REACH YOUR READERS

How to Build an Author Platform that Sells Thousands of Books on Autopilot


SPECIAL OFFER: This course is now available as a special bonus offer for 91% off.


Join today and Reach Your Readers!

★ Get your book to market faster, without the headache
★ Look like a bestselling author and eliminate the guesswork
★ Avoid amateur book design mistakes that will make your book look unprofessional
★ Save money by formatting and designing your own books
★ Create stunning graphics for online promotion
★ Learn how to build an author platform that runs on autopilot
★ Build a following of loyal readers
★ Keep your book selling long term without spending all day marketing


ARE YOU READY TO...

REACH YOUR READERS GET MORE REVIEWS STOP WORKING SO HARD

FINALLY MAKE A LIVING

WITH YOUR WRITING


I got over 200 reviews, reached #1 on Amazon with a million page reads, encouraged 7500 fans to sign up on my email list, and earned $2500 from book sales in 90 days... without spamming Twitter or Facebook.


IT WASN'T ALWAYS THIS EASY.

I self-published my first book about 15 years ago, in the pioneer days of self-publishing. I did everything wrong. I spent a hundred hours designing my first cover (which was terrible). I sent out hundreds of review requests (which mostly went unanswered). Truth be told, my first book was pretty crappy. I revised, learned design and formatting, stepped up my publishing game and relaunched. I did better this time; some major publications reviewed it and I even sold foreign rights to Russia's biggest publisher for $4000. Not bad for a self-published author. But it was a lot of stress and work, and of course, once I stopped promoting it, sales plummeted.

That's when I started helping other authors. First as an editor, then as a cover designer. I finally got the hang of blogging - there were crickets for the first couple years, but now I get almost 5000 unique visitors a day. I also figured out stuff like marketing, SEO, traffic, conversion. I needed to, because I was running a business. I needed to be found, and then I needed clients to trust me enough to hire me. I started putting out shorter books on Amazon to generate leads and grow my platform. One of those was Book Marketing is Dead, which has sold over 10,000 copies. After several years of learning, conferences, coaching and training I built my book design business to six-figures, and did the same with a book editing company.


But it was frustrating watching my clients invest money in a book, and then have no idea what to do with it. It pains me to see a book I designed up on Amazon with less than ten reviews and an abysmal sales rank. And I hate seeing indie authors struggle with the enormity of the challenge they're up against - all those new platforms and apps and tools and websites and resources. There's so much to do, and nothing seems to work, and authors don't know where to begin.

When I ask new authors to share their biggest challenges, I always hear the same frustrations around book marketing:

  • “Putting together a marketing strategy is a challenge because I don’t have a strategy.”
  • “Maintaining visibility and sales (consistently) after launch is hard without spending tons of money on promotional sites.”
  • “Marketing is my hardest challenge because I’m not sure how to build my email list.”
  • “Biggest challenge so far has been marketing. I’m not as tech savvy as I’d like to be, all the peripherals have been a nightmare!”
  • “Marketing is probably the biggest challenge because of the time involved.”
  • “Being heard above the white noise. I spend a ton of time marketing and feel like I’m spinning my wheels to reach readers… I feel like I’m missing a huge component of the puzzle and can’t seem to figure out where to put my marketing efforts so they make a difference.”


The stuff most authors consider "book marketing" doesn't work at all, and authors don't know what's wrong or how to fix it. Sometimes they are doing exactly what everyone tells them to do, but it just isn't working for them.

That's always an indicator of a fundamentally broken author platform: usually it's a problem with the book cover, the description, and not having enough reviews (or more likely, all three). Without fixing those core issues, book marketing doesn't work.

But even if authors have done everything right and actually have a strong product and are putting it in front of the right readers, it still probably won't work. That's because they're pitching to strangers. Selling anything to strangers or "cold traffic" is very difficult to pull off. Almost everyone is going to ignore you. And that's because you're being that annoying person who introduces yourself and then jumps into a sales pitch.

Most authors think "marketing" means reaching out to strangers and telling them about your book.They feel instinctively that they’re being sleazy.

AND THEY ARE.

They think they need more confidence so they can just keep doing it anyway.

