Once your book is complete, you have 3 main ways to get it in the hands of people you want to engage. Print, Kindle and PDF.
In today's show, we're diving into some of the up and downsides to these, and how the different ways you plan to use your book can change what you need to do to get the best out of it.
Starting with the end in mind is essential to creating something effective. Putting out a Kindle version is might be a great idea, but unless you have a way to encourage those people to identify themselves, it could be a lot of wasted effort.
There is no 'one size fits all' answer to creating your book across different channels, but today we talk about some great ideas & points to consider to make sure you get the best bang for your book.
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Don't forget, you can see how your book idea stacks up against the Book Blueprint by going to BookBlueprintScore.com and, if you want to be a guest on the show to plan your successful book, just head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/guest
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Extra Credit Listening: MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com
WOMBAT selling - Michael Hewitt-Gleeson: Unfortunately it looks like this is out of print. I can't find a link to this online, but here is a link to Michael's latest work.
Transcript: Book More Show 064
Stuart: Hey everybody. It's Stuart here with Betsy. Betsy Vaughn, how's it going?
Betsey: Very good. Great to be here.
Stuart: Good to be here, too. I haven't been back in the US for about three weeks now. I had the first person that was really picking up on the accent. So, I've kind of forgotten about it already. But, just yesterday someone was really diving into the Britishness. I must've said something. I think I said, "Cheers," instead of thank you.
Betsey: Cheers. I said wonky to somebody the other day. And they're like, "What?" Which is one of those things I've picked up from you, wonky.
Stuart: I'm slowly trying to increase that sphere of influence to bring back British words.
Betsey: Well, really, everything you say, it doesn't matter what you say, sounds so sophisticated.
Stuart: That's why I had to move countries, because it really doesn't work like that back in the UK.
Betsey: It doesn't? Yeah, and we're so like, "Yeah, yep." So maybe some of that will rub off.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, balance out.
Betsey: Right.
Stuart: So, today we are going to talk about Kindles versus printed books. I was going to say traditional books, but I guess there's more and more of a tradition of Kindles being traditional. More generation of people coming behind, where they're perhaps more used to that then a traditional print book. So, I think there's a couple of-
Betsey: I think, yeah, that's true. How do you feel about the Kindle versus the traditional print book? Are you a Kindle guy or?
Stuart: I have a Kindle. I've got a Kindle up on the iPad. The Kindle I've got is actually super old. It must be 10 years old by now. It's one of the old ones with a keyboard. But, I don't use it enough to justify updating it. So, maybe 60%, or maybe more, 80% of the books I've read recently have been not physical. It's actually been more than that, thinking about it. But the one thing ... and this is kind of jumping to the chase on the bones of the call, I guess. But the one thing that is different, is if you buy a book and it's physically on your shelf, there's a physical reminder that at some point you wanted to read it. Whereas, the digital versions, the things disappear into the digital void, and there's nothing to ever remind you that, that book's there.
So, as a consumer, as a reader, I noticed that quite a lot. But, as an author, as someone who wants our books to be read, super conscious of that, and that kind of effectiveness issue around print versus digital. So, we're going to dive ... and that's going to be one of the main points that we get to, shortly. How to make the most of that platform given the constraints around, kind of, visibility. What about you?
Betsey: I think that there's ... like you said, it's that generation coming up behind us is ... I think they're all about the Kindle, the electronic version of a book versus the print book. I, personally, I want the book. I want to turn the pages. I want to smell the pages. I want to ... I'm old school that way. I still order books.
Stuart: At least she's…
Betsey: I still…
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, very much so. The convenience trumps it for me. I really don't want to be flying with a half a bag full of paper.
Betsey: True. I fly with three or four books at a time, in my bag. That's probably an educator thing. Lucy and I both, with our education background. Maybe there's something there. We like that physical book and like to see children with books and their hands, and, yeah, yeah.
My son, whose only 22, he loves a book. He's not into the electronic version at all. So, he orders a lot of books, physical books still, and likes to see them on his shelf, and re-reads things over and over again. So he has an appreciation for them.
Stuart: A kind of collector. Is it more of the collector element of it? Physically own it-
Betsey: He does, because he's into... He's a very old soul. He is into classical literature and things like that. So, he wants old books and first edition books, and those are kinds of things that people get him as gifts now. He loves to have ... he will have, at some point, probably a huge library in his home that's surrounded by the books that you can just pick. Anytime he has an opportunity to be surrounded by books, that's where he prefers to go.
