toot our own

horns, but how much potential are you leaving on the table to engage a conversation if

you say “I wrote a book” instead of “I wrote a bestselling book?” The latter could open

many more doors for you as an author simply because people are going to assume

you’re good at what you do.

Obviously, don’t claim anything that isn’t true. Realize, however, that successful people

in general are willing to talk about their accomplishments because they understand that

they have to always be marketing themselves. This doesn’t have to be done in a

boastful way. It can be as simple as saying “I wrote a bestselling novel that was ranked

in the top 10 mystery books on Amazon.”

What keeps this from sounding like boasting is that saying “I have a bestselling book” is

a statement of fact, whereas “I have a great book” is a statement of personal opinion

that can be questioned. Saying “I have received a lot of great reviews about this book”

is fact. Saying “Everyone loves my book because it’s so awesome” is an opinion.

Learn to state the praiseworthy facts about your book created from social proof, and you

can shine your light as an author without turning people off.

Mistake 15: Struggling Authors Don’t Grab Attention

If there is one mistake that keeps authors from being successful even if they do

everything else right, it would be this one. An author can have the greatest book, the

best reviews, and limitless exposure, but if they don’t grab the attention of their

audience and captivate them right away, they’ll never see any sales.

Imagine walking into a book store, going up to a book shelf, and then browsing for a

book. You’re going to see tens to hundreds of different books in a matter of a few

minutes, all competing for your attention. Do you think you’re going to stop and check

out every single book you see? Are you going to read the reviews for each one? Are

you going to make a logical decision as to which book is the best one for you?

Chances are, you’re going to make split-second emotional decisions as to whether or

not you want to even bother checking out a book based on only two or three things - the

title, the cover, and possibly the author.

People don’t buy books, they buy the emotions a book gives them. This is equally true

for non-fiction as it is for fiction. Therefore, people don’t typically buy based on logic.

This means that in the first couple of seconds a person is exposed to your book, they’re

making an emotional decision whether or not to continue looking into it. If you have

their attention in those first few seconds, then you’ve bought yourself maybe another

five to ten seconds of their attention from which they may read a little bit of the

description, reviews, and perhaps glance at the table of contents. If you succeed in

sustaining their attention there, you dramatically increase the chances of selling the

book. However, you’ll notice all of this comes back to getting their attention in those first

few seconds.

As self-published authors, we need absolutely everything to work in our favor to

compete against the big-name authors and publishers who can afford to throw money at

creating great looking covers and marketing campaigns. Struggling authors assume if

they have a great book, it should do well. Successful authors realize the process book

buyers go through and ensure they’ll suck readers in with powerful emotions.

Self-published authors often fail because they don’t have a title or cover that captivates

potential readers. Titles are a bit more important for non-fiction books, while covers are

equally important for both. If a title and cover do manage to grab attention, self-

published authors may still fail if they don’t sustain that attention with an intriguing book

description.

How To Fix This Mistake

For both non-fiction and fiction books, the cover must grab a person’s attention. This

isn’t a book on graphic design, and it doesn’t need to be. If you’re treating this as a

business, you’ll seek out and pay an appropriate price to get a book cover designed.

For maximum results, the cover needs to look professional. The litmus test I have for

this is, “Would I see this in a bookstore?” If the answer is no, then that’s going to be

negatively affecting sales.

The one thing you’ll want to do to make the job easier for the designer is to find a few

covers in your genre that mimic the effect you’re going for. Remember, ask yourself,

“Does this cover grab my attention?” If so, then it’s likely a good candidate for

something to model.

Cover Designers

http://99designs.com – Get multiple designs made for you and pick your preference.

http://goonwrite.com/ - Cover templates for $30

http://iclickminisites.com/ecover/wfh/ - Nathaniel is my cover designer

Milk Jug Media design – One of the highest quality and affordable cover designers

https://www.elance.com/s/milkjugmedia/10184#backurl=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWxhbm

NlLmNvbS9yL2NvbnRyYWN0b3JzL3EtTWlsayUyMGp1ZyUyMG1lZGlhLw==

Fiverr offers some cover design options. These can be more hit or miss, but worth a

shot in case you get lucky. These also allow you to

http://www.fiverr.com/emorim/design-a-professional-ebookkindle-cover

http://www.fiverr.com/pro_ebookcovers/design-an-eye-catching-ebook-or-kindle-cover-

with-bonus

The second component is to have a captivating title and description for your book. As

with the other things in this book, the best way to learn how to do this is with experiential

learning. This is simply taking the time to go through similar books in your genre,

seeing what grabs your attention, and learning to model this.

