Do you ever have doubts? You’re building your blog, hoping to one day turn it into a full-time income, but you have no guarantees it will ever pay off. What if this blog you created is doomed to fail? What if you’re wasting your time? What if you’re fooling yourself thinking this will ever lead anywhere? Building a profitable blog is hard work, and it usually takes time to see the rewards. Not everyone has the wherewithal to see it through. But those who do can find amazing opportunities. Today, we’re showcasing a few of the biggest blogging success stories. These 10 bloggers built their blogs and today make $1 million per year or more. We’ll tell you how they got started, how they built their blogs, and how they generate revenue. These stories will show you that you can take many paths to blogging success, and hopefully they’ll inspire you to see it through. #1. Michelle Schroeder-GardnerMichelle Schroeder-Gardner didn’t intend for her blog to become the income machine it is today. She started it more as a hobby, not even thinking she would ever make money from it. Once she made her first $100 from her blog, though, that changed. She saw the potential and got more interested in turning her hobby into a business. Her blog kept doing better and better, and eventually she was able to quit her job as a financial analyst and work on her blog full-time. She’s currently traveling full-time, touring North America in an RV and loving her life with her husband. How she makes money from her blog:Her blogging income picked up some serious steam in 2016, when she further diversified her income. Her main source of income up to that point was affiliate marketing, with some money coming in through sponsorships and advertisements. In 2016, though, she created her course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Her income doubled the month she launched her course, and in 2017 she had her first million-dollar year. #2. Steve PavlinaSteve Pavlina is an author, a motivational speaker, and one of the most prolific self-development bloggers online. He grew his blog to more than two million monthly visitors without spending a dime on marketing or promotion. Steve’s passion for personal development began when he was sitting in jail, having been arrested for felony grand theft. At that moment, he decided to work on improving himself and turn his life around. And it paid off. He accomplished many amazing things. He earned two college degrees in the span of three semesters. He founded a software company that developed computer games. He ran the Los Angeles Marathon and trained in martial arts. How he makes money from his blog:Steve has experimented with many income streams to see which he likes best. He mostly makes his money from affiliate marketing/joint ventures and hosting live workshops. When hosting one of his workshops, he asks people who register about their personal struggles and uses this feedback to custom-tailor each workshop, which means he never does the same workshop twice. Steve has also written a book called Personal Development for Smart People, the purpose of which was to create a single framework for growth that people could apply to all areas of their lives. #3. Pat FlynnPat Flynn was thriving in his career as an architect and had no plans to leave — until an economic downturn hit his industry hard and he was laid off from his job. Before all this happened, Pat had created a little website to help him study for an architectural exam. It got thousands of visitors, and he realized he could leverage this traffic for income. After studying up on doing business online, he created an ebook which he sold for $19.99 and made over $7,000 in his first month. This got him so excited that he started Smart Passive Income, a blog on which he would share his strategies that helped him grow his online business. Today, this blog generates over $100K each month, with some months doubling or even tripling that figure. But it’s not the money or material wealth that motivates him. Pat has remained a down-to-earth guy whose primary motivation is his family. He loves the freedom to plan his day around his family instead of his business, which allows him to spend the day with them and save work for after his kids go to sleep. How he makes money from his blog:Pat has done a great job of diversifying his income over the years. The bulk of his income comes from affiliate marketing and course sales, but he also sells books, software, and apps, and he makes money from podcast sponsorships. #4. Chiara Ferragni
Site: The Blonde Salad
Niche: Fashion & Lifestyle Income: $2.5 million from her blog in 2015 (source); $20 million from her shoe line in 2016 (source) Chiara Ferragni’s track record is impressive, to say the least. She got her feet off the ground posting her daily outfits to Flickr, an image-sharing website, where she amassed a significant following. She then started her personal style blog in 2009 — when personal style blogs weren’t really a thing yet — and within two months she got tens of thousands of visitors per day. She quickly began receiving sponsorship offers from fashion brands such as Dior and Louis Vuitton. And three exams away from finishing her law degree, she decided to make The Blonde Salad her main focus. Since then, Chiara has amassed over ten million followers on Instagram, Forbes named her one of the most influential people under 30, and she was the first fashion blogger to score a cover on Vogue. How she makes money from her blog:The Blonde Salad transitioned from an outfit-of-the-day blog to a full-on lifestyle platform with its own e-commerce clothing store. And Chiara Ferragni has become a brand in her own right and makes thousands of dollars through sponsorships, modeling, and appearance fees. On top of that, Chiara leveraged her platform to launch her own shoe line, the Chiara Ferragni Collection, aside from her blog. This line has reportedly made made eight figures in 2016. #5. Vitaly FriedmanVitaly Friedman was a freelance web designer before he started blogging. He had never taken a single design class at the time, but learned his skills from reading articles online. He always had an interest in writing and editing as well, though, and he wanted to give back to the design community, so he started blogging. Through one of his projects he was introduced to Sven Lennartz, who asked him to write for his German magazine Dr. Web. One year later, they started Smashing Magazine. They had no idea it would become one of the most influential resources for web designers and developers. It grew from two people’s hobby to a business with a dozen employees and hundreds of contributors, and today gets over three million page views per month. (Sven Lennartz is no longer actively involved with the site.) How he makes money from his blog:For most of its existence, Smashing Magazine made money primarily from ad revenues. But seeing those revenues decline a few years ago, they focused more on selling their books and diversifying their income. They now have a library of 60+ e-books for sale (which they also sell in packages). They run high-ticket conferences and workshops. They added a job board where companies can purchase job postings and find skilled employees. And they offer membership packages which are reportedly their biggest source of income today. #6. Brian ClarkBrian Clark started writing about content marketing before people started calling it content marketing. He had been using content to market products and services for several years when he started CopyBlogger in 2006. At the time, he wasn’t focused on selling because he didn’t know what he would sell. He focused on building an audience and had faith that he would identify their pain points. And his faith was justified. As his audience grew, Brian was able to identify the problems content creators were having online, and he partnered with other entrepreneurs to create and sell solutions. How he makes money from his blog:Brian has offered a number of training programs, plugins, products, and services through his blog over the years. Many of them have since been taken off the market, and today his main income sources include:
#7. Timothy SykesTimothy Sykes took $12,000 of his Bar Mitzvah money and turned it into $2 million by trading penny stocks. This feat got him on Trader Monthly’s “Top 30 under 30” list and on a TV show called Wall Street Warriors. He then got hundreds of emails per day from people asking questions, which led him to write his book An American Hedge Fund. He initially launched his blog to help promote his book. Around that time though, his hedge fund lost 30%, which lost him a lot of credibility. To get it back, he decided to start from scratch and repeat his earlier feat of turning a few thousand into a few million, resolving to track each step of the way. Now he makes more money from teaching others how to trade than from trading himself. How he makes money from his blog:Timothy sells DVDs, offers coaching, and offers a subscription program called Tim Alerts, which lets his subscribers follow his trades in real time. #8. Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman
Site: A Beautiful Mess
Niche: Food, DIY Crafts, Décor, Beauty & Style Income: $1.5 million/year (Source) Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman are a sister team who have turned their food and DIY crafts blog into a raging success. Elsie started A Beautiful Mess in 2007 and Emma started a food blog a couple of years later. They then decided to combine forces, and that’s when things took off for them. At the time Elsie was running a retail shop, and she used the blog to move products, but the sisters soon realized that they enjoyed the blog more and that it was more profitable. They decided to close the shop and make the blog their main focus. How they make money from their blog:They once got business advice from a friend who said they should diversify their income, and boy, have they taken it to heart. They have built up several healthy and reliable income streams over the years and they try to add a new one every year. They sell banner ads through AdThrive, promote products through affiliate marketing, and offer sponsored content. They sell fashion, beauty, and wellness products in their online store as well as subscriptions to monthly beauty boxes and monthly stationery packages. On top of that, they’ve written three books, created several courses, and launched three bestselling photo-editing apps. #9. Darren Rowse