I'm that way too. So I know, even my 70 something year old mother has her Kindle. And that's how she prefers to... she doesn't want books anymore. She calls it clutter. She doesn't want the clutter in the house.
Stuart: I must admit, some of the books that I have bought recently for one reason or another, or been given, actually, like the ones more recently have just been given by one person or another. And having recently gone through the rigamarole of shipping stuff to the US, deciding which books to give away, and then the challenge of giving them away, or which books to bring, because at some point, there's some value in reading them again. A lot of them probably not fiction. It's more reference material. But actually, just the cost of shipping them across now that I'm looking back on it, particularly having been kind of like three or four weeks detached from the physical things. The connection with them has kind of drifted somewhat as opposed to it being there in the room as I was packing and saying, "Well, I can't really part with that." So actually, it's probably some stupid expense for shipping books that realistically, even I know I'm probably never going to read again. And even if I did information I was looking for, I can probably Google in two minutes.
Betsey: Right? Download it, you have it. You could have the whole book in like 35 seconds.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But the other interesting challenge was trying to give them away, because there's a lot of textbooks from like past careers and jobs. A lot of business related books. And there was just zero market for anyone wanting those kind of traditionally, it would be like charity shops or libraries, or dentists' waiting rooms, all of those types of places, no one wanted them at all.
In fact, the charity shops were saying, "To be honest, unless it's kind of trashy fiction that someone's just going to read on the beach and then leave it there at the Airbnb place, there's just no market for it, because no one wants it.
Betsey: That's funny.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. It was really interesting. It was probably hundreds, probably not quite thousands, but hundreds of dollars’ worth of books that just got recycled in the end, because there was no ... recycled/dumped on my parents when I was kind of flying out the door, because I was running late. So they'll probably still be in the garage at my parents' when I get back next time.
Betsey: Right. Yeah.
Stuart: So that means, let's kind of circle that back into what we're talking about here. Make it a little bit more relevant. So, couple of key points that have come up from just that discussion. One is the ... we've said this before, to be honest, but just the reading rates, generally, are going down over time, not going up over time. So, fewer people are reading things, whether it's digital or in print, because the average attention span is falling across the board.
And then, that staying front of mind element of, a book does take up physical space. And there are visual cues. It’s on a shelf somewhere, that means that it can be referred to later. The digital equivalent of that is infinitesimally smaller, the likelihood that it's ever going to get read again, because it's just never going to get passed over again. I don't have that many books on my Kindle, maybe 30, if that, over the last however many years. But even those, I think the default library view is chronological, with newest first. So, there's no circumstance that I can think of that I really scroll past the first page of a book in that library, even when it's on an iPad version. So, you've got kind of like a visual representation of the shelf. The likelihood of scrolling further down the list is super small. And then, to actually stop. Take the time to read it, get to a call to action so that there's a follow on step, which, again, for ... We're not talking about fiction books, we're talking about books to an engage a conversation to get a call to action.
There's definitely that element of staying in front of mind and keeping that conversation going. So, as with everything we talked about, it really comes down to, "What's the job of work? What's the intent? What's the funnel? How do you anticipate these things being used?" It's not just a kind of build it and they will come type thing. This isn't fiction, where you're talking about ... or even books for entertainment, to a certain degree, although hopefully they are entertaining in so much as it providing value. But, it's not really an entertainment thing where, "Oh, I'm going to write this book. I'm going to build it, and they will come. It's going to be so engaging that it will go valuable and get attention from there."
The likelihood of all of that, all the serendipity that you're expecting for all of that to turn around, is just very unlikely. So you've got to think of it that way, of making sure that conversation moves forward as soon as possible.
Betsey: Right.
Stuart: The build it and they will come type thing, we've been talking to a couple of people recently, who have kind of, not kind of fallen in that camp of, "I knew this was a good thing to do. I should just do it. And when I do it, then magic things will happen, because it will be done." That kind of logical fallacy, we've talked before about really starting with the end in mind and working backwards. So, in that case, when you do think about the use case, when you do think about how the funnel all sticks together, then a digital version of the book, whether it's Kindle or PDF, might make sense.
