Giving Away Your Best Information to Sell Your Book
Many author websites consist of little more than a couple of pages offering information about them and about the book. Maybe there’s a blog, but it’s as likely to be full of personal information as the sort of juicy advice that convinces a reader to buy the book (see my post on Using Your Blog to Establish Yourself as an Authority).
Here’s the problem with that style:
There’s nothing there to convince me that you have anything I want.
There’s a wealth of information available for free on the Internet these days. Why should I pay $20 for your book on dog training when there are hundreds of sites out there giving away information on the same subject for free?
You can send out copies of your book for various people to review offline and online, but even if you get positive reviews, the problem still remains. To many it may seem that there’s no reason to buy a book on a subject where there is so much information available for free online.
So, what’s the way to convince readers to buy your book instead of surfing endless websites for what is probably lesser information than you have to offer?
Give away information on your website and/or your blog.
And don’t just give away paltry tips, hoping to “tease” the reader into buying. Give away some of your best information. Give away your biggest secrets. What’s the one huge secret that will allow me to see huge success training my dog?
If there’s one message you want readers of your book to take away, post it in your blog.
I know, it seems crazy. Why give away all the good stuff?
You know that your information is valuable, and the natural human tendency is to want to horde it or at least to put a price on it. You spend a ton of time researching and writing your book. Why give away the biggest secrets for free?
Here’s the reasoning:
If I come along to your website and I see this awesome information you’re just giving away, I’m going to think, “Wow… if this lady is putting stuff that good up on her blog, imagine what kind of great information is in the book.”
On the other hand, if you give me the same kinds of dog training tips I can find anywhere on the Internet, I’m not going to be convinced you offer anything that’s worth paying for.
One of the perks of the give-away-your-best-secrets strategy is that you can often get away with charging more for the book, since you’ve won the reader over with the great information you’ve offered.
For those of you working with publishers, changing price may not be an option, but if you’re self-published, it’s something worth tinkering with.
Don’t assume your book has to sell for $12.95 or whatever the POD publisher suggests setting your book at for a certain page count. If you’re able to convince the reader that you have incredible information in your book, you can get away with charging more.
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