Sites: Digital Photography School & ProBlogger
Niche: Photography & Blogging Income: Seven figures per year (no exact numbers known) (source) When Darren Rowse started blogging, he was only looking for a new hobby. He blogged about living in Australia, religion, politics, and other topics he found interesting. He didn’t even know you could make money blogging at the time. A year later, he started another blog on digital photography and discovered he could make money through ads and affiliate marketing. He only made a few dollars per week at first, but it was enough for him to see the potential. After consulting his fianceé, he decided to treat blogging as a part-time job and devote two days per week to it. He saw his income grow from a part-time into a full-time income, and eventually into an income most only dream about. Darren has started and been involved with numerous blogs over the years, but learned after a few years that his blogs perform better when he focuses on a few. So today he only focuses on ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. How he makes money from his blogs:While affiliate marketing is still his biggest income source today, Darren has since been experimenting with different income streams over the years. His second-biggest income source is product sales. Between his two blogs, he sells dozens of e-books and several courses. On Digital Photography School, he also sells Lightroom presets. On ProBlogger he makes additional money through a job board, and also through hosting an annual event in Australia. In 2016, his earnings were split as follows: #10. Heather Delaney Reese (and Her Family)
Site: It’s a Lovely Life
Niche: Family, Lifestyle and Travel Income: $1,696,672 over the last 12 months (source) After two of her daughters were born, Heather Delaney Reese looked for ways she could use the journalism skills she acquired in college and still remain a full-time stay-at-home mom. You guessed it. She started a blog. At first she wrote about budgeting and saving money, but over time she transitioned to writing about her family’s lifestyle and travel. Her husband Pete eventually quit his job to also work on the blog, and their three daughters now contribute as well. Over time, she has turned what started as a hobby into a full-time career for their entire family. How they make money from their blog:Until March 2017, the Reese’s blogging income came solely from sponsored content. Every year their income increased as their audience grew and they were able to increase their rates. From March 2017, they also started promoting products and services through affiliate marketing. But their income truly boomed over the past seven months when they launched their premium courses, Blogging Blastoff and the Travel Blogging Fast Track, which they launched only months apart. The launch of these two courses doubled their income and propelled them into their first seven-figure year. Now Find Your Own Path to Blogging SuccessIf you ever have doubts whether you’re chasing a pipe dream with your blog, keep these stories in mind. They all took different paths to success. Not everyone struck gold with their first blog, and you may not either. Not everyone got rich on their first attempt, and you may not either. That’s okay. Every step is a learning moment. If you keep going and keep trying new things, you’ll reach your goals eventually. It may be faster than you think, or it might take longer than you hope. But. You. Will. Get. There. Keep that in mind the next time you’re plagued with doubts.
About the Author: Robert van Tongeren is the Associate Editor of Smart Blogger, who helps our writers get their posts in tip-top shape. He also runs his own blog that helps guys dress a little sharper at Restart Your Style. You can find him on Twitter here.
The post This Is How 10 Bloggers in Different Niches Make $1 Million+ per Year appeared first on Smart Blogger. from https://smartblogger.com/million-dollar-bloggers/
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The post SEO Toronto appeared first on Kanwar Manoria Digital. from Kanwar Manoria Digital https://kanwarmanoria.digital/seo/toronto/ from https://kanwarmanoria.tumblr.com/post/175269296522 Looking for a quick way to give your writing more punch? Maybe a little personality or pizzazz – that extra little “oomph” that makes the reader pay attention? Well, good news: “Power words” are the answer, and you can wake up put them in place in a matter of minutes. This post gives you areference lists of power words, examples of power words being used — everything you need to hit the ground running. Let’s jump in. What Is a “Power Word,” Exactly?Rather than describe what I mean, let’s deconstruct an example from the great Winston Churchill:
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Inspiring, right? Well, there was a lot on the line. Under attack from Germany, Britain was fighting for its survival, and somehow, someway, Churchill had to find a way to inspire his countrymen to greatness. He chose words. Or, to be more accurate, power words. Let’s take a look at the passage again, this time with all the power words underlined:
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Each underlined word makes the audience feel something. In this case, Churchill intermixes words that cause fear, such as “struggle,” “tyranny,” and “terror,” with words that cause hope, such as “strength,” “God,” and “victory.” The last, in particular, is repeated over and over, practically drilling the emotion into the minds of the audience. It’s no accident. Smart speakers, as well as their speechwriters, sprinkle their speeches with carefully-chosen power words, drawing the audience from one emotion to another as skillfully as any novelist or screenwriter. Granted, that’s not all they do. The best writers use an entire tool chest of techniques to create emotion, and power words are only one such tool. But there’s good news. For beginning writers, power words are one of the easiest tools to master. Unlike many storytelling strategies which can take years of practice to master, you can start sprinkling power words into your writing, and you’ll notice an immediate lift in the quality of your prose. All you lack is a list of power words to use, but of course, I have you covered there too. ? 595 Power Words and Phrases to Start Using ImmediatelyFor years now, every time I mentioned power words to my students, someone always asked: “Where can I get a list? Is there a book I can buy?” Sadly, not that I’m aware of. That’s why I created this list. Slowly, over a period of several weeks, I catalogued all the power words that jumped out to me, organizing them into categories based on the emotion you want to create, so you can easily find the right word. In the future, I’ll also update the list, adding new words on a regular basis to make it the most comprehensive list of power words available anywhere. It costs nothing. All I ask in return is you share it with your friends and readers when appropriate, helping it reach the people who need it most. Enjoy. Our Giant Curated List of Power Words
The 7 Different Types of Power WordsAs you can see in our giant list above, we’ve organized our power words into seven different types:
These different types of power words all accomplish the same goal: They inspire emotion in your reader. Let’s go over each type and see why they work. Fear Power Words: Calling All FearmongersLet’s do a little experiment. Just for a moment, stop reading this post, turn on the television, and go to a major news channel. Watch it for five minutes, listening for the words below. Chances are, you’ll hear dozens of them. Here’s why: Fear is without a doubt the most powerful emotion for grabbing and keeping an audience’s attention. To make sure you don’t change the channel, news networks load up with fear words, making you worry you might miss something important. It’s effective. Granted, you can overdo it, but in my opinion, most writers don’t use these types of words nearly enough. They really do connect with people. Here’s a bunch to get you started:
Encouragement Power Words: Give Your Readers a Pep TalkLet’s face it. When they’re reading, most people aren’t exactly bouncing off the walls with energy and enthusiasm. They’re probably bored, maybe a little depressed, and almost definitely tired. And they’re looking for something, anything, that’ll wake them up and make them feel better. The good news? Your writing can do that for them. Use these power words to give them a pep talk and get them charged up again:
Lust Power Words: Take a Page from Cosmopolitan (or Playboy)Like it or not, lust is one of the core human emotions. Just look at the men’s and women’s magazines in the checkout aisle, and you’ll see what I mean. Nearly every headline on the cover is either blatantly or indirectly about sex. And it works, not just for men’s and women’s magazines, but for anything. As a writer, you can use words that inspire lust to make almost anything intriguing. Here’s a lascivious list to get you started:
Anger Power Words: Start a RiotAs writers, sometimes our job is to anger people. Not for the fun of it, mind you, but because someone is doing something wrong, and the community needs to take action to correct it. The problem is, with wrongdoing, most people are pretty apathetic — they’ll wait until the situation becomes entirely intolerable to do anything, and by then, it’s often too late. So, we have to fan the flames. By using the below power words, you can connect with people’s anger, and slowly but surely, you can work them into a frenzy. Just be careful who you target. Lawyers can eat you alive if you pick on the wrong person. ?