So, there might well be value in structuring it, or delivering it digitally, because, it fits into the overall funnel that you're trying to do a little bit more. There might be a lot of background noise here today, because, for some reason, there must be some construction work going on down the road from the house, because this road outside is usually relatively quiet. But, there's like trucks hammering up and down here every other ... well every few moments. So, apologies for any big background noise.
Okay, completely distracted. I was going somewhere. Oh, the use case. So, the difference in the physical and the ... Let's talk about the differences in the physical ones and in the digital ones. In the digital ones, there are two cases to talk about. There's kind of the PDF version and the Kindle version, because both digital, they've both got slightly different benefits and constraints.
The main difference is that ability for it to sit on the shelf and have this slightly longer life than a digital version. There's also the thumbability of it, for want of a more realistic, actual word. But that kind of flick-throughness. So, we've said on previous shows that everyone reads the front page, the title, the cover. It's the thing that catches people's attentions. Everyone reads the back cover, because people flick over and look at it, and that's a great place for the call to action, because it kind of bypasses. That is the second most important real estate. It bypasses that need for people to read the entire content in order to get to the call to action. And it kind of anchors the call to action for the people who do sit down and read it, because they know the destination. They know where they're leading towards.
So there's this thumbability of it. And even the thumbability of the content itself, of the chapters. The content structure, the chapter titles being kind of, if you only looked at the table of contents, telling that story of how to get to the problem on the cover to the answer on the back cover, those chapters being the very obvious kind of way-points on the journey. As you're thumbing through and you're clearly seeing those chapter titles pop out as you just flick from page to page, again that's almost enough to create that narrative. It's almost like a cartoon of someone speed reading and just kind of brrrt, flicking through the book. I'm not sure how that noise will come out in the transcript. But that kind of flicking with the thumb page to page like a flick book.
But seeing the chapter titles pass by, it's almost like you're giving yourself a get out of jail free card, to allow yourself to take the next step without actually having read it, because you've done some kind of done some steps in terms of reading something. I've physically got the book in my hand, and I've done something. Therefore, the next logical step is to do the next stage, rather than actually reading each word on the page. So, those are all of the benefits of ... those are a good number of benefits of physical, that kind of longevity, almost.
The downside of physical is the cost overhead, and the delivery overhead, that you physically got to get in someone's hands, which requires you having to at least be in the same place at the same time as them. Or, the book needs to be at the same place at the same time. Or, you need to get their address. And, in theory, particularly for starting new relationships, all of these additional steps are barriers to entry. They're kind of confounding factors or elements to slow down that speed that you want in taking things from that velocity of the thought. Someone's had the thought, but they got the problem. They've had the thought that they want to fix it. And how can you, with the most velocity, momentum, get from A to B. And a physical book, in a lot of ways, does slow all of that down.
So the upside on the digital front, then, is exactly that speed. You can deliver something to someone immediately, with a minimum number of steps. I mean, in theory, if you could run a AdWords ad, or Facebook ad, to a download page that just offered the download there, straightaway with on opt-in whatsoever, if you were confident about the journey that you were taking them on in the book. If you were confident about the minimum viable commitment call to action, the clear next step, that obviously adds value, then you can give the first step away for zero cost.
Typically, that's not what we recommend. We typically recommend that they leave us behind, at least, an email opt-in, just to start that conversation and allow it to continue over email. But there are definitely use cases where you might want to speed it through. And, from a velocity point of view, that is absolutely the fastest. When we were at an event, we were talking to Focus, maybe the beginning of last month, and talking about the people at her event. She separately had a way of collecting the names and email addresses, because it was provided by the event vendor. So, just putting one of the slides up on screen as you were talking through having this perfect relationship with people, "What you really want to do is look at the second chapter in the book, because we dive deep into this particular point. So, up on the screen behind me, here's the URL. Just go and download it straightaway. Grab that copy, and then you can see the strategy we're talking about to do whatever."
Again, think about what the use case is, and then have the delivery to match, not vice versa. So, the upside is speed, really. The downside is you don't have that thumbability, and the half-life of the book, the attention duration that you've got is a lot shorter than it is in the physical world. Everything moves a lot faster and equally, the person moves onto the next thought a lot faster.
So, in that scenario, you want to really make sure that you've got the opportunity to keep that velocity going and move onto the next step as quick as possible. So, you might need to be more aggressive with the call to action suggestions. You might need to be more aggressive with the, "Go here for the next step." Or, "If you want more information about this, here's another link. Here's another piece of information to follow," which in the physical world-
Betsey: That's-
Stuart: Sorry, go.
