3 Lessons for Marketing Your Book

Held a fun Zoom session on the things to do when you launch your book. What to do before the book launch to get ready, the launch day, and the days following your launch. Get your book off to a great start. Check out the recording below

Bruce Jones is the author of How to Sell Your Book, How I Made $322,650 and Sold 34,605 Books on Amazon, click to learn more

Amazon Book Sales, March 2010-October 2020

 Total e-books sold..................................................3,120

Total paperbacks sold............................................31,485

Total books sold....................................................34,605

Average e-book sales price.........................$2.50/$7,800

Average paperback book sales price.....$10.00/$314,850

Total Gross Sales on Amazon, (estimate).........$322,650

Total Royalties Paid (my profit)..............$108,126

Average sales over 10 years........................$10,812/year

Average royalty per book........................................$3.12

I look at book sales from the royalty per book point of view. That is the money I put in my pocket. 

I also sell books in PDF format on several websites. I use Gumroad.com to take the orders and deliver the files. I primarily sell my geography coloring books, which have a sales price of $5.00/book. I also bundle them which pushes the unit price up to and makes the average price $7.12/book-bundle. This is a new direction for me and with the geography books and other titles, I have sold 457 books for $2,739. 

I encourage you to look at all avenues for selling your books. Along with Gumroad.com I also use Etsy.com. We are a global world and with PDF you can sell and deliver your book anywhere and everywhere you have customers. It costs almost nothing to test and try.

Remember my principal, what can I do to have sales, try everything? It is a big planet with billions of customers and we are all connected.

Excerpt from How to Sell Your Book, How I Made $322,650 and Sold 34,605 Books On Amazon by J. Bruce Jones

J. Bruce Jones is an author and creator of over 50 books. Bruce teaches self-publishing authors how to publish their books. To learn more about Bruce’s latest project, How to Sell Your Book, How I Made $322,650 and Sold 34,605 Books on Amazon click here.

Learn How to Upload your Paperback Book to KDP/Amazon

https://gum.co/cnScA

Publishing your book is super cool. Most of us who are self-publishing use the KDP/Amazon publishing site. With just a little instruction, the process is very smooth and straight forward. 

In this training, you will learn how to upload your paperback book to the KDP/Amazon site for publishing on Amazon. Using my new book, European Country Maps Coloring Book, I take you through the upload and publishing steps. Includes a PDF transcript.

In this training, I cover adding your details, content, rights, and pricing:

Book Title, Series, Author & Contributors, Book Description, Keywords, Categories, ISBN, Print Options, Uploading your Manuscript and Book Cover, Launching Previewer, Territories, Pricing & Royalty, Publishing, Followup Email

Learn more at Learn How to Upload your Paperback Book to KDP/Amazon

J. Bruce Jones is the author of over 50 books. His latest book is How to Sell Your Book, How I Made $32,650 and Sold 43,605 Books on Amazon. To learn more Click Here.

New Coloring Book, European Country Maps Coloring Book

Announcing the release of my newest coloring book, European Country Maps Coloring Book, 46 Blank, Outline, and Detailed Country Maps for Coloring, Home, and Education.

In this book, you will learn about and color the countries of Europe in European Country Maps Coloring Book, 46 Blank, Outline, and Detailed Country Maps for Coloring, Home, and Education. Includes France, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Spain, and 40 more. Learn and color blank, outline, and detailed maps of the European Countries.

The blank outline maps are great for learning the geography and layout of each country. Each country map is presented in two ways, a map of their administrative districts or political borders, including capitals and several cities. Plus, a blank outline map of each country. Many maps include the surrounding border countries.

Perfect for coloring, home, and education. Students can trace the outlines of the map, study, and highlight countries and features on the blank maps. Maps can be photocopied for sharing with your children or students. A great resource for students and teachers.

To purchase a paperback at Amazon, CLICK HERE

To purchase a PDF, CLICK HERE

J. Bruce Jones is the author of over 50 self-published books. I publish on geography, music, self-publishing, and business. Along with publishing, I have created software products and online courses.

The Writer's Online Toolkit from Maryville University

There are a lot of great tools available for writers from Grammarly, to Google Docs, to Livescribe Pen. In this article from Maryville University's Blog they cover quite a few along with some general tips on writing. The article includes General Writing tools and tools for Novelists, Academic Writing, Freelance Writers, Events, and Resources.