Greed Power Words: Stomp on Their Greed GlandsThe legendary copywriter Gary Halbert once said, “If you want people to buy something, stomp on their greed glands until they bleed.” Graphic, yes, but also true. Skim through good sales copy, and you’ll find a lot of these power words. Many of them are so overused they’ve become cliché, but that doesn’t stop them from working. The truth is, nearly every human being on the planet is interested in either making or saving money. Use these words to tap into those desires:
Safety Power Words: Make Them Feel SafeGreed isn’t the only emotion you want buyers to feel. You also want to make them feel safe. They need to trust both you and your product or service. They need to have confidence you’ll deliver. They need to believe they’ll get results. Of course, building that kind of trust starts with having a quality brand and reputation, but the words you use to describe yourself and your product or service also matter. To help your customers feel safe, try to use as many of these power words as possible:
Forbidden Power Words: Offer Them a Forbidden FruitRemember when you were a kid, and someone told you NOT to do something? From that point on, you could think about little else, right? The truth is, we’re all fascinated by the mysterious and forbidden. It’s like it’s programmed into our very nature. So why not tap into that programming? Whenever you need to create curiosity, sprinkle these power words throughout your writing, and readers won’t be able to help being intrigued:
Power Words in Action: 14 Places Where You Strong Words Can Help YouSo, now that you have a big list of options to choose from, where are the primary places you should put power words to get the biggest “bang for your buck?” Below you’ll find examples of power words being used in:
#1. Using Power Words in HeadlinesAny bloggers who’s been in the game for a while knows that the headline is the most important part of your article. Its purpose, after all, is to entice the reader to read the rest of the article. If it fails to get attention, potential readers will ignore it when it shows up in their social media feed. And just one or two power words in your headline is usually enough to make it stand out. Just look at this headline from BuzzFeed: The word “Unveiled” makes it feel like a secret is being exposed, and the word “Breathtaking” makes you curious to see what the photo looks like. Here’s another example from BoredPanda: People generally love anything adorable, so this headline will easily catch attention. (The fact that it refers to snakes will only make people more curious.) The headline then drives it home by using the powerful verb “Conquer”. Here’s one more from BrightSide: While one or two power words are often enough, this headline proves you can use more when it fits. This headline has four powerful words, but they feel natural in the headline, which keeps it from feeling like over-the-top clickbait. #2. Using Power Words in SubheadsOnce people click on your headline, most will scan the post first to see if it looks worthy of their attention. Adding some power words to your subheads is a good way to make your post look like an interesting read. For example, here are three subheads from our post on Ebook mistakes: See how the power words in these subheads catch attention and make you want to read the text that follows? #3. Using Power Words in Email Subject LinesHaving an email list is of little use if only few on your list open your emails. And these days, most people’s inboxes are flooded, so they’re selective in which emails they open. You can stand out in their inbox and raise your open rates by including power words in your subject lines. Just look at this one from Ramit Sethi: If this subject line would’ve read “The rules of learning”, do you think it would be as appealing? The word “unspoken” is what makes it interesting. Here’s another one from Cal Fussman: Both “Triumph” and “Tragedy” are powerful words full of emotion. And finally, here’s a good example from AppSumo: The phrase “Unleash the power” makes you feel this email is hiding something incredibly powerful inside. See how that works? When you send out emails to your list, try and add a power word to your subject line to make it stand out in people’s inbox. #4. Using Power Words in Opt-In BoxesAs a blogger, one of your main goals is to grow a large and engaged readership, and the best way to do so is through converting readers into subscribers. That means you should have opt-in forms scattered across your website. You can place them on your homepage, at the end of your posts, in your sidebar, in a popup, or anywhere else. But no matter where you place them, your opt-in boxes must catch people’s eye and make them want to share their email address with you. Because they won’t just give it away to everyone. (Remember, their inboxes are already flooded, so they’re not necessarily eager to get even more emails.) Fortunately, you can use power words to make your offer more enticing. Here’s an old popup from Cosmopolitan which is an excellent example: This popup had power words everywhere, but it avoids feeling like overkill. I bet it converted like crazy. Here’s a slightly more subtle example from Betty Means Business: It’s more subtle, but still quite effective. Again, you don’t have to overdo it with the power words on these. A little can go a long way. Here’s one final example from Renegade Planner: Are you using power words in your opt-in boxes yet? If not, you should add some right away. #5. Using Power Words on Your Home PageYour home page is the face of your website and it’s usually one of the most visited pages. Many people who enter your website, will see this page first, and you want it to make a good first impression. Some people use their home page to promote their email list, others use it to promote one of their products, and others use it as red carpet, welcoming new visitors and explaining what their site is all about. In any case, your home page is a good spot to add a few power words, as it can determine whether people stay (and take the action you want them to take) or leave. Look at this value proposition on the home page for Nerd Fitness: “Nerds”, “Misfits” and “Mutants” are unusual power words that work well for the audience Nerd Fitness is targeting. These words immediately separate his blog from all the other fitness blogs out there. But they push it even further with “Strong”, “Healthy” and “Permanently”. Here’s another value proposition from MainStreetHost’s home page: It’s quite minimal, isn’t it? They just wrote down three power words and follow it up with a service they provide. Of course, you don’t have to limit your use of power words to the top of your homepage. You can use it in other parts of the home page too, as Ramit Sethi does here in his list of what you’ll get when you sign up for his email list. Go look at your homepage now and see if you can find any areas you can spruce up with some power words. #6. Using Power Words in Business Names/Blog NamesYour blog or business name should have an impact on people. Having a forgettable domain name is poison to your blog growth. You want a name that people can easily recall when they want to visit your site. If you haven’t chosen your blog name yet (or if you’re thinking about rebranding), you might use a power word to give it some punch. It’ll make you stand out from all the boring, forgettable brands. Just take a look at the collection of blog names below and see how well they’ve incorporated power words: #7. Using Power Words in Product NamesJust like you can use power words to spruce up your blog name, you can also use them to make your product names pack more of a punch. It can make the difference between your potential customers thinking, “Ooh, this product sounds cool!” and them thinking, “Meh.” Just check out this subscription product from Nerd Fitness: It has such a powerful name that you’d almost want to sign up without learning anything else. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a community of rising heroes? Here’s another good example from Pat Flynn: It’s a powerful name for his podcasting course that instantly informs you of the benefit. So if you’re about to launch a product (or if you’ve launched a product with a tepid name), consider giving it a power word to make it pack a punch. #8. Using Power Word on Sales PagesYou can also use power words to spruce up your sales pages and make them more effective at selling your products or services. They will grab people’s attention when they arrive on the page, they will keep their attention as they scroll down, and they’ll help seduce readers before they reach your “buy” button. Just look at this headline on Ramit Sethi’s sales page for his product 50 Proven Email Scripts (which also has a power word in its name): And as you scroll down, you see he keeps using power words throughout his sales page. His headline is follow by subheads such as these: And he even uses power words his guarantee: #9. Using Power Word in TestimonialsPower words are also tremendously effective in testimonials. Of course, I’m not suggesting you change people’s testimonials to include power words. But you can certainly select the ones that already use them to great effect. Just look at this example from Betty Means Business: Or look at this one from Farideh’s blog: And here’s another example from Renegade Planner: All these testimonials will lend extra credibility and excitement due to their power words and phrases. #10. Using Power Words in Bullet ListsMany sales pages include a list of benefits of the product that they’re selling. Many opt-in forms include a list of reasons you should sign up to their email list. You can use power words in these lists to inspire more excitement in your reader as they read through it. Here’s one example from Ramit Sethi’s sales page for his How to Talk to Anyone course: And here’s another example from an opt-in form on Restart Your Style: Without these power words, these list wouldn’t convince nearly as many readers to buy or subscribe. #11. Using Power Words in Button CopyYep, you can use power words in your button copy too, even if you only have a few words you can fit in there. One of the most common power words used in buttons is “Free”, as in the example below: But you can be more creative with buttons than you might think. Takes this button from the sales page for the book The Renegade Diet: “Immediate”, “Money Back” and “Guarantee” are all incredibly powerful words, and the author manages to squeeze them all into one button. And take this example from Tim Ferris’ popup: He could’ve used “Send Me the List” as most people would do, but “Unlock” makes it sound a lot more intriguing, like you’re getting access to something that’s been kept hidden away. Now take a look at the buttons on your site. Do you see any opportunities to spruce them up with a power word? #12. Using Power Words in Author BiosYour author bio is another extremely