Resenhas - Authority

Moitta 26/08/2019

Minhas Notas
Competition shows that there is a market. Embrace competition. See it as a good thing. There is plenty of room for everyone.

In drawing, you are far better off drawing your new line before you erase the old one. That way you can know how the new line needs to be different from the old, incorrect line. The same is true for writing. Starting from scratch again and again won’t get you anywhere. You need to write something and then edit it into its proper form. The editing can happen right then or you can put it off for later.

“When faced with writer’s block, lower your standards and keep going.”

It’s far better to write something than it is to write nothing while trying to achieve perfection.

Seth Godin claims he never gets writers block. Why? Because he writes like he talks. And “No one ever gets talker’s block.”

Once you create a product, how do you get people to buy it? For the longest time I couldn’t figure out the answer to this one question. The obvious answer is through marketing, but what does that even mean? From the marketing books I read and classes I took in college I learned that marketing meant brand awareness, focus groups, and audience engagement. What? I saw how those ideas and buzzwords could (maybe) apply to 50-to-100-million-dollar companies, but I wasn’t playing on those levels. I just wanted to find a way to reach a couple hundred people effectively. Marketing, as I knew it, was completely useless.

You want to sell copies of your books, right? Well, to do that we need to take inventory of your audience, as well as your potential audience. Start by making a list of all the methods you have to reach people who would be interested in your book. If you already have a blog, that is a great place to start. Beyond that, list any friendships with other bloggers in your target market, existing email lists, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, forums you are a part of, bloggers you are a fan of and could contact, and so forth.

Now each time I start a writing session I just skim down my list until I find an interesting topic. Then I open that file and start writing.

As you write your book, keep learning. In fact, never stop learning. There will always be someone who knows more on the topic than you do. Learn from them. Cite them in your book, read the source materials they learned from, and use their work to inspire you to make yours even better.

Inevitably, my manuscript has overlapping content, stories that aren’t relevant, and ideas that are still entirely missing. The point of this step is to identify those and work to fill in the gaps.

“Be clear first and clever second. If you have to throw one of those out, throw out clever.”

Courses, guides, kits, lessons, and classes are worth far more than books. Think about how the terms you use to describe your content alter the perceived value.

When using another site for distribution, it is too easy to think that all you have to do is write your book and then wait to go viral and hit the bestseller lists on those sites. That’s like waiting for someone else to pick you. It’s not worth waiting for. Instead, know that you have to do the marketing as well. When you sell on your own site it is clear that there won’t be a magic success that will sell thousands of copies. You have to do it yourself.

Pitches from random people don’t convert well. Instead you need to stay in contact with your subscribers. Not every day, but often enough that they remember who you are and stay excited about your book. Once every week or two is great. I know it’s hard when you are trying to get the book together, but it’s worth it.

A good landing page spends the entire copy overcoming objections. Is this for me? Is the source credible? Will it solve my problem? What if it doesn’t help me?

There are two mistakes most commonly made with testimonials: 1. The testimonials are plain text and don’t include a photo. 2. The testimonials are all lumped together in a single section of the page.

All I had to do was scan the list, find my favorite, tweak a few words, then paste it into Twitter. Deciding what to say is a tiny roadblock, but you want to do anything possible to make your request easier.

When sales drop, keep teaching and giving content away for free in order to reach new people and remind your existing audience about your products.

So I wait until the third email to even mention my product. And even then it is in a “P.S.” at the end. Then the next email goes back to purely educational. Later an email is a dedicated hard sell, but is followed by a soft-sell. This process takes time to make the sale—up to 30 days in some cases—but since it is automated, I don’t worry so long as it increases conversion rates (it does).

Start before you feel ready.

To be successful you need to get in the habit of starting before you feel ready. That one habit will change everything.