While I do offer some “shortcuts” in my training, even my VIP private students are asked

to go through this process. That’s because nothing can replace the experience of

putting yourself in a book buyer’s shoes in your particular niche and practice going

through the buying experience. As you browse books, ask yourself:

What titles grab my attention and why? How can I model that?

What descriptions grab my attention and why?

What do I glance over? Why doesn’t that grab my attention?

What makes me want to buy a particular book? How can I incorporate that in my

own book?

Out of all the books I’m seeing, which ones jump out? Why does the cover stand

out?

If I knew nothing about this book, would I want to read this from what I see? If

so, why? If not, why?

Do I feel anything when I look at this book? If so, what emotions am I feeling?

What creates those emotions?

Also realize that the “selling” doesn’t stop once a person has bought a book. Does the

introduction in your book captivate readers or put them to sleep? Does the fiction novel

start with a scene that generates powerful emotions instantly sucking them into the

experience or is it boring backstory? Does the non-fiction book’s introduction whet the

reader’s appetite for the exciting things they’re about to learn or is it more like reading

an encyclopedia?

Finally, studying marketing and persuasion will help give you a better idea of what to

look for. Some resources include:

My Fiverr gig for helping you create captivating non-fiction book titles.

Hooks for Books – How To Create The Most Captivating Non-Fiction Book Titles

Ever Using Simple Psychological Strategies

Influence by Robert Cialdini

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein,

Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini

Mistake 16: Struggling Authors Don’t Deliver Ongoing Value

I’ve yet to hear of any author who has achieved major lasting success with only a single

book. Yet when talking to authors I’m coaching, they have grandiose ideas of writing a

book that’s going to generate thousands of dollars each month so that they can then sit

back and not worry about anything ever again.

While an author can write a single book that launches their career, even #1 NYT

bestselling authors typically don’t always rest on book royalties to earn their income.

Instead, their book is a gateway into other opportunities like speaking engagements,

consulting services, and readers for other books in a series. Those who make a full-

time living publishing books almost always have a library of books in a particular niche

to get readers going from one of their books to another.

Another aspect of this mistake is that a struggling author will launch a book and then

neglect to form a relationship with their readers. They won’t engage their readers

through a newsletter or blog. They won’t offer other related books even if they’re by a

different author. They won’t connect with their readers on social media.

This is mostly an issue for the entrepreneurial author who sees book publishing simply

as a means of getting royalties. They may hop from one niche to another trying to see

what works. While there’s nothing wrong with this in the short term, but it becomes an

issue if the author never firmly creates a foundation in any on particular niche.

Many successful fiction authors have found that they had to publish several books in a

series before something eventually took off. It was only after that when readers went

back and discovered their original work. If they didn’t continue to offer something of

value to the few fans they did have, they never would have built the momentum they

needed to make their breakthrough.

This big-picture idea of seeing authorship as a long-term business that continuously

delivers value is important for authors to grasp, so they don’t think they’re doing

something wrong when they don’t have massive success after publishing a book or two.

It also means that when an authors do see some success, they don’t get tempted to

become complacent.

My book 50 Fitness Tips You Wish You Knew was a #1 bestseller and has reached the

#1 spot multiple times with promotions, but it never stays there. In order to sustain

rankings, I have to continuously publish new works and offer value to my existing

readers on my newsletter. I can’t simply publish, see some success, and then spend

the rest of my days at the beach.

How To Fix This Mistake

Email List

I rarely give “must do” commands, but I would argue it’s an absolute must for authors is

to have an email list. Having a Facebook fan page, twitter account, blog, and other

social media accounts for people to connect with you on is helpful as well, but they’re

not as big of a priority as an email list.

An email list will allow you to notify readers of future book releases, ask them questions

and get feedback, offer them prizes for sharing your book, provide them more value

such as tips or unreleased material, and more. All of this creates a greater connection

with your readers, making them more likely to support your future work and spread the

word about you as an author.

