How Giving Things Away For FREE Can Make You MONEY

It might seem counter-productive to give things away for free if you are looking to make any kind of money--but business can be a lot like a game of chess, you have to look a few moves ahead. As writers, our skills and productivity vary greatly, but for the sake of this scenario let us assume that a person has the GREATEST possible CONTENT imaginable. That would be wonderful, right? Yes...but how do people get ahold of it? We have to remember that so often writing is an art form that isn't judged until after the reader possesses it. So the question becomes how do you get the reader to possess it?

Sure one can advertise it both through free and paid methods (although most authors starting out want to avoid paying a lot of money for advertising, especially since most don't have a good deal of cash to burn.) If you have been reading this blog up until now you probably already see the value of putting up blog posts, content on a website, audio files on places like podcast alley or itunes, or videos up on YouTube as a way to draw people in by giving them some content for free. There is nothing like giving a little bit of free content to getting people enticed enough to want to see more of what you have. However, sometimes going one step further can be a great benefit.

Companies often run contests or giveaway sweepstakes to acquire new customers. Authors in the 21st century using tools like social networking, YouTube and other popular websites have had similar success with this type of strategy. This goes beyond posting free poems or short stories or essays because the idea of these giveaways is to give away a product for free that the winners otherwise would have had to PAY for. Something like a book, a CD, or other such media that would normally cost a few dollars or more.

Take Betty as an example, a fiction writer I have seen who promotes her work predominantly by herself through the use of her website. She writes romance stories which obviously have a big appeal. She is a short story writer for the most part who puts new stories on her website/blog every week and two or three times a year comes out with a new short story collection containing some of the stories that the readers have seen as well as some material exclusive to the books. The catch is that many of the characters that the audience has become familiar with through the free media are featured in these books and so a good number of her readers buy the books either in print form or digital form to read more about the characters they love.

Every time Betty is about to come out with a new book she takes the opportunity to advertise a giveaway of a few signed print copies that she mails to the winners. She posts the news of the giveaway on her blog, to her email list and in social networking groups, on Goodreads and other places with traffic including YouTube. The prospective entries give their email in exchange for a shot at the prize. At the end of the contest she does a random drawing using a free online randomizer and picks the winners. An email is sent to everyone who entered whether they won or lost listing the winners and thanking them for entering.

There are two major benefits to this email she sends out after the contest,

One: people who lost are given a link to where they can buy the book if they are interested. Two: She gives the entrants a chance to join her regular email list. Most of them want to.

A typical contest of this type yields Betty 100-200 new emails for her list each time she does it. It generates hype for her new book by making it seem desirable, it grows her list and it gets other people talking about it. Sure she takes a small bite of a few dollars for each book she is giving away--but the back end of these types of free giveaways yields gains of several times the loss on a bad day. For the 5 copies she normally gives away she generates an additional 40-50 sales she wouldn't have gotten before. Now you might wonder if an additional 40 or 50 sales is worth the effort of the giveaway (which isn't really that much effort at all) but look at the long term math.

Say Betty comes out with 3 books a year--she does a giveaway each time and generates roughly 150 new emails and 40 new sales each giveaway. In a year that is 450 new emails and 120 sales. However, lets say that of those 120, half of them really like what they bought and want to stay on as customers. If you figure 20 of the new customers from the first giveaway buy the next two books that year and 20 of the 40 new sales from the second give away buy the third book that's another 60 sales on top of the 120. So 180 new sales generated in just the first year. This isn't including the 450 new email sign-ups that she can advertise her new books to. If only 1 in 4 or so wants to buy any of her books, that would still be another 113 people on top of the 180. That's 293 new sales generated this year by the giveaways--just three of them. Sound worth it yet?

If not, remember that this is all just in the FIRST YEAR. Those customers that got hooked will keep coming back, year after year after year to get her new material. And this is just from ONE PROMOTIONAL EFFORT. This could be why Betty has been in business since 2007 and sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 19,000 copies of her romance fiction series last I heard, possibly more. (This is her full time living now, and she just started the website in her free time while in college.)