important part of your marketing. When you guest post for another blog, your author bio has the difficult job of making readers want to know more about you so they click through to your site. That means your author bio needs to spark attention and interest. And you usually only get three sentences, so you need to carefully consider the words you use. See this author bio from Henneke Duistermaat: Henneke’s author bio is full of power words. It shows her uniqueness and makes her stand out from other copywriters. You can tell she has carefully picked each word for maximum impact. Here’s another examples from Sarah Peterson: She opens strong immediately by mentioning her guides are insanely useful. And just the name of her report alone is full of power words: “Free”, “Reveal” and “Begging”. Makes you want to get your hands on that report, doesn’t it? #13. Using Power Words on Youtube VideosIf you’re publishing videos on youtube and you want to get more views, you should use power words in your titles as well. All the biggest youtube channels do this. They understand that most of their views will come from their subscribers finding them in their feed, and from people finding them in the sidebar of other videos. In both cases though, you’re competing with many other videos for their attention. See how Philip DeFranco does it below: “Disgusting”, “Punishment” and “Controversy” are all attention-grabbing words (and that’s besides the attention-grabbing names of Brock Turner, Star Wars and Kim Kardashian). Note also how he has capitalized “Disgusting”. It’s another smart trick many youtube channels use to stand out more in youtube’s lists of video suggestions. Style vlogger Aaron Marino often does it as well: By capitalizing the power words “Don’ts” and “Stupid”, his title catches a lot more attention (as you can see for yourself by the millions of views). #14. Using Power Words in Book TitlesIf you’re interested in writing your own book, adding power words to your titles will help it sell better. With all the competition in the book market these days, you need a title that grabs people’s attention and makes them want to peek inside. Here are a few quick grabs from Amazon’s list of bestsellers in the self-help niche: I’m sure you’ve seen this title before. You might say Stephen Covey’s use of power words in his title has been highly effective. (See what I did there?) Mark Manson’s bestselling title is packed with power. The power word “Subtle” juxtaposes well with the F-bomb in the title, and his use of “Counterintuitive” will spark some interest as well. Lastly, Jen Sincero’s encouraging book title makes you want to flip it open right away and read it in one go. The use of “Badass” alone will make it stand out in the self-development section, but her use of “Greatness” and “Awesome” in the subtitle truly seals the deal. Go Ahead and Tell Me. What Words Did I Miss?Yes, this is an enormous list, but so many power words are available, nobody can possibly catch them all on the first pass. What are some other words that seem to have that extra little spark of emotion inside them? Leave your answer in the comments, and as time goes by, I’ll come back periodically and update the list. Eventually, I hope to have over 1,000 words here, separated and organized by category, making this the definitive resource for power words on the web. Thanks in advance for commenting and sharing the post with your friends!
About the Author: Jon Morrow has asked repeatedly to be called “His Royal Awesomeness” but no one listens to him. So, he settles for CEO of Smart Blogger. Poor man. ?
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The post Baltimore SEO Company appeared first on Kanwar Manoria Digital. from Kanwar Manoria Digital https://kanwarmanoria.digital/baltimore/seo-company/ from https://kanwarmanoria.tumblr.com/post/174849748257 What if I said you could have your book up on Amazon and making money within 72 hours? (Assuming you’ve already written the book, of course.) Sounds a whole lot better than waiting months or even years to find an agent, get a book deal, and go to all the rigmarole of working with a publisher, right? Amazon also lets you keep more of the money. A lot more. The only problem? It’s hard to figure out how to get started. That’s why I created this comprehensive, step-by-step guide to Kindle publishing, jam-packed with little nuggets of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. Let’s jump in… Table of Contents
You Don’t Need a Platform to Publish Your Book on KindleI only had 250 subscribers when I launched my first book. And even though I took a relatively passive role in promoting the book — I did a few promotions during launch to give me an early bump and then mostly counted on Amazon’s algorithm to drive sales — it earned its first $1,000 within five months. That’s not a result worth bragging about, but it was enough to inspire me to write a second book and do much better. That meant I had to take a more active approach. So I was much more strategic, grew my audience larger, and promoted the book a lot more. And this time around, I got to $1,000 within the first month. Even better: The book went on to make over $10K in its first year, which was a big improvement from the first book, which made $2K in that same time span. The lesson? You can make money writing even if you have a tiny list, and even if you take a somewhat passive role in promotion. But the more active you are, the more money you’ll make. So in this post, I’ll share the step-by-step strategy I used to publish and promote my second book. You’ll have to decide for yourself how much of it you’ll follow and how active a role you want to take. Ready to dig in?
Note: This post won’t cover how to write a book. Instead, it focuses on the marketing strategies that will help you sell you book. If you want to know more about the step-by-step book-writing process, check out these resources.
Before You Write Your Book — Validate Your Profitable Book IdeaSome book ideas are destined to fail before a single word is penned or typed, which is why you should validate your book idea first. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run across authors who write books about obscure topics for tiny audiences and are genuinely surprised when their sales are low. Don’t be like those authors. With the right research techniques, you can find a book idea that readers love and that you enjoy writing about. Here’s how you do it. Step #1: Take an Inventory of Your InterestsPersonally, I already knew the book I wanted to write would be about self-reinvention. It was the idea that had been nagging at me for a while. So all I needed to do was validate whether it had selling potential. But if you don’t have a concrete idea in mind yet, you can use the follow exercise to generate ideas. (If you do have an idea already, you can skip to Step 2.)
Grab a pen and paper and answer the following questions:
Once you complete your inventory, review it to look for patterns. Maybe you’re a great communicator, have excellent financial habits, or have a knack for motivating others. The traits, knowledge, and skills you possess can translate into topics for books. Review the list and use your answers to come up with a few book ideas. You’ll use these for the next step. Step #2: Spy on Your CompetitionLike I said, I already had an idea for my book in mind, but I still needed to know whether it had selling potential. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time writing a book that nobody (besides my most devoted subscribers) would buy. So, before I started writing, I validated my idea by researching the competition. You can do that yourself by going to Amazon and answering these questions:
You can find the answers to these questions in three steps: A: Find Your Category on AmazonFirst, you’ll need to find a suitable category for your book on Amazon. Here’s how: #1. Go to amazon.com and navigate to Departments > Kindle E-Readers & Books > Kindle Books. #2. Click Best Sellers & More in the left-hand menu: #3. Scroll down until you see the menu below and click Kindle Best Sellers. #4. Select Kindle eBooks from the left-hand menu. #5. Pick a category and subcategory that fit closest to your book idea(s). For my book on self-reinvention, I chose the category Self-Help and subcategory Personal Transformation. Once you’ve picked a subcategory, you can check to see whether you can spot books in the top 20 with similar topics. B: Check Your Category’s Top 20 Books for Similar TopicsThe premise for my book was self-reinvention. I didn’t need to find a book with the exact word “reinvention,” but I looked for books with similar themes like behavior change, personality change, and life change. I found some books that were similar to mine (#3 and #5 below explicitly state they’re about change, while #4 is a book about improving your life in general). At the end of this step, you’ve answered the first question. You’ll know whether there are similar books to your idea. If there are, that’s good news! You can proceed to the next step which will answer the other two questions — can you compete, and are there enough buyers? C: Check the Best Seller Rank of the Top Books in Your CategoryIf you want to know whether you can compete in a category and whether there are enough buyers, you need to know how well the books in your category sell. You won’t find any actual sales numbers on Amazon, but through their Best Seller rank, you can get a decent estimate. You can find a book’s Best Seller rank by scrolling down its product page. The rank will be listed under Product Details. The higher the rank (with #1 being the highest), the more copies it sells — but also, the harder it will be to beat. You have to look for categories where the average bestseller rank is neither too low nor too high. Here’s how it generally breaks down:
As you can see, the sweet spot is in the middle. You don’t want a category that’s too competitive, nor do you want a category with low sales numbers. Aim for categories where you think you can crack the top three books. If you follow the strategies laid out in this post, you should be able to reach the top three in categories with medium competition. If you can get your book featured in the top three when you launch, you skyrocket the chance of your book being featured highly in the Hot New Releases list. And if you appear high enough in that list, your book will get a lot of exposure. Amazon will feature your book in a highlighted section above other books that are similar to yours, like this: Also, people browse for books by categories, but they tend to skim through the category pages. The higher you are in a category, the higher the chance that someone will click through to buy your book. So picking the right category is crucial. If you don’t think you can crack the top three books in your initial category, you might see if you could feature your book in an alternative category where the competition is less heavy.
