Make More Money And Spend More Time Creating

This is the most incredible time in history to be an author. Power, freedom and, yes, money, are there for the taking…if you get what’s really happening and are willing to act on it.

As I walked off the conference stage, two folks from the audience, Andi and Mark, approached.

“We were having a debate as we listened to you speak,” Andi shared. “Mark just wants to write books, that’s what he loves. Honestly, he said he almost threw up in his mouth when you started talking about author’s having to do that ‘other stuff.’’

I laughed.

“Me,” she added, “I really want to get a book out, and sell a ton of copies, but I see it as more of a business play. I already run a small company and I’ve got to believe having a book, especially one that’s actually sold more than my mom can store in her garage, will take my credibility to a whole different level. It’d make me stand out big time, let me jack up my prices and also help me get paid real money to speak.”

Okay, I said, so what’s the debate?

This time, Mark chimed in, “I just don’t buy it,” he said. “Do you really have to do the stuff you were talking about if you want to succeed as a writer or even if you just want a book to help your business?”

“Isn’t it enough to just write a great book and trust people will champion it?”

“Great question,” I said. “And in the very distant past, before over 1,000,000 books were being published every year and publishers did your marketing for you, that was how it was done. So there’s a lot of mythology built around still being able to do that.

With rare exception, in today’s world it’s total fiction.

Writing a great book isn’t close to being enough.
Not if you want:

A decent advance or serious income from self/indie-published book sales
A consistent enough long-term living to be able to sleep at night and live well in the world
Freedom and control over your ability to do great work and write the books what you want, and
For business or advice authors with businesses beyond books, a constant flow of new clients

The Wake Up Call…

This is the most incredible time in history to be an author. Power, freedom and, yes, money, are there for the taking…if you get what’s really happening and are willing to act on it.

Doesn’t matter if you’ve never published or you’re an established author. Nor does it matter if you’re a writer’s writer or a business person wanting a book to use as a credibility-builder and lead-generator. You don’t need to censor, cannibalize or sell-out to benefit from the revolution. In fact, it’s more important than ever to write a phenomenal book.

But if you want to benefit from the extraordinary change in the publishing world, rather than get pummeled by it (which many authors are), you need to do two things…

You need to create an author platform & enterprise–more on that in a second.
And you need to understand how to tap that enterprise to launch your book in a way writers only dreamed about being able to do just a few short years ago.

When you build your modern author enterprise and tactical launch campaign right, amazing things start to happen. Traditional publishers start wooing you, competing to sign you and offer serious, livable advances. Many of the writers I know who’ve done it (including me) have all locked in six-figure deals and even a few seven-figure deals in the last 24 months.

None of us, by the way, are celebrities or captains of industry. We’re not even close to A-listers in the traditional business or entertainment sense (though, our moms might say otherwise). We’re just regular people who’ve figured out how to work where the industry’s going.

And if all you’re looking to do is create a single book as a catalyst for your business vision, building an author enterprise and tactical launch campaign around it is even more important. Because, no matter what you’ve been told, with how easy it’s become for anyone with two fingers and touch-screen to self-publish something and call it a book, simply “having” a book isn’t all that impressive any more.

In the not too distant future, everyone who wants to say they wrote a book will have a book. And it won’t mean anything to anyone, unless you know how to make it stand out, become the signal and not the noise…and also sell a respectable number of copies.

(Hack alert: this assumes you actually know how to write or work with someone who knows how to write a book worth reading. Nothing will save a book that’s horrid).

So, what is an Author Enterprise?

Let’s start with what it’s not…

It’s not a star ship (nod to Trekkie dorks like me), though it has the potential to launch your books and career like one. It’s not a big, nasty, complicated pain-in-your-neck company that sucks the life out of you and leaves you no time to write, play and love life.

And it’s not just about just slapping up a blog, Facebook page or Twitter account. Anyone with two fingers, 20 bucks and half a clue can do that in about 20 minutes…and still fail miserably. In fact, that’s exactly what most people do, bailing on their efforts after a few months and proclaiming these channels ineffective when, in fact, the channels themselves are insanely effective. It’s not understanding how to leverage them that leads so many to crash and burn, when done differently, they could’ve used the exact same channels to flourish and grow.

