Are you thinking of writing a business book? Or maybe you have already? Want to find out how you can promote your book launch with email marketing?

Let's have a bit of a chat about that, shall we?

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

(0:18) Want a FREE resource to get more clicks on your emails? Check out Click Tricks.
(4:28) Check out our sponsor Poster My Wall.
(5:08) Should you write a business book?
(10:53) How to use your book to bring in thousands of email subscribers!
(16:35) How to make your business book profitable.
(22:07) Pre-launch business book email ideas.
(24:48) Business book launch email ideas.
(27:10) Create scarcity with special editions.
(30:18) Business book buyer email sequence.
(32:02) Subject line of the week.

Should you write a business book?

A lot of business owners write books these days because we all recognise that some people like to learn by reading a book (while others prefer courses or videos). And it's definitely something that's on our radar for the future too. However, it's not something we're planning to do straight away because the way we teach tends to be very visual.

Having said that, when our clients ask us about writing a book for their business, our first question is always to check where their book fits within their business. Do they want to write a book because it gives them status? Or is it a step towards being noticed by a big brand like Netflix, for example? Is the book something they'll use on their front end so they can capture email addresses and send people through some sort of sales funnel? 

Before you even think of writing a book, you need to know exactly where it fits in your business. And if you decide to go ahead, you definitely want your book to help you with your list building and your sales.

Here's how.

How to use your book to bring in thousands of email subscribers! 

Something we think is key when writing a book is having the ability to collect the email addresses of your readers. Whether you're going through traditional publishing or the self-publishing route, you want email addresses that you can market to.

A few years ago, Kennedy wrote a book in the magician niche. And in every chapter of the book he included a call to action asking people to opt into his email list. How? Simply by inviting them to grab a free resource related to the topic in that chapter in exchange for their email address. Whether it's diagrams, cheat sheets, or videos (i.e. anything that adds value to your book), use that as an excuse to bring in email subscribers.

This is valuable to you because once people are in your world, you can acquire them as customers. If you self-publish your book on Amazon and collect money from the sales but are none the wiser as to who your readers are, you're missing a trick! Because you can't market them directly. It's only by getting your readers to opt in that more opportunities open up for you.

So make sure that you:

1. Do the advertising and bring people to your platform.
2. Seed things throughout the book that boomerang people back to you and your world. 

And now, let’s talk about what a book funnel might look like.

How to make your business book profitable

A book funnel obviously has the book as its starting point – you want people to come into your world and grab the book as the first thing they do. It can be a paid-for product or it can be free. If it's free, you can ask customers to pay for the cost of shipping and handling. And if you do, be mindful of how you phrase that, as you don’t want the “free + shipping” option to be more expensive than buying the book on Amazon! So definitely play with the economics of it.

You can then have a bumper offer on the shopping cart where, just before they buy, you’re offering the customer to buy something else together with the book for an extra, say, $17-27. This could be the audiobook, an additional chapter, or a digital workbook with exercises, for example. It’s something extra that’s complimentary to the book, rather than content you’ve taken out of it. So, again, be careful of how you frame that and make sure that whatever your bumper offer is, it’s not a physical product that’s going to cost you more to produce or send out.

Use one-click upsell offers

Another thing you can do is to have a one-click upsell on the next page. This is where you may be offering a course version of the book for $97, for example. Or you could even present a more expensive upsell, such as an implementation session for, say, $297, or a trial to your membership if you have one.

Another thing we've seen that we think works really well is to present a webinar registration form that offers an implementation session related to the content of the book. The idea is that people print off some worksheets and come to the webinar to learn how to apply the teachings of the book to their specific situation. 

Pre-launch business book email ideas 

Before you launch your book, you can build some excitement in advance and get people interested in it. Definitely start by letting people know that you're writing a book. When the time is right, you can tell them you've written a chapter, for example, and ask them to opt in with their email address to read it. Mind you, this doesn't have to be the introduction or the first chapter – in fact, it's probably more interesting if you intrigue them by giving them one of the middle chapters of the book. 

Or you could do a “Help me choose” pre-launch exercise, where you invite your audience to choose one of the titles or the book cover designs that you have shortlisted. By asking people to vote, you're getting them involved.

Kennedy, for example, when he was promoting his book, took a screenshot of the Contents page so people could see in advance what topics the book would cover. The trick here is to choose chapter titles that are fun and enticing, so you can get people excited about getting the whole thing. 

Business book launch email ideas 

Our book launch campaign opens with the announcement of the fact that the book has finally arrived. For example, if you're launching a physical book, the day your shipment of copies arrives is exciting and interesting. So make sure you bring people along for the journey with you. Make them excited (as excited as you are) about the fact you’ve published a physical book.

Another thing you can do is to let everyone know that the people who pre-ordered the book are now getting their copy. And that makes everyone else who hasn't bought one yet feel like they're missing out!

Ask people to take photos with the book

Also, ask people to take photos of themselves with the book once they receive it and then share them both on social media and in your emails. Kennedy did this by sending out a physical note with the book and asking people to email in their photos – offering a prize for whoever took their photo in the most unusual place. And these photos aren't just perfect for your emails, but they're also great for social media posts and ads. So don't miss out on this opportunity!

As for adding these photos to your emails, we always say that images in emails aren't necessary. But this is a scenario where using photos is a good thing. It shows that real people all over the world are buying it, and it's undeniable – you're saying that people are buying this book, and you're proving it. You can also do this via testimonials, so ask people to send theirs in as soon as they've read the book. 

Create scarcity with special editions

Or, you can create some scarcity in your launch campaign by selling some sort of special or limited edition and letting people know how many of those are left so they want to hurry up and buy. We have a tool for that called Scarcity Hero that's included for free in our membership The League.

Kennedy, with his book, sold 100 collector's edition copies (hardback with a dust jacket), which were significantly more expensive. Remember that you don’t have to re-invent stuff all the time – simply dressing your book up differently allows you to present it differently.

Business book buyer email sequence 

At this point, you have a bunch of people who are about to buy your book or have bought your book. So what are you going to follow up with? You put them in your SCORE email engine to ascend them and move them to the next piece in your sales funnel. Because your book is usually the front end, you want to start moving them into the back end of your business by selling them your other offers. Make sure you do this straight away because this is the point where they're most interested in learning about this topic or developing this area from you. 

A business book offers opportunities for email list growth and can act as a front-end piece that allows you to ascend people to your more expensive offers. With all that said, we're not telling you to drop everything and go and write a book right now. If it's already on your radar, then go ahead and use some of these strategies. But don't derail everything you've been thinking about doing in order to go and write a book – you don't need to have one at all costs. But if you do, all these tips will be super helpful!  

Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line was “You, me, Kennedy and 2,000 people” and it had to do with our Inbox live event, where we had over 2,000 people registered. So the email is basically saying “Let’s get together with the both of us and 2,000 other people.” It’s intriguing, right? So check it out!

Useful Episode Resources

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