Steve Scott has found his email list was responsible for more sales than any other

marketing effort he used that he had direct control of.

http://www.stevescottsite.com/book-marketing

If you’re not familiar with email marketing and don’t wish to learn or outsource, a simple

way to get started is with a service like http://leadpages.net and using an autoresponder

like http://aweber.com

You’ll want to offer an incentive to sign up for the email list. Options include:

A free report or guide

A bonus short story

A backstory of one of the characters

An audio book

A video training

After joining the email list, a way to quickly build the relationship with the readers is to

give them a backstory of why you got started as an author. This will build a deeper

connection so they’re more likely to engage upcoming emails.

Here is a great article on how to do this also from Steve Scott:

http://www.stevescottsite.com/origin-story

Once you have people on a list, some questions to consider are:

How can I serve my readers?

How can I do something unexpectedly awesome for my readers?

How can I express gratitude to my readers?

Book Series

With fiction books, it almost goes without saying that authors should create a book

series in order to keep readers engaged with the characters and an on-going story.

This can mean setting out from the start to create a series rather than a one-off book.

For non-fiction authors, this can get trickier. While you may say everything that needs

to be said about a topic in a particular book, you can ask yourself if there are other

challenges people in this niche may have.

For instance, as a fitness author, I can talk about motivation, diets for weight loss, diets

for muscle gain, improving performance, healthy recipes, workouts for busy people, and

more.

The luxury of being self-published is that you can create books that are “one problem,

one solution” in nature. That means tackling a specific problem in-depth and offering

other books to deal with different problems the reader might have.

Backend Offers

While other books and newsletter content are valuable for readers, an author can also

offer more things for sales such as services, signed copies of books, memorabilia,

physical products, affiliate products, and more to increase the revenue generated per

book. The more revenue an author can generate per book, the more money they can

take to invest in the marketing of that book creating exponential growth.

If you’re wondering what to offer your readers, then by this point you should know how

to solve the problem. You can either ask your readers what they want or study what

other successful authors have done and model that.

Mistake 17: Struggling Authors Don’t Utilize Their Greatest Resource

The greatest resource an author has isn’t their time or their money. Once I discovered

this resource, it didn’t matter that I was dead broke, no one knew who I was, and I had

never sold more than a handful of books in my life. I was able to become a #1

bestseller in one of the most competitive niches on the planet – weight loss. I look back

and owe most of my success to tapping into this one resource.

What is this resource?

It’s an author’s relationships.

Struggling authors see other authors and authorities as competitors. Successful

authors see them as companions.

A struggling author is trying to win out over their competition. They may even try to

sabotage their competition by leaving bad reviews. They have a mindset of scarcity that

there’s only so much to go around, and they have to secure their piece of the pie.

Naturally, this toxic mindset leads to failure in the long term.

Much of my success has come from reaching out to other people in my niche, forming

relationships with them, and cross-promoting each other’s work. This isn’t done with

some sort of “I’ll do this for you if you do this for me” type of agreement. Rather, it

comes from a genuine desire to help each other out because we recognize we’re all out

to help people and add value to readers’ lives.

What’s funny is that I literally cannot think of a single person I’m competing against

when it comes to selling books. Part of this is because people typically buy more than

one book on a topic, so it’s not like I have to be the only book on any subject. The other

reason is because the people who have helped me the most and whom I’ve been happy

to help the most are the other authorities in my niche.

How To Fix This Mistake

Ultimately, we’re after genuine relationships with authorities. These could be book

authors who publish similar books, blog owners who promote or could promote books

similar to yours, or anyone with a following that can recommend your books.

Remembering the principle of service, the attitude that must be adopted is “What can I

give?” rather than “What can I get?” This means having a “give and receive” attitude

instead of a “give and take.” The difference is subtle but important. With “give and

take,” there is an expectation that the other person should do something for you. With

“give and receive,” you are offering something for the other person with a willingness to

receive something in return, but not an expectation.

For instance, if I take a friend out to lunch, I’m willing to let them buy me lunch next

time. However, I’m not going to say “I’m only taking you out to lunch if you promise to

buy me lunch next time.” I’m not opposed to purely transactional business

relationships, but I consider it far better to simply focus on offering value and trusting

that in some way, shape, or form, the value will be returned to me without making my

generosity conditional.

While generosity can be taken too far, I’m going to assume that you’re capable of

making a judgment for yourself as to how much you’re willing to give without expecting

anything in return. I will also point out that, just like with a friend, if you have a pre-

existing relationship with some authority, you can always ask them for a favor such as

“Can you recommend my book to your followers if you enjoyed it?”

