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How to make the most effective use ofmajor media citations to
increase your book sales.
By Chris [email protected]
Legal disclaimer . . .
The information presented herein represents the opinions of the author(s) as of the date ofpublication.
The author(s) reserve the rights to alter and update their opinions based on the newconditions. This product is for entertainment purposes only and the author(s) do not acceptany responsibility for any liabilities resulting from the use or misuse of this information.While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author(s)cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions.
Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional. The reader is responsible forusing this information at their own discretion and their own risk.
None of the contents of this document are allowed to be taken as legal advice.
Index :
Introduction.
1) Media creates reality.
2) The importance of authority to differentiate and build trust and interest.
3) What are major media citations?
4) How to use major media citations :
a) your book (depending on the website owner).
b) your profile on book-sellers, book-promotion sites, forums (and sig) etc.
c) any printed material.
d) Social media :
LinkedIn,
FaceBook,
other social media, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube etc.
e) Your website or author-webpage, profile pic or logo.
f) your business card.
g) webcasts or podcasts.
5) Summary.
6) How to get your major media citations.
Introduction.
This document explains what media citations are, why they work the way they do, and how authors and info-product sellers can make the most effective use ofthem to sell more books or info-products.
1) Media creates reality . . .
What's the best way for an author to create a perception that will lead to people seeing you as an authority in your subject, and wanting to buy your book(s)?
A colleague of mine with a young daughter used to love to go to the beach and paddle in the ocean. Then one day, the guy was just about to take his daughter to her favorite place, when she said that she didn't want to go to the beach ever again. Asking her why, she explained that sharks are dangerous so she didn't want to go anywhere near the ocean.
He quickly found some statistics and proved that more people are killed by hippos, cows and snails each year then by sharks. But the daughter told him that he was wrong, because she KNEW that sharks are dangerous. How did she know? Because she'd seen a documentary about shark attacks on TV.
No amount of facts about how rare shark attacks are, how they'd never seen one at the beach they go to and how big sharks cannot swim in the shallow water that daughters like to paddle in, would change her mind. The media had created her reality, and that reality was far more “real” than real life experience or genuine facts.
It's a fact these days that people believe the media far more than they believe their own experience and knowledge. Media really does create reality.
Luckily, there is a way that this can be used to help any author or info-product creator, sell more books . . . if the major media says you are an authority, then YOU ARE.
Authority is one of the most valuable assets any writer can have . . . read the next chapter for details . . .
2) The importance of authority to differentiate and build trust and interest.
Near the beginning of the industrial revolution, the important concept was supplyand demand. Basically, if you could create a decent product, people would buy itbecause there was little competition and lots of demand for new products unavailable before this time.
Unfortunately, schools still teach the same concept, when in reality, it is now reversed . . . in almost area of life these days, there is far more supply than demand.
This can be seen in the existence of marketing and advertising . . . back when there was more demand than supply there was no need for advertising at all . . . if you created products word-of-mouth would do the rest, and you'd have more demand than you could supply.
In fact, in Soviet Russia, any advertising was a clear sign that your product didn'twork. There was such a chronic lack of functioning products of any type that if you produced anything that worked, word-of-mouth would soon produce long lines of customers waiting for it. Advertising was only needed if the product was useless!
As industry began to mature, competing suppliers became a reality, and suddenly there was more supply than demand. Product-creators needed to find a way to persuade people to buy their product rather than that of their competitor. So advertising, marketing, brands etc. were born.
These days marketing is far more important, in terms of sales, than the product itself.
For example, for authors . . . “The fact is that majority of books on Amazon never make a dollar“ (says Werner Stejskal, Bestselling author of the children's picture book series "Oliver and Jumpy").
With 3.4 million Kindle Ebooks just on Amazon and around five thousand new ones uploaded each day, it is obvious that there is a LOT of competition for anyone writing books.
Same for trying to sell info-products . . . just skimming through JVZoo, only about 4% of products there have sold more than 10 copies, ever . . . 96% never sell even 10 copies.
Yet some writers sell their books or info-products in large numbers.
While an occasional writer is lucky and just gets sales for no obvious reason, themajority of those that succeed at actually selling their product are marketing andpromoting them much more effectively than those who don't.
So, what's the most effective thing you can do to differentiate yourself from your competition?
As leading online marketing guru Frank Kern says, being viewed as an authority is the single most important factor in increasing perceived value.
Greig Wells used major media authority (“as seen on NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox”) to help him get to co-write “Dare to Succeed” with Jack Canfield,author of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, speak for Tony Robbins Business Mastery, and lots more.
He says that once you get cited on major media “you become a quoted expert, and you’re perceived as a trusted authority.”
As we learned in the last chapter, media creates authority, especially the internationally-known major media companies.
Of course there are other factors . . . your book cover must be high-quality and effectively tell potential readers about your book, and you can do many other things to promote and market your book, but being seen as a trusted authority can make a big difference to your book sales, and increase the effectiveness of whatever other marketing and promotional efforts you put in.