You can check it out at https://online.maryville.edu/blog/the-writers-online-toolkit/

Over $322,650 in Book Sales on Amazon

I was looking at my Amazon historical sales today and in lifetime commissions I just went over $100K to $101,743.87, I average about $10/book. So in retail sales, I have sold $322,650 dollars in books based on selling 34,605 books. Hard to believe. It looks like they are keeping records for me back to Jan 2011. The above and below charts are from 2011-2020.

Workbook Masterclass, Create Your Own Workbooks, Checklists and Journal

The Workbook MasterClass is open June 12-19, 2020https://gum.co/workbookmasterclassSpecial Open Discount, use Code workbookopen

In the Workbook Masterclass, I show you how to create your own workbooks, checklist, or journals.  We will be looking at your books, coaching, consulting, or teaching and pulling out the key content or path and create a workbook.

Our books, coaching, consulting and teaching take our readers, clients, or students on a journey. We move them from point A to point B. They go on a journey of discovery and learning. Hopefully, there is a transformation that takes place as they start to understand what we are saying and teaching. 

A workbook becomes an excellent companion on this journey. It helps your reader or client move through your material and either learn or through self-awareness understand and retain what you are trying to say. 

We use our workbooks as a tool or roadmap to help guide our reader, client, or student to the lessons we are teaching. We also use our workbooks as additional products. It is a way to monetize our books and coaching. Workbooks are often seen as more valuable than the original book. The book, coaching, or teaching is the theory, the workbook, study guide, or checklist is the practical. It is a way of pulling out the lessons and key points of our content. 

Included in the Workbook MasterClass

• Workbook Examples, great examples to model, Video

• The Hidden Treasures in Your Content, Video, we look at your books, coaching, consulting, and teaching. 

• Key Workbook Tips and Ideas, Products You Can Make from Your Workbook

• 3 Case Studies by Workbook creators, Videos

• Workbook MasterClass Book, PDF Book

• The Workbook Tips and Resources, PDF Book

• Publishing and Marketing Your Workbook, Video

• Design Tips 101 for Workbooks, Video

• Making Your Cover, Video

• Workbook Elements Templates for MS Word, PowerPoint, and InDesign

• 3 Live Zoom Training Sessions, Applying the Templates

To learn more or buy the MasterClass click: https://gum.co/workbookmasterclassUse our special Launch Discount Code for $50 off workbookopen

Masterclass: How to Create Your Own Workbooks, Checklists and Journals

Hi all I’m doing a Masterclass training on creating your own workbooks, checklists or journals. The training is $27 for the next 10 people, this course will include templates. If you are interested checkout the link below to sign up. The product will be released June 12th.

Learn more about the masterclass at How to Create Your Own Workbooks, Checklists and Journals.

How to Create Your Own Workbooks, Checklists, or Journals.

This course will be released on June 12th, 2020 at 12 pm EST!

In this masterclass, we will discuss how to create workbooks, checklists, and journals. This masterclass is perfect for anyone who has an existing business, self-help, or how-to book. Or if you are a coach, consultant, or teacher. If you are developing a book this class will also help you think about how you can structure your book and if you can add a workbook to it. I bet you can.

Workbooks are a great way to add an additional product to your business. You can create an entire program around a workbook that sells for much more than the original book.

Who is this Masterclass for?

This class is perfect for any author that has a business, self-help, or how-to book. Also, teachers, coaches, and consultants.

Included in the Masterclass

• The Hidden Treasure in Your Book

• Discovering your workbooks parts

• How to create your workbook, checklist or journal

• I will be including the templates from the class so you can create your own workbooks, checklist, and journals.

• How to publish your workbook, checklist or journal

Learn more about the masterclass at How to Create Your Own Workbooks, Checklists and Journals.

Self-Publishing Questions and Answers April 3, 2020

In today's self-publishing Questions and Answer live broadcast, I answered all kinds of great questions on publishing, marketing, royalties. Check out the video below.



In today's live broadcast I cover lots of great questions
• How to publish or market my book?
• Where to go to publish your book?
• I write in lots of genres, what should do?
• Who pays the best royalties and has a good reputation?
• How to start?
• How to publish, what channels should I consider?
• I am writing a biography?
• How to publish, create the book, cover, making copies, sell it?
• Best self-publishing marketing strategies?
• Best marketing promotion tactics?
• How to book? Formatting and marketing?
• I'm 10 years old, can I publish a book?

Come over and join the How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group. Get your questions answered
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook

How to Market Your Book or Product, EASY PRODUCTS

How to Market Your Product.