Once you’ve adopted the right attitude, you’re ready to reach out to experts or

authorities to help promote your book. The challenge in connecting with authorities is

that they’re often busy, and if you don’t have a prior relationship with them, it can be

difficult for them to take their time to help you out. However, is this really a problem? By

now you should know if you’re following the principle of giving rather than getting, then

your attention needs to be on how you can help them out rather than how they can help

you out.

I’ve condensed this whole process down to “Four C’s” that will grab their attention,

create a genuine connection, and then inspire them to want to check out what you’re

doing.

Step 1: Compliment

One of the best ways to start an introduction, either via email or in person, is with a

genuine compliment about what this person does. Be sure to include specific details

about what you appreciate about them and/or admire about them.

Let’s say you’re writing a book on becoming a happier person and are reaching out to

an authority on depression. You’d want something like, “I read your article on battling

depression, and what you said about the types of questions we ask ourselves really hit

home. It has helped me become a much happier person. I find your work to be

inspiring. I want to thank you for making my life and those of so many others more

fulfilling.”

The compliment gets their attention and helps them see why you’ve chosen to reach out

to them vs. all the other authorities on the topic. The key here is to not blow smoke, but

to make sure the compliment is genuine.

Step 2: Connection

The next step is to establish a connection where the authority can see how both of you

are similar in some respect. This can even be done with something as simple as

noticing you’re both from the same hometown, have the same hobby, or know the same

person. In the case of book reviews, it’s best to stick with the fact that both of your have

an interest in the same topic.

Using the book on happiness as an example, the author could state, “I’m a self-help

author who, like you, is helping empower people to overcome depression and to live a

more enriching life.”

Using another example of reaching out to an authority-review blog, one could state

something like, “As a romance book fan and writer, I wanted to connect with you

because we both share a passion for romance novels.”

No matter how you phrase it, you want to leave the person you’re connecting with

feeling like both of you are just like each other in some respect. Use your own words to

avoid sounding contrived.

Step 3: Contribution

The third step is to offer them something of value. Many times when I reach out to

someone, I literally have no idea if, when, or how this person could ever help me out.

Instead, I find some way to enrich their lives. If it just so happens that down the road

they do something for me, then great. The contribution is done with no string attached.

If you’re offering them a free copy of your book with the hopes they’ll review or promote

it, you don’t make your offer conditional on them giving you something in return.

Rather, you offer them a free copy simply because you believe they and/or their

followers will enjoy it. Let them know this!

Notice the difference between these two requests:

“I have a book on happiness in which I talk about the best ways to overcome

depression. I am looking for honest reviews. If you are interested, I’ll send you a copy.”

VS.

“I have a book to help people become happier and overcome their depression. Inside

the book, I have recommended your website as a great resource, as I consider you to

be one of the foremost authorities on the topic. To thank you for all your great work, I’d

be more than happy to send you a copy, if you’re interested. If you have the time to

offer me any feedback, it would be an honor to learn how I can improve this book to

help even more people overcome depression.”

The first approach isn’t “bad,” but it’s making a big request for this authority to take

hours of their time to check out a book and leave a review when they don’t even know

the author at all.

The second approach is better for a couple reasons. First of all, the focus is on helping

people overcome depression and not on the author getting a review. This is something

both the author and authority can relate to. If you can position yourself and your book as

benefitting the authority’s followers, then you’re doing them a favor by giving them a

valuable resource they’ll get to recommend. The difference in attitude is “share this with

your fans to help me.” which is usually a turn-off, VS. “share this with your fans to help

them,” which is appealing.

The second reason this approach works is because the author has already done

something for the authority – that is, recommending the authority’s website in the book.

The big thing here is that this is done with no strings attached.

The third reason this approach is better is because you’re not asking for an honest

review, but rather honest feedback. Is there a difference? Yes, the simple shift in

wording implies that they don’t have to go on Amazon to leave a review, but rather can

give you their candid thoughts any way they want. If they check out your book and

leave you positive feedback in a private message, then you can let them know a

positive review posted on Amazon would be appreciated.

Step 4: Curiosity

This last step could be considered optional, but I think it’s very helpful to incorporate.

This is where you add something to your email to make them more curious about you

and your work.

For instance, if something was included in the message for the book on happiness

like…

“In my book, I share one thing that took me years of research to finally uncover, which

turned out to be the missing link for many people to finally overcome depression. I

haven’t ever heard you talk about this, so I’m not sure if you’ve even heard of it. I’d love

to know your thoughts.…”

Then you can bet that the person reading that email will be very curious as to what that

one thing is. This works even better on authorities who often think they’ve “seen it all,”

but may in fact be missing something.

