‘What do I do now? My book is complete’ is a common question from our clients. The book is only the first step in the process. In reality, much of the engagement you’ll have with people comes from the long-term relationship you’ll build. Not everyone is ready to take action straight away. Staying in touch with people is vital to being front of mind, and there are ready to help whenever they are prepared to take that next step.

If you’ve done the right thing, the job, and picked the correct title, which hopefully, you’ve gone through the thinking process of what it is that will be compelling to people. Then, just putting it out there will attract the people you want to be in conversation with them, so you start, of course, closest to the bullseye.

Suppose you’ve already got a list of people or an audience of people. In that case, whether it’s your email list, your Facebook, your Instagram, your LinkedIn, or whatever social media you use, that’s the first step: putting it out there. “Hey, my new book is here. Let me know if you want a copy. I’ll get you one.”

That’s a great way to start the ball rolling because it’s such an exciting thing when people see a title that is exactly what they want or interesting to them, And something automatically happens with a book that triggers that, you know? Especially because deep in our brains, since our earliest recollections, books have been something that we as a society have revered. And we’ve been taught to revere books, right?

A Common Mistake

It’s so easy to get carried away, and people think about having long-form sales letters, they’ve got lots of convincing words and going out into an audience and beating them over the head with enough information that they definitely want this thing, as well as their compelling and psychological triggers of already wanting a book.

There’s the channel that it’s going down as well. The audience of people who follow your page already knows, likes and trusts you to some degree, even if they’re relatively new to your world. So just putting that out there, the minimum effective dose of the words on the page, the book’s here. Do you want it? I mean, there doesn’t need to be anything more than that.

And so it’s packaged as a book and it’s got the title that’s compelling. And the reason that I say when you do this, it’s like the minimum effective dose. And I want to be crystal clear that I’m not saying to do the least for the least’s sake.

I’m saying the effective dose means the result, enough to get the desired result just if you’re taking a medication; they look at the minimum adequate quantity being how much of this will solve the problem or eliminate the symptom.

They are going to want it. They’re going to trigger to get it immediately. But the reality is that even among, you know, books that people buy online or in bookstores, more than half of the people, 58%, never open the book. And so, your book isn’t any more magical than that anyway, right?

So the odds are that somebody will open it if it’s small enough that it looks like they could vantage it, but I’m never counting on them doing it. The whole point of this, if you’re using it as a lead generation tool, is that once they’ve raised their hands, once they’ve gone from an invisible prospect to a visible option, the book has done its job, and now we want to start engaging in a dialogue with them. We want to say … you know, if somebody downloads a book called Working Less and Making More, you can assume that they downloaded it and want to work less and make more.

So now, focus your follow-up or your engagement with them on…

Did you get the book?

Did you get a chance to read it?

And you begin from there.

In Summary,

The trick is persistent engagement. Whether it is through social media or email follow-ups after initial opt-ins, you need to stay on the radar and build that relationship. a solid relationship will eventually yield results.

For more on client engagement, head on to the podcast, where Dean and Stuart present thrilling tips and examples on the topic.