I recently conducted a series of Facebook live broadcasts on creating a product and hosting it online. In this third video, I talk about marketing it.

How to Use Google Classroom

I am learning how to use Google Classroom. I just discovered that my editable PowerPoint maps work very nicely inside of Classroom

Here is a good explanation of how to use it by Michelle Ferré


Another good Google Classroom introduction by Teacher's Tech

0:33 How to access Google Classroom
1:50 Create and edit a class in Google Classroom
3:50 Add students to your Google Classroom
5:35 Showing how students join a class
6:25 Invite guardians and email students
7:03 Communicating in the Stream in Google Classroom with student view
9:56 Adding resources and materials in Google Classroom
13:57 Student view of resources and materials
14:23 Creating an assignment in Google Classroom
17:59 Student view of the assignment
19:47 Grading and returning assignment in Google Classroom
23:20 Students view of the returned assignment


Make your PDFs and Worksheets Editable Online - Using Google Slides

How to Sell Your Product Online, We Dive into Gumroad and Host Our Tips Book

How to Sell Your Product Online, We Dive into Gumroad_com. Gumroad is my favorite site for selling digital products. Today I will show you how to host and sell your product using the Tips and Resource Book we created yesterday.

Self-Publishing your own book is one of the coolest things you can do. But finding out how is sometimes a challenge. In this book, I have pulled together a collection of my own tips and resources for creating and publishing your book. In Self-Publishing SECRETS 2020 Tips and Resources cover from audiobooks to book editing, stock photos, and self-publishing. Each resource includes a description and a web address.

Includes

• Audio Books

• Creating Audio Files for Podcasts and Audio Books

• Book Production and Creation Tools

• Online Photo Editing

• Book Writing Resources

• Copyright Office

• Editing Resources

• Fonts

• Freelance Resources

• ISBN Number

• Marketing

• Public Relations

• Re-Purposing Your Book Content for Additional Products

• Self-Publishing Resources

• Stock Photos, Clip Art Sites

• Selling Your Content Online

• Translation Service, Online

• Transcription Services

• Writing Style Manuals

• Video Chatting Software for Creating Videos Interviews

To Buy The 

Self-Publishing SECRETS Tips and Resource Book Click Here https://gum.co/ZBfmK

Be sure to use the Discount Code: selfpublishing for $2 off.

How to Create a Product from a Book, EASY PRODUCTS Live Training

How to create a product, EASY PRODUCTS Live Training. Today we start creating our first product that we can sell online. In this live training, I will show how I put a book together from an existing book. We are repurposing out content

Updates for How to Publish Your Book Trainings, Making Products, Gumroad, Easy Workbook

UPDATES: Latest news for training on creating a product and selling online, using Gumroad and we create a new workbook with Easy Workbook

Doing a Deep Dive into Legion Beats and Gabe Schillinger

I followed up on my learning about Legion Beats and Gabe Schillinger by doing a deep dive into his business. I watched his videos on YouTube, I signed up to his mailing list. I have been funnel hacking his funnels. Really just seeing how he does stuff. Learning and learning. The other night I signed up on something and it was for a webinar. So I watched it and wouldn't you know, it was Gabe doing a live Zoom call. He talked for two hours on his products and Legion Beats. It was great. You don't usually get to see or hear from the founders of companies, but there he was. The webinar was for music beats, but that is ok, you learn a lot by looking at all kinds of stuff. The video is what a beat is.




I followed that up by sending him the email below



HI Gabe, excellent webinar last night. Didn’t realize it would be you conducting a live session, very cool

So here is my reason for watching and following what you are doing. I saw you speak at FHL 2020 in Nashville a couple of weeks ago. You were great. 

My reason for going to Funnel Hacking Live (FHL) is that years ago I created a clip art package of editable maps that are primarily used for business presentations with PowerPoint. I drew the entire US, States, Counties, Worlds, Countries, all of it. Sales managers and companies can set up sales territory maps and give presentations about them. I have been selling these maps for just about 30 years. I have had huge success doing this, selling somewhat just under $1.5 million of maps of the years. They sold really well until the Recession and then everything changed. The maps still sell every day, but not at the volume that they were before the Recession. One of the reasons was my main customers all lost their jobs. 