Note: You never want to skip this step, even if you do have a book idea in mind that’s been nagging at you to write. If my self-reinvention idea had failed this test, I wouldn’t have written it. Instead, I would’ve gone back to Step 1 to come up with new ideas.
Step# 3: Brainstorm a Whole Bunch of TitlesNow you’ve ensured your book idea has selling potential, so you’re about ready to start writing. But before you do, you should give your book a title. What you have to know about book titles before you write yours is that they have two components: The main title and the subtitle. When you’re brainstorming your main title, here’s what you want to keep in mind:
When brainstorming your subtitle, you want it to clarify how your book helps your readers. Ask yourself:
For my book, I brainstormed 50 different main titles and 25 subtitles. They weren’t all fantastic, but that’s the point. When brainstorming titles, you just write down whatever comes to mind. Then you cross out the options that you don’t like, or that you like less, until you only have your favorites left. To give you a glimpse of some ideas I had, here were some contenders for my main title:
And these were some favorites for my subtitle:
The final title became: You 2.0: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You — Master the Art of Personal Transformation. What’s your title going to be? Once you decide, you know exactly what book you’re going to write. And having taken all the right steps, you can feel confident it will sell when you’re done.
Note: If you already have an email list, I suggest you poll your readers on which are their favorite titles and subtitles. If you don’t have an email list, you can still use a polling site like Pickfu.
While Writing Your Book — Gather a Mob of Potential Book BuyersIf you’re self-publishing books, you need an audience of potential book buyers. This will give you two critical advantages:
If you don’t have anybody buying your book or leaving reviews as soon as you publish, the chances of it taking off are slim to none. Now, as I mentioned earlier, that doesn’t mean you need 10,000 subscribers. But the more you have, the better. My second book made more money than my first in large part because I took the time to gather new subscribers as I was writing it. Here’s what I did to grow my audience larger for my second book:
Note: If you already have an established audience of at least 1,000 subscribers, or if you feel you already know enough about how to build your email list, you might consider skipping to the next section. If you’re interested in my exact strategies, though, keep reading.
Step #1: Create an Alluring Incentive For People to Join Your ListPeople rarely part with their email addresses for nothing in return, so you need to offer them an incentive to join your email list. To be honest, I cheated a bit here, because I offered something that I already had available. I offered my first book The Destiny Formula. Ideally, you want to offer an incentive that’s a perfect complement to the book you’re writing. For example, if you were writing a book about the Paleo diet, you might offer one of these incentives:
Doing this ensures you build an audience that’s interested in your book’s topic. My first book did have some audience overlap with my second, though, so it worked out in the end. And I did change my incentive when we got closer to my book launch. (We’ll get to that later.) But if I had to start the launch over today, I’d have created something more relevant to self-reinvention from the start. It might’ve boosted sales even more. Step #2: Set Up a Landing Page for Collecting Email AddressesIf you want to build your email list, you need two things: an email marketing platform to store your list and a landing page where people can sign up to your list. Now, you have a number of choices when it comes to email marketing platforms, but these are three popular ones: Personally, I opted for ConvertKit because they built it specifically for professional bloggers. It comes with easy segmentation features that let you promote your book in a more targeted way. I highly recommend it, but any of these platforms will work. Once you’ve set up your email marketing platform, you can create a landing page to capture people’s email addresses. I used Leadpages to do so, which makes it simple to create landing pages. It comes with ready-made templates that you can modify with its drag-and-drop builder. You can choose one of their templates and customize it to your wishes. Here’s a screenshot of the landing page I created: Once you have everything in place, all you need to do is send traffic to your landing page. Step #3: Drive Traffic to Your Landing PageMy personal goal was to hit 3,000 subscribers before I published my book. My main strategy for reaching that number was publishing articles on Medium, each with a link back to my landing page.
Pro tip: You can repurpose some of your book chapters as posts. Just be careful not to give your entire book away, or future buyers will feel cheated. You’ll want at least 50% of your book to be exclusive.)
Every article I published on Medium would include this offer at the end: But I didn’t stop there. I also guest posted on Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Addicted2Success, Thought Catalog, The Pursuit and more. While I got most of my traffic from Medium, publishing on these sites still grew my subscriber base by a significant chunk. Between publishing on Medium and guest posting on these sites, I reached my goal of 3,000 subscribers within six months. You don’t need to hit that same number of subscribers, but I do recommend you build your list to at least 1,000 before launching your book. Publish new articles on a steady schedule and keep your new subscribers engaged while you finish writing your book. Once you do, you’re ready to jump into the next stage. After Writing Your Book — Package Your Book Like a Best SellerYou can write the most amazing book on earth, but if you don’t package it in an appealing way, few people will read it. After all, the prestigious title is best-selling author, not best-writing author. In this section, we’ll cover three important steps to packaging your book:
Ready to go? Step #1: Get a Cover That Grabs AttentionI cannot stress the importance of this step enough. You need a good cover for your book, or it won’t sell. The cover gives potential buyers their first impression of your book. If it looks cheap and sloppy, they’ll assume it’s not worth their money. A good book cover has, at the very least, the following characteristics:
Now, if you’re tempted to design your own cover, I have one word of advice: Don’t. Unless you’re a professional cover designer, you’re better off handing this responsibility over to someone else. This is not something you want to pinch pennies on. Personally, I hired Happy Self Publishing to create my cover. They kept coming up in communities of writers over time, so I gave them a try. I was not disappointed. They struck a good balance of professionalism, quality, and price. Note: If you’re on a super-tight budget, you might also try Fiverr. In that case, you have to know what you’re looking for. You have to check the designers’ samples and make sure their covers look professional. You’ll likely get better quality covers elsewhere, though. When I hired Happy Self-Publishing, they asked if I had ideas for my cover and sent me a questionnaire to gather my book information (title, subtitle, description, etc.) and my preferences for the cover design (preferred colors, fonts, etc.). They gave me questions like this: I filled out the questionnaire, gave the designer my directions, and also sent samples of covers I liked to give him an even better picture of my tastes. Within days, he came back with several mock-ups. We went through several rounds where I told him what I liked and disliked, and he’d send me new mock-ups based on my (and my audience’s) feedback, until we finally settled on my final cover. Here’s how my cover evolved over time: Step #2: Make Your Book Look Pretty InsideIn addition to your cover, you also need to make the inside of your book look good. If all the text is mushed together, it’s full of syntax errors, or it’s written in a terrible font, people won’t want to read your book. To prevent this, you need to format your book — specifically, you need to format and save your book in a Kindle-friendly file-type like .mobi or .epub. Now, you can do this yourself, or you can hire a professional to do it for you. I formatted my book myself using an easy-to-use piece of software called Vellum, which uses a simple WYSIWYG editor (“What You See Is What You Get” — the same editor in Microsoft Word and WordPress). You can just copy and paste your chapters into it, change the formatting however you like, and export. The only problem? Vellum is only available on Mac. If you’re on a PC, you have alternative options like Reedsy and Book Design Templates. A do-it-yourself approach will save you some money, but if you feel you’re not very tech-savvy and want to make sure the book is formatted properly, hire someone. Happy Self-Publishing, the company I used for my cover, also provides an affordable formatting service, or you can find hundreds of freelancers on Upwork who can do it for you. When the formatting is