Betsey: Yeah I think that's ... I just had that conversation with somebody this week, about they were concerned that by having a Kindle version, or putting it on Amazon, that whole process, that they were going to miss out. My recommendation was ... we're not going to head that direction yet, with this person ... But, I said, "We'll just have to focus on that stronger call to action. It's going to have to be really compelling and it's going to have to be really in your face in order to ..." because someone buying it on Amazon, a Kindle version, you're not capturing that. You have no idea who they are, Joe Schmo from Michigan. And you're really missing the opportunity to engage that person. So were just sort of ... our recommendation, "Yeah, we'll do it." But I always try to push it off in the beginning.
Stuart: I think, definitely ... exactly. And I think, just as you said, it definitely shouldn't be the primary focus. So, those constraints or benefits we were talking about a moment ago, primarily apply to the PDF version of it, the digital version of it, because then you do have slightly more control about what elements are included, excluded. The Kindle version of it is more restricted than that. But it does have one big potential upside, if you can find a way to capitalize on it.
So, the restrictions are exactly around that. You've got zero visibility, or zero access to who the customer is, because Amazon doesn't pass that information at all. There's no way of making a connection with an individual with that product at the point of sale. So you very much need to have additional stuff in it, to bring people back. And, again, going back to thinking of the job of work and the funnel that you're actually putting in place, that's the most important part. If you're looking at the Kindle funnel, whether it's solely a Kindle play, or whether Kindle enters the mix as one of many channels, then you can't use exactly the same funnel for the PDF version that you can for the Kindle version, because the PDF version, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it's behind a, "Give us your mailing address, and we'll send you a copy of the book" type dialogue, so you have that email.
The Kindle version, you don't have any of that. So, making sure that, that funnel is set up in a way that has more opportunities to capture people's attention, to push them off to other resources, more so than you would do if you have already got their email address in the PDF version.
I was trying to think of a realistic example. It might be that ... I was thinking about a financial advisor, just because I can think of a lot of sub assets within there. So, financial advising, you might have a checklist around financial planning or financial stability, or life changes, or goal planning, or product tables, best buys, latest rates. All of these individual things that are assets, that with your knowledge or expertise you can bring together. In the PDF sense where you've collected their name and email address details, you can forward that information to people as part of the follow-up funnel.
So, we talked a couple of shows ago about beyond the book and how to kind of engage in that follow-up sequence to enhance the relationship and move people towards that direction. Including sort of moving people toward that next step, including all of these things in a relevant kind of funnel of continuing education, you can push all of that to people, because you've got their email address upfront.
The Kindle version, of exactly the same book, rather than just referring to the latest rate table, or the goal setting worksheet, rather than just referring to it, because you know you're going to push that information to them at a later date, in the book, in the Kindle version, you need to pointing a way for people to pull the information from you, or to get that themselves. So, a link to the rate table, a link to the goal setting sheet, a link in a way that's easy for them to click as well. Because, depending on what Kindle device it is, and how the products set up, you might not be able to direct link from it. So you want elements there easy to type out. That might be another big concern, because, in a PDF, typically, the links will hyperlink themselves, so you can link straight off. And if it's an ugly URL, a long URL, doesn't make any difference.
Kindle version, that might not be the case. We quite often see, and we try and catch it, but ... I saw one the other day. It sneaked through. I need to remind the editor guys to be a bit hotter on it. But, we'll sometimes see long URLs, with https://www and then this huge, long email that someone's just copied and pasted and dumped in because it is the actual link. But, if there's any concept that anyone's going to type that. I mean, I couldn't even bother to finish that sentence of talking it, let alone actually typing it out. So, if you are on your website, you've got one of these assets, they're actually hidden on long URLs, so it's yourdomain.com/subsection1/form37698.html, if you're expecting people to go there, that's a link that you've got in the book, whether it's a print version or a Kindle version that isn't linked to ... or a PDF that isn't linked, thinking about the use case, thinking about how the reader's actually going to interact with that, obviously, you just need to buy a short URL and then redirect it so it's easier for someone to type.
Betsey: That's great advice.