It’s about how you will:

Create not just a blog, but a business model and brand that works seamlessly with your “effortless communication mode” and feels more like play than work.
Design, launch and grow online “attention assets” that are tightly aligned with the content of your book and that sell and evangelize not only your book, but, if you have them, other revenue streams 24/7, even while you sleep (and even if you write fiction).
Cultivate strong, genuine relationships with key influencers in the area of your work, then leverage them without feeling like a slimy idiot.
Ethically engage your enterprise to build tremendous anticipation for your book, create non-stop buzz, collect a heap of pre-orders and move enough books to generate a lot of attention, even more sales, and, if desired, an endless flow of business leads in a remarkably short period of time.
Tap these strategies to create more freedom to write, more money and more control over your ability to generate all three for as long as you like.

Your author enterprise, built right, is a svelt, digital machine that can be run by you an hour or two a day (or handed off to an assistant with the money you’ll be making on sales), cost you next to nothing and be so much fun you actually want to do it more…even if you’re a writer’s writer and an introvert (like me, lol) or you’ve got another business to run.

It focuses on the 10% that gives you the biggest book-selling and business-building bang for your buck and leaves the other 90% for those who more often than not end up dragged under by the social media time-suck undertow…while you spend that same 90% writing, helping clients and doing things you love to do.

Purist Alert: If the word “enterprise”
makes you gag…stop reading now.

Some writers just want to write, they want nothing to do with anything commercial. Even if it means living hand-to-mouth or doing it as a side job or hobby. It’s all about the form, pure expression over earning a living. I get it. I love to write, too. I mean really write.

And if that’s your call, and you and those who depend on you are good with the potential sacrifice and instability that comes along with it, rock on. Make the decision. Own the possibilities and the consequences. No judgments here.

For me, while I love to write, I also love to be in control of my ability to write without having to worry about handing over my marriage, family, friendships, career or life to the whim of the Muse.

I like to know I can earn enough to live well in the world, be able to take care of the people who look to me to keep a roof over their heads and have the money to go on insanely-cool adventures, like the month-long Hong Kong, Bali, Australia adventure my family took together last summer (okay, so the 15 hours flights weren’t fun, but the rest was seriously amazing).

And even if all you want to do is write, let’s be honest here…

I’m guessing you’ve also wondered what it would be like to be able to flick on a sales fire-hose every time you launched a new book. Yeah, me too.

In fact, over the last 5 years, the ability to do just that has become a mad-quest of sorts for me.

I wondered if there was some hidden way to…

Crack the Book Marketing Code

*Insert belly-laughs*

How hokey did that sound? There is no secret sauce, no instant-anything and no magic-code!

Learned that reaaalll fast. And if anyone tries to sell you some fast-and-easy, just-add-water bestseller gobbledy-gook, make like Forrest Gump and run. Run like the wind.

What I did discover, though, is it is possible to dramatically increase the control you have over your book’s success if you’re willing to learn how to do it right.

Just because it’s not easy, doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

Problem is, nobody wants to tell you how…

I started my quest turning to blogs and books about promoting books. Ugh, not impressed.

Even now, there’s next to nothing written about book marketing and promotion. And most of what I found was packed with regurgitated to-do lists, stunts and shtick that feeds your ego for a minute, but empties your bank account and does next to nothing for sales.

Plus, the few books out there worked on the assumption that it was still 1999. In the whiplash world of publishing, what worked as little as a year ago is now likely a fast-track to dead-book-land.

That’s when I started to realize…

Either nobody knew what they were doing (the fact that most books only sell a few hundred copies before being pulped is testament to that) or
The only people who might actually know what they were doing were sharing micro-snippets in blogs and books, because they wanted you to pay them to do the “real” stuff for you. Often to the tune of $5,000 to $20,000 a month (nope, not a typo…a month). And guess what they’d promise in return? Um, well, er…nothing. I don’t mind paying serious money for results, and sometimes, they get you serious results. But I hate dropping a house-worthy down-payment for someone else’s best efforts.

Plus, it doesn’t take a genius to realize you’ve got one shot at getting a book launch right.

Unlike in the playground, there are no do-overs.

That’s when I decided to do what 99.9% of all
other authors want nothing to do with…

I was a serial entrepreneur, marketer and former mega-firm lawyer, so I was insanely well-versed in the fine art of devouring, testing and synthesizing super complex bodies of knowledge. I dug in and spent hundreds (now thousands) of hours on the quest to not only understand how to build a serious author enterprise, but also uncover a systematic approach to tactical book launch campaigns that’s dynamic enough to evolve with the market and keeps you squarely in control of your writing destiny, no matter what comes your way.