done, though, don’t forget to proofread the book with a Kindle or the Kindle app. Make sure there are no formatting bugs that need to be fixed. After that, you’re done with this step. Step #3: Write a Description That Sells Your Book for YouWhen your cover lures people to your Amazon sales page, the next thing they’ll do is read your book description. They’ll want to know exactly what your book is about and how it’ll benefit them. If your description has weak writing, it won’t be compelling enough for them to click the buy button, so they’ll click the back button instead. Now, the key thing to understand when writing your book description is that you should not treat it as a summary of your book. Rather, you should treat it as a sales letter. It shouldn’t just inform potential buyers of the contents of your book, it should persuade them to buy. Here’s mine, for example: See how I focus the description on benefits to the reader? See how I use the bullet points to foster curiosity rather than give away the main points of the book? These are basic sales letter techniques you should use in your description. Imagine if the second bullet had read, “Goal setting doesn’t work because [reason].” Giving the reason away would defeat the need for the reader to purchase the book. Instead, I trigger curiosity by leaving it open. If you want to learn more about writing persuasive descriptions, the following resources helped me a lot while writing mine:
Before Launching Your Book — Create a Rock-Solid Launch PlanYour launch makes or breaks the success of your book. You shouldn’t wait until the week of your launch before you start planning it. Instead, you want to have a plan in place and have your marketing materials prepared well before you hit publish. Here are a few things you should do to prepare for the launch of my book. Step #1: Create Your “Street Team”Before your launch, you should assemble a so-called “street team” to help write reviews for your book and help promote it during launch week. I reached out to people in my network — fellow authors and bloggers I’d met over the years — and asked them to join. If you don’t have a well-established network, you can leverage your email list, like Kevin Kruse (a New York Times bestselling author) explains in this video: When you reach out to people in your network, explain what’s expected of them as your street team members:
For the number of reviews you want, double that number of people on your street team, because chances are only half of them will actually review your book. At minimum, aim for 25 reviews, so 50 people for your launch team. Step #2: Start Teasing Your Book to Your ListOnce you’ve written your book and you can see your launch on the horizon, you want to gently tease your subscribers so they know it’s coming. You need to build anticipation. Up to this point, I had been keeping my list engaged by sending Monday Motivation emails every week, as well as an update every time I published a new blog post. As I was preparing for launch, I added teasers at the end of my emails, like this:
Example:
P.S. I’m finished with my new book, You 2.0.: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You. It details everything I’ve learned in the process of transforming my life from broke, addicted, and depressed to finding my passion, tripling my income, and succeeding. I’m really excited about it. Stay tuned. You don’t have to sell it hard at this point. Just make them aware the book is coming. Step #3: Map Out Your Launch Plan and Prepare Promotional MaterialsYou should never be winging it when you launch a book. If you’re smart, you’ll plan every single step you’ll take leading up to the launch, as well as afterwards. You need to create a schedule so you know exactly which promotion happens when, and what actions you should take each day. (I’ll share my own promotion timeline in the next section, which you can emulate.) Once you have planned everything, the next step is to prepare everything. In the weeks leading up to my launch, I prepared:
For the promotional articles, I also prepared a few new incentives more geared toward promoting the book than my original one: When you don’t prepare for your launch beforehand, you will feel frazzled and frustrated throughout the launch. You’ll be scrambling to promote the book instead of having a strategy that makes you feel confident the book will sell. Plan ahead, and you’ll launch with a bang. Launching Your Book — Follow This Timeline for an Early Boost in SalesYou may think your book launch happens when you publish your book on Amazon and put it up for sale. And you’re not wrong. Technically, that is when you officially launch your book. But the launch process is a bit more involved than just clicking a publish button, and it starts much earlier than your official launch. It starts from your first big promotion, as that’s when you start selling your book. Below, you’ll find the timeline I used when launching my book. Feel free to emulate it. Step #1: Send “Free Sample” Emails (Launch Minus 4 Weeks)Four weeks ahead of your official launch, you want to send your subscribers free samples. Send them one free sample each week. This will give them a taste of what’s inside. I sent my own subscribers the introduction to my book, Chapter One and Chapter Two. Of course, you don’t have to use your first chapters. You can choose to share any chapter you wish. Share the ones you think will make your readers hungry for more.
Here’s an example of one of my “Free Sample” emails:
Hey friend, The launch date for my new book, You 2.0: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, is just around the corner. I put my heart and soul into writing this book and I wanted to share some of it with you today because I’m confident reading some of it will inspire you to want to read the whole thing to transform your life. As follows is the introduction to the book: [Book Intro Goes Here] In the next week or so, I’ll share even more sections of the book. Why? Because my primary goal is to get you to read the book and use it to change your life. That matters to me more than money. Keep an eye on your inbox ? Step #2: Publish Your Book on Amazon (Launch Minus 1 Week)You should never wait until your official launch date to publish your book on Amazon. You should publish it one week in advance. This way, you can ask your street team for early reviews. These early reviews are important, as you’ll need to have at least 10 reviews if you want to use book promotion sites during launch week. (And you do, as they can give you a huge surge in early sales. We’ll get to them later.) To publish your book on Amazon, you need to create an account on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Then follow these steps to publish your book: #1. Go to “Create a New Title” and click “+ Kindle eBook”. #2. Enter all necessary book information (language, title, subtitle, etc.). #3. Enter your book description. (You can use HTML tags to change the way the content appears on your book page.) #4. Choose keywords. Amazon allows you to use up to seven keywords to help readers find your books. You want to match your keywords with the terms readers will type into the search box. To find good keywords, you can:
Here are the keyword I chose for my book: #5. Choose your categories. Initially, you’re only allowed to choose two category/subcategory combinations from the list Amazon provides, but strangely, their list doesn’t include all their categories. You’ll find a lot of the more niche categories are missing. (You’ll have a hard time trying to crack the top three in most of the broader categories.) For now though, just pick two categories/subcategories that your book fits into: After you publish your book, browse books that are similar to yours and see which categories they are in. Then contact Amazon and request to have your book added to them. In fact, if you’re smart, you can follow this process to be added to TEN categories, rather than just two. Here’s a video from Kindlepreneur’s Dave Chesson that explains how to approach this: #6. Upload your cover and manuscript files. #7. Enter pricing information. How should you price your book? Before we get into that, you need to understand Amazon’s pricing and royalty model:
Now, you might think that pricing your book somewhere between $2.99 and $9.99 is the obvious way to go, as that will get you the most royalties. But for starters, I priced my book at $0.99 and I suggest you do the same. That would earn you $0.35 per sale, which doesn’t seem like a lot … because it isn’t. The point of this isn’t to make a lot of money early, but to get a lot of sales early. Amazon doesn’t look at the price of your book to determine how well it’s selling. It looks at the number of copies sold. If you can sell a ton of 99-cent copies in the beginning, you’ll benefit from some algorithmic momentum even after you raise the price. When you price the book at $0.99, you can use promotional sites to get your book in front of massive audiences during launch, and you give your subscribers an incentive to purchase early (before you raise the price). #8. Scroll down and click Publish Your Kindle eBook. Once you’ve clicked to publish your book, it will appear on Amazon in 24 to 48 hours. Step #3: Ask Your Street Team for Reviews (Launch Minus 6 Days)The moment your book goes live, you should send an email to your street team asking them to leave their reviews. And this is important: You should ask them to download the book from Amazon first, and then write their reviews. If they don’t do it in this order, their reviews won’t be verified. They will still show up, but Amazon won’t give them as much weight. If you’d rather not ask them to pay $0.99 in order to leave a review, you can enroll in KDP Select and run a free promotion for 72 hours. That way, they can “purchase” the book for free, and Amazon should still mark their reviews as verified. Step #4: Schedule Promotions (Launch Minus 5 Days)I mentioned book promotion sites earlier. So what are they, exactly? Basically, they’re sites that promote books while they’re free or priced at $0.99. These sites have massive lists of subscribers who love reading books, and they’ll all receive an email that links to your book. These readers can give you a gigantic boost in early sales. Here are the sites I used myself, along with the cost to use each:
I found these sites from a list compiled by Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur. Now, considering you’ll only make $0.35 per sale, you won’t make much profit from the use of these promotional sites. You might even lose some money. So why use them at all? Because you want to create a track record of sales success. Amazon will promote your book for you if it sees you have sales of your own. When authors make money, Amazon makes money, but like any good business, it won’t recommend products without profit potential. You don’t have to use five services, like I did. But use at least three. Step #5: Launch Your Book With a BangAlright, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. It’s time to officially launch your book to the public. During launch week, you should promote your book hard. Hopefully, you’ve done the work to prepare yourself so you’re not overwhelmed. You should promote your book by:
Here’s how I scheduled these activities during launch week: Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Here are some examples of each email in my sales sequence:
Example #1 — Announcement Email:
Do you wish life came with a “do over” button? We all make mistakes. Time can pass quickly and we can come to a point where we ask ourselves, “How the hell did I end up here?” If you’ve ever felt this way, my new book, You 2.0 — Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, might provide the answers you’ve been looking for. And it’s only 99 cents, a special price I’m revealing to subscribers only for the next 5 days. I’m setting the price so low because I want you to read the book. At this point, I care about getting the book in as many hands as possible over making money. Click here to learn more about the book. Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #2 — Soft-Sell Email:
Hey friend, For the past few weeks, I’ve told you about my new book,You 2.0 — Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, which is available for 99 cents for the next few days. (To those who have bought already, thank you SO MUCH — the book is now #1 in its category!) The book tells the story of how I transformed my life and how you can too. It doesn’t tell theories, it shows what I’ve actually done. See, before I reached my dream of becoming an author, my life was headed in the wrong direction. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, working a dead-end job, and had no hope in sight. Then, I decided I didn’t want to live my life that way and went through a ton of trial and error to become who I am today. I’ve more than doubled my income, gotten rid of bad habits, and have done many of the things I used to only dream of doing. In the book, you’ll learn:
I try my best to share the message without the typical theme of most self-help books that are often judgmental and critical. See, I don’t think you’re “too lazy to succeed” or “mediocre.” Life sucks sometimes, and we’re all doing what we can to cope with it. I wrote this book to share ideas to inspire you to change, not to shove inspiration down your throat. So, I’m inviting you to check out the book at the price of 99 cents because I care about the message and want to spread it far and wide. Click here to learn more about the book. Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #3 — Hard-Sell Email:
Hey friend, For the past few days I’ve been telling you about my new book, You 2.0 — Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You. Today, I wanted to share a few reasons why I’m promoting the book and why I think you should invest in yourself by purchasing it. I think you should invest in the book because:
Click here to learn more about the book. That’s it! Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #4 — Price Change Email:
Hey friend, Today’s the last day you can get my new book, You 2.0, for the low price of 99 cents. After that, the price goes up to $2.99 and it’ll only go higher from there. Why the low price and continued promotion? To get the message out there. I’m guessing you’re a part of this community because you’re looking for a change in your life and if I’m able to help you do that, it’s worth all the effort I put into writing the book. Click here to learn more about the book. Until next time, Ayodeji After Launching Your Book — Keep the Sales Going and Keep the Royalties Coming InTo make money writing, your book can’t be a flash in the pan, which means you have to continue promoting the book to keep the sales rolling in. Like I mentioned earlier, you want to give the book a good start with a boost of early sales to benefit from Amazon’s algorithms. But you should keep your momentum going longer than the first week. You want to keep sales coming in with some consistency after that. During the weeks following the launch, you should continue engaging your list and keep spreading the message about your book to new readers. Here are a few things you should do: Step #1: Raise Your Price Once Per Week (and Let Your Subscribers Know)As mentioned earlier, I set the price for my book at $0.99 for the first week. If I kept sales going at this price, my royalties would continue to stay low. So after the first week, I raised the price to $2.99, then to $3.99, and finally to $4.99. Every time I was about to raise the price, I sent my subscribers a price change email. This not only reminded casual readers to buy the book, but gave them an incentive to do so. If they didn’t get in on the low price that day, they’d miss out forever, and nobody likes missing out on a good deal. Step #2: Keep Publishing Posts to Get People on Your ListAfter publishing your book, you should continue publishing articles with links back to your sign-up form. Every new subscriber is a new potential buyer. Set up a welcoming autoresponder sequence that gives subscribers your incentive and then proceeds to sell your book. You can use the same (or a similar) sales sequence that you used for your launch. I wrote a total of 30 posts for 30 days on Medium to promote the book, and this added 150 more sales during the first month of my launch. Tip: You can use Amazon affiliate links to track how many readers from your list actually bought your book from the link you gave them. Step #3: Create An Amazon Ad Campaign for Sales on AutoPilotAmazon Marketing Services provides a “pay per click” advertising program for authors. I highly recommend you use it. My ad campaigns made a significant difference because I could pay for views and I made a profit from buying readers’ attention. Here’s how you can create your own ads: #1. Sign up for AMS through your Kindle dashboard by clicking Ad Campaigns in the top menu. #2. Click new campaign. #3. Choose Sponsored Product Ads. #4. Select the book you wish to advertise. #5. Set your campaign name, budget, and select Manual Targeting. To start with, $3–$5 per day is good because you can get useful data without breaking the bank. Less than $3 won’t give you enough data, and more than $5 can cause you to lose money if you’re not careful. #6. Scroll down to the Add Keywords section and click Add Your Own Keywords. #7. Find relevant keywords. You’ll need a lot more keywords for your ad campaign than you did earlier when you published your book. But you can use similar techniques to find them:
#8. Set the bid price for your keywords. A bid price is the largest amount you’re willing to spend if someone clicks on your ad. I added 1,000 keywords — the maximum amount allowed per ad — and set the bid at 10 cents. I didn’t want to spend too much money until I knew the type of results I’d get. If the ads worked well, I planned on increasing both my daily budget and keyword bids. #9. Enter your ad’s marketing message. #10. Preview your ad and, if you like what you see, click Submit Campaign for Review. After 24–48 hours, your ad will be live (if it is approved, of course). Step #4: Boost Your Winning Ads and Drop Your LosersAfter publishing your ad, let it run for two week and analyze the data. Here’s a screenshot of my ad dashboard: The key metrics you want to look at are:
Important note: You must keep your royalty rate in mind when factoring ACOS and ad spend. For Kindle books, you pay 30% in royalties, which means only 70% of every dollar you make lands in your pocket. That means if your ACOS is 70%, your ad is breaking even.