When properly positioned, a few dollars loss for giveaway copies is like an investment--it yields much better results later on. In addition, it has another wonderful side-effect.

Betty gives personalized notes to all the winners and when the winners receive her books, they feel a personal connection to this author. It makes them far more likely to keep checking back with her and take interest in her past books and any books she has coming out in the future.

Giveaways; they cost you once, but can benefit you for a lifetime.

Why Some Authors Sell 2 Copies of Their Book and Others Sell 2 Million.

Have you ever wondered why so many authors who dare to put out their books for sale to the public tap out at 2 sales (the average number for a self-published title) and others can sell 2 million or more? Ok--stupid question. Of course you've wondered that. Is it just fancy promotional material or a good sales campaign? To some degree--but the marketing is really just a means to an end.

The truth of the matter is--knowing what sells and what doesn't sell is as simple as knowing the hidden truth about the human condition. Alright--on the surface that sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. But the truth of the matter is when we think for a few minutes it becomes very obvious what the base human condition is in relevance to this: humans like what is familiar to them. Humans NEED what is familiar to them. Humans seek out the familiar even if the familiar is harmful to them. Think about all the people who end up in toxic relationships over and over again--thin kabout all the people who buy the brand name loaf of bread or cereal even if the store bought brand is exactly the same thing and three dollars cheaper. Humans have a weakness for the familiar--and the same thing applies in marketing.

The reason that marketing campaigns spend so much money on blasting their names on the radio, on television commercials on busses, at football stadiums and in papers is to get you to be FAMILIAR with their product or brand. For example--when sitting at a football game--you might have no need to look at the plastic surgery sign on the wall there. But two weeks later after a car accident--and plastic surgery seems ideal...the one you will seek out first most likely will be the one advertised at the stadium--why? Because the name was stuck in your head and it was FAMILIAR to you.

Now, anyone with enough money can get the blast attention of all these people through advertising however--we are going to assume here that the writers reading this do not have bucket loads of money to burn through on an advertising campaign. And that's perfectly alright--because familiarity more than any singular method has to do with forming a RELATIONSHIP between you and your readers. Think about it--the teenager who throws their novel together in two weeks and self-publishes it quickly with no previous writing experience and no existing fan base might still sell a handful of copies to their family and friends. And by the same token--the best-selling novelist could presell 100,000 copies of their book thanks to an email before it is even finished yet. The only difference between these two people--or at least the only difference that ultimately matters when it comes to sales--is that the group with which each author has a RELATIONSHIP with is vastly different in size. The best-selling author might not be family or personal friends with the 100,000 people who pre-ordered their book. But they already have an existing relationship with them thanks to interviews, previous publications, mailing lists and book tours. The first author simply doesn't have a RELATIONSHIP with a large enough group of people to sell their work widely.

Now here is the good news. Thanks to the age we live in ANYONE can developed a RELATIONSHIP with thousands or even millions of people via the internet. We might not all go viral and get millions of readers--but it is definitely possible to get a few thousand people to follow whatever you are doing if you are consistent enough. The key is to position your writing in a way so that it develops a relationship with people that will eventually lead to them being interested enough to go through with a sale.

The best way to get people FAMILIAR with your work to the extent they develop a RELATIONSHIP with you and your writing is to put as much of it out there as you can. If you are a fiction writer or a poet--a blog that you frequently post on would be a good idea. Eventually a website where you post free content for people to read. Consistent content is the key thing to remember because it is through this method that readers will keep on coming back. Plus, the way online marketing works, the more your blog or website has, the easier it is to pick up in search engines and to generate traffic. As people become familiar with your work, you might start to consider having them join an email newsletter or subscription service--they give you their email in exchange for free content. If they trust you enough to give you their email--they must like your content. You can use the newsletter to send the some more free work and then eventually offer products for sale--a self-published book, an audio book, a paid subscription to a section of your website that offers exclusive material to do with a favorite character, or an e-version of a story or poetry collection.