3) What are major media citations?
The definition of a citation is a reference to another source. So a major media citation is a link on a major media website, that refers to you, the author. That enables you to say that you, the author is “as seen on” that major media, along with using their logo.
For example :
This logo shows that Author-Authority.com has “been seen on CBS News, Fox, NBC, and ABC”.
The well-known logos attract the attention and interest of anyone looking at this logo, and differentiates it from others who do not have those citations.
These exact same 4 major media citations are available to YOU (with our simple, done-for-you service), and you can use them on your book, website, social-media, business-cards, etc. to help you sell more books (details below).
4) How to use major media citations :
a) your book (depending on the website owner)
Yes, when you get your major media citations, you can state “as seen on CBS News, NBC, Fox, ABC”, with their logos, on your book cover when you sell it on your own website or via other media that you own.
Whether you can state your media citations on your book cover, when selling ona website you do not own, depends on the owner of the website. I'm not going tosay either way here for specific sellers, since the rules on each website can change from second to second (and are somewhat vaguely applied anyway) . . .it is up to you to check for yourself on each website that you sell your book on, at the time you make it available for sale there. If their standard rules don't makeit clear, just ask them.
Sometimes you can add information to a book-cover when on certain social-media, which is not allowed by the seller on their own website. For example, I heard someone say that you can state “Amazon best-seller” on your book-cover on a Pinterest Pin which links to your site and then to your book on Amazon, even though at the same time you were not allowed to state “Amazon best-seller” on your book cover on Amazon itself.
Again, these rules can change second-to-second, so be sure to check for yourself before risking problems.
b) your profile on book-sellers, book-promotion sites, forums (in your signature) etc.
Again, this depends on the individual website owner, as to what you can, and what you cannot state, but for many of them, since your media citations will be provably true (once you get them), it is OK to state a truth on their websites.
c) any printed material
This could be leaflets, brochures, business-cards, posters, adverts or other printed material.
Again, this can depend on the owner of the property where the printed material is displayed, but most would be OK with stating a provable truth, such as your major media citations.
d) Social media :
All these publications :
. . . and many more,
. . . all say that LinkedIn is their #1 source for business content. Corporations like to hire speakers from LinkedIn, TV shows look at LinkedIn when they want to find guests to interview :
I’m sure you know stories of authors who’ve only became best-sellers afterthey’ve been featured in the media . . . one example is . . . Robert Kiyosakiwho wrote “Rich Dad, Poor Dad“, the series which has sold over 32 million copies after being endorsed by Oprah.
He is a best-selling author, which, as he says in one of his books, doesn’t mean his books are written any better than yours, it means he has used the leverage of the media (etc.) to make them SELL more effectively.
Even if your book is about a different type of content (not business) or even fiction, LinkedIn is definitely a good place to find potential readers and promoters etc.
One author and expert, Grieg Wells, built a mailing-list of 163,000 potential customers using only LinkedIn (and media exposure), and makes close to $2 million a year by using LinkedIn to find people interested in what he does.
His LinkedIn profile pic makes it clear that he's an authority, which makes it easyfor people viewing his profile to choose him instead of his competition :
Why not do the same on your LinkedIn profile pic? :
and make it much easier for people to choose YOU !
Although you can, of course, use LinkedIn to help sell your book, have a think what else you can offer there . . . if you've written a book then you could get paidto help others to do so, if you're book is available for sale then you can help other people publish, etc.
Your experience in writing and selling a book or info-product make you somewhat of an expert in those areas, and you can offer consultation or coaching to help others who want to do something similar. And LinkedIn is an ideal place to market such things to people who can afford to pay for such services.
LinkedIn has over 530 million members (as of January 2018), most of whom arebusiness-people or professionals with above-average income. 80% of those consider networking on LinkedIn to be an important part of their success. Why not make yourself available to be seen by all those people?
Statistics show that just having a decent head-shot on your LinkedIn profile gets you 21 times more profile views, and makes you 36 times more likely to receive a message from someone interested in what you do.
Think how much further those statistics will increase with major media logos as well.
It's easy to make your LinkedIn profile summary much better than most people's. . . instead of using it to list your work (and other) experience, treat it like a sales-letter, explain concisely and clearly what your book (and/or expertise) solves, and how it solves that problem. Even if it is a fiction book, it still solves a problem for people who are looking for something like your book to interest and entertain them on a specific topic. Describe the benefits to your readers when they buy your book (or get coaching/consultation from you, etc.).
At the end of your brief summary, make sure you put a “call to action” . . . this can be as simple as “click this link to buy my book now”, or for coaching/consultation “give me a call now on this number ***, to find out how I can help you with ***”. If you tell people clearly what to DO, they are much more likely to take action than if you just assume they'll guess.
One of the most important things to do on LinkedIn is to always follow-up with anyone who views your Profile . . . they are declaring an interest in what you areoffering, so contact them about it.
You can also make use of the same phenomenon in reverse . . . find people whoare likely to be interested in what you are offering, view their Profile, and they are likely to contact you.