Another example is…

“I know you review a lot of thriller books on your blog, but I’m not sure you’ve seen

anything like what’s in this book. I don’t want to spoil the surprise though.…”

Curiosity is one of the most powerful triggers you can use to get a person’s attention

and encourage them to take action. Just think about how people will watch TV shows

week after week when they’re left with a cliffhanger after each episode.

ROCKSTAR SECRET: This little golden nugget will be worth more to you (if you apply

it) than anything else in this book. My “secret weapon” to making deals happen is

shooting a personalized video to the people I’m reaching out to. This helps them see me

as a real person, create a genuine connection, and shows that I’ve taken the time to

speak to them personally rather than just copy n’ paste some email that I’ve sent to

hundreds of people. This personalization is something I’ve also done to land joint

venture partners that have ended up helping me make thousands of dollars. The fact

that some people won’t do this gives YOU the advantage if you do it and set yourself

apart from everyone else.

How to leverage authorities for book promotions.

One thing I did with my book 50 Fitness Tips You Wish You Knew was offer authorities

on the topic a chance to offer a bonus chapter in the back of the book. This can also be

done with fiction books by letting other authors include snippets of some of their books

at the end of yours to cross-promote each other.

This is a win-win-win situation because these authorities get free publicity and

promotion for their website or books, the readers get more content, and I get more

exposure when these authorities recommend my book to their followers. Of course, I

make sure to let them know that promoting my book helps them because the better my

book does, the more exposure they get.

Real Message Example #1 (Slight edits have been made from the original email).

Hey Amy! I’ve been reading your work for the past couple months, and I absolutely love

it. I really appreciate how much heart and soul you pour into your work to help

empower people. The message of creating change from the inside out is something

that I can really resonate with.

I run a fitness blog called Excuse Proof Fitness and am also an author of the book “How

To Stick To A Diet.” I’m finishing up my next book, “50 Fitness Tips You Wish You

Knew” and am including a link to your blog as a recommended resource.

However, I wanted to extend the offer to you that if you had five -10 minutes to send a

quick tip my way, I can include it as a bonus chapter in my book with a bio about you,

links back to your blog, and anything else you’d like me to link to. This is a way that I

can hopefully help readers find your work, which I believe they can really benefit from.

Here’s a short video introducing myself so you know I’m a real person. ;)

VIDEO LINK

I know you’re busy right now, so either way just let me know if there’s anything else I

can do to support you. I really believe in your message and want to help get it out there

to others. Thanks!

Derek Doepker

This is just one example of what can be done. I point it out so you have something to

sink your teeth into, however the theme of this book is to give you principles from which

you can create your own strategies.

Ask yourself:

Who are my biggest competitors? How can I turn them into companions?

Who is already connected to my target audience? What can I do for them?

What value do I have to offer authorities in my niche?

How can I serve other authors?

How can I create win-win-win situations? (You, authority, and readers all win.)

How can I help someone else sell more books, get more business, or be loved

even more by their fans?

Essential Resources For Authors

Kindle Bestseller Secrets: 10 Tricks Bestselling Non-Fiction Authors Use To Dominate

Kindle by Derek Doepker

Kindle Bestseller Secrets Video Training Course

Hooks For Books – How To Create The Most Captivating Non-Fiction Book Titles Ever

Using Simple Psychological Tricks

Secrets of the Six Figure Author: Mastering the Inner Game of Writing, Publishing and

Marketing Books by Tom Corson-Knowles

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve made it through the book and now have a better

understanding of why authors fail. However, realize that this knowledge by itself won’t

get you anywhere. Anyone can find flaws and recognize areas of improvement. The

question is, are you going to act upon this greater awareness by modeling successful

authors, learning what your readers want, and being willing to have some failures on

your way to success?

I’ve striven to give you the biggest pieces to the authorship puzzle in this book. While

there are countless details that can be expanded upon, it is my hope that you have an

idea of where you can direct your focus to be an even more successful author. If you

have any questions or comments on how I can make this book even better, please

contact me at info@ebookbestsellersecrets.com, and I will be glad to assist.

With this book, I wanted to create something that was worth far more than I charged for

it. If you’ve found it valuable, you can help other authors get the same insights you’ve

received by sharing your review at http://ebookbestsellersecrets.com/authorsfail

Take care!

Derek Doepker