The trick here is that whatever it is you are offering for sale--by the time you offer it, your readers have already developed familiarity with what it is you are writing and a relationship with you--the author. Having both of these things formed--and having enjoyed the free content you have provided for the period up until this, they might just be willing to part with a few dollars to see more.

 

 

Of course, these methods work quite a bit better if the writing you are posting is quality--adds value to their lives through entertainment, information or emotion. And it helps when you post your writing consistently and are generous with the readers--in which case not only will traffic flow to your site through search-engines, but also through word of mouth. In which case you can expect the number of readers with which you have a relationship to continue to grow--and grow steadily.

Mousetrapped: The Story of A Successful Self-Published Book

I keep on saying that one of the greatest things about the internet age is the fact that no one needs a publisher--or at least a big publisher that is impossible to get to notice you, anymore. If one has a good idea--the boundaries to putting out there have been stripped down and replaced with opportunities. The bad part about this--is literally everyone thinks they have a good idea and everyone who has a good idea thinks they know how to market it. This has led to an oversaturation of new self-published books and most of them sell an average of 2--you heard right, 2-10 copies.

Of course, the dream is still possible and even probable when certain measures are taken. Take a look at the story of mousetrapped--a successful self published travel book.

http://mousetrappedbook.com/

And in her own words:

http://selfpublishingteam.com/guest-post-why-i-self-published-my-novel-after-saying-i-never-would/

The success of Mousetrapped is a typical rags to riches story thanks to the success of the popularity of her topic. She also made her writing available in multiple online outlets and had a physical book tour to accompany it--the combination cannot be beat. Too many authors focus on one or the other but not enough of the other. Her online base made it easy for people to locate and to buy.

Since the success of her first book, the author has gone on to have several more succesful titles--even offering some packaged deals. And the funny part is--if she had gone with a traditional publisher, she wouldn't have made nearly as much profit as she did.

A Sneaky Way To Sell A Few More Of Your Books And Get The Word Out For Free

Vistaprint.com has taken over the universe as far as business cards go. But they also print just about everything, including post-cards. They are by no means the only printer available for such things, but one thing that vistaprint (and a few others) do that is very enticing and rewarding is offer you deals where you can aquire 250 free business cards or 100 free postcards, and you just pay shipping. The offers vary from time to time but it is definitly worth looking into if you are an author with a product.

Say for example, you have a self-published or a small press book. It could be anything, fiction, a memoir, poetry--it doesn't even have to be a book for that matter, but let's just use book as a prime example. Assuming you have a link online where the book can be found and/or purchased (and if you don't--there is a serious problem!) then taking advantage of these free offers can do you absolutly no harm at all!

I find postcards tend to work the best because you can fit more on there than just the name, a line or two and the website. Assuming your book aquired any kind of favorable blurbs or testimonials either before or after publication (and if it hasn't yet, start working on that because blurbs are a very good marketing tool!) you can take a picture of your book's cover and put it on the postcard, along with a good blurb or two about the quality of the book. Couple that with the web address where one can aquire the book, maybe an email address for those interested who want to know more and a breif description of what the book is about and bingo--you have a perfectly sound marketing tool available to you for nothing more than a few minutes of time and the shipping costs required to send them to you.

You can hand these postcards or business cards out everywhere. Not only does this send a message that you are a published author--but a serious one, but it gets people interested because word of mouth is one thing--seeing the picture of the book and what people say about it is something else entirely. You can bet that a decent number of people who recieve the post cards will at least visit the website.

Like I said, vistaprint is the first one that comes to mind for this type of free offer but there are plenty more out there. Don't hesitate to look around and take advantage of all these offers where you see them. Even if the end result only yields one or two additional sales of your product--it was well worth it.