Stuart: Yeah, and I do need to jump on the editors and remind them a little bit, because I saw one sneak through the other day. So, that kind of setup of ... that kind of technical setup makes a difference in the use case. But, really, jumping back to Kindle, the big thing is that you don't have the opportunity to capture any details. So, that's the downside. The upside is the Amazon Marketplace as A, a credibility play, which I'll come back to in a second. But B, the access to the audience. So, if you have a book with an engaging, relevant title that does what it says on the turn, it's not obscure. You're not trying to be clever. The subtitle amplifies the title.
So this all stuff that we talk about in the Book Blueprint Scorecard. So, as you're listening to this, if you haven't completed your Book Blueprint Scorecard yet, to position yourself on the eight mindsets of writing the best lead generation book, then head over to BookBlueprintScore.com. We've got all that set up to elaborate on each of these eight points. But, that element of a relevant title uses language in a way that people are looking for that people articulating the problem themselves. So, it's a problem statement that they'll recognize in the title. It's not random or clever. The subtitle amplifies it and builds on it, again, rather than being random. The description of your book that you've got in there in the store entry, in the Kindle store entry, builds on it a little bit more. Uses relevant terms to describe the situation that you're talking about. All of this means that the search-ability, or the discovery of your book is likely to be more. Because, as people are searching for certain things, hopefully, your book will come up as part of the result.
The only element to add in there, just from a realistic search perspective, it's like an organic search in Google, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, although, maybe not though, because time is marching on, and 10 years ago isn't actually that long ago.
Betsey: Right.
Stuart: But 15 years ago, 20 years ago, having a website that talked about a relatively specific problem in detailed ways that had lots of words that described the problem, just by virtue of the fact that there were fewer websites around, meant that you stood more of a chance of coming up in a search. Nowadays, because there are so many sites, and there's just such a competitive marketplace, the likelihood of getting organic results with no other elements contributing to that is pretty slim.
Same with book, in the Kindle Store, particularly, because of the low barrier to entry, but even in the physical store, to expecting to get such traffic from there, whilst it does happen, it's a far more competitive environment now than it was a number of years ago. And that varies depending on your niche. If you're a financial advisor or a life coach, it's going to be tough, because there's a lot of competition now. If you're a, what's an example? I'm trying to think of a smaller language, I was going to say French or Italian. Maybe Italian. You brought in an Italian, talking about a specific problem to a region in Italy. The likelihood of someone else having written that is a lot slimmer. So therefore you got a lot more channels, than say, again, just a traditional competitive advantage or disadvantage, that kind of swat analysis type approach to looking at it.
I just took a breath and realized I've been talking a lot. And I'm not sure whether that was coherently following.
Betsey: It's all good stuff.
Stuart: Because it's come up a couple of times. This happens quite a lot on the shows, actually. We don't necessarily have a big full schedule of things that we want to talk about. There are a couple of things that we do, but, generally speaking, we talk about what's happened in the previous weeks. And where quite a few things have ... quite a few people have asked similar questions, then all of this kind of pent-up knowledge is sort of dumped out on the call, and it turns into a call like this.
So, what have we got to? We were talking about the benefits of each and the challenges with a Kindle platform and the benefits the Kindle platform. I think we've touched on the main points. And the main point being, again, going back to the thing that we always end up saying, think about the funnel first. Think about the job of work, and then come back to how best to achieve that. And the fact that the same funnel is unlikely to work, as effectively, at least, across multiple different ways, multiple different channels. It's having the same funnel for everything. So, people who walk into your storefront and pick up a copy of the book, working with complementary noncompeting partners, and other businesses, where they can support it, working with charities or community groups, the digital funnel that you've got, the social funnel that you've got, the Amazon funnel that you've got, having exactly the same follow-up sequence as much as possible, is better than nothing. But, tailoring each of those to be as relevant to the platform as possible as relevant to where the people are interacting with it as possible, is going to provide more bang for the buck.
Having said that, though, I definitely would start with the same funnel right across the board, inasmuch as you can. Because then, at least, it's done. Rather than, the alternative that we see a few times, with people going into that kind of analysis paralysis stage, and not really wanting to pull the plug or sort of pull the trigger on anything until everything's perfect. And that's a fallacy as well, because you kind of fall into this trap of it never quite being there, never quite being there. And then, two years go by and you've still lost all of those leads.