I sell on traditional websites with shopping carts and all the regular commerce stuff. I have been following CF for a while and wondered if I could sell clip art through a funnel. None of my direct map competitors use funnels and none of the big stock/images houses that also sell maps use funnels. Sites like Shutterstock, or Stock. None of the companies that sell sales and territory mapping software use funnels. 

I have searched all kinds of digital arts sellers and none of them use funnels. Etsy is probably the most popular way to sell this kind of digital art right now. I went to FHL to see what I could learn and almost no one even understood what I was talking about. That has been pretty much the reaction of my maps forever, no one knows what I am selling. Until you need a map that you can customize in your presentation, then you wiggle your way to me. For years there were only about 4 of us in the world doing this. I heard your presentation and went, he is doing what I want to do. Except you are selling beats and I am selling maps, but in reality, they are both just digital files. You are selling basically clip art for music, I sell clip art for business. I have a model!! If Gabe is doing this, maybe I can too. I can funnel hack it. You have a roadmap. You have the same issue, no one was selling beats using funnels.

The past few days I watched several of your YouTube interviews, the Cymatics one is outstanding, read your stuff, and signed into your funnel. I love your openness and the great info you give.

Anyways that is why I was on the webinar last night. You have an entirely different market but the roadmap is very similar. I knew nothing about beats before watching what you are doing. 

I don’t really even have a question, but now I have a direction to try. Your funnels and teachings maybe are adaptable to many other markets other than music. 

Thank you, bruce jones

In case you are interested

https://www.mapsfordesign.com/

https://bjdesign.com/

He got back

Hey Bruce, thanks for reaching out! As was the case for me, sometimes having a weird niche where people haven't made it work yet can end up being a huge advantage.

Glad to hear it's been some inspiration for you.

I'm going to be taking a group through the process I talked about at Funnel Hacking Live soon. If you'd more info on that, you can get on the early access list at contestlaunchsecrets.com

Either way, best of luck to you!

Thanks,
Gabe

2020 Click Funnels Funnel Hacking Live Nashville Conference, My Take Aways

This year I went to Click Funnels' Funnel Hacking Live 2020 internet marketing conference in Nashville. There were 5,000 attendees. This is the biggest conference of any kind I have been to and it was quite an experience. I went to learn about selling and marketing.

FHL was mixed for me. I arrived on Monday and by Monday evening I was sick. I got a big winter cold.  Didn’t get the flu but pretty close, probably from the plane. I am still recovering. By the end of the week, I was taking two naps a day and going to bed early. But I did get to participate in pretty much everything. I heard most of the presentations and learned stuff. A buddy of mine came on Tuesday and we shared costs. It was excellent having someone there to talk about stuff.

One of the most importing things I learned was from a 74-year-old English guy who lives in Northern Thailand. It took him four days and 4 planes to get to FHL. He has been an international marketing consultant and still uses ClickFunnels for one of his clients. We had a long talk in the bar about our stuff. I talked about my maps and what I was trying to figure out. I said I primarily sell my maps around easy editability and easy to change the colors. He stopped me and said that isn’t what I am selling. I am selling data. I am selling the ability to take someone’s data and present it in a way people can understand it. I have never thought about my maps this way. I make your data look pretty. It was an ah-ha moment. It is just shifting a little, but it made so much more sense. I have been selling these maps for 30 years. I never thought of them this way.

Interesting observation

I went to FHL to work on how to sell my maps and also how to sell my Publishing SECRETS book using Click Funnels. Very quickly the book became a non-issue. It just didn’t fit in this place. No one was interested, it really just needs a CF book funnel and be done with it. I primarily focused on just the maps. I am very glad I re-did my business card with a US map on it, at least I could show people what I sell. In reality, almost, no one understood what I was selling or even talking about. Clip Art was of no interest and maps were even less. I only really found one person that even knew what I was talking about and that person used PowerPoint. So he understood and was a little interested. Being here for the week allowed me to try different ways of explaining. The data idea helped. I started talking about business software, then customize map files for sales teams and education. I tried a lot of stuff. This has been my issue for years, no one really understands what I am talking about until you need it.

Who Did I Like

Russel did several excellent talks each day on foundation, funnels and traffic. He is an excellent speaker.

Gabe Schillinger, of Legion Beats who creates beats for rap musicians, is kind of similar to me. He creates digital files and sells them through Click Funnels. He has had a ton of success selling beats. https://legionbeats.com/ He was the only person I heard or met that sold digital files.