Over a period of years I figured out how to:

Build a substantial digital presence as a blogger and a social media footprint with more than 100,000 friends, followers, readers and devoted evangelists
Turn that presence into an enterprise that grows and sells books, products and services 24/7
Land book deals with real advances with Random House/Crown Business and Penguin/Portfolio
Pre-sell a slew of my first book through an innovative campaign that dropped my Amazon rank 1.4 million to 1,400 in 8 hours and inspired my publisher to bump the initial print run by 50% two months before the pub-date (fyi – this is not one of those gazillion bonus cheesy Amazon bestseller campaigns)
Pre-sell thousands of my second book through a highly-innovative campaign that did not rely on the horrid “million bonuses with fake values” approach.
Created specialized tools and strategies that allowed me to build a buyers list of thousands of people, regardless of where people bought the book.
Land hundreds of features, interviews, reviews and guest posts on A-list blogs and top websites, including CNN, Forbes, SmartCompany, Inc., Entrepreneur, ZenHabits, WiseBread, Slate, The Happiness Project, Copyblogger and more, exposing my book to millions of readers in the blink of an eye
Score hits in big, national mainstream media (People, USA Today, Elle, Mind + Body), and dozens of major market radio and TV shows
Keep my Amazon rank locked at #1 in its category for nearly a month after publication, in the hundreds for weeks and in the low 1,000s overall for months
Secure glowing cover quotes from multiple New York Times bestselling authors and world-leaders in their fields
Land over 100 raving reviews on Amazon, including top-reviewers (from real people)
Attract the attention of major publishers and sell my second book in a substantial deal to a publisher who came hunting for me
Build a series of off-shoot businesses with minimal risk and capital, and
Spend a lot of time writing, reading, learning…and playing with my family

To this day, I still spend hours every day analyzing the best book launch campaigns, interviewing New York Times bestsellers, industry envelope-pushers and mad-marketers (many of whom are my friends now) to learn exactly what they did, and reverse-engineering what’s not obvious to the untrained eye.

Why? Well, in part, because I have a lot more books in me and I don’t ever want anyone else telling me what I can or cannot write, when or how much money I can make.

But also, because…

While the thought of spending hours a day, years-on-end tracking, analyzing, deconstructing and reconstructing major book launch campaigns may make you want to hurl, I’m that oddball author/marketing-savant who loves what you loathe (I know, total freak, but stay with me, because my freakiness is about to become your saving grace).

One of my favorite things in life is to figure out insanely difficult things, make them easy to digest and systematic, then turn around and teach people how to do them. Which is exactly what I did in the fall of 2009…



Tribal Author Camp Takes Flight…

They started as sold-out live author enterprise-building and book marketing trainings in New York City called Tribal Author Camps. Everything about them was different. There was no massive crowd. Intimate, high-touch and hands on was the rule. No annoying parade of pundits and pitch-fests. Just detailed, actionable nearly-impossible-to-find strategies, tactics and direct feedback.

People flew in from around the world (yes, I know, surprised me, too!) to spend 3 days in a funky boutique hotel in midtown, devouring the strategies, tactics, tools and techniques that allowed me to do all of those things I just shared above. The reviews were tremendous.

But there was a problem…

The “real” out of pocket for the entire training, when you included travel, hotel, food and time off from work, was as much as $3,000-$4,000.

That’s a lot of money for your average author or aspiring author. As cool as New York City is, the need to travel was a major barrier for many people who emailed to say they wanted to come, but couldn’t make the trip. And that really bothered me. So, I decided to do something radical.

Just as Tribal Author Camps were taking off…I killed them.

I know, friends thought I was nuts. But there was a reason for it. And like Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride, they were only “mostly dead.”

Truth is, I only “suspended” the live camps and spent 9 months not only reworking, updating and vastly expanding them, but converting them into an all-new online training experience.

This new format lets you:

Participate from anywhere in the world without the hassle or cost of travel
Start anytime you like, 365 days a year, you can dive in just minutes after you sign up
Go at your own pace (see the suggested schedule and format below, though you’re welcome to go at your own pace)
Save a ton off of what it would have cost to attend the exclusive live trainings in NYC
Still get monthly live, direct-access to the experts who created the program and regular guests

And, due to popular request, we have now split the original training into 3 highly-specialized stand-alone trainings that will let you choose the specific knowledge and support that’s right for where you are in your author’s journey.