Another great tip to maximize your success with LinkedIn . . . make sure the key-phrase which describes what you do is in your Profile Tag Line, Skills, Summary, Current Title and Past Title, so people can find you easily and know what it is that you do.
The media always needs quotes from experts, to lend authenticity to the articles they write every single day. Use the above advice, along with major media citations, to increase your chances of being the one they choose to ask, and the one who gets the significant benefits of the media exposure when they do.
So in summary, if you are not using LinkedIn effectively yet, then you are missing out on its potential to increase your book sales. Why not try it (especially with major media citations)?
Yes, you can use your major media citations, with their logos, on your FaceBookPage(s), to give you trust and authority.
As well as daily relevant updates on your FaceBook Page, consider FaceBook Groups to help promote your book . . . Groups on writing, self-publishing etc. can be great places to get help and find people willing to review your book (did you know that your search-results position on Amazon largely depends on how many reviews you get soon after your book is launched?), and Groups on the subject of your book(s) can be great places to find new readers and potential fans.
Other social media . . .
Some authors use Twitter to help sell their book. Of course, a Twitter Profile is another great place for major media logos, to make yourself stand out from the crowd.
Did you know that Pinterest is the 3rd largest social-media network worldwide (after FaceBook and Twitter), and that it can be a great place to promote your book? Also, while a Tweet only remains as a functional link for a few minutes, and a FaceBook Post for a few days, a Pinterest Pin is an effective link for months or even years.
*** Pinterest Tip *** . . . Pin your best pins (which link to your book for sale on your website, for example), on the biggest Group Boards you can join.
Use :
http://pingroupie.com
to find Group Boards on the subject of your book, and contact those with the largest numbers of Followers, asking for an Invite to collaborate (after you've re-pinned at least 1 of their Pins, and Followed them). Some will accept you, and that way your pins are likely to be seen by large numbers of people.
For example, looking at Group Boards on quotes (one of the most popular subjects . . . create some Pins which are quotes from your book . . . if you don't feel up to doing the graphics work yourself, just pay someone on Fiverr.com), and there are several Boards there with more than 50k Followers, so your Pins can get seen by lots of people.
You can, (at the time of writing, anyway), add your major media citations tothe cover of your book on Pinterest, to help it stand out and get noticed.
Don't post a Pin on more than one Board in a single day, else some peoplewill see the same Pin more than once which can be annoying.
Other social-media worth using to promote your book include YouTube.
For example . . . one author posted a video every day while he was writing the book and preparing it for publication, showing what he did that day, which got somuch interest that he had lots of sales when it launched, and lots of reviews, which helped boost the sales long-term.
e) Your website or author-webpage, profile pic or logo
Of course, you should add your major-media citations, along with the logos, to your own website to help you be seen as a trusted authority, and sell more books or info-products.
Make sure your website looks professional, and has a style which fits the subject of your book. This is easy to do with free WordPress Themes . . . make sure the Theme you use is “responsive” (which means the text wraps (rather than the end of each line disappearing off the side of the page) as you decrease the width of the window you are viewing in, so that the site looks good on any device) . . . most recently-created Themes are responsive, but some older ones are not.
WordPress is a great way to manage the design, content and navigation etc. on your website . . . it does a great job, and is free (I use it for my many websites).
Your head-shot is one good place to add the media-citation logos, although havea think if it makes sense to add them elsewhere too. Don't over-do it, but make sure the logos, and the words “as seen on CBS News, NBC, Fox, ABC“ will be obvious to anyone in the first few seconds they find your website.
It can sometimes make sense to add the media-citations logos to your business logo, instead of, or as well as, your photo.
f) your business card.
A business card is another great place to add your media-citation logos and wording.
As you may know, some authors always carry a few copies of their book with them, to act as their business card if anyone asks what they do. Have a think which would work best for you, book or business-card, or carry both.
While giving a book away might seem to be a way to not sell the book to that person, giving someone your book is likely to make a considerable impression on that person, and all the more so with the media-citation logos on the cover. And, of course, it will make sense for most authors to include in their book a “free gift” to entice people to join their mailing-list (which can be very valuable to an author, especially if you plan to launch related book(s) in the future, but even if your book is just a one-off you can easily promote related affiliate products to such a list).
g) Webcasts or podcasts
Some authors use Webcasts or podcasts to effectively promote their book or info-product.
Your short bio should be written in the 3rd person so that the webcast or podcast presenter can just read it out, and should, of course, include a mention of your major media citations. Write it with this in mind . . . it should be ideal for the presenter to just read out loud at the start of the presentation.
5) Summary.
In summary, there are many effective ways to use major media citations to become a trusted authority and thus sell more books or info-products.
This document has listed some of them . . . see if you can think of others.
6) How to get your major media citations.
That's the easy part . . . just go to :
http://author-authority.com/
scroll down to the buy button, and click it.
There's full details of our done-for-you service on that web-page, plus FAQ's near the bottom. If you still have any questions, no problem . . . just email me :
and I'll do my best to help you.