THEY DON'T!

Real marketing, or at least effective marketing, is about building relationships and providing value. These are some of the ideas I played with in Book Marketing is Dead and Write Format Publish Promote.


BUT SINCE THEN I'VE

FOUND A BETTER WAY...


Attract the right readers to you naturally & build a system that sells your books on autopilot... so you can get back to writing.

It's easier, faster, and it's the only thing that actually works.

Relationships can help you have a great launch, but after your network has been tapped out, if you aren't continuously putting your book in front of new readers, nobody is going to see it. It's actually really easy to become an Amazon bestseller. I see people post on Facebook all the time post that they're #1 in their category. It's exciting, and I love to get that orange #1 Best Seller sticker too, but it's hard to maintain. Keeping your Amazon sales ranking high is important for visibility - so new readers can find you.

Fiction authors sometimes say that this platform building stuff doesn't work for fiction; that they can't blog because they have nothing to write about; that common "book marketing" tips really only work for non-fiction. But the truth is, marketing fiction is actually easier than non-fiction, because so few authors are actually doing ANY effective marketing (as opposed to non-fiction authors, who usually know a bit more about SEO and publicity).

When I finished my first fiction at the end of 2015, I knew it would be more successful if I built a following first. And I didn't want to spend years growing: I wanted to start with a bang and earn money right away, so I could continue to write full time. But how do you build a community of fans before you've published? First I built an email list of 7,500 readers in my genre by giving away bestselling books, and using targeted Facebook ads to reach them. I also used those giveaways to build relationships with the authors of those books. Then I started sending out samples of my writing to that list. By the time my first book was launched, I already had a large audience, which made it easy to get over 100 reviews in the first month. I repeated the process with three more books, testing and tweaking each time.

In three months, these are my results:

  • Over 200 reviews
  • Over 10,000 readers on my email list
  • 2452 likes on my Facebook page
  • Over a million page reads in KU
  • Over $1500/month in book sales.



Those aren't fantastic results, but for a new author with zero following, things are going well. I also get 250 visits a day to the new site I set up for fiction. And this is just the beginning - these were actually half books, the first installments of four different series. I'm not bragging, I have friends who are selling thousands of copies a day and doing no marketing. It happens. But if you aren't seeing those kinds of results, your author platform is probably non-existent (which means, you have no way to reach your readers so you have to beg or borrow other people's platforms).

You can either rely on luck, and hope for the best, or you can take action and build a reader funnel that brings readers to you and turns them into loyal fans.


I built this course to help you REACH YOUR READERS with a strong author platform that converts

In it I share all the strategies, tools and resources I used to build a profitable author platform from scratch and get real results quickly. While there are lots of other book marketing courses out there, I doubt you'll find one as in-depth and detailed.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

Reach your Readers is about setting up an automated system and producing smart content that will attract your readers and get shared, so you can stop spamming your book on social media (you shouldn't really do that, anyway). This is a crash course on setting up an author platform that sells, including how to make a sales page for your book, set up your mailing list (and get a bunch of optins quickly), build an author website, get long-term traffic, get more book reviews, maximize your Amazon conversion to keep your page rank high, marketing and advertising strategies, the right way to use social media, and much more.

It's a master class and coaching system designed to take you by the hand and teach you the principles and strategies needed to build a powerful and profitable author platform. If you're a first time author, you're learn to build buzz before your launch and do everything right the first time around. If you're a seasoned author with multiple books out, a few small tweaks could make a big impact on your earnings.

Although it's my first full course, the materials I've put out over the last few years have helped thousands of authors, and earned me a solid reputation in the indie publishing community.