This video interview with Cymatics is pretty much what he talked about in his presentation. This is a fantastic interview.

https://youtu.be/hX4-zAM5lkc

Another video from the Producer Podcast on the process also has a ton of info on what he is doing

https://youtu.be/O6YwUQodunU

here is one of his funnels

https://youtu.be/lloElF8HOHI

Click on the free beats link in the description and you will see the funnel

He struggled and then found CF and created a big success. Something like this might work for me selling clip art, or recipes

I also really liked Kathryn Jones and Dan Henry, I identified with both of these people

Kathryn Jones was fantastic. Young, tons of energy and talked about Design Hacking. Figure out who is successful in your market and then mimic their look and feel. You do what they do.

Dan Henry gave an excellent presentation on using your FB ads to start your presentation and then move them right to the sales page. He also gave away his book to all 5,000 people, Digital Millionaire Secrets about how he did it. Keeping things super simple. Go from the ad with 3 key points to the sales page.

I got a little tied listening to speakers whose lives were falling apart. My thought was if they spent a little less time making videos or whatever their marriages or kids might not be such a mess. Just a thought. Announcing you are getting divorced from the FHL stage just doesn’t seem like the best idea

Production of the event

The production of FHL was amazing. Outstanding video and audio. The speakers were well trained and all the CF people were super helpful. Instead of trying to get to the front of the 5,000 crazy people, we just sat in the back. The video projection was so good it didn’t make any difference.

The Roundtable session with all the cool people was pretty much useless unless you could get to a table. They had over 30 tables. Just way to much noise to hear anything.

The fourth day was the Impact day with Tony Robbins. I have never seen him before other than on video. It was going to be a 3.5-hour event. Both Everett and I left after 15-20 minutes. He was hurting from a previous 4-day event, he couldn’t move much and had 5 shots in his knees to be able to walk. He just wasn’t relatable. It was interesting to see the audience react to him. They just didn’t get his references. He is 60 years old, this was a millennial audience. He would drop a name or make a reference and the reaction was flat. I was pretty sick by this time, I don’t need to listen to this. The shorter inspiration speakers way better than the long ones.

We also had listened earlier to Garrett White talk about his failing marriage and his kid talking about suicide. This guy is intense. He also left an almost 600-page book on his marriage issues on everyone’s chair. I kept thinking, why are you here, go work on your family.

Observations

I really noticed the generational divide. I am old these people are all young. The world has moved on. Yes, there were older people here but this was a serious millennial crowd. It was cool to see the social media, YouTube influencers walking around with their video crews. They all looked so polished and shiny.

Everyone was here to talk about business. It didn’t take a second before people got into their stuff. That was cool

I had a great conversation with a used car dealer from Puerto Rico who used Click Funnels to bring in leads. He has two dealerships. He talked about attracting the millennial customer. Older people like discounts, buying a car is all about price. Millennial’s want experiences, price isn’t so important. They run contests for a fun event, a weekend away, parachuting with your friends, all kinds of things. They get 1,000 people to enter the contest and someone wins the prize. They then call each person who entered and offer the same prize if they come in to purchase a car. Buy the car, get the prize. They have 20 people calling. Millennials don’t want to talk on the phone, so the also text. The entire car purchase is done over text. They have had great success in doing this. The millennials don’t really care about the money, they want the experience. The cost is about $600-800 per car. About the same as you would give for a discount.

This idea could be applied to a lot of things. Publishing books, you also get a writer's weekend. Making recipes and food plans, you get cooking classes. Selling exercise, how about a work out camp.

Overall a cool experience, I wish I didn’t get sick but it all worked out.

Publishing A Book: A Guide to Becoming An Author from Bulk Books

Publishing A Book: A Guide to Becoming An Author from Bulk Books. Bulk Books reached out to me recently with this article on publishing your book. It has a lot of interesting info in it. It is a little more from the traditional publishing side than from the self-publishing world that I work in. But it is worth reading and the point about if you are going the traditional root to look for a publisher that fits your book. A better fit the better chance you have of getting picked up.

Check it out here: Publishing A Book: A Guide to Becoming An Author from Bulk Books

Findaway Voices and Alternative to Amazon's Audible Audio Book Servies

When we think audiobooks we often go right to Amazon's Audible service. They are great and they are on Amazon. But there are alternatives that are worth looking at. One of the main ones is Findaway Voices. They distribute everywhere, better royalties and the ability to run promotions and give away free content. Below is an excellent video on their distribution, pricing, discovery and promotional ability.



To learn more about Findaway Voices Click Here