You Need a Valuable Bonus

    

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Through the years, I’ve purchased a number of products online. Many of them include a bonus or several  bonuses as an incentive to buy the product. From my experience, often these bonus items are disappointing and not useful to me. In this article, I want to emphasize how I took a different path with a bonus and why you need to get this book--and the bonus.

In early 2020, right before the pandemic, I was one of a small group of authors who took a three-day book funnel bootcamp in Boulder, Colorado. At that time I lived in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, but during the bootcamp I stayed in a hotel in Boulder. Before arriving at the event, I filled out a detailed questionnaire or advanced homework to make sure I brought what I needed to the bootcamp.

 At this practical bootcamp, we learned how to create an attractive offer for our book along with adding bonuses to the offer. As a group, we worked long hours to get feedback and refine our offer. 

Throughout the bootcamp there was a great deal of learning to use new tools, short lectures from the leaders then practical application of the instruction to your own book funnel. The book funnel involved signing up and using some behind-the-scenes tools to process the book sale. While I’ve seen several of the participants drop the product they produced, I’m still working and promoting my product. Throughout the process, I gathered a large folder of questions that I answered and tools that I can use when I create my next funnel (which has not happened). 

As I brainstormed my bonuses for the book funnel, I recalled interviewing one of my author friends who has sold thousands of his self-published books to public libraries. There are over 9,000 libraries who have budgets to buy books for their patrons. Online this author located a public list of the contact information for libraries. Taking several hours each day, my friend spent several hours a day calling the library and connecting with the reference librarian on the phone. Then he pitched the benefits of his book with some persuasive bullet points. As he closed his oral presentation, he asked the librarian for the sale and got the information he needed for his invoice. Each day, he would fill out the invoices, package his books and take them to his post office. Throughout my interview, this writer gave me the specifics of what he did to sell thousands of his books to libraries. These details are included in the audio bonus from my book funnel. It is a valuable bonus because any author (no matter how they publish) can use this system to sell their book to libraries.

As you read these details of selling books to libraries, you may be thinking: making all those phone calls and selling my book is a lot of work. From my experience there is no simple way to sell books that does not involve a lot of hard work. To achieve these sales, you will have to step out of your comfort zone, develop an oral presentation about the benefits of your book and sell it to the reference librarian. Your persistent and consistent effort will pay off and sell thousands of books. 

It’s another reason for you to order my 10 Publishing Myths book directly from me for only $10 including the shipping along with over $200 in free bonuses (including this audio about how to sell to libraries). 

Through the years, I’ve written a number of articles about libraries and the importance for authors. Check out these articles: Get Your Book into Libraries or Learn How to Reach the Library Market. I encourage you to follow these links to the article but also to the additional information and lnks in each article. It is not easy or simple for any author but the opportunity and the possibility is there for you--if you do the work.

How do you determine the free bonuses that you offer with your products? Do you brainstorm them with other writers or do it on your own? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

When you create a product, you need a valuable bonus. This prolific author and editor gives an example and the details here.  (ClickToTweet)

My Writing In Other Places:

With these articles, I encourage you to publish your work beyond your blog in other places. Below are two articles which were published in other online locations than this blog. 

Once a month, I guest blog for the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference blog. This month I wrote about A Critical Element of Publishing at: https://bit.ly/4lTPV5H

Also once a month I blog for Writers on the Move. This month I wrote about The Hidden Costs of Publishing. Read the details here: https://bit.ly/40ghu05 

In addition, once a month I blog about book proposal creation for Almost An Author. This month I asked, Trying to Get A Literary Agent? here: https://bit.ly/4f8e3Pb

New Podcasts:

In these articles, I’ve encouraged you to use PodMatch or some similar tool to book and record podcasts. Last week another podcast recording launched: 

CJ Johnson (@cj_moneyway) and I spoke about Publishing Success Starts Here: Terry Whalin on the 10 Myths Every Aspiring Author Must Break on The CJ Moneyway Podcast. Listen at: https://bit.ly/4fc2nev 

A great deal of the publishing process is outside of our control as writers. When I speak with authors, I find many of these authors have unrealistic expectations. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors practical help. You can get decades of insights in 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS for only $10, free shipping and over $200 of bonuses.

Subscribe to Terry’s Newsletter:

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Since 2004, I have blogged about The Writing Life over 1,700 entries and one of the top 27 content writers. With this simple form, each week you can get my new articles, encouragement and insights at: https://t.co/W6uU64u6aA

Add Value With Repurposed Content

Recently I wrote about the value of repurposed content. As writers and editors, we have a lot of this material which is "hanging around." Are you using it?

In the next few weeks, I will be releasing a new product into the marketplace. It is premature to write about the specifics but I can tell you about the process and hopefully help some of you readers to think creatively about some of your material and how it can be repurposed.

I'm still in the preparation stage to release this new product. I have purchased a website address and I'm in the process of building a landing page. If you don't know this term, landing page, it is a one-page website with persuasive words where someone can purchase the new product. If you want to learn more in depth about this process, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of Bob Bly's four audio CD set called The Internet Marketing Retirement Plan. While many people try to make the Internet marketing process into something complex (and charge an expensive price to teach it to you), Bob and Fred Gleeck reduce it into three simple steps. This set of CDs is packed with information. I've listened to all of it twice and learn something new each time. I'm sure I would benefit from a third session with it.

While there are several key factors to building a good landing page, one portion of the process is adding some bonus items to the purchase which have value for the customer. Some times I will purchase a product not because of that particular product but because of the attractive bonus which comes with that product. I suspect my buying habits are fairly typical in this area.

As I was considering the possibilities for the bonus items, I turned to something which has been sitting around in my desk drawer for several years. I’ve been traveling around the United States and Canada teaching at various writers' conferences. Usually, my workshops are recorded and I receive a copy of the CD presentation. Normally I pick it up at the conference (if available), tuck it into my carry-on luggage and bring it home. When I unpack, I put the workshop into my desk drawer where it is not replayed and does absolute zero good for anyone (including me).

Over the last few months, I've been listening to the CDs from Mega Book Marketing University 2006 and Mega Book Marketing University 2007. Each of these presentations begins and ends with the same jazzy little tune. From the instant you turn on the program, the music begins and it mentally prepares you for the next speaker. In simplistic terms, it's called branding and each of these CDs are branded or connected through the music. I've learned this music is called "needle music" and if you search for it online, you can find many different vendors for royalty-free music.

Let's turn back to my need for some bonus items for my forthcoming product. I turned to these workshops which have been taught before live audiences and is my material in a readily available format. In a relatively short amount of time, I extracted the workshop from the CD, selected a short piece of needle music, then branded the workshops so they contain identical music at the beginning and the end of the workshop. I know almost nothing about how to edit audio tapes. I used a program called Sound Forge which is menu-driven and simple to use. Just like you can use Microsoft Word to edit a text file, you can use Sound Forge to edit an audio program. If you are wondering about the illustration for this entry, it is the Sound Forge editing program from my computer. The little blue lines are audio music which I was editing.

The editing process wasn't a chore but actually fun. I snipped out some silence at the beginning of my workshop and added a few seconds of the music introduction. Then I moved to the end of the workshop and again cut out some silence so it ended with some applause from the audience. Then I added a few more seconds of the same music. Now my workshops are a package and I've repurposed my content. These audio workshops will become a valuable addition to my product.

Here's my question with this entry about The Writing Life: what are you doing with your material to repurpose it and add value to your products? Explore the possibilities and the results may surprise you.