We were talking earlier in the week, I can't remember who we were talking about, but saying that someone had come back after two or three, or maybe even four years now, and they were just kind of picking up the book and were now going to do something with it. Whereas, the original version, although it wasn't ... they needed to make some changes, so there was obviously some improvements that could've been made, but just imagine how many leads have kind of fallen through the net, and disappeared and moved onto other things, and worked with other people in that intervening period. I mean, it's great that people are coming back and-
Betsey: Yeah, exactly. We say that all of the time. Even with people who are having conversation of holding a book because they're doing edits to it. And they want it to be "perfect", all the leads that they're missing. Or, even getting started on a book. I have conversations with people and then we have more conversations. And then we have several conversations throughout the year. We kind of joke about it. And some people are not as quick to move as others. But, when you've had six or seven conversations with someone and a year later, they finally come onboard, that's the first thing that I think about. Like, "Wow, if you had done this book last year, you could potentially have a whole bunch of new business."
Stuart: Particularly if there's not a strong reason of not doing it. I mean, if it's an active decision not to do it, then fair enough. That's perfectly fine. If it's just because ... I mean, even, to a certain degree, the people that you kind of pass through the radar and as you're listening to this, you can have guys in exactly the same situation, people who pass through. It's only kind of a touchpoint, one sort of doesn't really get into the psyche, they're not quite ready yet, and then it just falls out of people's heads and they move on, which is why we go on so much about having that follow on sequence, because it does stay front and center longer.
But, I've got a certain amount of sympathy for where the thought comes in and then it goes out again, because I forget about stuff all of the time. But, for those people who have that ongoing conversation, and they take that first step repeatedly, or, even worse, or even more so, the guys who have actually done the book, the first version's done. It's kind of 80% of the way there. But then it's just kind of failure to pull the trigger, either through not going into it, or this kind of analysis paralysis of wanting it to be perfect. That's almost the worst situation, because all of that effort is just wasted. It's not like that first group of people are people where it pops in and pops out. There's kind of virtually zero effort there. So, that's just life. That's just what happens. But if people put any effort and like the repeated, "Yeah, I want to get started people," but that actually don't get started, or the people who've done it, but just not quite finished it, that just seems like such a huge missed opportunity for people, because so much of the work has been done already. Or, so much of the thought process has been kind of started.
A thought popped in my mind before that's just come out of me. So, I'll mention it now before it moves on. There's a book that I think I've mentioned before, called The Wombat Method, by Dr. Michael Gleason. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this on the show before. And I'm pretty sure that I've said I'd put a link to anything I can find.
Betsey: Can you say that again? What was it?
Stuart: The Wombat Method ... or Wombat Selling, sorry, called Wombat Selling, like the Australian animal, a wombat.
Betsey: Yeah, wombat. Yeah.
Stuart: Yeah, Wombat Selling. I can't for the life of me remember why it's called Wombat Selling. But, one of the big thoughts in there is around this thing called check moves. I'm sure that I've talked about this on the show before. A check move is, he works a lot with sales teams and saying that you can't close a sale. The only person that can close a sale is the customer, because the ultimate decision is there's. You can put a lot of pressure on people for them to close, but they're the only ones that can close, because the cash is in their hand. And, to a certain degree, you don't necessarily want to be that organization that's really putting the strong arm on people to close, because that's not necessarily the best off organization, either. You want to present people with as many opportunities, and as much evidence, so that they can close themselves as ... plant the evidence so that they can close themselves rather than doing the hard sell on them.
And this check moves theory is kind of that. You can only put people in check using the chess analogy. You can only put people in check. You can't cause checkmate. So, instead of concentrating on trying to close the sale, close the sale, instead, concentrate on how many times can you get these people into check. And check is the opportunity for a sale to happen.
So, that's the same with the things that we've been talking about, both in terms of the physical book, or the PDF, where you've got their details already, and you follow up by email, causing those check moves, or, in the Kindle version, in the copy itself, you need to include more of those check moves in the copy, because that's the only exposure you've got to people.
So, one of the classic examples that we talk about a lot is this kind of concept of a three stage approach on the call to action on the back of the book. So, the next steps for people, as much as possible, give them a zero commitment option, a minimal commitment option, and the opportunity of virtually ... I keep saying pull the plug ... pull the trigger and start working with you.
The zero commitment option is that just, "Head over to the website." Or head over to wherever, and there's a lot more information on this that we provide for free just because we want to educate people. The second step, knowing that they've got the book already, is the follow on action. It's if they were sat in the office in front of you, and you were talking to them, what would you want them to do next?
So, sticking with the financial example from earlier on, that might be something around the due diligence questions. As someone that comes in the office ... I'm not sure if it's a legal requirement here? In UK it's a legal requirement. You need to go through some due diligence steps to find out the person's financial ... where they are on the kind of financial spectrum, whether they're a sophisticated investor, or whether they're a consumer and what their risk tolerance is and all of that type of thing.
So, some of those questions are going to be things that you can provide to people as a checklist. I've talked a lot, obviously, with my situation of moving across. We've talked a lot about Jim and the Bring Your Space Here book that Jim wrote. And the call to action, that second step, that minimum commitment call to action, is to download a copy of the Visa checklist so that you can go through step by step and see where you are.
So, all of those things, and then the first step is the better way to get started is to work with us. And to work with us, jump onboard and follow whatever these steps are. But that second step, that... the first and second step, that go here and find out more for free, and the best next step you can take is get a copy of this estimate, or the scorecard, or whatever it is. But those things in the Kindle sense, need to be in the copy of the book. And in theory, you need to start introducing them relatively early, because we know the amount read trails off with the number of pages. Everyone reads the cover, and most people read the first page. Far lower number of people read the back page.
So, introducing that call to action a little bit different in the Kindle model. Start introducing those options, those check moves, those way of allowing people to engage outside of the confines of the book, all need to start being introduced a little bit earlier, because them reading the book is the only option you've got to communicate with them, because you don't got their email address. You don't have the way of following up with them as you would do in outside of the Kindle environment.
Betsey: Yeah. Very good.
Stuart: I've got to go my voice is about giving up. That whole Kindle model, we didn't even touch on the kind of best seller things, which, and the credibility thing, which we don't really get into at all. It's ... not a scam, but what's a nice way of saying that it's maybe manipulating the system?
Betsey: I think that's a fair way to say it.
Stuart: Yeah, manipulating-
Betsey: It is a manipulation of the system. Yeah.
Stuart: The problem with saying that something is a best seller, or saying that you're a number one bestselling author, is that batch has with it a certain amount of expectation. And whether that expectation or not is based on reality. So, the fact that you can get a book to a best seller in a sub category of a Kindle book store, the fact that, technically, you can do it, still, if you ask the average person on the street what their expectation of a number one best seller was, it would be very different from what you were actually delivering, unless of course, that is what you're delivering.
If your focus is on the book, you want to make it into a best seller. You want to put all of that time and effort into making a substantial volume that stands on its own as a definitive source of information, that people would happily and willingly pay 10, 15, $20.00 for, then this little bit that I'm talking about now doesn't apply, because that's typically not what we're talking about. We're talking about a book that engages people. And the majority of people who are out there talking about becoming a best seller, in order to get more business, they're not also talking about investing tens of thousands of dollars and months and month’s worth of time.
However, as always, depends on what the use case is. Depending on what the funnel is, depending on what the end product is, if that is what you're doing, then ignore this next few minutes, because you are taking those steps. But, for people, when they hear best seller, there's an expectation around it. It's the same, we've talked about in the shows before about charging for the books on Amazon. There's a minimum price that you have to charge. But some people want to charge 10, 15, $20.00 for the physical book. And the problem is, when you look at the competitive landscape of what other books are being sold for that, you'll typically see bestselling authors with books of 150, 250, 300 pages selling for that same price. And unless you're going in at that level, which isn't what we're talking about. If that is what you're doing, this podcast isn't probably going to give you all of the answers that will point you in the right direction. But you've then also got a lot of work to do on top of that. Our process isn't going to get you to that. That's not what we do.
So, the downside of the credibility play in the Kindle, or even the Amazon Store, is there's the risk of this expectation gap. And, it's definitely not all of the time, because there are plenty of very concise books that absolutely deliver value, and certainly, that's what we do to talk about. We do talk about delivering value in the content. Answer one question as deeply and as comprehensively as possible. Give people the opportunity, then, to learn more and to take their understanding to the next step.
But, it's just where it's coming from. It's like the positioning behind it. If people are trying to... if they just want to get to a best seller label, and then aren't really bothered about the content, then there's a disconnect. If they want to get to a bestselling label, and there is concern for the content, and there is a kind of willingness to put behind the content, then that's fine, because it's kind of congruent. Ask the average person on the street, "Is this a best seller?" Then they might say yes, if it meets those criteria.
So, the social pre-side of things, I would think about that as a benefit of a secondary, or for benefit of doing this, rather than the primary reason for doing it. The primary reason for doing it should be engaging and starting the conversation. And then, moving forward. And if you do the work necessary to make it a best seller, or if it happens to become a best seller, that's great. It's an added bonus. Rather than doing it in the point of view of, "I'm going to get in the system to get that, and then I've got to follow up with something that kind of meets that criteria."
Betsey: Some very good points there that you made, definitely.
Stuart: Well, hopefully.
Betsey: It's hard, when I speak to people, a lot of them want this to be an Amazon best seller. And that just, from my perspective, I never want to promise anything. It's not something that we do. It's not ... well, obviously, we'll put the book on Amazon, and we'll help you set it up and stuff. But, it's not the right process for you.
Stuart: What's the reason for doing it as well? Exactly. I think there is a little bit ... We started off the conversation so it closes out nicely by saying, the build it and they will come type model isn't really realistic, because if ever it was realistic, to a certain degree, it was a coincidence of a gap in the market and the supply and demand mix. So, if you're the only Kindle book in town, then you're going to be a best seller, because there's no other competition. If there are 10 million competitive books out there, now that's more of a difficult thing.
But, it's the intent behind it. If you just want to a best seller because you think it will magically make things happen, then that's probably not the case. If you want to be a best seller because it's actively supporting other things, because you know that within your environment, you want to get on the speaking circuit, and looking at all of the other speakers out there, they all have this bestselling label that they can apply to themselves, so therefore it ticks that box and moves it forward, than that's more of a valid case the, "Oh yeah, I just want it because someone said it was a good idea."
Betsey: Yeah.
Stuart: So, with all of that being said, let's wrap up. I think a couple of actions then, for people, really the best thing you can do, if you haven't completed your Book Blueprint Scorecard is head over to BookBlueprintScore and go through the steps that allow you to assess yourself on the eight mindsets. If being a bestselling author within an Amazon category is important to you, that's not really something we focus on. But these eight mindsets will definitely help you assess where you are across the board, and put you in the best possible place to get to that stage, even if that stage is outside of something that we particularly talk about.
So, top point is, hop over to BookBlueprintScore.com. I'm going to try and remember. I've written on a bit of paper here to put a link to Michael Gleason's book, the Wombat Selling book in the show notes. So, show notes are going to be ... This is episode 64, so head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/podcast and episode 64. I'm going to put a link to that but, if something happens that I don't, or if you just want to search for it, then it's ... I'm pretty sure the book is called Wombat Selling. I'm pretty sure by an Australian academic called Dr. Michael Gleason.
Previously the book did go out of print. It wasn't available, but you could find some PDFs on some archive sites here and there. I don't know whether it's still in print, whether you can still get a copy of it. If I can find a link, I'll put a link in the show notes. So, 90MinuteBooks.com/podcast-
Betsey: Michael Hewitt-Gleason. Yes.
Stuart: That's it? You found it?
Betsey: Yes. That's it yeah.
Stuart: Perfect.
Betsey: It's on Amazon, yeah,
Stuart: Oh, okay. Excellent. Oh, perfect. Maybe it's only available at Amazon. I used to be able to find a PDF download of it. Maybe that's why it's not now available. So, we'll put some links in. But, feel free to Google it a bit more if you want.
So, last but not least, if you want to be a guest on the show, we've got some guest slots lined up now. We've recorded a couple that we'll get out over the summer. So, head over to 90MinuteBooks.com/guest. And if you want to brainstorm any of your book ideas, go through your scorecard, talk about your idea of either a new book that you want to do, or your existing book and how to best put it into a funnel, then definitely jump on that guest ... fill out that guest form. We've got some slots to schedule over the next couple weeks. And it'd be great to really, practically go through your funnel and get that dialed in.
Betsey: Awesome. Very good.
Stuart: Perfect. Any last thoughts? Anything that we've missed as we were going through there?
Betsey: No, I think we've got it. Like you said, if anybody has any questions, just reach out.
Stuart: Perfect. Well, on that note, thanks again for your time listening. Betsey, thanks again for your time. And we'll catch everyone in the next one.
Betsey: Always. Very good. Thanks so much.
Stuart: Thanks guys. Bye-bye.
Betsey: Bye-bye.