I recently launched a poetry book called This is How You Know.
Before the launch, I did all kinds of research on product launches, consuming everything I possibly could to learn how to do this kind of thing in an effective way. I studied the work of product launch guru Jeff Walker and took extensive notes and made a plan and had evening meetings with my husband after the kids were in bed so we could try to create something that would interest people and encourage them to support my career as an author.
For the launch, I released three pre-launch videos, spaced a week apart so that, from start to finish, they spanned three weeks. The first video was met with some excitement from people who read me regularly and were happy to finally see a book on the market. The second one was met with fewer views. The third was met with hardly any views at all.
All of that lack of response made me feel guilty that I was “pushing” the videos on people, because at the end of them, what I was really trying to do was sell interest in my poetry book. And then came the launch week, and my husband, who is a content marketer and branding consultant, told me I’d have to kill it on social media and my email list, letting people know about the book and trying to get sales, and I groaned aloud.
We don’t always like to sell ourselves, do we?
I would much rather have someone else sell me. I would much rather have someone else talking about how much my book will help others. I would much rather defer to others when it comes to spreading the word.
It’s true that every week I give more than 5,000 words in free content away, but sometimes it seems like I’m trying to sell that, too, because I’m posting it on all the social media channels, and I’m letting people read the stuff that will eventually form the basis for book material, so it always feels like they’re doing me a favor by reading and sharing it.
But the reality is that my words provide value. My words help make a murky world clear. My words have a tangible effect on people, bettering their lives or giving them information or just encouraging them with humor and truth. So I’m giving. I’m giving and giving and giving, every single week, day in and day out, and I’ve never sold a thing to anyone before this poetry book.
We can feel like we’re not doing what’s right, because no one really likes to be sold to, but the reality is that what we have, the message we carry, the product we’ve developed, has value, and it has the potential to change lives and minds and hearts, and this is a valuable thing to do—that providing transformation in the form of words. So what we’re really selling is not the actual book but the transformation that comes from reading it. And this is a valuable thing.
What we have to offer holds value, and we have to get over this idea that people are doing us a favor by reading it and sharing it, because no one’s going to do those kinds of things as a favor. Do we give out those kinds of favors, or do we share things when we find value in them?
If we’re going to make a career out of our writing, we’re going to have to get over this not wanting to sell our products, because if we believe that what we’re doing is valuable, then we’re going to have to communicate that value in order to get it in the hands of the people.
And the truth is, if we’re indie authors selling our 70,000-word book for $4.99, that’s not a whole lot to ask of the people who follow us. That’s about the same price as the Starbucks they probably had yesterday. They get a whole story that could change their lives or show them a deeper truth, which is more than Starbucks ever did.
Next week I’ll be talking about all the things I learned about product launches from this poetry book launch, and the week after that I’ll be talking about how we can get better at product launches. But for now, I wanted to get this out of the way: We have to become comfortable with selling ourselves if we’re ever going to make this a career.
Here are some ways we can do that:
1. Recognize that what we have to offer holds value.
Maybe it’s just an entertaining story. People love to be entertained, so our offering has value. Maybe it’s just truth wrapped in the veil of humor. Well, the world could do with a lot more humor, if you ask me, so it has value. Maybe it’s something you’ve learned along your journey. Not everyone has learned the same thing, so they will find value in what you have to share.
There are people who would tell you that if all you’re doing is writing stories about yourself, people will never be able to find value in what you do, because there’s not an actual takeaway that has “takeaway” flashing in gigantic neon lights. Don’t buy into that. Your story has value to people because it’s you, and the right people will be able to see that. So believe in your value and then sell.
2. Understand that what you’re selling is not you.
What I mean is that when I was selling This is How You Know, I was not selling me. I was selling an opportunity for my readers to participate in the mystic art of finding themselves in a book of poetry. If we open our eyes widely enough, I believe we can see ourselves in any story or poem or song or essay. There are snippets of truth that hide in our story, that can change our audience for the better, and that’s what we’re trying to sell—the benefit to the reader, not the product in and of itself. With This is How You Know, I told my readers that I hoped they could find a piece of themselves in the poetry that recorded my everyday comings and goings, as I have done with countless poets over the years.
And, at the end of the day, if people don’t buy my book, that doesn’t mean they don’t like me. That they don’t find me valuable. Writing is a subjective field to be in, anyway, and sometimes we can put a little too much of ourselves in it. It can feel as though if a person doesn’t like what we sell or if they don’t buy it, they’re essentially saying something about us. That’s a lie.
I am so much more than the sum of my products. I am so much more than the sum of my art. I am so much more than the sum of my stats and shares and likes. It’s not easy to see this truth when we’re only selling our book for $1.99 and we have thousands of friends on our social media sites, and surely they’ll buy it, even if they don’t have a Kindle or they don’t like reading ebooks or they don’t even like poetry, because it’s only $2 out of their pocket. Except they didn’t, and now I’m wondering why they don’t like me.
We just have to break free from this. Whether or not we sell well does not change who we are.
3. Remember we are helping people.
It definitely isn’t easy to wrap our heads around this one when what we’re selling is entertainment, as in humor or even some narrative nonfiction. The value proposition is a little subtler, so we have to dig a little. But it’s also true that the human experience needs entertainment, and so we are really selling something that will brighten the world and make it more beautiful or fun or interesting. That doesn’t seem like such a hard sell.
4. Know we can’t give away free stuff forever.
This is really the long and short of it. If we’re interested in taking our writing from hobby to career, we have to get comfortable with selling things. It takes work to get there, but every product we launch is giving us more practice in the process.
So launch.