And, I also did one other thing. I brought in a genius co-presenter and book marketing genius. Someone who’s helped run the launch campaigns of major New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, Jayme Johnson of Worthy Marketing Group.

Now you can tap both of our brains, at your convenience, for a fraction of the price (less than 1% of what you’d have to pay both of us for the same amount of private consulting).

Here’s what you’re about to discover and harness in the new, expanded digital Tribal Author Enterprise Camp Trainings.
OPTION 1: TRIBAL AUTHOR ENTERPRISE CAMP

This is the perfect training for authors and aspiring authors who are newer to the world of social media, blogging, online community, business-model creation and digital relationship-building. Together, we’ll lay the foundation for your author enterprise and learn how to not only build a giant online tribe (actually four different tribes), but build a bigger business around it.

Here are some of the power strategies you’ll discover…how to:

Streamline your online platform-building efforts so you don’t lose your life to the “biz” side of writing
Choose the 3 or 4 places to build community that’ll set you up best for buzz and book sales when the time is right
Learn the truth about email lists, RSS, followers, fans and friends, and where to really focus energy
Discover the unwritten rules of online social communities; break ‘em and you’re dead in the water
Choose your highest-impact tribe-building format (video, audio, print) – it’s often not what most writers think
Create “keystone” content that has the potential to spread like wildfire and grow your tribe in a fraction of the time
Find and win over the “right” power-influencers who have the ability to get your book in front of a mass audience in the blink of an eye
Find the right mix between giving away your ideas and holding the really juicy stuff back for the book…or not
Tap accelerated tribe-building channels and “borrow” other people’s ginormous tribes when you don’t have the time to build organically before launching your book
Build massive goodwill, die-hard fans, evangelists and worldwide influence through the vehicle of facilitated delight and exclusivity
Figure out what the best author’s “business model” is for you – you MUST have one, even if all you want to do it write
Choose your best publishing option (self, indie or traditional) for your author business model
Leverage the fast-emerging kindle economy, lending programs and more

Suggested Schedule & Format – The suggested schedule for this training is 8-weeks, but you’ll have access to ever-expanding video content library, forms, transcripts and spreadsheets for a full 6-months. And we keep creating new content to ensure you stay up to date with the rapidly changing world of online community-building.

Oh, and while we go deep into social media, it’s not just another course on social media for newbies.

This is very specific to the unique needs of authors. So, we don’t just tell you how to blog, for example, we tell you how to blog in a very specific way that will set your book up for maximum success. We show you how authors and aspiring authors need to enter and leverage social media differently.

And, as new communities and strategies emerge, we keep adding new training videos to the the program library to keep you up to date and way ahead of the curve. Want to know how to leverage Pinterest or tap the new Facebook Timeline covers and pinnable posts as an author? We’ll tell you and give specific examples and exercises.

Because if you just jump in and start yacking aimlessly like every other noise-box with a pulse groping for attention, it’s game over before you even begin. AND if you spread yourself too thin, you’ll give up only weeks after you start, then blame “social media,” for being ineffective…when the real problem was that you didn’t know what to do, where, why, when and for how long.

12 Months of Live Q&A Support – Even though the suggested schedule is 8-weeks, you will also get one full year of monthly Q&A calls with me, Jayme and our special expert guests. Every month, we host a private Q&A conference-call for our Enterprise Campers only. This is not a public free-for, there is no selling, only straight up answers to your questions. And it’s only available to active Enterprise Camp members. Why would we include a full year of live support like this for a training that’s designed to last 8-weeks? Because, we realize you’ll likely have questions and need a bit of help beyond that initial burst of learning and, as you implement and build, we want you to be able to ask questions and get answers.

This training will help turn you into an online enterprise-building author, primed to set a serious movement in motion when your book is ready to publish.

But, once you get a bit closer to your actual publication date (anywhere from 3-12 months in advance), you’re going to want to create a multi-channel, explosive sales tactical launch campaign.

To do that right, you’ll need…


OPTION 2: TACTICAL BOOK LAUNCH CAMP
Where you learn how to put all that platform-building juice to work in ways you never imagined possible

This is where your power, control and freedom take off, where you enter the world of the next-generation book marketing ninja.

