Bundling Your Products

Yesterday, we discussed
how early buyers
are more valuable
than late buyers.

This is important
to keep in mind
when bundling older products.

We do this quite often
in the Romance Novel industry.
We’ll group all of the stories
in a series
into one convenient boxed set
for readers.

The prospects
most interested in this boxed set
will be the late buyers.
The early buyers will already have
the individual stories.

There’s a temptation
to add ‘extra content’
to the boxed set
to try to incite early buyers
to buy the boxed set also.

Resist this temptation.

This tactic punishes early buyers,
communicates
that they were fools
to buy the product early.
These customers will remember this
and will wait to buy your next release.

It also makes late buyers unhappy.
These additions are new.
They haven’t been proven,
haven’t been given the stamp of approval
by other buyers.

Reducing the price
on a bundle,
however,
has little impact on early buyers.
They usually aren’t as price sensitive
and they prefer to have the product first
even if it costs a little bit more.

And it makes the more price-sensitive
late buyers
happy.

When creating bundles,
consider your different types of buyers.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Not All Prospects Are Equal

Yesterday,
I talked about customers
who pre-order,
who plunk down payment
before the product is ready.

There’s also a group of customers
who wait.
They wait until there are reviews,
until they know EXACTLY
what they’re receiving.
Often they’re waiting for the price
to drop.

If you asked me,
while I was in my writer persona,
while I was in ‘public’,
which group was the most important,
I’d tell you that I love all my readers
(customers)
equally.
They’re all special to me.
It doesn’t matter when they buy.

But this is client k
and there’s no reason
to bullshit you.
These two groups are NOT equal.

I’m a small business.
I prefer to receive cash now,
rather than six months from now.

I prefer to have customers
who will buy at full price,
who will buy before the product is successful,
who will MAKE that product successful.

If it weren’t for the early buyers
making the product successful,
the late buyers wouldn’t even
be interested in it.

Yes, try to make the late buyers happy
but NEVER at the cost
of the early buyers’ happiness.
They are your most important customers.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Pricing And The Customers You Want

I always make my books available
for pre-order.
Readers can buy them now
and the books will be delivered
to their eBook readers
on release day.

The latest trend
in the romance novel industry
is putting pre-order books
on sale.

This makes NO sense.

Pre-order folks are superfans.
They love our books.
That’s why they don’t need reviews
to pre-order a book.
They are going to read the books
whether they are on sale or full price.

And their primary concern
is reading books FIRST, not price.
Lowering the price makes NO difference to them.
NONE.

Giving out a gazillion advanced copies
WILL make a difference to these superfans.
It will make them extremely grumpy
if they don’t receive one.

Don’t reduce the price
for customers
who don’t care about price.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Niches And The Crowded Market

The romance novel market
is extremely crowded.
6,000 books a day
are released on Amazon
and many of them are romance novels.

Readers have the luxury
of only reading a certain type of romance novel
and they do exactly that.
If they like wolf shifter romances,
that is ALL they read.

Which means if a writer,
who normally writes vampire romances,
changes to wolf shifter romances,
she loses all of her vampire romance readers.

The ONLY way to survive
in this crowded market
is to stick to one niche.

Even the huge selling writers
are niche.
They might write everything
but they only publish a certain type of book
and that’s it.

Seth Godin
shares

“More breadth,
though,
doesn’t cause change,
and it won’t get you noticed.

Focus works.
A sharp edge cuts through the clutter.”

In a crowded market,
consider focusing on a niche.

Pen Names And Not Taking Things Personally

I might joke around
with readers
but I take my work
as a romance writer
extremely seriously.

As Seth Godin
explains.
That isn’t the same thing
as taking my work personally.

“Professionals take their work seriously.
The work matters,
the impacts and externalities are real.

On the other hand,
we can’t take it personally.
When someone rejects an idea,
or if a project doesn’t succeed,
we’ve learned a valuable lesson
about strategy and about tactics,
but it’s not a reflection
on our worth as a human.”

One of the things
that helps separate
my personal self
from my writing self
is my use of a pen name.

Trolls might target
(Pen Name)
but (Pen Name) isn’t
(Real Me).
The pen name creates a distance.
It allows me to see the situation
more impersonally.

Brand names or business names
can do the same thing
for entrepreneurs.

Employ tactics
that allow you to take
your work seriously
but not personally.

Keeping The New Product Development Funnel Full

I don’t feel right
unless I have a book
(a product)
available for pre-order
(waiting to release).

New Product Development
in today’s constantly changing world
is a continuous process.

Very few companies
can release one product
and that’s it
and expect to be successful.
Even Coca-Cola launches new products
every year.

What does this mean?

You should consider
always having new products
in the development funnel.

They don’t have to be your focus.
That should be your current product.
But you might wish to
slowly push them ahead.

You will need a next product
eventually.
Incorporate that in your plans.

Knocking On Doors

If I don’t interact
with readers,
I don’t sell books.

Usually my sales funnel
looks like this…
I post marketing.
A reader makes a comment
about that marketing.
I respond to that comment.
She buys the book.

My reply is an important part
of the process.
If I don’t reply,
the reader doesn’t buy.

This is the same
now that I’m selling
thousands of books
as it was
when I was selling
hundreds of books.

The only difference is
when I post marketing,
more prospects comment on it.

Laurie DeJong,
Founder of
LDJ Productions,
shares

“The best way I’ve found
to build the business
is [knocking on doors].

When I say ‘knocking on doors,’
I mean really, really pursuing them
and leaning on industry newsletters,
finding names of people,
and then just emailing them
and following up every other week.

I was trying to be
as persistent
as you could be
without getting annoying.”

The knocking on doors
never stops.
Embrace that part
of the process.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Ed Sheeran And Being Weird

A recent webinar
stated
that there were
6,000 books a DAY
loaded at Amazon.

That fact
can be intimidating
for a writer.

Until I remind myself
that there is only ONE book
exactly like mine.
If readers want to buy that book,
they have to buy my book.

Ed Sheeran
shares

“Stuttering is not a thing
you have to worry about at all
and even if you have
quirks and weirdness,
you shouldn’t be worried about that.

Just be yourself
because there’s no one in the world
who can be a better you than you
and if you try to be the cool kid in class,
you’ll end up being very boring.

Be yourself.
Embrace your quirks.

Being weird is a wonderful thing.”

All artists,
entrepreneurs,
product designers
are weird.
Embrace it.

The Editing Death Spiral

There’s no such thing
as perfect.
Everything has imperfections.

There IS, however,
such a thing
as over-refined.

In writing,
we call this over-editing.
It is when a writer
revises and revises
until she revises all of the magic
out of her story.

Emotional scenes
are often raw and imperfect
and usually shouldn’t be touched.
When my editor says,
‘this makes me cry,’
I leave that scene alone.

That should be your cue too.
If a prospect says,
‘I love this,’
leave it alone.
Consider it done.

You CAN rework all of the magic
out of your product.
Be conscious of this.

New And Exciting…In Your Niche

Readers in my niche
are buzzing about
my most recent release,
calling it different, exciting, new.

It IS
different, exciting, new…
for that niche.
In other niches,
it has been done.

I learned this trick
in my consumer product days.

Study the products
that were excitingly different and successful
in other industries.
Figure out the core reason
customers were raving over that product.
Then apply that to our own industry.

That’s a success cheat
and it often works.

This is why I recommend
that you stay current
with other industries,
especially entertainment fields.

Look to other industries
for new product development
inspiration.