You can click into the campaign itself to see these same metrics for individual keywords. You can use those metrics to adjust your campaign. For instance, when you see a specific keyword is costing you more than it earns, you can pause that keyword, and your ad won’t show up again. Once you see how your keywords are performing, you can expand your campaign reach in the following ways:
The End Result?So how exactly did my second book do? What are the numbers? The final tallies for the end of the first month were:
The book has been out since April 2017 and has now sold approximately $10,000 in all formats combined (I added a paperback and an audio version, which I highly recommend you do as well). After the initial launch month, I continued to promote the book through content marketing. Anyone who subscribes to my email list goes through an email series that includes a few educational emails and a hard-sell email to buy the book. I publish one blog post per week to send new traffic to my email list and promote the book. I’m continuing to run and scale my ad campaigns. I’ve spent more than $1,500 on ads so far and earned $4,955.50 to date from those ads. That’s a solid return on my investment, if you ask me. The first 90 days after launch accounted for a large portion of book sales. After that, sales remained consistent at around $500–$700 per month. Play the Long Game and Build Your Self-Publishing EnterpriseI’m working on my next book right now. With an even larger audience than I had when I launched my last book, my goal is to sell at least 10,000 copies of my third book within the first year. What’s next? I’ll write another book, and another, and another. I’m building a body of work, and with each new book, I’ll continue to build my audience and my income. When you build a body of work, you reap the benefits of having multiple assets. When a new reader discovers one of your books and likes it, odds are they’ll want to read your other books. When you have multiple books for sale you can market them in unique ways like creating book bundles and offering deals on each book at different times. Over time, you’ll improve your writing skills, you’ll grow a fan base which loves your work, and (if you do it right) you’ll make more money with each book you publish. I love writing. I’d do it (and have done it) for free. But I want to make an impact and an income. Self-publishing provided a route for me to do both. It can do so for you, too.
About the Author: Ayodeji is an author and writing coach who helps aspiring writers develop the confidence and habits they need to make an impact and and income. Visit his page to get three free writing guides, plus a copy of his bestselling Amazon book.
The post Kindle Publishing for Beginners: How to Make Your First $1,000 on Amazon appeared first on Smart Blogger. from https://smartblogger.com/kindle-publishing/ Do you want to be a paid speaker? Wondering how you can leverage your blog for speaking opportunities? In this post, I will give you steps you can take to get paid to talk about what you love. Listen to the episodeMy first “speaking” gigI remember it like it was yesterday. I had done an interview with Cliff Ravenscraft about how my job landed me my dream job. He was so impressed with my story that he invited me to speak at Blog World. He was in charge of the podcasting track and wanted me to be a part of a panel discussion. The topic – How to leverage your podcast to land your dream job. I was excited – my first speaking opportunity in this industry. And while it wasn't a solo session, it was a big step. It sparked a flame inside of me and have lead to ripple effects related to my speaking. Since then, I've had the privilege of speaking to audiences across the U.S. Caribbean and Australia. Why you should consider public speakingI know, I know – public speaking can be scary. In fact, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 74% of people suffer from speech anxiety. Ouch! That's a whole lot. But here's why you should consider facing your fear and stepping out into the world of speaking:
How to prepare to be a professional speakerOk, so let's assume that you're sold on the concept of becoming a professional speaker. How do you get the best bang for your buck? Let's talk about what you should do/consider BEFORE diving in. What do you want to speak on (be known for)?This is an important question to consider. Knowing this will determine everything else you do in your pursuit of a speaking career. What is your expertise? How do you want to apply that to your industry? Get clear on these things. How often do you want to speak?This is something a lot of new speakers never think about. This is a BIG mistake – especially if you have a family. Traveling takes a toll on you, your business and your family. How much can you sustain? How much is too much? Make a decision and stick to it. If you're married, talk this through with your spouse. Don't just let things happen. Come up with a goal and a plan. Then work that plan to get to your goal. Do your researchWho are the speakers in your industry? Do some Google searches to find out. Where are they speaking? What are they doing online? What are they doing well? What could you do differently? These are the kinds of questions that will help you figure out how to position yourself. Create contentDid I really need to mention that? I mean, you're a blogger. You already know this. But it's so important that I have to mention it. Create the kind of content you want to be known for. And do it consistently. Create that content for your blog and for social media. I highly recommend that you use video and/or audio. These types of media give you the ability to practice your speaking. Doing this helps you hone your craft. And of course, if you need help getting going with your blog, check out my Coaching Club. Start speaking (for free)Your next goal is to get practice. Start by preparing your talks. You can even start with one talk that focuses on what you want to be known for. Start speaking for free at local events, classes, wherever you can. Apply to speak at relevant conferences. You want to focus on improving your speaking skills through practice. There's a great course I recommend call Heroic Public Speaking. It will help you improve your speaking skills. Join a local Toastmasters. Take a video of yourself speaking and watch it after the fact. Analyse what you do and figure out how you can get better. Gather your assetsAs you start speaking, make sure to gather assets to use in your marketing. Videos, pictures, and testimonials can go a long way in helping you land great speaking gigs. How to create the perfect speaking pageOk, you have some speaking gigs under your belt. Now it's time to create the perfect speaking page. This is what you will use to promote your speaking, so let's talk about how to do it well. Understand who you're targetingIn most cases, your goal is to connect with the people who are putting on the events. These may be event organizers, school administrators, church leaders, etc. You are NOT targeting the people who will be in the audience. That's important to realize. Make sure your speaking page appeals to the right person. What pain points do they experience? Here are some of the things you want to include on the page: Why should they hire you?What value do you provide? What is your experience? What makes you unique? Most importantly – How will you make their job EASY? When they go to your speaking page, the answers to these questions should be OBVIOUS. Use videoVideo is an important element on your sales page. This is why you were collecting them in the earlier phase. Having a speaking reel is a great way to demonstrate your expertise. Include parts of your talks that emphasize key points that align with your message. Include what others say about your speaking. Include some of the answers about why they should hire you. Your key topicsInclude a brief summary of your talks (titles and descriptions). In your summaries, focus on the benefits for the audience. Give a clear picture of what you will be delivering in your talks so they can know whether it's right for their event. TestimonialsInclude testimonials from your past speaking events. Testimonials from event organizers go a long way. But make sure to also include some from attendees. Your speaking scheduleDo you already have events lined up to speak at? If so, add your speaking schedule to your page. This will provide some social proof end encourage others to reach out to you. Inquiry formThis is where you give them the ability to find out more information about you and your speaking. Add a simple form to collect their information. It should include things like:
Should I include pricing info?I recommend not including pricing information on your speaking page. People will often decide when they see a price. You want them to be fully equipped to make the best decision. Let's say you charge $1,000 for a speaking event. There are a lot of event organizers who would say no immediately after seeing that. But if you wow them first and THEN they hear the price, they will be much more likely to say yes. If your communication is great and you show your value, not saying yes will seem like they are missing out. Create a speaking kit with more details about the value you offer. In that speaking kit, include a pricing sheet. Two examplesHere are two example of speaking pages you can check out: Don't copy those pages. Use them as inspiration. Remember, you have to customize your page to the person you're targeting. Start reaching outNow that you have everything set up, it's time to start reaching out. Here's what I recommend:
Show up and give your allYou've done all the prep work and have booked some gigs. Now it's time to show up and give your all. Deliver your best performance. You've had lots of practice now. Your goal is to WOW the audience. While you're at the event, make yourself fully available to the attendees. Stick around to answer questions. You never know what can happen as a result of those conversations. At my last speaking engagement, one of those discussions lead to me setting up a speaking tour in Asia next year. Be pleasant and a joy to work with. Let all your conversations be positive and uplifting. Help as many people as you can. The follow-upThe event is over, you showed up and put your best foot forward. It's not over yet. It may be for most speakers, but not you. Here are a few things you can do to help you stand out after the event:
Update your speaking pageWe're at the last step in the process. You now have another great speaking engagement under your belt. It's time to update your speaking page. Add this event to your experience. Include relevant testimonials. Of course, you may have to pick and choose what you add to the page, but keeping it up to date is important. Over to youI would love to hear from you. Have you started speaking at events yet? Is this something you plan on doing? Go ahead and share in the comments below. Resources Mentioned
InfographicThe post 337 How to Leverage Your Blog for Speaking Opportunities appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel. from https://www.becomeablogger.com/26075/leverage-your-blog-speaking-opportunities/ |
ABOUT MEHello I am Claude 32 years old. I have been doing internet marketing for 7 years and successfully running 3 e-commerce stores. I like to share tips with people aobut online business. Archives
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