Publish. Promote. Profit.
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“The key to every story is the proactive focus of the authors to create the results that you see”
– Rob Kosberg
Publish. Promote. Profit. by Rob Kosberg is a must read if you have a service or consulting business. The author gives a step-by-step process of publishing your book on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform in just 176 pages. The book is free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription.
The author’s process is best for those in consulting, service organizations or have a product that could solve a specific user’s problem. The “Profit” part is mostly in up-selling and speaking engagements, not book royalties. While I no longer have a full-time service business (CPA firm), this book would have proved very valuable to get leads if I followed the steps.
Kosberg asserts that most books are not successful, you need a firm foundation. The average book only sales 250 copies. Consider these questions for your foundation:
- What is your specific goal or desired outcome for your book? Most nonfiction today is to grow authority, not sell books.
- What is your audience’s main problem or concern that you can solve?
- What is the conversation going on in the reader’s head, so you can enter and hook them?
Publish
Start with the title, cover and content.
The title is extremely important. Books are judged and sold based on their covers and titles. Take the necessary time to get this part right.
The three primary characteristics of a good book title are curiosity provoking, interesting and memorable. Its also recommended to use uncommon words to describe common subjects (ie. Outliers.) Do not shy away from controversy. If you have a nonfiction book, you need a subtitle, a descriptive, benefit-rich wording that explains the premise of the book. The author’s subtitle is “The New Rules of Writing, Marketing and Making Money with a Book.”
The subtitle needs to offer 1 or 3 benefits (the human brain works best in 1s or 3s – the author used 3.) The 4-hour Work Week also used three “Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.” Tim Ferris is everywhere now simply due to writing and promoting a book.
As far as content flow of your book, the author explains the three most common ways:
- Logical order of progression (ie. biographies.)
- Segmentation by content (ie. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.)
- Non-sequential questioning (ie. Daily Devotions or 49 tips to…)
Rob Kosberg is a big proponent of the “hybrid” ghostwriting process. This is dividing each chapter into a 15-20 minute presentation (like a Ted Talk.) Record and give the presentation to the ghostwriter. This helps ensure the story is in the “voice” of the author.
Each chapter should start with a compelling story, then give the main points using elements from the story to illustrate. Finally the chapter needs to end in the culmination of the story. Remember:
- Compelling story at the beginning of every chapter
- Leave the story at a high-point and share how the content affects
- Close (end your story)
Promote
The five steps in the KDP setup phase:
- KDP upload
- Amazon book description. Take your time and make keyword rich
- Choose your categories
- Get verified reviews
- Launch your pricing strategy
I will focus on the author’s recommendation for the last two phases. In getting verified review, once you upload your book, have a two week period with the book priced at $0.99 to get as many verified reviews as possible. Someone has to pay at least $0.99, or the review will not be listed as “verified purchase.”
Then you want to announce to your email list or social media that your book is selling at a reduced price for a limited time. Ask them to read a couple of chapters and leave an honest review based on those chapters.
After two weeks, change the price to $9.99. After 24 hours, do a five day free promo period. This alerts numerous outlets of the change, which readers subscribe to. After the 5 day promo period, change to full retail price for the Kindle edition, 2.99 to 9.99, preferably.
The launch consists of:
- Book cover and design (make sure the formatting looks good in first 2 weeks)
- Reviews (2 week and free promo period)
- Press releases (several sites provided in the book)
- Free and paid advertising (websites in the book)
- Social Media Strategy (paid and organic)
You do all of this, hopefully you are a bestselling author in your category.
Profit
I won’t devote much here. I have a great, fulfilling job, so if I wrote a book, it would be for the royalty potential, not how the author and his clients make their money.
The author maintains books are used for lead sources, such as consulting and speaking engagements. He even goes into detail about using speaking engagements to further sell coaching and consulting services from stage.
The profit system would work great for financial advisers, CPAs, attorneys, weight loss consultants. Even other niches, you could use this system to become an industry leader and build your authority.
While I may not follow all of the advice, I do believe it would work. I would try this step-by-step if I ever went back into public accounting. This book was definitely worth the read, with great actionable advice.
Other books by Rob Kosberg:
