# First 10k readers

Nick Stephenson, http://www.yourfirst10kreaders.com

## Video 1: The Three Step Formula to Grow Your Audience

### Five big struggles

1. Finding and growing an audience & readership
2. Selling my books and other products and learning how to sell w/o being sleazy
3. Managing my time effectively and avoiding overwhelm
4. Overcoming fear of failure and not being too introverted, avoiding procrastination
5. Getting reviews & recognition for my work


### The Big Myth

“Just write more books” or “just write a new blog post every day“.

Without an audience, you’re performing to an empty theater, no matter how many books you write or blog posts you publish.

Amazon and other stores aren’t bookstores, they’re search engines.


### The goal

1. Find new readers
2. Turn readers into fans
3. Sell effectively to your fans
4. Put the whole system on autopilot
5. Generate revenue for years

In other words, use an effective system for leveraging the books you already have (or soon will) rather than striving to release new books every month just to stay afloat.


### Getting the right mindset

Amazon and ebook retailers are *not* bookstores. They are search engines that happen to sell books and other products.

People on Amazon are already geared to buy.

So, approach your marketing in the same way you would get a website up to the top of Google: focusing on what the search engine was looking for and how it recommended pages (i.e. books) to browsers.


### The 3 step formula

1. Drive more readers to your online books (web traffic)
2. Turn those random browsers into paying fans (conversions)
3. Sell your products effectively w/o being “salesy” (engagement)

Traffic + Conversions + Engagement = Sales

The first job is learning where to focus: understand what activities are effective, and which you should ignore.


## Video 2: Generate endless traffic and turn it into raving fans

### Step 1: More Traffic

There’s no shortage of traffic. You put in the sweat equity or you go to the traffic store.

Amazon is the world’s #3 search engine.

One easy way to significantly boost your traffic is to offer a free ebook.

#### Free ebook

It doesn’t need to be long. A short story will get you started.

Fiction example: teamed w/ 7 other authors. Each submitted a short story, new or existing. Bundled them together, got a cover, and linked to each author’s website to collect readers’ email addresses.

Non-fiction example: repurposed, strong CTA in the front, the back, and in the description.

Every platform lets you set the price to free except Amazon. To make an ebook free on Amazon, use Draft2Digital to get on other platforms, set the price to $0, then use Amazon price matching.

#### Giveaway

Offer something your perfect customer wants.

- A bundle of paperbacks/hardcovers in your genre, niche
- A kindle pre-loaded w/ ebooks
- Collect email addresses and follow up w/ a free gift
- Keep those people who engage
- When you’re ready to launch, those people will be the first in line

With giveaways you will get a lot of “tire kicker” traffic. These people need to be weeded out. Only keep the good customers. Offer a free gift/reader magnet.

Get started using Rafflecopter (free) or Kingsumo (premium).


#### Facebook Ads

For as little as $5/day, you can reach a target audience whenever you want. Turn the traffic up or down, as desired.

Once you can convert that traffic into fans and then into sales, and once you lock in a positive ROI, you can scale up to the moon.

Best to wait on these until you have the rest of the system in place and tuned.


### Convert traffic into fans & subscribers

Give them a compelling reason.

Reader magnets turn casual browsers into committed fans: something of value that you give to your readers in exchange for an email address.

The magnet doesn’t need to be another book. It just needs to be something of value.

- Preview chapters.
- Deleted scenes
- Character histories
- Digital artwork
- New releases club membership
- Other authors’ books (w/ permission, ofc)
- Giveaways
- Audio versions
- … use your imagination

Inside every book, include a big graphical advert in the front, in the back, offering the magnet in exchange for the mailing list signup.

Send the traffic to a landing page. Only clickable thing on the landing page is the CTA button for signing up.

Once they sign up, email them immediately with a link to the download page.


## Video 3: How to sell effectively

There are 3 different motivations and objections to address before a reader will take the plunge and buy. You’re asking a reader to commit time and money to your work. How you engage your audience will make or break this buying decision.

Example of brands and promises, high-end vs. low-end: dreams and aspirations vs. value for money.

Reasons customers don’t buy:

- Apathy
- Cynicism
- Mental barriers
- Procrastination

On Amazon, you don’t get much space to overcome objections. This is why you need your own platform. You can overcome objections in email.

Effective selling:

- sells when the time is right
- builds trust first
- proves the brand
- proves the value

Do these things, and you will always see results.

Add value with *every single communication you have* w/ a customer.

- Apathy sets in in response to irrelevant communication.

- Cynicism looks for reasons to distrust.

- Mental barriers: I don’t have time, I’m special, it won’t work for me right now.

- Procrastination: perfect timing, perfect positioning, but “I’ll get it later”.

It’s your job to overcome these

### How to overcome objections

Apathy: define your audience and make it clear who your books are for, and who they are *not* for. Make it obvious.

Cynicism: employ “trust markers” to communicate quality (pro packaging, reviews, editorials, samples, etc.). Provide as much free stuff as possible to prove your quality.

Mental barriers: show people a wide variety of different demographics of people getting results (reviews, facebook comments, etc.) and break it down so to avoid overwhelm. Give them a BIG WIN. Less of an issue for fiction, but reviews and samples are key here.

Procrastination: give readers  compelling reason to buy NOW instead of waiting until later (bonuses, price drops, exclusivity). 3-day sales. BookBub requires this. People need deadlines.

### Launch System Example (email sequence)

1. Free examples of your work (samples): the best example of your work as possible (short stories, full novel)

2. Your story and your pain (apathy): why you got into writing, what books you enjoy, what struggles your encounter.

3. Examples of your work, your credentials, reviews, testimonials (cynicism): talk about other books you’ve written, what others have said about you.

4. Your journey and other people you’ve entertained, inspired, or educated (mental barriers): what have you gone through? Show other people enjoying your work. Get pictures of readers w/ your book on holiday.

5. Launch your new book or other product w/ a time-sensitive bonus offer (procrastination)

Provide readers w/ valuable content before you ask for a sale. Engage reciprocity!


### Put it on autopilot

Once it’s set up, it’ll work in the background.

- Your free books stay free (and you get lots of traffic)
- Your landing pages convert traffic into subscribers
- Your email autoresponder sends more great content once a reader has signed up, leading them towards “buying” mode
- And you have yourself a lifelong asset to use whenever you like


### Recap

- Create a reader magnet
- Advertise this reader magnet everywhere you can
- Use free books to drive traffic to your landing page and email list
- Convert random browsers into subscribers
- Follow up w/ email messages that add value and build a connection
- Sell when the time is right

Once this is set up and you have conversions, it’s time to scale up.


### Scale up

- Podcasts and guest posts
- Online and offline events
- Giveaways
- Paid advertising (esp. Facebook ads)
- Bookbub

Traffic == $$

No shortage of traffic on the internet. Even using free or cheap services, you can get measurable results.

None of this is “theory”—this is a proven strategy. It takes work, but it works the same, whatever stage you’re currently at.