We're going to focus on these things:

  • Improving professionalism and credibility
  • Getting people to know, like and trust you
  • Making an online platform that gets traffic and keeps it
  • Presenting your books in a way that makes people want to buy them
  • Testing your sales funnels so you can plug holes
  • Boosting sales and traffic with content marketing
  • Getting more book reviews
  • Facebook advertising
  • How to sell books without being sleazy.
  • Using social media (without wasting time)
  • Using Author Central, Createspace and KDP
  • Running giveaways to build a big list quickly
  • Building relationships with authors in your genre
  • How to get free press and media attention
  • Building powerful communities that support you
  • Using incentives and bonuses for an epic launch
  • Publishing more books, more quickly
  • Making a living without sacrificing your principles


You will leave this masterclass with:

  • An author platform that sells your books on autopilot
  • An autoresponder sequence that turns readers into fans
  • A huge list of blog articles you can use to bring your readers to you
  • Brilliant optin offer ideas you can use to get more signups
  • More book sales and more reviews
  • More followers on Twitter and Facebook



WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

Authors who are tired of selling less than a dozen copies a month, sick of promoting on social media, frustrated by the lack of reviews or how difficult it is to be taken seriously. Writers who want to publish a book but have no idea how to launch a book successfully and reach fans. This course will also do wonders for authors who are already selling but haven't been growing their list, or want to take their career and earnings to the next level.


What's in the course?

> Video training on the bestselling STRATEGY I've used to help dozens of authors reach their first 1K/month in book sales.

> A list of common book marketing mistakes and how do to better than 99% of the other authors in your genre or field.

> Tech training on setting up all of the backend stuff for Mailchimp, Leadpages and Wordpress (not required, if you want to use something else...)

> PLUS a personal review of your current platform with feedback and quick tips for maximum impact (pro level only).



What you don't get

I'll be recommending a lot of the tools and resources I use - but they're not all free. I've also learned that the best and easiest-to-use tools, are usually the most expensive. I'll always give you options, and you can set everything up cheaply if you want, but making it look nice and professional will take more design and coding knowledge, whereas the expensive options are pretty easy to set up and look amazing.

Also, I won't be taking over the design (although I really, really want to - I just can't make everybody free cover designs, I don't have time). So if your cover is the problem and I recommend you get a new one, that's probably the #1 thing you're going to have to do, but I can recommend a whole bunch of places you can get a cheap and decent cover.

This program teaches you how to publish like a professional, be your own publicist and marketer, control your platform and ensure long term sales (without needing to be constantly marketing. The point is to do it once, "set it and forget it.")


 

Imagine what your life would be like if you never had to worry about marketing your books again.



LET'S GROW YOUR AUDIENCE AND

CREATE RAVING FANS FOR LIFE.

LET'S REACH


YOUR READERS!


 

DOESN'T THAT SOUND GREAT?

Go ahead and enroll now!

Got Questions?


Will this really solve my problem?
If you're an author looking to sell more books - yes. There are probably dozens of things you could be doing better. Fixing any of them will lead to more downloads, more sales, more traffic and more subscribers. If you don't see dramatic results, I insist you ask for a refund.
What if it doesn’t work on me?
If you don't like what you find in the course, or it's not exactly what you needed, or you're unhappy for any reason, just ask for a refund within 30 days and you'll get it!
How many books will I sell?
I can't guarantee ANY specific number of sales, even for the Ancient Banyan level - I can guarantee #1 in your category only by choosing less competitive categories and driving 30 to 100 sales in a day... hopefully your book will stay visible and keep selling, but that depends on the genre/subject. I'll do everything possible to fix the problems that deter sales and give the book a strong chance at success, but ultimately it will depend on how readers respond to it, and that's out of my control.
What if I HATE online courses?
It's no big deal. Personally I prefer text to video, because I learn faster that way. Online course may not be your thing, and that's cool (have you picked up my free books on marketing yet?)
Is this idiot-proof, even for someone who hates technology?
I won't lie, you're going to have to learn some new skills if you want to do everything yourself (and remember, it takes about a thousand hours to become good at something!) Everyone will start at a different level. I can promise that you will IMPROVE and see actual results you can be excited about.
When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish. That said, I'm going to be actively helping students in this course from August to September, 2016... after that I'll focus on using their feedback to make a new, better course. After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.

Your Instructor


Derek Murphy
Derek Murphy

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature and has been featured in CNN for hosting writing retreats in medieval castles. After working with thousands of authors as a writing coach and developmental author, he began developing plotting cheatsheets and advanced writing tips for authors that now have nearly 3 million views on YouTube.


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