It’s the perfect training for:

Platform & Enterprise Camp grads or
Authors and aspiring authors who already have a strong command over platform-building, business model development, relationship & community building and enterprise-building

This online training with a suggested 12-week schedule (you’ll have access to the expanding content library for 6 months) is all about taking your finished book and launching it for maximum sales, attention and bigger-picture opportunities.

We’ll go deep into launch sequences, strategies and tactics. We will reveal how we’ve done things most other authors consider impossible, and reverse-engineer some of the most-effective launch campaigns of the last few years. This training is 100% hardcore content, strategy, tools, tactics. And we will highlight how certain strategies may be used both in the context of traditional and self/indie-publishing.

You will discover how to:

Condition the market – how to build interest months in advance
Develop your pre-order campaign to drive advanced amazon sales, brick & mortar pick-up and early buzz
Find and recruiting high-likelihood amazon reviewers
Create your advance copy reviewer list – what metrics guide this critical task
Get big name people to blurb your book – who to ask, who never to ask and why
Integrate traditional PR into the mix (working long and short-lead media and how much not to spend)
Create time-bomb flagship/viral content to drive advance buzz/pre-orders
Lay the foundation for mass-exposure blog-coverage and engaging blogger reviews and interviews
Compare types of advertising (pay per click, online, offline, social ads, mobile-ads, retargeting), where to spend money, if you’ve got it and why…and where NEVER to spend a dime
Recruit email list holders to mail you within your compressed launch window without feeling like a pushy moron (what works these days and what’s a waste of time)
Contract out book tour/virtual book tours – the good, the bad…how to do them right or not at all
Assemble and harnessing the power of your 1,000 true super-fans and evangelists
Capture your buyers’ information and bring them into your tribe for future sales
Plan your ground game – Done right, they can make a huge difference. Done wrong, everyone’s miserable and lot’s of money evaporates
SEO for authors – how to retune your search engine optimization in the months before launch to drive more organic traffic and pre-sell more books
Compres coverage into your Critical Window, so that the marketing energy begins to feed on itself and get the world talking and buying books
Drive the digital media blitz – coordinating social media mentions, reviews, interviews and emails. What to work like crazy to accomplish and what to avoid like the plague
The pros and cons of contests, live streaming launch promotions and the critical mistakes to avoid
Create evangelist contests – what do do, who to include and what never to do
Reposition your book as an irresistible “key to the castle” buy – how to stack an irresistible offer around your book to sell way more books and build your list a lot faster
Limited-time bulk sales launch offers and bundles – do they really work?
Work online buzz to tip your message and book into mainstream media buzz
Get local – creating street teams and local campaigns – worth the effort?
Get hyper-creative and keeping your momentum alive
Bundle speaking and bulk book orders for maximum sales effect
Weekly strategies to fuel ongoing sales and continued buzz
Piggyback major monthly news stories
Partner with organizations & causes
Negotiate bulk and specialty sales going forward, how to tap the corporate premium market
Leverage the emerging Amazon Kindle economy to build a lightning-fast backlist of books that feed continuity sales

Suggested Schedule & Format - The suggested schedule for this training is 12-weeks, but you’ll have access to ever-expanding video content library, forms, transcripts and spreadsheets for a full 6-months.

12 Months of Live Q&A Calls – Just like those in our Enterprise Camp, you will also get one full year of monthly Q&A calls with me, Jayme and our special expert guests focused on Tactical Launch phase (these are not the same calls as the Enterprise Camp calls, btw).

OPTION 3: THE KITCHEN SINK
When you’re starting from nothing and you plan on launching your book within a year…

The Kitchen Sink option gives you access to both Platform and Enterprise Building Camp, Tactical Launch Camp and all of the calls for both options for an entire 12 months.
Suggested Schedule & Format - The suggested schedule for this training is 20-weeks, but you’ll have access to ever-expanding video content library, forms, transcripts and spreadsheets for a full 12-months.

12 Months of Live Q&A Calls - Just like those in our Enterprise Camp and Launch Camps, you will also get one full year of monthly Q&A calls with me, Jayme and our special expert guests focused on Platform-building and Tactical Launch phases (so, you actually get access to two live calls every month).

These three training options are great for both traditionally-published and self/indie-published authors.

Let’s face it, either way, these days the burden of making your book soar is on you.